Child Garden Read Online Free Page B

still washing that fork,' said Cilia. 'You melted all of mine. When you visited, remember?'
    'And prissy?'
    'Severe,' added Cilia, nodding again in agreement with herself.
    Milena had gone through a phase of dunking she was in love with Cilia. Oh, woman, if only you knew what was on my mind!
    'I suppose that does sum it up,' sighed Milena. It was bad enough to suffer from Bad Grammar, but to be called prissy with it! She contemplated her cold squid, and decided that she preferred hunger. 'Excuse me.' She stood up and walked rather unsteadily into the night.
    'You did ask me. Milena? You did ask!' Cilia called after her. Cilia always spoke without thinking. She only acted on stage.
    Milena walked out on the Hungerford Footbridge and looked at the river. It churned in the moonlight, muddy and smelling of drains. The eddies made by the pylons of the bridge swirled with garbage and foam. Milena yearned for some leap away from herself, away from the world.
    And then over Waterloo Bridge a great black balloon rose up from its mooring by the river. It made no sound except for a whispering of air, like wind blowing over the moors. Its cheeks were puffed out, and it propelled itself gently, by blowing. It was borne up in silence, moving with the grace of a cloud towards — where? China? Bordeaux? Milena wanted to go with it. She wanted to be like it, huge and unthinking with nothing to do but be itself, carried by the wind.
    She was young. She thought she was old. On the South Bank, the windows of the Zoo Cafe were full of candlelight and Vampire silhouettes and the sound of laughter. They were all young and soft, and they had no time, and so they hated the silence, the silence in themselves that had yet to be filled by experience.
    Some of them were driven to make noise, were kept jumping by something that was alive inside them. Others like Milena, cleared the decks and waited for something to happen, something worthwhile to do or to say. They loathed the silence in themselves, not knowing that out of that silence would come all the things that were individual to them.
    Something, something has got to happen soon, Milena thought. I need something new to do. I'm tired of the plays, I'm tired of the Child Gardens, I'm tired of being me. I'm tired of sitting bolt upright on the edge of my bed all night, alone. I need someone. I need a woman, and there isn't going to be one. They've all been cured. The viruses cure them. Bad Grammar. I love you is Bad Grammar?
    Milena suffered from resistance. She thought that in many different ways she was the last of her kind in the world.
     
     
    The next day she went to the Graveyard, hugging the unwanted boots. Trains to the Continent left from Waterloo. The wooden cars creaked and groaned on rubber wheels that no longer ran on rails, chuffing with steam over the old city on old bridges made of ancient brick.
    Through those brick bridges, tunnels ran. One of the tunnels was called Leake Street, and leak it did. Water dripped from the roof. The place smelled of trains, a dry oily itch in Milena's nostrils. The walls were covered with splattered white tiles and all along them was a series of large green doors.
    The green doors were locked. Milena tried each one and not one of them would open. To Milena, this was mysterious. What was the point of a door that would not open?
    Finally she came to a huge gate that had been left ajar. It was covered with many different layers of flaking paint, out of which emerged the words in old alphabetic script 'White Horse'. From beyond the gates there came the sound of a full orchestra.
    It was playing in the dark. Milena peered through the gate. There must be a light, she thought. What kind of orchestra is it that plays in the dark?
    She swung the gate open and stepped inside. She had time to see disordered racks of clothing, bamboo rods on bamboo uprights and little rollers. She saw them in a narrow band of dim light from the doorway. The band of light suddenly