Читать книгу The Mannequin Makers - Craig Cliff - Страница 20

30 December

Father has had one of his dark turns. Of all the days. We are to appear in the window tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Eugen and I bathed and limbered up this morning as usual, unaware of Father’s condition. Mother did not wish to say anything over breakfast but it was clear on her face. (When you spend so long standing still and scrutinising one person’s face you suddenly find yourself fluent in the language of all faces.) When he came to the table, he did not look at us and said nothing. He is a kind of ghost at such times, liable to drift away, pass through walls, leave the property, only to reappear and unleash sudden bouts of terror. This morning he left the table less than a minute after taking his seat. He’d touched nothing on his plate, of course.

I am not sure whether it was seeing Father this way, or my own nervousness about the window, but I felt quite queasy myself and couldn’t finish my breakfast. I excused myself from the table and went in search of Father, but he was no longer on the property. Oh, that I could have left to pursue him.

There was nothing to do but take to our pedestals and play Dantès and Mercédès, though it was hard to strip the concern from my expression or keep the dew from the rim of my lower eyelids. The burrowing worm in my gut was no help either.

Eugen, holding his pose perfectly, tried to tell me not to worry. We were ready for the window. Father would be recovered tomorrow.

Where does his confidence come from? He has never been to town, never been in the window. Our experiences have been identical since birth and yet sometimes I feel we are two different species left in the same nest by chance. He is the cuckoo and I am the tiny warbler chick.

It is approaching eight o’clock and Father has still not returned. He has spoken about the window at length, the things we are likely to see (depending on the pose and the direction of our gaze, of course), but my head is awash with practical questions I have never considered. How are we to get to the window? What happens when the curtain is lowered once more? When will we return to the property? Will we ever return? When will we see Mother again?

Our lives are directed toward this one moment, but what next?