Page 9 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
There are a lot of things Grace Maud can still do that Tom has no idea about because he’s never asked. But she knows she can do them. Part of the trick of getting older is to keep reminding herself of that. The instant she believes she can’t do something, shouldn’t go somewhere, she may as well buy her own coffin. So that’s why, yes, she should give this yoga thing a try. Neither brain nor body should atrophy just because she might have to become a vegetarian Hindu for a while. Cecilia is not going to drive her, though, and that’s that.
‘Which class does your mother go to?’ Grace Maud asks.
‘Tuesday morning.’ Cecilia pulls the plug and takes off the rubber gloves.
‘Is there another?’
Cecilia gives her a look – an I-can’t-believe-you’d-be-this-ridiculous look.
‘Yes. Saturday morning. Eight o’clock.’
‘You’ve done your research. It’s almost as if you planned to tell me about this yoga thing.’
‘I might have,’ Cecilia says lightly as she folds the tea towel and places it on the bench. ‘Now, I’m going to the shop. Shall we make a list? And don’t tell me Scotch finger biscuits because you know they’re bad for your heart.’
‘But good for myjoie de vivre,’ Grace Maud says, then pauses for dramatic effect. ‘All right. No Scotch fingers. How about cream wafers?’
‘Maybe.’ Cecilia picks up the notepad near the telephone, sits down next to Grace Maud and starts to write the list.
Grace Maud can’t help smiling. Cecilia is a well-meaning girl; a lovely person to have in her life, even if she needs to keep her on her toes. Grace Maud may grumble about Tom mollycoddling her now she’s older but she will always be grateful that he brought Cecilia to her. Although after she goes to that yoga class, she may change her mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Some days really are too much to handle. They start hard and only become harder as the minutes tick by. Dorothy tried to be hopeful about today, but as soon as they opened for breakfast service she knew that hope was misplaced.
Two of the regulars – young men who ran a plumbing business together – put in their usual order then started complaining to her about one of their customers, obviously thinking they knew Dorothy well enough by now to whinge about their lives. Then the kitchen hand sliced his thumb while he was dicing an onion and blood went all over the benchtop.
‘Gott im Himmel!’ she heard Frederick yell when it happened.
He’s not a yeller, so she knew it was something serious. And it unsettled the patrons who were in for morning tea.
Lunch service was slow to start with, then several large groups came in and they all wanted variations to the menu. Dorothy knew that would be tricky for Frederick without help in the kitchen, so she’d jumped in to assist, in full knowledge that they always get on each other’s nerves when they try to cook together. It’s the only time they do.
In the olden days – when Dorothy was the previous version of herself – none of this would have rattled her. She has always been a worrier but right up until the time she had her second miscarriage she was an optimist too, for the most part. She hadn’t been a great student, but she was sure she’d find a job when she left school – and she did. She wasn’t the best-looking girl around, but she was sure she’d find a nice husband – and she did. She wasn’t the most charming individual in Cairns, but she was determined to make friends – and she did. Shebelievedthat all these things would happen because she trusted that life was kind. Her parents had left Germany knowing, deep in their marrow, that the opposite was true, but Dorothy knew she couldn’t carry on as they did. She had to really, truly believe that everything would work out for the best, otherwise there was no chance of stopping bad things happening. Of course little bad things happened, but if you took the attitude that they were a blip and could be corrected, you lessened the chance of really big bad things happening – like a whole country going wrong.
It took vigilance, because so many people were pessimists. Optimists had to be alert to all the naysaying and apathy; to the people who say, ‘That’s life,’ and shrug their shoulders and never do anything to effect positive change. It was exhausting being an optimist, but Dorothy had committed herself to the cause and remained vigilant throughout her life.
Until a year and a half ago, after she lost that second baby. She just couldn’t find a reason to keep being hopeful, despite days, then weeks, of searching her conscience and her soul and her immediate surroundings. She and Frederick had done all the right things. They’d kept themselves healthy, exercised regularly and eaten properly. Because she’d already lost one baby, when Dorothy found out she was pregnant she didn’t run around town the way she usually did. With the first pregnancy she’d carried on as usual, because that’s what the doctor said to do. After the miscarriage, the doctor told her she’d pushed herself too hard and that’s why the pregnancy didn’t last. So with the second pregnancy, Dorothy would go to the café, work, go home, let Frederick cook her dinner, then she’d literally put her feet up. She was quiet and calm – and hopeful. And still it hadn’t worked.
After that she decided that being an optimist was for idiots who weren’t alert to the realities of life. Which was a shock to Frederick, who said one of the things he loved about her most was that she was always positive. She told him that he’d just have to focus on the other things he loved, because that version of Dorothy was gone. It was too hard to maintain hope. If they were to try for a baby again, she needed to be realistic and believe that she could very well lose that baby too. Which she did. After that one she told Frederick she was glad she hadn’t wasted energy wishing for the best. She felt mean doing it, because he was distraught, but she had to look after herself.
She suspects that secretly she’s still an optimist, though, because every twenty-six days or so, when her period arrives – never on a regular schedule – she feels as though the soles of her feet have dropped away and she is being pulled into the centre of the Earth. Which means that some part of her keeps believing she’ll fall pregnant again.
She’s tried to see each bout of bleeding as a sign that she has another chance, so she’s not so upset. It hasn’t worked, though. That’s why today is really too hard. She’s bleeding, she’s bloated, and she wants to lie down and moan quietly, then perhaps segue to a bout of crying. Instead she’s at the café, writing cheques to pay bills and every now and then lifting her head to watch the world go by.
She can see the ocean, and knows the reef is just beyond her line of sight. The harbour is to her right with its backdrop of green hills. She finds Cairns dramatic and beautiful, even though she knows it so well. Or perhapsbecauseshe does. There are colours she couldn’t find on another continent; there’s the glittering promise of the ocean and the cruelty of knowing you can’t swim in it for months at a time because of the stingers. To the west are the tablelands and a lushness she can hardly believe. To the north is the rainforest with its millennia of mysteries, its perfect, people-free beaches and the tangle of the jungle.
This isn’t her land by rights, but it’s her land by love and faith. She doesn’t belong here – no one with white skin does, she firmly believes, because the sun can be so savage to those whose skin isn’t made for it. Yet she can’t imagine being anywhere else. When she has felt at her most desperate – when she has believed that God has deserted her, that her body has failed her, that she has disappointed her husband, that she will never, ever get this right – she has sought the solace of the land. She has stood next to trees that grew before Europeans arrived and pressed her head against their trunks, feeling them giving her some kind of life force, because she always feels renewed afterwards.
She jerks at the sound of the café’s door being pushed open.
‘Hello?’ says a small voice, coming from a fine-featured face looking around the edge of the door.
‘Yes?’ Dorothy replies and hopes she doesn’t sound irritated. She should have locked the door once lunch service was over.
‘Are you open?’ the young woman says, pushing the door a little bit more.
‘No, we’re not. Lunch service finished at three.’ A glance at the clock tells her it’s almost an hour past that.
