Geoff Ryman - The Child Garden

— singing to us in the blue blue sea — history alive in your ear singing like the wind on the ice — we ud go swimming up the innards of an iceberg like a smooth glassy cheese all full of holes and glossy light — light going up the cracks, catching in the bubbles and strange dead creatures froze right in the middle of it — fish, i was young — i was young for years fore i met my husband — had rolfa when i was 40 years old — thats how late i left it all that domestic stuff — the wallpaper the curtains the dishes the carpets and the four four walls

HELL FISH

they want me back in London — so I can be old — they want me to

shed the ice like snakeskin — they want me to lose the cold — lose the stars — lose the fire — i could trek baby and blast — they want me still not moving not hearing

it dont matter being deaf down here home in the cold — theres my dogs — they fetch for me — theres the sun on the ice and the fresh air — theres the post coming to bring letters and to talk

being deaf in south ken means being shut in with a little shivering squidge who thinks your going to eat her — im deaf fish and i cant walk — broken hip and joints that have ground to a halt — i have to crawl my cold little fish — so theyll ship me home like walrus meat — theyll fix my joints sure — and then say i got to stay in south ken till theres nothing left of me — just some old animated rug barely talking just reaching up for her little tipple with a hand that shakes — some old withered dam rotting like leaf mould just able to lift her head — with no light no sound no dance no cold no warm — nothing where we all head fish — where we all head and ive arrived here so heres what im going to do — im going to crawl — im going to crawl out onto that ice in the night — ill roll over and look up at the stars — i know cold honey — it settles slow — you just go to sleep — im going to go to sleep looking at those stars — by the time you get this fish ill be long gone

love is a torch you pass it on — tried to give it to my baby — my great singing lump of a kid — opera hell i hate opera — where ud she get it from ?????? just herself — love is a torch and you pass it on like someone passed it to you fish — you never told me about your mama but she must have loved you — or someone must have — so you loved rolfa rolfa loved you — you just dug your heels in — me too kid — this is happy — this is some old dam digging her heels in — into the ice — dont be sad this is the best

love

Present tense, still present, still tense:

When?

This is me, packing for outer space. I’m running around my lacquered rooms with a tremor in my belly. I’m still afraid of Thrawn, of space, of The Comedy.

I’m worrying about my house plants. Who can I give them to who will not kill them with over-watering, or kill them with neglect? I am worrying over a potted plant of basil, which I use in cooking, and a hydrangea. This is my main concern at the moment, the chewing gum my conscious mind is recycling over and over until all savour of it is gone.

There is a knock on the sliding panels on my Tarty flat. They rattle in their runners. Is it Thrawn? I am Terminal, I am Terminal, I tell myself, and I throw back the sliding screens, one after another, through the Dead Space that insulates. I pull back the screens, and before I recognise who it is, I feel a band of muscle pull tightly across my chest.

Rolfa standing in my doorway.

She is covered in fur again, and wears virulently coloured clothes. ‘Hullo.’ she says. ‘No trouble to go away and come back if I’m interrupting.’

Why now? That is the director’s reaction. Yes, I would like to see you, yes I have been meaning to see you, but now is not a good time. Milena runs a distracted hand across her head.

Well Milena, you have now successfully communicated that it is a tremendous inconvenience, but that you are going to make the most forced effort to be gracious.

‘Just, just packing,’ says Milena, stiff smile, closed eyes, angry little shakings of the head.

Perhaps understandably, Rolfa makes no reply.

‘How are you, Rolfa?’

‘Oh. Not so dusty. Got to keep moving, you know. I won’t stay long.’

Milena the director is relieved. Mentally she is calculating how long she has to pack.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ says Milena.

‘But,’ says Rolfa, supplying the qualification. She is hunched under the arched and lacquered ceilings. She makes the Tarty flat look like the kind of toy you give to a spoiled child. Rolfa is hunched and covered in fur, and she wears a brightly-printed shirt, brightly printed shorts, clean white tennis shoes and a rather rakish hat. It is a man’s hat. She still looks uncomfortable, awkward. My God, she reminds me of Mike.

‘Tea?’ Milena offers. Milena has forgotten to ask her in.

‘Beer? Whisky? Gin would suffice, if you had some lemon.’ Rolfa shuffles her feet, wiping them on the mat. Her shoes are huge and white and very clean. ‘And just a little morsel to munch, if you could see your way to finding it.’ Rolfa ducks inside the door and, rather awkwardly, removes her hat. Politesse. She strokes the short, bristly crew cut on the top of her head. ‘Needing sustenance. Long boat trip. My God, why did you move all the way out here?’

Milena doesn’t want to answer. She would have to tell Rolfa about Thrawn. ‘I like the Slump,’ she says. ‘Sorry, but I’m going away, and the only thing I have in the place is tea.’

‘Ah well. That at least hasn’t changed.’

Both of them stand looking at each other. Milena moves first, vaguely walking in the direction of the beanbags. After a step or two forward, Rolfa vaguely stays where she is, near the door.

‘You ah, you know that we’re doing a production of the Comedy?’ says Milena. It is possible that Rolfa hasn’t heard. No one at the Zoo has seen or heard of Rolfa for two years.

‘Oh yes,’ says Rolfa. ‘Something about space.’

Is that all you have to say? thinks Milena the director. Did I really get obsessed with this person? She tries to laugh, but it sounds more like a cough.

‘It’s going to be a rather major production,’ says the director.

‘Golly,’ says Rolfa. She says it coldly, plonking the word down as if it were a brick. She communicates quite effectively that she is not impressed. Rolfa has become sharper. There is an edge to her.

‘Well,’ says Milena. ‘They’re sending me up on the Bulge, to try out the lighting.’ Usually people brighten when told this, relieved to be able to ask a string of questions that will have interesting answers. Milena realises immediately, is a tactical conversational error. Rolfa is not brightening with interest.

‘I’m going to Antarctica,’ Rolfa says.

‘Oh,’ says Milena, brought up short.

‘Good for business. Need the experience if I’m to get on. Thought you might like to know, anyway,’ says Rolfa and begins the process of turning around in the cramped space. She is turning around to leave.

‘Rolfa. Wait! Antarctica?’

Rolfa looks over her shoulder. ‘Seems like the best place for me.’

‘But what about your music?’

‘Don’t have any music,’ says Rolfa. ‘Poof! Gone.’

‘Your singing!’

‘My dear woman,’ says Rolfa. That’s it, the gentleness has gone because the sexual attraction has gone, perhaps even been soured. Perhaps to block it, they turn it to distaste. ‘Do you sincerely believe that they are going to cast me as, say, Desdemona in Otello? Or a delicate Chinese heroine in a classical Beijing piece perhaps? Now if there was an opera called David and Goliath in which the part of Goliath had been written for a soprano, perhaps I would have something that could be part of my regular repertoire. Otherwise…’ Another raising up of the hands, and a smile. ‘Nothing.’