Chapter 6 Eighteen Downward Dogs and One Enormous Shock
Chapter 6
Eighteen Downward Dogs and One Enormous Shock
A few days later, I finally make it to a yoga class, and I have enjoyed it. I like yoga—it is physical enough to distract me, but calming enough to relax me.
The only part I struggle with is this—the bit at the end where we all lie on our mats in corpse pose, and the instructor starts to take us through a mind journey to complete stillness. She is talking about a flower-lined path leading to a tiny cottage, and I let her get on with it while I add up how many arms and legs there are in the room. We all have our own ways to relax.
As the teacher progresses to the front door of the cottage, and admires the lilac wisteria winding around the frame and the red roses cascading toward her, the woman on the mat next to me lets out an enormous fart. And I mean enormous. Absolutely rip-roaring.
It seems to go on for minutes, and is loud enough to shatter eardrums. There is a communal intake of horrified breath in response. The gasps are followed by a shocked silence as people are brought out of their various states of Zen and into the more familiar state of embarrassed English people not knowing how to react to something slightly rude.
The teacher, Olivia, quickly regains her composure and encourages us to reach out and open the door to the cottage. I’m not sure what we’re expected to find inside—the lost Ark of the Covenant? The Holy Grail? A great big cake? I suppose it might be different for everyone.
I don’t make it through the cottage door. I was probably never going to, but after that extraordinary breaking of wind, I’m definitely going to be doing nothing but choking on my own laughter.
I try to suck it in, to squash it down, to tell myself to be mature—but it feels impossible. I am not mature. I am, apparently, a fifteen-year-old boy. The more I try to stifle it, the worse it gets, and I am soon choking on my own glee. It doesn’t help that I glance over to the woman next to me, the perpetrator of this foul deed, and see that her eyes are overflowing with tears of amusement.
We look at each other, and it’s suddenly uncontrollable—we both start giggling. We’re trying to keep it quiet, but it’s like some kind of runaway train, getting louder and louder and more out of control by the second. I’ve seen this happen with groups of students, when I talk about someone called Dick or Fanny or have to use the number sixty-nine in a date, but I hadn’t realized quite how difficult it is to suppress.
I hold my hands over my mouth, pressing the laughter back in, not aided at all by the fact that she starts making wafting gestures over her own torso and holding her own nose.
I hear a few other sniggers spreading around the room, and know that we have infected our fellow classmates with our hysteria. We are bad, bad yogis.
Olivia wraps up her imaging session perhaps a little faster than usual, and finishes with a slightly resigned-sounding “Namaste.”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a yoga class pack up so quickly. It’s mainly women, but there are a few men, and they are all up and rolling their mats or hanging them back on pegs as quick as a flash. A few walk past us, and those who were in the immediate vicinity cast quick glances at my neighbor.
“Yes! It was me!” she announces. “I am Fart Woman!”
There are some laughs, some smiles, some looks of horror as the rest of the class streams past us.
I am taking my time, avoiding the crush, and we end up alone in the room. Fart Woman and I.
“So,” she says, grinning, “that was quite funny, wasn’t it? I mean, it can’t be the first time it’s happened . . .”
She is a tiny human being, possibly just about scraping five foot, but possibly not. She has white-blond hair and pale skin and vivid blue eyes, and looks like a pixie out of a Norse legend. The kind of creature you’d encounter hiding behind a waterfall in a fjord, or offering you magic beans. I am five foot eight, so we make quite the odd sight.
“It was possibly the funniest thing that has ever happened in the entire history of time,” I reply, tucking my rolled mat under my arm. “And no, it can’t be the first time—you can’t put your body in all these weird positions and then tell it to relax and not expect the odd squeak to emerge.”
“I wouldn’t have minded a squeak,” she says, seeming both delighted and mortified with it all, “but that was more of a . . . what, an earthquake? A train crash?”
“An explosion, maybe. Or that big boom that planes make when they break the sound barrier.”
“Yeah. Well. What’s done is done. My bodily functions have shamed me. I’m Erin, by the way. Or Farty McFartFace, if you prefer.”
“I’m Gemma,” I reply, as we make our way out. “Nice to meet you.”
“Gemma . . . would you fancy a coffee? No pressure. I know I’m now a social pariah and you might not want to be seen with me, but—well, I’m new here, and I feel a bit shaken up, and I really feel like I need a mocha to calm my nerves.”
She has a point. Nothing quite says, “Everything will be fine,” like chocolaty coffee. I glance at my watch and then wonder why. It’s a Saturday, and I have nowhere else to be. My social diary is less than packed.
I agree, and we find seats in the café. Most of the yoga class has dispersed, but there are still plenty of people—mums and grandparents watching their kids do swimming classes through the big glass window, a group of older ladies wearing varying shades of Lycra, a muscle-bound man with no visible neck reading a battered paperback copy of Wuthering Heights.
Erin goes to the counter and returns with two big mugs and a wad of napkins.
“I am a disaster zone,” she announces as she lowers them all to the table. “I have never once in my life not spilled coffee. It’s like it’s in my DNA.”
Sure enough, she sloshes the drinks over the side of the mugs and quickly soaks it all up with the napkins.
“But you have adapted,” I reply. “You have evolved into a person who not only spills coffee but is always prepared to clean it up.”
“Yes. I’m a miracle of nature. Anyway, isn’t it weird that the gym bunny is reading Wuthering Heights?”
She says the last part in a whisper, leaning toward me, her pixie eyes wide. I find it impossible to guess an age for her—she could be anywhere between twenty and fifty.
“It is weird, but maybe that says more about us than him? Making assumptions based on the way he looks?”
“You’re totally right!”
She stands up and walks briskly over to the man in question. I see her chat with him, radiating friendly energy, and wonder how it must feel to be her—to be so open and confident and willing to engage with the world.
“It’s his daughter’s,” she announces when she returns. “She read it while she was doing her A levels, and he’s trying to stay close to her. Isn’t that sweet?”
It really is, and I find myself smiling. At her, at him, at this pleasant discovery.
“So,” Erin says, after a sip of her coffee, “do you come here often?”
I laugh and reply, “This was my first time at the class, but I do come to the leisure center quite a lot. I live nearby. I can walk here.”
I don’t add in how many steps it takes—we’ve only just met, and she’s probably not ready for that level of weird.
“Right. Nice. Like I said, I’ve only recently moved up here. I don’t have little kids or anything, which always seems to be a way to meet people in a community, so I thought I’d sneak in this way—though I think I’ve farted myself out of any chances there. What about you—do you have kids? Actually, no, forget I asked—I’m annoyed with myself. Why do women always get asked that?”
I’ve had this internal dialogue with myself quite a few times, and there are no easy answers. They range from “lots of women do have kids and it gives them a shared experience to bond over” through to “because we haven’t as yet smashed the patriarchy.” For me, of course, it’s always a slightly loaded question—loaded with regret, with a faint edge of pain, with the smooth lie that it always procures.
“I don’t, no,” I say, smiling to let her know I’m not offended. I don’t add “yet,” like I’ve heard a lot of women do, because I don’t really think it’s in the stars for me. Another of Margie’s “roles in life” that feels out of reach. “I do have part shares in a rescue dog, though.”
“Ha! I have a teenager, and sometimes a rescue dog sounds very appealing in comparison! She’s meeting me here in a bit, actually. So have you always lived in Liverpool? You don’t sound like it . . .”
“No,” I reply, “I’ve only been here for just over a year. I was born down south but I’ve moved around a lot, and my accent’s just got a bit mashed up.”
I am used to obfuscating, to clouding the truth, to hiding behind a mist of omissions. But as I look at Erin, at her somehow-innocent face, I feel an urge to dash out into the sunlight.
“London,” I say quickly, before I can change my mind. “I’m from London originally. I left after I got my teaching qualification and moved to Scotland. Then there were lots of other places—York, Sheffield, Bath, Cornwall, Essex, the Midlands—doing supply teaching mainly, and now here.”
Erin nods and replies, “That sounds really interesting. Have you ever taken your wanderlust abroad?”
I’ve never thought of it as “interesting,” and I have never called it “wanderlust.” I find that I like it—wanderlust sounds sparkly and fun, as opposed to “too dysfunctional to lay down roots.” Wanderlust feels better; it makes me seem mysterious and adventurous rather than a bit broken. Even thinking of myself like that gives me a little boost deep inside. Maybe all that visualization the yoga teacher was talking about works after all.
“Not so far,” I answer. “But I suppose it’s always an option.”
“It is! I know people who’ve moved all over the world to teach—Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia. You could spend the rest of your life having coffee in different places!”
“Maybe so. But I think I might miss my dog too much.”
I realize as I say it that it is true. That I would miss Bill, and I would miss Margie, and I would miss my little flat and its little balcony and its not-so-little views across the edge of the world. I’d even miss Karim and his flirting, and the little pops and sparks I feel when he stands close to me.
I seem to have accidentally laid down the teeniest of roots here already, which is nothing I’d ever planned. Perhaps I’m getting old and don’t have the energy to run anymore. Or perhaps, I tell myself, I should visualize this differently as well—perhaps I am becoming more settled and more willing to tolerate complications. Perhaps, one day, I won’t even refer to adult relationships as “complications.”
“Oh! She’s here! Don’t say anything!” whispers Erin, gazing over my shoulder. Without any further explanation, she disappears from sight and hides under the table. I can feel her head nudging my calves and have no idea what’s going on. She’s very small, but one sneaker-clad foot is peeking out.
“Mum, I can see you!” says a voice from behind me. “You’re rubbish at this!”
I twist around and see a familiar figure approaching. I am momentarily confused before my brain processes the fact that it is Katie—Katie the Suffragette. Katie my new star pupil. Katie, who has called my new friend Erin “Mum.”
“Miss Jones!” she exclaims, looking genuinely pleased to see me. “It’s me, Katie—weird when you see people out of context, isn’t it? What are you doing with my insane mother?”
I say hello as Erin clambers out from her ineffective hiding spot, laughing as she gives Katie a hug. As she wraps her arms around her, Katie remains a good head and shoulders taller, rolling her eyes at me.
“Sorry,” Erin says as they disengage and both sit down. “Playing hide-and-seek is just a silly thing we do. I can’t believe you’re Katie’s teacher—what a weird coincidence!”
It really is, I think—although not in the same scope as meeting your long-lost cousin on Machu Picchu or anything. We do, after all, live in the same neighborhood, served by just this one leisure center.
“To be correct, Mum,” Katie replies, “hide-and-seek is a silly thing you do. I wouldn’t have much luck hiding anywhere.”
I glance from one to the other, and I have to agree. Where Erin is petite and pocket-sized, Katie is long and lean, slightly taller than I am, with deep red hair. She usually wears it in plaits at school, but today it is wild and free and framing her face in a wilderness of curls. It is glorious, but I know from experience that she probably hates it.
“I know,” says Erin, seeing me stare at them both. “We’re practically twins, aren’t we?”
There is literally no family resemblance at all—in fact, they couldn’t look more different, which leads me to assume that Katie must take after her dad—the dad who died. Erin hasn’t mentioned this, which is fine; in fact I’m grateful. It might have been a bit heavy for a first coffee date. It does, though, leave me with a sense of wonder, that she can seem so carefree, so spontaneous, when she is carrying the heaviest of burdens around with her. It takes a lot of strength to be so silly, I suspect.
Katie looks at me, obviously following my mental musings, and says: “Don’t worry. She likes to mess with people’s heads. I don’t look anything like the evil elf that is my mother because I’m adopted. From a long line of Amazonian gingers.”
She steals her mum’s coffee, and the two of them start to chat about their plans for the rest of the day.
I nod and smile but am having some kind of out-of-body experience; the world suddenly shifts a little. My vision hazes over, and the background sounds—the kids in the swimming pool, the chattering ladies, the spluttering of the coffee machine—become white noise. Time seems to drag slightly, and I watch the man reading Wuthering Heights turn a page as though he is in slow motion.
It is a very strange feeling—as though I have been lifted out of time and reality and placed in a bubble, an alternate world.
A world where my logical brain is overruled. Where my normally fact-based fixations fizzle out. Where my grip on what is probable is dissolved by what is possible. The first day we met, Katie told me she would be eighteen “soon.” My baby will be eighteen next month. Katie is tall and slim and has red hair. I am tall and slim and have red hair. My baby had my hair, and the midwife said she was long. Katie is adopted. I gave my baby up for adoption.
After spending my whole life running away from what happened to me that year, that night, could it be that it has finally caught up with me?
Could it be that Katie—this vibrant, happy, confident girl—is the daughter I couldn’t keep but never stopped loving?
Bumping into a student at a local venue is a coincidence. This would be something much bigger. So big, it could swallow me whole.