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Novels
Janis
The classroom walls are covered in children’s artwork and mobiles brush my hair as I make my way over to the tables where everyone is gathered. There are about eight or nine women and one man seated around them, some making eye contact with me, others fumbling with jackets and bags and one woman studiously examining her hands.
A fat lady wearing a long flowing, brown garment, raises herself with difficulty from the plastic seat and comes towards me. ‘I’m Wilma and you must be Janis.’ Her hand is warm, slightly clammy, and I sense a nervousness about her too. I want to reassure her that I’m fine, that I’m not anxious, that I’m all right.
She guides me to an empty seat then introduces me to the others. ‘Janis, this is …’ But I must be tense after all as the names wash over me and away and I’m left as unknowing as before. Wilma starts the meeting with what I think of as a prayer, though it isn’t religious. More a plea to some higher being for relief from our problem. We hold hands in a circle while she intones hopes for a more normal life for all of us and inner peace and tranquillity. I’m holding the hand of the woman who would not look up and it’s ice cold and knobbly like a packet of frozen sprouts while my other hand is clasped firmly by the only man. His fingernails have a rim of black and the flesh is scabbed and hard. I’m aware of a slight quiver pulsing through my hands as if a mild electric current were passing through them.
‘Now let’s hear your successes from last week,’ says Wilma. She turns to me. ‘We believe in the power of positive thinking so we always begin with the good things we’ve achieved. Duncan, how have you got on?’
The man next to me starts slightly. He is not very tall but his build is solid and well muscled. In contrast his voice is so quiet that no-one apart from me can hear him.
‘Come on, Duncan,’ says Wilma, ‘remember to speak up. Let that voice of yours match your strength. Head up! Take a deep breath and away you go!’
Duncan begins again. For a few sentences, his voice is clear as he describes how he went into a shop and asked for a paper but then it fades into nothing and he stops.
‘Well done Duncan,’ says Wilma. ‘Excellent progress. Duncan went into a shop and asked for a paper. Congratulations!’ She leads a ripple of applause and Duncan smiles, showing a row of surprisingly white teeth.
Wilma goes round the group, eliciting success stories of eating half a slice of toast (the woman apparently can’t eat solid food because she’s afraid of choking), of walking down the path and standing by the gate, of looking at a picture of a dog, so that by the time the circling approaches me, I can feel a tic pulsing in my eyelid.
Wilma cocks her head to the side and smiles at me. ‘Janis, this is only your first night but it’s important that you take part right from the word go, so what have you done this week that you’d like to share with us?’
My mind riffles through my week like a card index. I went to Tesco’s, I weeded the garden, my Mother’s had a stroke. ‘I had to get a prescription for my mother,’ I begin. ‘I felt panicky when I tried to drive to the chemist’s…’
‘Did you do it?’
‘Yes….’ I want to tell her that it was a setback, that I can do other, more difficult things without panicking but Wilma is leading the applause for me.
‘Excellent, Janis. A great start for you. Now,’ she lowers her voice, ‘what about the other times, the dark times. How did we cope then? Did we manage to do our relaxation skills? Duncan, let’s hear from you again.’
Duncan’s voice all but disappears as he tries to tell of his failure to answer the phone when it rang at home.
‘Did you do your relaxing breathing?’ Wilma asks.
Duncan nods.
‘And say your mantra?’
Again a nod.
‘But you stayed in the room?’
‘At the door,’ comes the whisper.
‘Then well done to you,’ says Wilma. ‘Think of it as a step forward. You stayed in the room while the phone rang. You did it, Duncan, you did it! And next time, you perhaps will be able to stay closer to the phone while it rings.’
She leads the group in more applause and choruses of ‘well done’ and ‘good for you.’
I smile at Duncan and he grins back.
Suddenly, the woman who got as far as her garden gate last week, utters a cry and puts her head down on the table.
‘Breathe, Susan,’ instructs Wilma. ‘Breathe!’
Susan makes small squeaking noises and scratches her nails across the table. Wilma goes over to her and puts her hands on her shoulders. ‘Come on Susan, you’re letting it get a grip of you. Do your breathing! Come on now! Innnn and oooout. Innn and ooout.’