‘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 of them a drink, and a communal cup full of fried squid. They sat on the grass and protected their fried squid from the sniffing market dogs.
‘It’s not like they tell you,’ said Milena, mustering her words.
‘What do you mean, Milena?’ asked Mala, as if from a respectful distance. She was still smiling.
‘Restoring. There’s nothing of the Golden Stream about it. It’s all about moving glass.’ Milena had found the whole experience deeply reassuring. She had found some grounds for hope. Life would be more practical than she had thought. Life was not about memory.
Mala’s smile shifted, finally. It grew more broad and took a slightly rueful slant. ‘We don’t sit around talking, no. The only way to learn this stuff is to do it. They can give a virus, and you can know all about it here.’ She pointed to her kerchiefed head delicately, with a circle of squid. ‘But your hands still won’t do the right thing. You’ve just got to learn it.’ Mala’s hands held the squid with a perfect grace.
Milena was so pleased she had to look away. She had to look down.
‘Well,’ said Rose Ella. ‘I’m a Nurse, not a glass blower. I’ve got to get back.’
They all stood up, and Rose Ella and her mother kissed each other on both cheeks, a curiously formal gesture. Mala’s hand rested slightly on her daughter’s shoulder. Then, to Milena’s surprise, Mala kissed her as well.
‘See you later,’ Mala said. ‘Supper at six.’ Then, without a backward glance, Mala walked away. Even the way Mala walked was perfect, one foot placed exactly in front of the other. Everything was so simple.
‘Isn’t she lovely?’ asked Rose Ella.
Milena said yes, but only because she thought Rose Ella was. Together they walked back to the Medicine.
All that afternoon, as some of the children practised music, as others set up imaginary stalls selling saws or soap, Milena smiled. As older children came and went on real business, selling roasted corn to the Tarty grandees parading up Tottenham Court Road, or sweeping the streets of other Estates for money, Milena sat, legs folded on the floor of the courtyard and didn’t move. Parents murmured to Nurses about possible lines of Development. It was said the Estate needed chemists — was any work being done in chemistry? How many Places were there, just in general, for statistical work?
As all the easy chatter came and went like the sound of wind in trees, Milena smiled. She smiled as she stitched a leather purse, pushing the needle and the heavy thread without really looking at it. Life might be possible after all. She had a friend. She had a friend.