A flush spread up her chest into her neck and her face, and she felt a flutter in her tummy.
‘Did you sprain something?’ Walter asked. ‘All that bending and stretching is bound to put your back out.’
‘I’m fine,’ she retorted. ‘Hot flush.’ Beth fanned herself vigorously with her hands, flapping them in front of her face and hoping that any mention of the menopause would have him changing the subject rapidly. She also hoped that he didn’t realise she was too old for a hot flush. She was thankfully past all that, although she had heard of some poor women who continued to have them into their seventies.
True enough, Walter looked petrified at the thought that she might feel tempted to expand further and he seemed more than happy when she returned to the subject of armchair yoga.
‘Sit up straight,’ she commanded. ‘Hands on your knees. Close your eyes and breathe.’
‘I always breathe.’
Beth sat down in the adjacent chair, her back ramrod straight. ‘You need to do it mindfully,’ she said, remembering the online tutorial she had watched earlier.
‘How do you meanmindfully?’
‘Breathe from the stomach and think about it as you’re doing it. In through the nose, hold it for a second, then out through the mouth.’
‘It’s a load of old cod’s wallop, if you ask me. People have been breathing for thousands of years and they didn’t need anyone to tell them how to do it.’ He opened one eye and squinted at her.
Beth glared at him. With a resigned shake of his head, he closed it again.
Beth watched him carefully, telling herself that it was to make sure he didn’t cheat, but in reality she was enjoying gazing at him. He was relaxed, the lines in his face not as prominent, and he looked considerably better than the day Dulcie and Otto had brought him home from hospital, and although Beth couldn’t take all the credit, she took some. Hearty, regular meals, someone to do his laundry and cleaning, someone to make sure he was okay… It made a difference.
‘Can I stop breathing now?’ he asked.
‘Better not,’ Beth chortled. ‘You’ll keel over.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘You can open your eyes,’ she conceded. ‘We’re going to do thoracic rotations next.’
‘Eh?’
‘Put your hands behind your head, like when you were in school, then twist to face that way—’ She twisted her head and torso to the left. ‘Then this way.’ She twisted to the right. ‘We do this ten times each side. One, two…’
Walter copied her, but they were twisting in opposite directions, so with every second twist they found themselves staring each other in the eye. Beth was glad when they’d finished that exercise.
‘Are we done?’ he asked.
‘No. Next, we drop our heads to our chests.’ She demonstrated. Walter followed suit. ‘Can you feel the stretch in your neck?’
‘I can feel something. I think I’ve done myself a mischief.’
Beth ignored his grumbling. ‘Sit up and look straight ahead, arching your back slightly. And repeat,’ she sang.
Ten of those and she was starting to feel a little dizzy from all the bending and stretching. Determined to plough on and convinced that it was doing them some good (it might take a while for the benefits to become apparent), Beth showed him how to flop forwards so that his head was between his knees.
It was called the rag doll position, but Walter looked more like a broken doll by the time he had attempted ten of those. Beth wasn’t feeling much better. She thought of herself as fairly fit for her age (there was that phrase again,for her age) but clearly she wasn’t, because the deep breathing she had been trying to do had become more of a pant and a grunt.
Poor Walter’s face was slowly turning purple with the effort. ‘This is supposed to be good for you?’ he puffed as he straightened up.
‘Shall we do some arm exercises now?’
‘Goodie. I can’t wait.’
Beth rolled her eyes and tried not to tut. The ungrateful so-and-so. However, she had to admit that it was harder work than the man in the video had led her to believe.
After windmilling their arms around and trying (unsuccessfully) to grab their hands behind their backs, Beth called it a day.
