Read The English Girl for Free Online Page B

everything spinning and sliding and turning – the helter-skelter; the high Ferris wheel, its little red-painted carriages moving slowly around. There are children eating toffee apples; there’s a man with balloons on long strings. The shiny colours of the balloons make me think of my favourite sweets, the sarsaparilla drops and sherbet lemons that I’d buy from the sweet shop in Brockenhurst.
    ‘Can we go on the Ferris wheel, Fräulein Stella?’ Lukas asks me.
    I look up at it. It’s very high.
    ‘Is it scary?’ I say.
    ‘Girls would be scared. But
I’m
not scared,’ he tells me, a little defiantly.
    I give the man at the gate my money, counting it out very carefully; Austrian money is so new to me. We step into the carriage with a handful of other people. The wheel lurches upwards. I have a sudden sharp sense of fragility: it would be such a long way to fall. But I smile encouragingly at Lukas.
    We’re up as high as the birds now; pigeons swoop and glide past the windows. Below us, a great expanse of dizzying empty air. But the view takes my breath away – the dreaming city spread out like a tapestry, caught in a gold autumn haze, the red-tiled roofs, the palaces; and far far off, away on the hem of the sky, blue mountains.
    Afterwards, Lukas is proud of himself.
    ‘I wasn’t scared, was I, Fräulein Stella?’
    ‘No, you were such a brave boy.’
    I kneel and give him a hug, breathe in his warm, clean smell, of biscuits, soap and apples. He puts out a hand and touches my hair, the lightest, most tentative touch.
    ‘You’re got pretty hair. You’re like Fräulein Verity. Her hair was all curly like yours,’ he tells me.
    I feel a warm surge of gratitude towards Verity Miller, who may have left in mysterious circumstances, but who by leaving has made my life here possible.
    I straighten, take his hand. He leads me to the carousel, which to my surprise has real horses – six piebald ponies, cream and chocolate-brown, which trudge around a sawdust ring to a sound of martial music. The children riding them wear determined and rather anxious smiles.
    ‘Would you like a ride, Lukas?’
    ‘No thank you, Fräulein Stella. Sometimes I don’t like joining in. Sometimes I just like to watch.’
    We sit on a bench. He’s more talkative now, after the thrill of the Ferris wheel.
    ‘Fräulein Verity used to bring me here, to the Prater,’ he says.
    There’s a touch of yearning in his voice. I can tell he really loved her. I will have to work hard to replace her.
    ‘Did she, Lukas? So what did you do when you came?’
    The music stops; and mothers and nannies lift the children down. The ponies stand round, heads drooping, with a rather disconsolate look.
    ‘We used to go on the Ferris wheel,’ he says. ‘And we sometimes played catch with a ball.’
    ‘You must have enjoyed that,’ I say, remembering how longingly he looked at the boys with the football. Next time I’ll bring a ball to play with; perhaps a cricket bat too.
    It’s so pleasant sitting here with him. The air has a wonderful scent, of caramel and woodsmoke and the rich farmyard smell of the horses – a scent of autumn and nostalgia. I lift my face to the sky, and the sun washes over my skin.
    The martial music starts up again, hollow, tinny, cheerful.
    ‘Look, Lukas. Off they go again…’
    But he isn’t paying attention.
    ‘Fräulein Verity was nice to me. I was ever so sad that she left.’
    I can hear all the misery in his voice.
    ‘Oh, Lukas, I’m sorry,’ I say.
    ‘She was going to write me a letter,’ he says. ‘A letter just for me.’
    ‘Was she?’
    ‘That’s what she always told me.
One day I’ll write you a letter. If ever I go back to London. A letter all about London, with a picture of Big Ben. Just for you, my best boy
. I’d have liked that, Fräulein Stella.’
    ‘It’s always lovely to get a letter,’ I say lamely.
    ‘One day Fräulein Verity wasn’t there, and Mama said she’d gone back to London. So I