A kaleidoscope of images and sounds inundate my mind, coaches of my childhood leaving me on the bench, reluctantly being picked for a team by peers at a lunchtime game, people laughing when I ran, the nicknames, my secondary school PE teacher’s contempt when I brought a note from Mam saying I wouldn’t be able to participate. My kneeling-down tear-stricken pleas to Mam on school mornings to write those notes excusing me from sports.
I chew on the inside of my cheek and think of the girl I was.
Bobby stops me as I walk away. ‘You must train more or you won’t make it, smart and all as you are. Get over your insecurities.’
My jaw grinds. ‘Maybe if you weren’t exploiting our insecurities as a teaching strategy, I’d be getting on better.’
‘Did you learn that lingo in university?’ he says with a fake smile.
‘Yes, I did actually,’ I say. I stand up taller. ‘You’re using shame to motivate then modelling that coaching style to us. You’re essentially training people to bully. Do you think that’s healthy?’
He takes a step back. His face is pink and he shows me his palms. ‘I have to get you to a certifiable level. That’s all I’m trying to do, Natalie. Stop taking it so personally.’
‘How the fuck did I end up here?’ I think out loud and shake my head as we walk to the studio.
‘Pardon?’ Lucy says.
‘I’m in the wrong place,’ I say. ‘I dunno if I can do this to myself anymore.’
‘Why?’
‘Every time Bobby pulls me up on stuff, it stokes all this self-consciousness in me. I hated myself and my body in the past. I’m not going back to that place again.’
Lucy squeezes my arm gently. ‘You’re still here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s stirred all this up and you’re still here.You survived,’ she says, and winks.
I swallow. She has a point. Has the worst that could happen already happened?
Is this the worst that could happen?
This?
Something inside me freefalls with that thought. Then it clicks, illuminates. Suddenly I realize how lucky I am.
‘Natalie, remember we’re invincible so there’s no need to worry,’ Lucy says.
‘Who is?’
‘We’re going to absolutely smash the course. With all our powers combined.’
‘Who?’
‘Us!’ She looks exasperated.
‘Me and you?’
‘No. Our team. Magdalena’s got rhythm. All that studio stuff, she doesn’t even have to practise. It’s a language her body speaks fluently. Christian is king of the gym. He knows exactly what and how to pump when it comes to muscles. You, Natalie, are our classroom hero. Fearless when it comes to spelling or the exam papers or assignments.’
I laugh and sigh at the same time.
‘And me? I am Coach. The one who sees how parts of the team can work for the whole. Not bad for a dyslexic, rhythmless woman from a Kilkenny dairy farm who’d never been inside a working gym before. If I must fucking say so myself.’
She looks at me, waiting. ‘Enjoy yourself instead of worrying, it’s a much better way to use your time. Am I right?’ She has her fist out for a bump. ‘Natalie, am I right?’
‘Yeah, okay. You’re right.’ I bump it.
‘Good,’ she says with vigour. ‘Now let’s have a motherfucking dance.’
‘The little woman is up first,’ Bobby says to Lucy in the studio.
‘Okay, man with thinning hair.’
Bobby’s surprised by her comment.
‘Are we saying what we see here?’ Lucy asks innocently.
Bobby grins. ‘You little shit.’
‘You’re a massive shit. That won’t flush.’
He laughs heartily.
Lucy is uncoordinated but unapologetic about it. She applauds herself when she finishes.
Bobby stares at me, uses his thumb to point at me and to the top of the room. I feel tense walking up.
He blasts the music on.
I overthink the choreography and try to make a poem in my head with the moves to remember them in order but I go blank when I have to shout them. The class look at me and wait for my countdown. I miss the beat and muddle the explanations.
Overwhelmed at making a complete balls of it, my movements are flustered, awry, as I try to catch-up on the routine.
Bobby switches the music off. ‘What is Natalie doing wrong?’
‘No, Bobby,’ I say and put my hand out to stop him. ‘Wait. Let me do it again. Put the music on.’
He smirks.
I remain in the central position in front of the group and take a deep breath. Blood thumps in my ears.
‘I said press play, Bobby. I’m going again.’
‘Finally,’ Bobby cheers and punches the air. ‘This is the spirit, people. This is what I need to see from you all. Show me how much you want this.’
He hits play and I find the beat in the eight count.
Skin
I bite a hangnail at the side of my thumb as the plane begins its descent. I chew at the skin until it lifts off in a slab, going deeper and further down my finger than I intended. Gasping, I suck it and put my hand in front of me to inspect. The pink rawness of the wound pools with blood. I clasp the base of my thumb and more blood gushes. I put it in my mouth. It throbs. The man at the window seat looks at me and winces.
I take my thumb from my mouth. ‘It’s fine. Bad habit.’ I wave my free hand.
‘Nervous about landing?’ he asks.
‘No, no, I love flying. Well, not love it. It doesn’t bother me. I like the view.’
I dip my head to glimpse out the window. The sky is heavenly white. The clouds below the plane are wavy and carpeting. ‘It’s like an ocean of cloud.’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ he says and smiles. He turns to the window. ‘It’s beautiful.’
I lick my teeth to clean them, realizing I might resemble a vampire. I crane my neck to see through the gap that his head makes as he looks out.
The air host walks down the aisle waving scratch cards, offering them to passengers in an enthusiastic way.
‘Feeling lucky, punk?’ I mumble to no one really.
‘Excuse me?’ The man in the seat beside me turns to face me. ‘Were you speaking to me?’
I laugh nervously. ‘No. I was joking. I thought I said it in my head but I must have said it out loud. It was about the scratch cards. I’ve never seen anybody buy them on a flight. Never heard of anyone winning on them either.’
I guess he’s near my age, the way he has fine lines starting on his forehead, the crow’s feet barely tracing the edge of his eyes, afraid to stamp their mark yet.
We spend a minute like this, sort of looking at each other, expectant for something but not sure what.
‘Do you want to swap seats?’ he asks, breaking the silence. ‘I’ve been watching the ocean of cloud for quite some time now. I wouldn’t mind sharing the view. And you could see Amsterdam as we go down?’
‘That’s really kind. I’d love to. Thanks.’
As we stand to swap, the woman on the aisle seat groans in her sleep and changes position. I flatten out my denim skirt, smooth the creases in it and rewrap my maroon poncho cardigan over myself. I notice the length of his legs underneath his black baggy jeans. He must be six feet three or four. I smile as he spreads himself upwards, rolling and squirming his body with the stretch.
‘You must be uncomfortable flying, being that size?’ I ask.
‘What?’ he says quickly and raises an eyebrow.
‘Being so tall, your legs must be squashed?’
He sighs with what may be relief. ‘Yeah. It’s a cheap flight though. Can’t complain when you’re not paying for comfort.’
I pick up both my books, covering the self-help one with a literary one, hoping he hasn’t seen the former. Now we’re both standing, I’m up to his bicep, which is large underneath his forest green hoodie. There’s a cinnamon scent off him and a cooking smell, of meat, maybe? There’s something clinical too, like those carbolic soaps my grand-mother used.