Tuesday: Hallowe’en [or see Baidu link]
Tristram starts the students off with a ten minute warm-up pose. For that length of time I can hold a wacky position. I arch my back, twirl my hands into two spidery shapes, crane my neck, lips parting as my skin pulls taut. Silence falls. The scratch of charcoal begins. I am gazing up past the suspended light-fittings to the leaf-spattered glass of the skylight.
‘There’s a man.’
‘What? Where? O crikey.’
I hear Tristram pluck a board from an easel. He quickly appears beside me, angling the board above his head until it blocks the workman’s view.
‘Gawd. Can someone go tell them in the office?’
‘S’alright, I don’t mind. It’ll give him an anecdote for the pub.’
Forty-eight hours have passed but my wrists and ankles still have faint pink lines. It looks like where my watch has been. Except it’s both wrists. The ankle marks will just be put down to sock elastic.
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