Chapter 7 #2
She arrived to find the yard full of flying-about children, and a woman she didn’t recognise patrolling among them.
As long as they’re not rowdy, her mother had said.
They looked pretty rowdy as they barrelled about, yelling loudly at one another.
She wheeled her bicycle carefully towards the supervisor, eyes peeled for Jack – the sight of him might settle her – but she didn’t see him.
‘You’re Lydia,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Cara, third and fourth class teacher. The others are in the staffroom, first left when you go in.’
‘Where should I leave the bike?’
‘By the door there is fine.’
‘I don’t have a lock.’ She’d forgotten to look for one when she’d bought the helmet.
Cara smiled. ‘You’re not in Dublin now.’
Wasn’t that what Susan had said to Brona, the morning of the wedding? It was tossed away lightly, then and now, but still it made Lydia feel like the girl from the big city with a lot to learn. Maybe it had sounded offensive, the assumption that she’d have to lock a bike. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh, don’t apologise. I can imagine an unlocked bike wouldn’t survive two minutes in Dublin, but it’ll be grand here.’ Her voice changed then. ‘You’re coping OK?’
‘I am.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Head on in, or you’ll miss your cuppa.’
Susan and Marian were in the staffroom, with another teacher they introduced as Josephine.
Lydia was given a mug of tea that was stronger than she liked, and they talked of the weather, and Easter holiday plans, and Father Phil’s upcoming annual coach trip to Knock – before the sound of the bell summoned them.
‘The hall’s just down there,’ Marian said, indicating double doors at the end of the corridor. ‘You go ahead, and I’ll get them out of their jackets and follow you in.’
The hall was warm, and smelt faintly of socks and cough medicine.
Four large PE mats, the kind Lydia remembered from her own schooldays, had been spread out on a floor that didn’t look entirely clean.
She cracked open windows and was unrolling her own mat when she heard the slaps of small feet in the corridor, and high-pitched voices cannoning into one another like in the yard, and Marian’s call for quiet ringing above.
The doors opened and they descended on the mats in a rush, ignoring Lydia, their chatter starting up again.
It felt like there were more than fourteen of them.
She got an impression of navy tracksuits, and ponytails and hair slides, and shoes with lights that flashed as they jumped and bounced and tumbled.
Jack materialised on a mat close to her, hopping on one leg with another boy and appearing not to see her. She stood uncertainly as Marian scurried about, allocating places and managing complaints.
‘Peter is looking at me!’
‘No, I’m not!’
‘This mat is tore!’
‘I want to be beside Helen!’
‘I have a pain in my tummy!’
‘This is Lydia,’ Marian said firmly, when order of a sort had been restored.
‘She’s Jack’s auntie, and she’s the lady I told you about who’s come to teach you yoga, so I want you to show her how good you are at listening.
Robbie, please sit up,’ aimed at a boy who lay on his back, legs in the air, and ignored her.
The rest stood on their mats and regarded Lydia without much interest. From her experience of small children she knew she had about five seconds before she lost them for good.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she said. ‘Watch this.’ She dropped into a headstand and held it, letting the silence stretch as long as she dared before righting herself.
‘Who knows what that’s called?’ she asked.
‘Standing on your head,’ Jack ventured.
She smiled at him. ‘That’s right, Jack – and in yoga it’s called a headstand. Now look at this one, and see if you can guess what it’s called in yoga.’
She went straight into a handstand, and walked off her mat to the nearest wall, and came back. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, right way up again.
‘A handstand,’ came back in a ragged chorus.
‘Exactly right, excellent. And watch this.’
For the next few minutes she chose the most impressive balance poses – crow, tree, wheel, half-moon – and challenged them to guess the names of each. By the end of it, they were with her. She could feel it.
‘That’s yoga,’ she told them. ‘All that cool stuff is yoga. They’re called poses, and there are lots more, hundreds more. Who’d like to learn how to do some?’
Most hands shot in the air. Robbie, she was pleased to see, was now sitting up. Progress.
‘You won’t be able to learn them all in one day, nobody could do that, but today I’m going to teach you how to do the first part of tree.
It’s not too hard, so let’s see how we get on.
’ She steered them slowly through the beginner version, and when they stood in the pose, arms raised and outstretched, she walked among them, praising softly.
From tree she guided them into a few other simple poses, getting them to stretch and bend, twist and fold and curl, encouraging, praising and assisting, and it felt good. It felt like she remembered.
When Marian signalled that the twenty minutes were almost up, Lydia put them lying down and told them to close their eyes and instructed them in belly breathing.
Not a pin dropped. She caught Marian’s eye, and got a silent thumbs up. At the end she guided the children back to standing and taught them how to say Namaste, palms pressed together.
‘It means thank you,’ she told them. ‘I love to teach yoga, so namaste for letting me teach you.’
‘I love yoga,’ a child declared, and others echoed it.
‘Can we do some more another day?’ a boy asked.
Lydia looked at him. ‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ she said.