Czechoslovakia. But you already know that.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Rose Ella, shaking her head.
‘Don’t tell me they left something out of my case history,’ said Milena.
Rose Ella sighed. She looked down at her hands, and then back up at Milena. ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she said quietly. ‘They don’t brief us like that in case it affects what we think.’ Her eyes seemed quite sincere. ‘Look, let’s go look at the glass-blowing. At least it will get you out of here.’
Away from the Lumps.
‘Fine,’ said Milena, trying to shrug as if it were all one with her. But her eyes were heavy. She wanted to be with Rose Ella.
Milena had rarely seen inside the School. She did not have relatives or friends who worked there. She had never really felt part of the Estate. Rose Ella pushed open the large, grey gates; they seemed to float backwards on their hinges.
‘I love the smell of the wood, don’t you!’ said Rose Ella, looking back over her shoulder as she swung the gates shut behind her.
Milena felt vaguely as if her own feelings had usurped. ‘It’s all right,’ she said.
Rose Ella walked briskly to a window in the wall by the gate. She waved for Milena to stand next to her. They peered into the Senate House of the School. It was the timber store. There were honey-coloured planks all in ordered racks. Beyond the doors across the room was a pile of huge logs. Men and women sawed the wood in perfectly straight planks, guided by virus. Men with brooms swept up the chips and yellow shavings.
‘What do they do with the sawdust?’ Milena asked.
‘Use it for packing. Some old kinds of sofas were stuffed with it. We also use a lot of it to store ice in the ice house. It keeps it all through the summer. Most of the time though, we just use it on the fires. We aren’t supposed to. Don’t tell anyone.’
‘I don’t have anyone to tell it to,’ said Milena murmuring shyly. This is how it is for other people, she thought. They talk and find out things. ‘Is the world a great big wicked place then?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Rose Ella, appearing to take her very seriously.
‘Is it full of secrets? Little bits about things. Like that. About the wood.’ Damnable shyness overcame Milena, and she stuck her hands in her pockets and could not look at Rose Ella.
‘Sometimes. Little things. Such as…’ Rose Ella paused. ‘Such as I really, really like Senior Fenton.’
The Senior ran the Medicine. He was very old, twenty two, mature and handsome.
Milena was overwhelmed. ‘You do? Are you going to marry him?’ It was a wonder to talk to someone about such things.
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ It was Rose Ella’s turn to be surprised. She kept her hands behind her back, behind the white uniform, and looked down at her feet. ‘He sings,’ she said. ‘He sings evenings at the Row, when we all get together. Oh! He has such a beautiful voice.’
‘Senior Fenton sings?’ Milena asked. She couldn’t imagine it. No, she could. She could see his handsome face open wide with song. She wished she could say she liked Senior Fenton too, but the image of him did not move her. She began to worry, a little. Her heart never rose at the idea of men, or a particular man. Who did she like? No one, she was forced to conclude. She liked no one.
‘Is there a lot of music at the Row?’ Milena asked. She had never had time to learn a musical instrument. She sat in the conference room and watched the other children play.
‘Ach! Oh yes!’ said Rose Ella. ‘Oh, such music we have at the Row, every evening! Have you never been?’
‘No,’ said Milena.
‘Well, you come along tonight, then,’ said Rose Ella. ‘Come to supper.’
Milena found herself hesitating out of habit. She had her laundry to do and her book to read; and then she thought: Milena, why ever not?
‘Yup,’ she said, moving her shoulders from side to side, in a way that was supposed to suggest casual acceptance. ‘Thanks.’
Rose Ella’s mother worked in what had once been the School of African and Oriental Studies. The east side of the building was a foundry and glass works. The windows were open wide, but it was still hot. Milena felt the heat on her face. Almost as if she could feel her pores open, sweat welling out of her forehead. The furnaces were lined up along the back wall. One of them was working, its door hooked open. Inside the furnace, there was an even, unvarying orange light. A row of Restorers stood in front of it with long metal poles. Metal! Milena looked in wonder at the metal poles, hoping to see a marvel, but metal did not look all that different from dirty resin, except that it didn’t melt.
Rose Ella introduced Milena to her mother. Rose Ella’s mother was very small and slim with grey steady eyes and perfect smile. The eyes had a fixed light in them that Milena found difficult to warm to.
‘Mala,’ Rose Ella, calling her mother by her first name. ‘This is my friend, Milena.’
My friend, thought Milena, she called me her friend. She was too pleased to remember to speak.
‘Hello, Milena,’ said Rose Ella’s mother, pleased to meet her. There was something in the smile that would have been pleased to meet anybody. ‘I’m making a pitcher. Do you want to watch?’
Rose Ella left it to Milena to say yes. They stood well back. Rose Ella’s mother dipped the long metal pole into the orange light. A bubble of glass came out attached to the pole. Around the edges glowed orange, where the glass was thickest. Rose Ella’s mother put the pole to her lips and blew, just a little, and looked, and blew again. She wore no gloves, no apron. She picked up a kind of scoop with a long black handle, and rolled the glass on it. The glass went rounder as it was rolled and it began to glow green as it cooled. Then Mala turned it on its base, flattening it against what looked like a small raised stool. ‘That’s it,’ she said.
Rose Ella jumped forward and took the pole with an easy flip of the hand, and Milena stepped back in fear and admiration. Rose Ella fixed the pole in a vice, and turned it. She took a triangle of wood, ordinary wood dipped in water, and as the glass blob turned, she ran the wet wood around the lip of the pitcher’s neck. The wood flared into flame. Striding quickly, lightly, Rose Ella tucked the pole into another oven, twisted it once, and pulled it out again. The glass was gone.
‘Where did it go?’ Milena asked.
‘It’s in the oven now. Eighty degrees. It will harden there,’ said Rose Ella, with a grunt. She took her black metal pole and dipped it in a bucket. There was a bubbling and a sputtering of steam. ‘Stand back,’ said Rose Ella. She chopped away at a crust of crystal left clinging to the mouth of the pipe.
‘I’m doing a net too, if you want to stay and watch,’ said Mala.
‘Ach! Oh, that’s special, Milena. You’re in luck!’
Her smile still sharp and steady, Mala sat in front of a little table. ‘The order came in just today,’ she said. ‘It’s for a house being done up out in Uxbridge.’
‘She weaves with glass,’ said Rose Ella, and in her excitement gave Milena’s hand a little squeeze.
It really was the most beautiful thing. The glass was teased into strands like toffee. Mala used chopsticks to stretch and catch and weave the strands over and under each other. The strands would sag and droop, and each time Mala would seem to catch them only just in time, lifting one strand up to nip another strand underneath.
Like wool, the glass was knitted. The criss-cross pattern rested as it grew on a gently warm shoulder of metal. Very suddenly, Mala was cutting the strands with a pair of scissors, which were passed to Rose Ella, to be dipped into water and bashed clean. New strands were drawn up, and red hot tongs were used to stroke them, cajole them into melting with the previous strands.
‘This… glass,’ said Mala, distracted by her work, ‘is for … decorative panels. Screens really. Between beautiful wooden benches.’ Milena realised that Mala was talking to her.
Mala looked up, straight at her. ‘They’re beautiful when they catch the light.’ Milena smiled back at her, lost for a reply. ‘They’ll be about a metre square each when I’m done.’
Rose suddenly dipped in front of her mother, as if curtseying. From under the shoulder of metal, she pulled out another shoulder, to support new sections of the net. The clear putty of the glass slithered up and over itself as if alive; the chopsticks clicked like frightened insects. ‘Ah!’ sighed Mala with satisfaction. Suddenly it was time for lunch.
They all went to Russell Square together. The lawns were full of people photosynthesising. Mala bought each
