Читать книгу The Mannequin Makers - Craig Cliff - Страница 23

2 January

I love performing in the window with a passion that is equalled only by the distaste I feel for the time we spend cooped up in this anteroom. It is either too bright or too dark, it seems to trap every moist exhalation and it is cramped to a ridiculous degree, even when it is just the two of us. It is perhaps no wonder I feel ill when I wake each morning. I miss Mother. I miss walking in our garden. I miss the sun rising as we bathe outside. I miss the smell of the dew lifting from the grass and the sound of the birds. I miss my own bed (these stretchers are so rigid and Eugen makes such a racket every time he turns). I know that we must be kept from prying eyes when not in the window, but it is so trying.

Eugen doesn’t seem to mind, which only doubles my torment. He just stares at the posters of Mr Sandow while tapping complex rhythms on his thighs, or else naps or performs dumb-bell exercises. He scoffs the meals that Mother has prepared for us and Father brings in paint tins lined with tea towels. In the first few days the shepherd’s pie or mutton and rice were not tainted by the smell or taste of paint, but today it was as if the roast chicken, potatoes and kumara were merely props never meant for consumption.