Read Child Garden for Free Online Page B

coloured stripes and was not at all frilly or mimsy.
    'Of course I'm taking it. It's part of my job.'
    'Bloody hell,' murmured Rolfa. 'Well, there's nothing for it. Come on.' She turned and began to lumber off in the direction of Waterloo Bridge. She was wearing nothing but blue running shorts and a pair of very dirty white cloth shoes. One of them had a loose sole. It flapped.
    Milena stood her ground. 'Where are we going?' she asked.
    Ponderously, the GE turned around. 'Flitting off to see some of my chums,' she explained. 'We are going to a palace of amusement.'
    Milena felt an eddy of misgiving. 'Where?'
    'Across the river. It's a pub. Do you drink beer?'
    'No,' replied Milena.
    'Oh, that's a shame. Perhaps they'll make you some tea.' Rolfa turned and began to shuffle on ahead. Milena considered simply staying where she was. No, she thought suddenly, I'm not going to let her think I'm afraid of anything. So she followed.
    It was a bit like trying to keep up with a brontosaurus. Rolfa's arms hung down by her sides, and her shoulders were hunched, and each shuffling step seemed both small and slow, but the distance covered was deceptively great. Milena sheltered from the sun and found she had nothing to say. Next time she asks, Milena promised herself, I will be busy.
    They made their way through the ruins of Fleet Street. It was now an Estate for boatbuilders, with its own market.
    Tykes with tough, demanding faces pushed burned cobs of corn at them, or cupfuls of roast chestnuts. 'Miss! Miss! Just take one whiff for luck, Miss!' Their older brothers and sisters baked straggly chicken in thick lengths of blackened bamboo, which they broke open for customers with chunks of rubble. Whole families lived under the stalls, mothers nursing or knitting. Little boys sat on street corners, turning the wheels of sewing machines, repairing pyjamas or underwear. Their baby sisters tugged at Milena's sleeve, and she walked past them.
    People seemed to find the two of them, Milena and Rolfa, funny. The way Milena walked, as if on slippery ice, her parasol and her gloves, all betrayed her fears and ambition. They made her absurd. Milena heard the children giggle. Life in the Child Garden had taught Milena to hear laughter as the sound of other people's cruelty. Laughter made her fight.
    Milena went cold and awkward. Her parasol caught on an awning and showered dust over a stall. The stall sold old plumbing and dusty glassware, the very dog-ends of history.
    The stallowner laughed gracefully, hand over her heart. She meant that her things were so old that dust could not hurt them. To Milena, the laughter was a mystery, and she walked into the knobbed point of her parasol. There was more laughter.
    Laughter followed them as they walked westwards to St Paul's Cathedral, rising like a great domed egg. Then they turned north and walked past the Barbican, towards the Palace of Amusement.
     
     
    The Palace of Amusement was a pub in the Golden Lane Estate. Milena's nervousness increased. The Golden Lane Estate was for the Pit's sewage workers.
    The pub was called the Spread-Eagle, and the sign over it showed a man falling on his face. Milena had to step over drunks snoring on the broken pavement outside it. Even semi-consciously, they picked at the little crabs that patrolled their hairy chests. The sun had burned them the colour of bruises.
    Inside, the Spread-Eagle was dark and cramped and the floor was made of bare, cracked concrete. It was varnished with spit and beer and dogturd from the street. It was full of skinny, naked men glossy with sweat. The whole place smelled of armpits.
    It's like something out of Dante's Inferno, thought Milena.
    'Quite jolly once you're sitting down,' said Rolfa. 'There we are. Oyez! Lucy!' Rolfa shouted and made semaphore-sized signals with her arm.
    There was an ugly squawk from the corner and someone jumped up and had to be restrained. Milena couldn't quite see the people. They sat round a table in front