The Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  With a wrench and a jostle, Milena felt herself hoisted into the black loading bay. She felt tiny clicks in her spine, as bolts were slid through the supports of the litter, into the floor of the craft, as she was strapped in. The blades overhead began to beat more loudly.

  In defeat the Bees began to chant, a chant they had surrendered to silence with Milena’s promise to be with them. Now that she was going, they sang it again.

  Milena Shibush

  Shibush Shibush

  Shibush Cancer

  Milena Cancer

  Cancer Cancer

  Very suddenly, the helicopter left the ground, leaning forward, wafting upwards over the roof of the Tarty flats.

  Cancer Flower

  Flower Cancer

  And old Lucy was singing too:

  cosi queste parole segna a vivi

  del viver ch’e un correre a la morte

  so teach them, to those who live

  the life that is a race towards death

  The roofs of the flats were in slated pinnacles like bare mountains. The sky was full of light, light glowing in the leaves of Eden. The roofs fell away as Rolfa’s music glinted like the light, sparkling, cool music for paradise and the rivers of paradise. The helicopter turned, slanting, and Milena saw far below her the river of London, old Father Thames.

  She saw the garden of her life, whole. She saw the Shell, like a series of building blocks, two great wings open in an embrace, with walkways between them, the walkways she had beaten back and forth at such a pace. She saw the Zoo, held up by bamboo, and the steps of the Zoo where she and Rolfa met for lunch and the park on the embankment where they had eaten.

  The Cut was gone. The old buildings had finally been torn down, made into rubble. They were growing again in cauliflower shapes of Coral, hard against the old brick bridge. Leake Street was now closed at one end. Everything changes. The Cut was closed and dark, but the old railway bridge was lit and full of traffic. Milena saw the Hungerford Bridge, where she had stood with Berowne to see the lights come back on. It was crowded with people now, looking up, as if at her, as if she was still down there among them. The same lights still hung in a line along the embankment, making the river glow yellow and green. The whole city flickered green, from the light in the sky, from the Comedy.

  Milena looked up too, and the garden in the sky was the same as the garden below. Lucy and Dante walked together out of the chasms of light that was Archbishop’s Park.

  They walked past Virgil Street, encased in brick. And from somewhere came a ghostly, floating voice. It was Rolfa’s voice singing out memory, singing on the night when Milena had tried to find her, after the Day of the Dogs.

  Beatrice and Dante alluded to their old love. Dante sang:

  Si come cera da guggello…

  Even as wax under the seal that

  does not change the imprinted figure,

  my brain is now stamped by you.

  Rolfa kept singing without words. Her voice would now not leave the rest of the opera, hoarse and enraged, echoing out of Virgil Street. On the Day of the Dogs, Rolfa had been singing the end of the last Canto, alone in the dark.

  Elsewhere in the Comedy, Dante was saying that he could not remember that he ever estranged himself from Beatrice or the conscience of having wronged her.

  The viruses will know what that means, thought Milena.

  He has drunk the waters of Lethe and has forgotten all the wrong he did in life.

  He doesn’t remember losing Beatrice. That means losing Beatrice was a sin.

  Like my not speaking to Rolfa. Like my not loving her. Milena’s hands were stroking something soft and spilled. Piglet was still in her lap.

  And outside the helicopter, on a level with it, were the black balloons that went up from Waterloo Bridge. They were swollen and singing gently to themselves the music they heard. The light reflected on their hides. Faces from memory flickered on their surface.

  And the music walked through an Eden that was made of old brick. It spoke of life in the stone, in the ground, in the air. Air moved like the trees and the grass; brick was as solid as stone. It was fulgent and fragrant; even in old London, wafting with history. Touches of minor keys and discords made it disturbing, pained. Odd sour notes glinted like light on falling leaves. The music became an eerie dance, as if, unseen, the Garden was dancing to itself, by itself. The dance was lost to us.

  Beatrice and Dante walked across Westminster Bridge Road and into the Cut: the Cut that no longer existed, the Cut in the Summer of Song. There were all the old familiar faces; the boy with the Hogarth face; the slim clothseller and his pretty wife; the seller of mirror lenses. They were a chorus. For the first time, the narrative was sung. They sung about the sun at the meridian, noon on the heights of Purgatory.

  In this Comedy, the Pit, the sink of Hell and the heights of the mountain were the same place. Eden and all the other circles up and down overlapped each other in layers, in a world of layers.

  Is that plain enough? wondered Milena. Will they understand this Low and earthbound Comedy of mine?

  Could I have done Heaven like this, Paradiso? Could I have found heaven on Earth as well? Who will finish the Comedy? Should anyone finish it, or should it exist only in the pages of Rolfa’s book?

  Then she thought of little Berry, who sang. He had sung the music of the Comedy before he could speak, as he lay helpless in Milena’s rooms. As if a sword had been jammed into her throat, Milena had the metal taste of certainty. It would be Berry, little Berry. He would finish the Comedy. He would keep it alive. She seemed to see herself passing it to him. What she passed to him was its smallness not its grandness: The Comedy was the size of a flower.

  She felt herself flush with light. Her whole skin blazed with it. It illuminated the inside of the helicopter. It shone through the open door. The people below saw her in the sky overhead: light in the shape of a woman. There was a roar from below.

  A weight was taken off her. The helicopter began to descend.

  Beside the loading bay there were suddenly thick, purple leaves, flapping like great wings and bowing away from her. In the forest of the Consensus, Milena looked up. She saw Dante and Beatrice come out of Leake Street and walk towards the river. The chorus sang of the seven ladies stopping in cool shade. Dante and Beatrice walked into the shadow of the Shell.

  The leaves of the Consensus applauded. Milena heard shouts from below, and the helicopter descended into a forest of hands beneath the forest.

  More Garda dancing, flicking up bolts, sliding her from the helicopter. All around them, Singers were singing, Bees were chanting. ‘Give use the disease, Milena. Milena the disease!’ Someone was licking her hand, to become ill. The stretcher was turned around and Milena saw people in the windows of Marsham Street. There were people on the steps and under the fleshy trees. The people roared. Flowers were cast over her. They fell like rain, human flowers, real flowers.

  What a fuss, she thought, what a fuss to make over a second-rate director. But she knew it was the conjunction of the cancer and the Comedy, both together.

  Overhead Dante walked the banks of the River Thames. By Hungerford Footbridge he climbed down steps, wading into the water. The River Thames flowed like history. The Thames was now the River Eunoe, that restores the memory of the good a soul has down in life, its labours of love.

  Below, in Marsham Street, the Singers began to sing one of Rolfa’s songs. The Bees joined in, unable to resist. They all began to sing in Dog Latin, as the lips of the Consensus parted, and its mouth opened amid its own forest.

  Modicum, et non videbitis me;

  Et iterum

  sorelle mi dilette

  modicum et vos videbitis me.

  A little while and ye shall not see me,

  And again a little while and you shall see me.

  Oh no, you won’t, thought Milena. Then over all the other voices, she heard one other voice begin to sing.

  Just a dog of a song

&nbs
p; Just a dog of a song

  Ambling gently along

  With no bad feelings no ill will

  The voice was weak and distant. Who is singing? thought Milena. She was too weak to turn her head to see. Then she realised: she was the one who was singing. She was singing something from the old London that was gone, nothing to do with the chants and the sound of the grand opera overhead. She was singing for the Spread-Eagle and the street markets and the men unloading beer barrels and the starlings who lived in the trees and the crumbling buildings and the fringed and heavy feet of the carthorses and for the children who peddled coffee: for the children, for Berry, and for the very old people they would now turn into.

  And it doesn’t know how to end

  And it’s so hard when you lose a friend

  Just a dog of a song

  But

  Milena felt the bier wobble as she was carried onto the tongue of the Consensus. She looked up through the fleshy trees and the tangle of leaves to the sky, where the light played. All the world seemed to be submerged in water, clear and full of bubbles that looked like pearls. The water of Eunoe, memory. Rolfa’s music gathered for a final blow. This is the last I’ll see of Comedy, thought Milena. Yet it was not the Comedy, or her great position or the Zoo or this circus that Milena would miss.

  We all sing along

  But

  We all sing along

  The living tongue of the Consensus cradled them, and bore them all down into itself, and the sound and the light were lost.

  But the silence remained.

  chapter twenty

  WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? (AN ORCHESTRA OF GHOSTS)

  Inside the white brick corridors all the children had gone. The Reading Rooms were empty; no children sang; there was no sound of guitars or bells. There was only the muffled sound of the Comedy above and the harsh glow of the bare electric light.

  Milena was lowered to the floor. She could smell dust. Mike was lowered next to her, on his sling chair. There were flowers in his lap, flowers that had been thrown over him. As he leaned forward over Milena’s bier the flowers spilled onto the floor.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked gently.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she answered.

  I am in no pain. Everything swirls, everything dances, and still I cannot believe. I still cannot believe that this is happening, that I am dying.

  ‘They’re going to make you part of the Upper House,’ Mike told her quietly. ‘Do you know what that means?’

  Milena knew what it meant and she did not want it so she shook her head. Mike thought she meant she had not understood.

  ‘It means they keep the pattern,’ he said. ‘The pattern they Read. They save it to consult it. It means after you die, you are still part of the Consensus.’

  ‘It means,’ croaked Milena, and began to laugh, ‘they need me for something.’ The laugh as shrivelling inwards from the chest, as if in a coughing fit. ‘I wonder what happens to the Lower House?’ It was a rhetorical question—Milena knew the answer. Mike Stone shrugged, to indicate he had no idea. ‘They get wiped,’ Milena told him. ‘Wiped clean away.’

  The rustle of the white dress, the buttocks. Milena smiled and shook her head. Here was Root.

  ‘Any experiences with the paranormal, Mr Stone?’ Root murmured the question, not wanting to disturb Milena.

  Only my entire life, thought Milena. Only a performance on a cube that should not have been there from a woman who cannot die. Only a plate of lamb that should not have been there. Only London. Only an enemy who shivered and danced inside my eyes. Only Angels and Cherubim who talked to me through wires, the wires of gravity.

  ‘Now it will just be a few seconds longer and we’ll be ready,’ said Root, folded into herself by sadness. But Root could not stay closed up for long, and suddenly her face blossomed out into its great grin. ‘How are you my love?’ Root asked, picking up Milena’s hand. ‘How are you my darling?’

  The great grin was enough to make Milena smile back. ‘Not too well,’ she said.

  ‘You been here before so you know what happens next, don’t you?’ said Root.

  ‘Yes,’ lied Milena.

  ‘You’ll see everything, all at once, your whole life.’

  Like drowning men do. ‘No time like the present,’ said Milena. There was no time left but the present.

  ‘I got things wrong, didn’t I?’ said Root. There had been no cure.

  ‘Yup,’ said Milena. No denying it.

  ‘But you’ll live forever, here,’ said Root, and held up her hand, to indicate the Consensus, all about them.

  I’ll never be free of the Consensus.

  ‘And here,’ said Root, and touched her own heart.

  But not here, thought Milena, of the flesh in which she lay, on the brick floor. ‘I want to be free,’ whispered Milena.

  Root looked at her out of love and pity. Such a hope could only lead to pain and disappointment. ‘Then maybe you will be,’ she said, falsely, and touched Milena’s hand. ‘I’ll be back.’ She stood up, and rustled away.

  Mike pulled himself out of the sling-chair and crawled towards Milena on all fours.

  Like the opera in the sky, Mike leaned over her.

  ‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ Mike said. ‘I caught a virus from you. A receptor turned transmitter. I caught you. Do you understand? I have you in my mind. Like you have Heather.’

  How very strange. It’s as if I’m shedding myself all over the place, like leaves. ‘So that’s how you know about Heather,’ murmured Milena. ‘That’s how you knew about the tapestry.’ The weakness of her voice surprised her.

  Mike nodded.

  ‘Heather’s not going to die!’ said Milena. She was relieved and happy: Heather won’t be destroyed with me! ‘Say hello to her for me,’ she said. ‘And tell Al, will you? Let him come and talk to her.’

  ‘I know about them,’ said Mike. ‘I know about Rolfa, too. I know everything now.’ He pointed to his temples. ‘So you don’t have to worry about me. If you are worried about me. Tuh.’ The shudder-chuckle. Mike Stone shook with Rolfa’s shudder-chuckle. ‘I won’t be alone. I’ll still have you to talk to. I’ll tell the child about you, all about you. And you’ll be able to talk to it. Through me.’ In all innocence, he was smiling. ‘It’s what I said when I first told you I wanted to have the baby. No harm can come, I said. And it’s true. You see? It’s true.’

  On his hands and knees, he lowered himself and kissed her on the forehead. Milena managed to encircle his neck with one thin arm. ‘I love you,’ said Milena. It was the first time she had said it.

  His smile did not change. It was still happy. The eyes did not soften or lose honesty. ‘Yes, I suppose you do. In your own way,’ he said.

  The hot hard lump on Milena’s shoulder seemed to ripen. It burst.

  ‘Ow,’ said Milena, rather mildly, feeling it. There were ragged edges of flesh. The tips of her fingers came away wet, but not with blood. She looked at them. On the tips of her fingers there was clear sap.

  ‘Oh, Milena,’ said Mike Stone, and pulled something from her.

  It was a rose, a human rose.

  ‘It’s a tumour,’ said Milena. ‘That means it’s immortal. Plant it and it will never die.’

  There were other rupturings. Something seemed to fall into the sleeve of her smock. She shook it, and smeared with blood, a snapping turtle crawled out onto the floor. Milena was giving birth to memories.

  Her stomach creaked like leather. It creaked and opened up. Something stirred, and Milena lifted up her smock.

  There was something new.

  It was smooth and pink and had a long extended nose and drooping ears. On Milena’s lap there was the spilled and broken doll of Piglet. As if stepping out of him, shedding old dead skin, there was a new Piglet. He was alive. He looked about him in fear and wonder. Mike Stone reached down and took his hand.

  ‘Hello, Piglet,’ he murmured kindly. Dazed, Piglet stepped down from Milena.
r />   There was a rustle of skirts.

  ‘For the love of heaven,’ murmured Root. Piglet stared up at her and cocked his head in curiosity.

  ‘They’re all getting out while they can,’ said Milena.

  Root was shaking her head again and again. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’ She turned and walked towards the Reading Room.

  Is this happening now? wondered the Milena who remembered. Or is this a few moments ago? Has this already happened? I can’t remember. Am I the one who is living, or the one who is remembering?

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Mike, as other hands came to help. The litter was raised. Mike had to let go of Milena. He cradled up the snapping turtle and Piglet. Piglet carried the rose. All of them were carried in the sling chair. They went ahead of Milena, through the ultra-violet, light along the accordion corridor, in to the Public Reading Room.

  In the room there was a tall man in white, his face behind a clear plastic mask.

  ‘How much more virus?’ he asked, disapproving. ‘You all ought to be in whites.’

  He was a Doctor. Doctors were the highest Estate of all. They supervised the Health Regime. They tended the Consensus.

  ‘And what the hell is that?’ the Doctor asked, pointing to Piglet.

  ‘New…’ said Mike Stone, and couldn’t speak. ‘New life,’ he said.

  Vita Nuova, whispered a voice from elsewhere.

  ‘It’s been ultra-violeted,’ said Root to the Doctor. Her hand was on Mike’s shoulder. ‘Mike, love,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to come away now. Come away, or we get two readings mixed up together and that’s very weird.’

  ‘We’re already mixed,’ he said, his voice strained.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Mike,’ said Milena.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It will.’ He turned around and leaned over. She had never seen his face like that before. It was twisted, pulled in many directions at once. He looked at her face, looked over all of it. He’s looking at me to remember, she thought. He’s looking at it to remember me. Root’s dark, reassuring, reminding hand on his shoulder pulled gently backwards. He turned and crawled away.