The Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  Milena turned left, past the fountain outside Leake Street. Bolts of metal had been screwed into the mouth of the fountain, and its rows of drinking cups were gone. Up the ramp that led to Waterloo, people were scurrying, huddled in terror. They stepped over something, a bundle perhaps in the snow. The bundle moved. The bundle, she saw, was a man.

  The man’s chest was bare. His jacket had been wrenched round and his shirt torn as if he had been fighting to get out of his clothes. He was trying to crawl, but his legs wouldn’t work, and his fingers and arms were stiff with cold, as useless as the flippers of a seal.

  People had just stepped over him? What is happening to us all? Milena thought. He’ll freeze to death. She walked towards him. The Bees followed, a single rippling mass under their sheeting.

  ‘She’ll bite,’ warned the King.

  She? The man had a full and virulently red beard. She? As Milena drew closer to him, he looked up at her, bared his teeth, and growled.

  ‘Piper,’ sighed the Bees. ‘Good Piper. Good girl, Piper.’ They seethed and settled around him.

  On hearing the name, the man yipped. As they gathered around him, stroking his head, he began to whimper. He whimpered, and tried to wag a tail that wasn’t there. Then he yelped, in an agony of joy. Over-excited, he could not contain his urine. It spread out under him, across the snow. He licked the hands of the people around him.

  ‘Piper!’ smiled the King. ‘Good dog.’

  The man barked.

  ‘Shouldn’t we get him a doctor?’ Milena asked.

  The King shook his head. ‘There are people in the ash,’ he said. He looked about him as if dazzled, as if surrounded by stars. ‘The ash falls.’

  ‘What?’ Milena felt as if all the breath had been sucked out of her.

  ‘They let them die,’ he said. He was smiling, as if he had seen something beautiful.

  All across the city, the bells rang calling for doctors. Piper, Piper, Piper, said the Bees, soothing. They stooped down and lifted up the dog man to carry him. His tears had frozen on his face. He was stiff as a board and his fingers were held rigidly at awkward angles.

  Milena stepped forward to help, and then something stopped her. Disease an old voice seemed to whisper to her.

  ‘Bugger that,’ whispered Milena to herself, and took hold of his hand.

  The procession moved into the shelter of Leake Street. The gates of the Graveyard swung open as if by themselves. Milena trooped with the Bees into a darkness that smelled of people.

  ‘Milena, Ma, Milena,’ breathed the darkness. ‘Piper, Piper, Piper.’

  There were new cells in the palm of Milena’s hand. They had been given to her when she was made Terminal. The cells were luminous and shone brightly when she told them to. She held up her hand: light blazed out of it, and the Graveyard was lit.

  The dead costumes moved, inhabited now. There were kings and courtiers, gypsy dancers and Robin Hood’s men. There were mantillas of black plastic lace, and ball gowns of cheap coloured nylon, all the artificial fabrics that the Bees, hearing ghosts, could bring themselves to wear.

  The mass of Bees opened up to absorb the Dog Man, to hold him and to warm him. They looked up in unison at Milena and all cocked their heads to one side at once. There were enough of them here to share the burden of consciousness. They all smiled at once in pleasure. They all stepped forward at once, left foot first, towards Milena.

  ‘Help,’ they all said. A thousand voices said it at once. Milena could feel them all in her head, along the Terminal scar. ‘Help. Ma.’

  ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘Tell them,’ said the Bees.

  ‘Tell them what?’ Milena asked.

  ‘Tell them about the lines,’ said one thousand voices with the same intonation.

  Milena paused, imagining what it would be like to be the bearer of news. To tell people that the Bees only felt what the Angels of the Consensus did.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will.’

  ‘Keep well,’ the Bees said, and lifted up their hands palms outward. They meant stay away from us. We need someone who is not a Bee, to speak.

  ‘Flowers,’ the Bees said, and smiled. ‘Flowers of light.’ They all made a gesture together, index finger and thumb clutching an invisible flower, and they all passed it back to her.

  Milena had gone up unknown, and came back famous. To another Earth, and another self as well.

  Milena hardly remembered walking on to the Zoo Cafe. Her mind was churning with the things she had seen. Milena, Milena, she thought, you’ve had a headful of opera for too long. She walked into the Cafe and it was hot, steaming, choking with the smell of coffee.

  ‘Hello, Milena. Milena, hello,’ said people she did not know, who shook her hand. Her luminous hand was still burning bright, and light in ripples shone up under their faces. Milena nodded to them politely, still distracted. She needed to talk to Cilla. Cilla was there somewhere waiting for her.

  Milena stood tamely in line. A fat, sour-faced woman with puffy bags under her eyes was jetting hot water from the boiler over all the knives and forks. Milena watched the cutlery curl into unusual shapes. I’ve done all this, she thought, I have been through all this before. You can’t boil life clean.

  At the end of the line, a skinny man with a moustache waited and watched. His cheeks seemed to have fallen into holes in his face. He passed each person, without asking, a cup of coffee. ‘I don’t want it!’ Milena said to him, sharply. She took a piece of cake and a glass of milk instead. She watched people wash their face and hands in coffee.

  ‘Milena, love!’ exclaimed Milton the Minister, walking towards her. Milena inwardly groaned. But Milton took her by the hand, and drew her to his table. This new Minister was more sociable than the old Zookeeper had been. He was also more impressed by fame. You would not have done this six months ago, thought Milena, not before I went up.

  She greeted the people at the table, coolly, politely. Being slightly Snide was not always socially useful. Milena sensed the flatness of these people. They beamed back at her, pink faced and swollen, calling her by her first name, as if they had known her for some time. It was as if they owned her in some way. They were Vines, social climbers.

  ‘Milton,’ said Milena. ‘There seem to be a lot of sick people no one cares about.’

  ‘Well,’ said Milton, neatly combining a cough with a chuckle. ‘You know what they say about the new strain. 2B or not 2B, that is the question.’ Milton grinned.

  ‘Milton. They are letting sick people die.’

  He adjusted his spectacles, the ones he didn’t need to wear. ‘Uh, well, the official line is that the Doctors are doing what they can for them, and when they die, they burn…’ His hands made a motion. He was clearly trying to think of another joke. ‘Burn what’s left.’

  ‘Oh that does set my mind at rest,’ said Milena. ‘What kills them? The viruses aren’t fatal.’

  ‘But they do need treatment,’ said Milton, still grinning. Why is he smiling? wondered Milena.

  Milton’s girlfriend spoke. Her voice was harsh and raw. She had a pretty smile and cheeks that Milena was sure contained pouches like a squirrel’s. ‘What else can we do? We’ve got to stop it spreading!’

  ‘We can take care of them,’ said Milena, quietly.

  ‘Hiya,’ said a soothing voice behind Milena.

  Milena turned, and there was Cilla, and Milena was grateful to see her.

  ‘Come on, Cill, we’ve got to talk!’

  ‘I’ve saved us a table, Milena,’ said Cilla, still soothing.

  ‘Bavarderons D. Man,’ Milton’s girlfriend called after them. Vampirespeech for ‘talk to you later.’ Along the terminus in her head, Milena could feel that Milton’s girlfriend was relieved that Milena was leaving. Me too, infant, she thought.

  ‘Isn’t it awful?’ said Cilla, as they walked back.

  ‘I’ve just seen a man who’s been taken over by a dog,’ said Milena. ‘He was freezing to death. And do you know
? No one would help him. It took some Bees to carry him off. They saved him, no one else would.’ She paused. ‘One of them was Billy,’ she said.

  ‘This will all be new to you, won’t it?’ said Cilla, sympathetically taking her hand as they sat down at a table.

  ‘Actually, it feels very old. It feels how I used to feel.’

  ‘Do you remember when you used to boil things?’ Cilla said. ‘You melted all my knives and forks. I thought you were crazy.’

  Without thinking, Cilla was reaching across and taking food from Milena’s plate. A bad habit from Cilla’s own days in the Child Garden. Milena watched her do it, and allowed herself to smile as Cilla pressed together crumbs.

  ‘I remember,’ said Cilla, ‘when you used to boil the toilet seats. One night we all hid to catch you at it. You had a kettle in your hand, and there was steam coming out of the toilet bowl, and you said “Oh. I’m just making a cup of tea!”’

  ‘And you said “Funny kind of teapot.”’

  Cilla and Milena were finally friends. It had taken a long time. Milena always found it took her a long time to make friends. She knew that Cilla respected her, and that she had earned the respect. Milena could still not resist praise. Bad habits from the Child Garden.

  ‘Tell me about space,’ said Cilla, firmly changing the subject.

  There was a hush all around them. Both Cilla and Milena were aware of it. Milena was no longer a director of small out-theatre. She was Ma, who had flooded the world with flowers. She was the producer of the Comedy. Cilla was its star, its Virgil. The regulars of the Zoo Cafe were too proud and polite to stare. But the quietness was there, of respect, of animal hierarchy.

  ‘Well. Space is beautiful,’ said Milena. ‘Earth is beautiful. The mountains looked like crumpled paper, but the more you focus on them, the more detail there is. And you can tell, you know, you can see how far down it is. This huge, far distance. And you’re falling. You know you’re always falling. There is a horizon, and you can see the boundary of the air. It is the most beautiful, blue thing.’

  It was like giving Cilla a gift, to tell her this, and tell her this in public. Cilla had a childish delight in being an Animal. Milena more than forgave it. It was one of the reasons she liked her.

  ‘And the hologramming,’ said Cilla. ‘Tell me about that. It was noon here. Low dark clouds. And then it started to rain flowers! And there was that beautiful music! All around us in the air.’

  ‘There was an Angel. He was the lens. He called himself Bob, and he was from London.’

  Milena steeled herself to deliver some news. ‘He’s the one who told me I should be married.’

  Cilla stopped stealing Milena’s cake. ‘And?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to be,’ said Milena, smiling into Cilla’s eyes.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ said Cilla. ‘Really? Oh Milena, that’s a sunny Feb.’ She leaned forward, and kissed Milena on the cheek. ‘Who to?’

  Milena began to smile in spite of herself. ‘Mike Stone,’ she said.

  There had been attempts to make heroes of all the astronauts. There had been public hologrammatic displays. Mike Stone was well known, but he had not become a hero.

  Cilla’s smile began to fade. It almost went sour. ‘Mike…’ her voice trailed off. ‘Ew!’ she exclaimed in pity and horror. She held up a hand for silence. ‘Don’t do it, Milena,’ she said, swallowing cake in a hurry. ‘I know, it must have been beautiful up there alone with a man, any man, looking at the stars…’

  Milena had been longing to see what Cilla’s reaction would be. She knew it would amuse her. ‘The zero-grav toilet was replete with allure as well,’ Milena said, smiling.

  ‘Can I speak frankly?’ Cilla asked.

  ‘Cill, I’ve never known you do anything else.’

  ‘What you need is a tooch knave.’ Tooch meant sexy. Knave meant wild boy and was pronounced ‘kenabva.’ Cilla leaned forward, and spoke in a low murmur that could not be heard by anyone else around them. The only thing that would be heard was the general message that a very serious, important heart-to-heart was being had in public.

  ‘Now that you’re back, take a look at the Zoo Beauties. Any of them, Milena, has got to be better than Mike Stone. He makes me feel sick. He looks like he’s got a broom stuck up his arse all the way to the top of his neck. He can’t talk. He just sits there like somebody’s wound him up too tight.’

  ‘All of this,’ said Milena, ‘is true.’

  Cilla’s expression became deeply pained. ‘I know,’ she said, and closed her eyes with pity. ‘I know. Men have not been good to you. They have looked right through you…’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Milena.

  ‘But don’t throw yourself away on the first one who pays you any attention. Am I offending you?’

  Cilla, dear heart, anyone else in the world would have smacked you in the choppers by now. Milena’s face was split wide with a grin, and she felt like roaring with laughter. She shook her head to mean no.

  ‘Then why are you smiling?’ said Cilla wisely, sadly. ‘I always know, Milena. You always mask your pain with a smile.’

  Milena finally laughed out loud. She clasped Cilla’s hand.

  ‘I’m marrying him,’ she said, ‘because I have absolutely no intention of marrying anyone at all.’

  Milena was learning how to be honest. Honestly deceitful? Or just too damn inflated to care?

  She looked back at Cilla, smiling, tougher than she had been.

  ‘I have no intention of marrying anybody, but the Consensus would like a nice story. So. It’s going to get one. Marriage of the astronauts. Romance in the stars.’

  ‘You’re going to give away the best part of yourself,’ said Cilla in the weak voice of truth.

  ‘I gave that away a long time ago to someone else,’ said Milena, also truthfully.

  ‘Any hope?’ Cilla asked. She really was, when reality bit, a friend. The reasons did not matter.

  ‘No,’ said Milena and shook her head. ‘But it’s nice to know that somebody knows. That you know.’

  A long pause. ‘It was Rolfa, wasn’t it?’ said Cilla.

  Well what do you know? Milena nodded. Yup. Yes. Pretty good, Cilla. ‘Do you mind?’ Milena asked.

  ‘Mind what? About you being sexually drawn to a member of the same sex, but a different species? Why would I mind that?’ Cilla was not on the firmest of ground at this point. Her delivery wobbled. ‘No. No. No, I don’t mind. It puts a lot of things into perspective. But I must make plain that my interests do not lie along similar lines.’ She coughed, and tried to take a sip of coffee and missed, hitting her teeth with the edge of the cup.

  Cilla had not really wanted to know the truth. She had been ambushed by her more honest self.

  ‘I really wish you weren’t,’ she said, in a mournful rush.

  ‘Because it spoils the story?’ Milena asked, lightly.

  ‘Because I’ll always be wondering if you’re sexually attracted to me,’ she lifted the cup up again, thought better of it, let it drop.

  ‘Cilla. I think of you as my best friend. But I am not sexually attracted to you. Ask yourself this question. Am I Milena’s type? Am I two and a half metres tall and covered in fur?’

  ‘Now you’re making fun of me.’

  ‘No I’m not, Cill.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me!’ Cilla demanded, angry and heartstricken at the same moment. ‘Now I feel as if I don’t know you, just when I thought I finally did.’

  To Milena’s mingled horror and amusement, Cilla began to weep. A huge fat tear slid down her face like melting ice cream. ‘Am I a ludicrous person?’ she asked suddenly, in all sincerity.

  ‘No. Why would I think that?’

  ‘Because you’re smiling again.’ Cilla had been made suddenly self-aware by the shock of the truth. She was not used to being self-conscious and was not very good at it. Her hands were all of a jumble. ‘Why haven’t you been cured? I thought they took sick people like you and cured
them.’

  ‘There’s a reason for that,’ said Milena.

  Cilla realised what she had just said and her eyes closed with shame. ‘Milena. I want you to know I did not mean that the way it sounded.’

  ‘The reason I have not been Read,’ said Milena, holding to the point, ‘is that the Consensus knows perfectly well what I am, and has decided not to Read me. Because it has a use for me as I am.’

  Cilla paused. ‘Is that what Bob says?’

  God, she’s bright.

  ‘How can you say you don’t know me,’ said Milena. ‘When you have everything worked out?’

  ‘Because I can never be sure if it’s me that’s talking or one of my characters. Occupational hazard.’

  And a bloody fine actress too.

  ‘I always catch myself repeating my lines as if I’d just thought of them myself.’ Cilla took a swig of cold coffee and made a face at it. ‘Does Mike know he’s being used as a cover?’

  A flash of steel in there somewhere too. I really do like you, Cilla, very much.

  ‘He wants the beautiful story too,’ said Milena. ‘For him, the story is the reality. I said no a hundred times. I said I am not interested a hundred times. He didn’t even hear. He just kept on acting as if we were courting.’

  ‘Yuck,’ said Cilla.

  ‘I said that, too. But after a while, I began to think he was a kind of daffy. Deep down daffy.’

  ‘Is that why you like me?’

  ‘Only partly. Don’t worry, Cill. I’ve thought about this a lot. I think it’s the right thing to do.’

  Cilla reached across and took more of Milena’s cake. It was made of slump protein and carrots. Milena rescued her glass of what was officially known as milk. People sometimes called it Seepage.

  Cilla seemed to be mulling over the cake. ‘Do you know you’re going to be made a People’s Artist?’

  ‘What?’ Milena’s breath caught.

  ‘Well, they’ve got to do it. They’re investing more in the Comedy than just about anything else. Not just the British Consensus, but the European Consensus. They can’t do that for any old Vampire. Of course they’ve got to make you a People’s Artist.’