‘It won’t come on. Not even the wee light thing. I was going to make a bacon sarnie, but I can’t do that if the fan isn’t working. It’ll set off the alarms.’ He sounds quite distressed at the thought.
‘Is everything else working? Lights? Other outlets?’ I ask.
‘I think so,’ he says.
‘It might be the fuse,’ I tell him, and realise I have come to the end of my useful knowledge. ‘Probably best to report it to the accommodation manager and get them to send someone in to look at it.’
‘But what about my bacon sandwich?’ he says. ‘I’m starving, Mum, and I haven’t done a shop yet because my student loan hasn’t landed in and…’
As he chats, I do what I promised myself I would not do this term and send him over some cash so that he can order a pizza and settle himself for the evening. Saul has two modes – so laid back he’s almost horizontal, or able to catastrophise the smallest of inconveniences to the nth level in seconds. There is no in between. So even the absence of his ability to fry up some bacon without setting off the smoke alarms will be enough to have him convinced the world as he knows it is coming to an end.
If I was in good, fully present mother mode and not freezing outside of a yoga class, I would talk him through this crisis until he has made his peace with it. But it’s late, I’m tired and I don’t have the mental or physical energy to play the part of a counsellor just now. Money for a pizza is a good compromise. That, and the promise that I will call him back in the morning.
Money sent and child soothed, I turn to head back into class, knowing I’m unlikely to be able to get myself into a place of zen again in whatever time is left of the meditation, but willing nonetheless to give it a go anyway.
Only the door has closed behind me as I exited and has locked automatically.
Of course it has. Because, as we’ve discovered, this is my life now. A series of disasters and challenges. I am outside, in the cold; my shoes, coat, hat and car keys are all inside.
As the cool night sky starts to pelt thick, icy globules of sleet onto the bare skin of my arms and my feet start to go numb from the cold, I offer a not-too-silent prayer of frustration to the gods of menopausal women everywhere. One my phone would’ve autocorrected to ‘Duck my life’.
2
‘YE WOULDN’T BE LONG GETTIN’ FROSTBIT’
It may only have been three or four minutes since I discovered the door closed behind me, but it feels a lot longer. I have tried battering on the door to attract the attention of my classmates, but I know it’s likely pointless. They are down a hall and behind a fire door. They won’t hear my pathetic thuds. Especially not as they lie on their backs listening to their guided meditation over the soft sounds of some plinky-plonky music – the kind you only hear in spas or classes which require you to move as if you’re playing a one-woman game of Twister with yourself.
I could try phoning Niamh but I know I’d likely be on a hiding to nothing with that. Niamh does not believe in ever having her phone on anything but silent. Especially not when she is having time out from her work or her family.
‘There is nothing so important it can’t wait a bit,’ she often says. ‘I mean even if someone is dead, my answering the phone isn’t going to undead them, is it?’
She has a point.
As my toes start to turn blue and my poor frozen hands start to turn purple, I console myself with the knowledge that this cannot go on much longer.
The relaxing meditation bit comes just before the ‘Namaste’ bit, which preludes the drinking from water bottles and smiling smugly at all your fellow classmates, proud that you have survived the ordeal. Not long after that, they will all start to leave and all being well they will find me still alive and not frozen to death, my nipples standing proudly to attention in the bitter night air.
Crossing my arms in front of my chest and plunging my hands into my armpits in a bid to preserve body heat, I contemplate ordering myself a pizza as soon as I get home and undoing what little good I have just done for my body during the last hour.
At least, I think, I could share it with Adam, who has yet to return to his beloved Manchester after the Christmas holidays, while he tries to wrap his head around the news that his girlfriend is pregnant.
It’s fair to say that he is very much on an emotional rollercoaster right now and I never quite know what version of Adam I’m going to come home to. When I’d left to come to yoga, he had been sitting on his bed, strumming tunelessly on his guitar and talking to our beloved pet, Daniel the Spaniel.
He has learned, just as I did over the past few years, that Daniel is a trusty confidante. He never spreads gossip, will listen for hours as long as you scratch his belly or behind his ears, and almost never looks at you with judgement in his eyes. If you can handle the noxious aroma of his gassy emissions, he is actually a pretty great companion to have around.
I’m lost in a little jig trying to stave off the impending frostbite when I hear the door open behind me and turn to see a few of the young, more lithe, members of the group stare at me as if I’ve lost the run of my senses.
‘If you’re done gawping, any chance I could get past you?’ I say, as cheerily as my chattering teeth will allow. They nod a yes in unison, and step backwards. Then, just like Moses parting the Red Sea, my frozen form seems to prompt a parting of the fit and healthy as I walk down the hall, arms crossed to protect the modesty of my still-erect nipples, so I can retrieve my belongings and warm up before hypothermia kicks in.
‘Where on earth did you go?’ Niamh asks as I walk back into the room. She is standing – her shoes, oversized hoodie and jacket already on – next to my discarded trainers. ‘You were there before I closed my eyes and then when we sat up you were gone. I hadn’t a clue what you were at!’ She sounds cross, but I know my friend well enough to know that in Niamh-land cross is often her way of hiding her worry.
‘My phone,’ I say. ‘You must’ve heard it. That “Mum, Mummy, Mum” thing?’
‘That was you?’ she asks.
‘Saul has been at my settings again,’ I say, and she nods her head in a ‘that explains it’ gesture.
‘Is everything okay with him? Has he lost his left shoe again? Or remembered the time he hid a fiver of his communion money all those years ago and wants you to go and look if it’s still there?’ she asks. These are, for the record, both things Saul has actually phoned me about in recent times.
