[...] I pass a restaurant and through its big windows see a family sitting at a table, the mother rising and reaching across to give something to the baby in its high chair. I can smell food, hear the clatter of dishes and the sound of people talking in the kitchens. A man in a chef’s apron is standing at a side door, smoking in the sunshine. He is only a few feet away from them but the family can’t see him: they are inside in the dining room, at a table spread with a white cloth. Through the window I can see the remains of their meal, the wreckage of cutlery and crumpled napkins and dirty plates, the broken crusts of bread lying against the white. A few minutes ago, when the rain was pouring down, they must have felt fortunate to be safe and dry inside, inside where everything exists to serve them. The woman holds her reaching stance: I watch her pale transverse form through the glass. She is like a statue, frozen in the moment of her motherhood, reaching across to her child. Her husband sits erect, looking straight ahead, as though something outside has caught his attention. It is as though, in that instant, he has seen the restaurant’s servitude become a trap: he looks across her leaning shape, looks out through the dark windows at the lifting day outside, the gold gushing sunshine, the freedom and freshness of the street. The man in the chef’s apron finishes his cigarette and goes back in. [...]