A pink-scaled fish swam up and then into Milena’s hand. Her Rhodopsin skin tingled with the light. Milena held up her hand and saw light glowing inside her flesh, orange like a sunset. Milena looked up and the face now trailed long black feathery fins. Tiger fish, said her viruses. Touch it and you are paralysed.
‘I’m Thrawn McCartney,’ the tiger fish said. ‘Are you my saviour?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Milena. ‘Do you need one?’
‘Sure do. No one will give me a job. What did they tell you about me?’ Thrawn wanted to hear about herself.
‘They said you were the best hologram technician that the Zoo has,’ said Milena.
‘And that I’m a pain in the lymph nodes.’
‘Somewhere else mostly,’ admitted Milena.
‘Well I am,’ said Thrawn, her face fixed.
‘So am I,’ said Milena.
Thrawn gave a connoisseur’s shake of the head. ‘No,’ she said, and spun back around. The whole room seemed to blink, and the tiger fish was gone. A woman remained, her back towards Milena. ‘You’re one of those quiet, boring, determined little pains,’ she said. She wore a black leotard and looked small and slim. ‘I am a great, gushing volcano’s mouth of a pain.’
She tossed what seemed half a hundredweight of black hair over her shoulders and turned, arching her back. She was deliberately posing, offering herself. Milena felt a kind of jolt, but not necessarily one of attraction. The woman was dangerously thin. The neck was all tendons. They looked as if they could snap, as if the disproportionately large head could break the tendons and then roll off. The face was haggard. Milena felt something like desire and something queasy, at the same time.
‘I’m about to offer you a job,’ warned Milena. But she found she was smiling. ‘Do you want to talk about hologramming?’
‘No,’ sighed Thrawn. ‘Holograms are two hundred years old and about as exciting as dandruff. We could remake the world now, with light.’ She glanced about at her underwater world. ‘I bet all you want me for is some old opera. You want me to cube in some real places onto the stage. Right? Right?’
‘Yes,’ said Milena.
‘We’re all so bored with your old operas. We’re all so bored with your ficken high-toned quality.’ The room blinked again, and she dropped down onto a beanbag.
It was an ordinary room now. The Coral Reef walls had been plastered over and left unpainted. There was a mattress on the floor, and bags, and a bank of equipment — metal boxes, lights, and leads. A cable went out the window to the Restoration wires along the Strand. Thrawn stretched her legs out straight and looked at Milena. ‘I ought to warn you,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been Read. I’ve never been Placed or doctored. So you’ll never know what I’m going to do or say next.’
Milena was still smiling, at the aggression, at the foolishness of it. ‘I haven’t been Read either,’ she said, hoping she sounded unimpressed.
‘Then why are you so dull?’ asked Thrawn.
‘I guess some people just naturally are. Like some people are naturally obnoxious.’
Thrawn liked that. It made her grin. ‘Yup,’ she agreed. ‘So how did you get away?’ She rolled over onto her stomach, still stretching, like some starved cat.
‘I didn’t. They gave me one final load of viruses and I was so ill they couldn’t Read me. In the meantime I was Placed.’
‘Well I ran away,’ said Thrawn, rather grandly, comparing herself with Milena. ‘I hid out in the Slump, in the reeds. Nobody was going to doctor me. I hid, and then I came back. I tell you, I got terrible grammar.’ Then she leaned forward. She leaned forward and used both her arms to push her breasts forward. They hung within the neckline of the leotard. ‘Are you?’ Thrawn asked, smiling.
‘Am I what?’ asked Milena, scarce believing.
Thrawn rolled her eyes and asked again. ‘Are you?’ She rolled forward onto her knees, presenting herself.
Milena felt a kind of slow, hazy panic. My God, is she asking me? My God, have I found another one? ‘Yes,’ Milena said, experimentally.
Now it was Thrawn’s turn to be coy. ‘Yes to what?’ she asked, striking another pose.
Milena’s face was hot. She was smiling a lazy, fearful smile. She felt confused. ‘Yes to whatever you’re asking.’ The whole thing was moving too fast, hurtling forward.
Thrawn laughed, and slid nearer to Milena. ‘Saying that could be dangerous. You might not know what I’m asking.’
There was something between them, as if the gases in the air had solidified. It was a shape, defined by them, but with a life of its own. Sex was only part of it, but it was as impersonal as sex. It and time hauled Milena forward towards Thrawn.
She crawled towards Milena with her slow smile. ‘You don’t know what I’m asking at all.’
But this is so crude, thought Milena. This is so banal. I’m being vamped.
Thrawn kissed her on the cheek. I’ve had fantasies like this, Milena thought and made herself continue. Then Thrawn began to lick her face as if it were a lollipop.
I’m not sure about this, thought Milena, pressing her lips and eyes shut. Thrawn smelt of sweat and boiled onions.
‘Oh, tooch, bubi, tooch.’
What, thought Milena, is that supposed to mean? Does she really think it will drive me wild with passion? Thrawn leaned back to pull off her leotard, and Milena felt desire retreat. It left her beached and dry and slightly sick in the stomach.
The flesh around Thrawn’s eyes was coiled like a rope; her face was a knot. As she descended again, Thrawn’s face was turned away from Milena, denying what was happening. Is she enjoying this? Milena wondered.
She tried to make the best of a bad job. She tried to shift to a more comfortable position but the rug kept rucking up and sliding away underneath her. She lay still for a few moments under the oblivious Thrawn. Finally, Milena tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Thrawn,’ said Milena, as if reminding her of something she already knew. ‘Thrawn. Stop.’
Thrawn went still. Then very quickly, she rolled away.
Milena sat up. Her elbow had been badly knocked in the struggle. She looked at Thrawn. Thrawn lay on her side, back to Milena, picking at the rucked-up rug. Milena’s trousers swaddled her thighs and made it difficult to stand. She managed it by pushing her knees together at an awkward angle.
‘It’s because I’m old and fat, isn’t it?’ said Thrawn, from the floor. She was staring at the strands of the rug.
‘You aren’t fat,’ said Milena, out of kindness, and because it was so far from the truth.
Thrawn sat up and her eyes were poison. ‘I am. Don’t tell me I’m not fat.’ She shook a dried pouch of loose skin on her belly. She stood up, and began to pull on her leotard, carefully running the elastic back into place along the same lines of indentation in the skin.
‘Our relationship should be strictly professional,’ said Thrawn, with a kind of snarl.
‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ said Milena, beginning to smile.
‘Not,’ said Thrawn, and pulled back her hair. ‘Where I am concerned.’
‘Good. Fine. Glad to hear it,’ said Milena, rubbing her elbow.
‘I’m quite ruthless in my standards,’ said Thrawn coolly. She pulled on a pair of trousers over her leotard. ‘I am a perfectionist. It is something of a curse always to want the very best.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Milena and thought: there’s something wrong with this woman. Her elbow was black from bruising.