Geoff Ryman - The Child Garden

‘Here, we go, fleas and all,’ said Rolfa and sat cross-legged on the bed and began to munch. The bed, thought Milena, will be full of crumbs and smell of fish for weeks. She didn’t mind.

In the morning, Milena got up and went to rehearsals. She left Rolfa reading one of the torn books. As she went down the stairs and walked along the pavements that reflected the low morning sun, the thought that Rolfa would be in the room when she got back was like a hand-warmer. People carried them in winter, little boxes in which an ember of charcoal smouldered. She didn’t even mind going to Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Inside the bare rehearsal hall, there was an air of high excitement.

‘Oh Milena, you missed it!’ said one of the Princess’s ladies. She and Milena did not normally speak.

‘Missed what?’

‘Oh!’ said the actress, wondering where to begin. ‘We’re not doing the old production any more, we’re doing a new one, our own.’

The director came in. He looked feverish, eyes glistening. Milena thought he might be unwell. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘All ready for the Birth of the New, Part Two. Milena. You weren’t here yesterday. We’re going to do Dull’s first scene. Now.’

Brisk, brisk, thought Milena, what’s got into him? She did Dull as she always did him, but now each time that she spoke there were affectionate chuckles from the cast.’

‘You see what I mean?’ the director said.

‘Dull’s not dumb, he’s smart,’ said Berowne.

What is going on? wondered Milena. They liked my Dull?

And Milena felt a kind of giddiness.

I know this feeling, she thought. I think I know this feeling from childhood. There’s something new, and you don’t understand it, and so there is confusion.

It was the strangest feeling. It was as if Milena were standing at the end of a long, dark corridor. Far down at the other end, someone was talking, but the words were echoing from so far back, were so scattered by echoing, that they made no sense. The person who was speaking from so far back was Milena herself.

It was a scrap of memory. I’m trying to remember something, she thought.

‘Right,’ said the director. ‘Back to Armado and Mote.’ He peremptorily clapped his hands. The cast bustled into place. Milena felt as if she had been awakened from a dream.

I really don’t remember any of it at all. Any of it. Being a child. It’s all gone. Except for very early on.

Something destroyed my childhood.

The play began again.

Out of costume, wearing street clothes, Armado and the boy called Mote entered.

From the first word of the performance, Milena thought: it’s all different.

In the original production which the cast had so hated imitating, Armado was a braggart, arch and florid and wearing a hat full of feathers. The boy Mote imitated him. The boy was arch and florid as well. He was going to become like his master.

It was a subtlety of performance that was beyond these young actors. What this Mote had was innocence. Mote had been allowed to become a child again. He was full of joy. He danced with the joy of the words.

‘…but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary it to your feet…’ he said, swaying with each syllable.

When he was done, the cast applauded him.

‘It’s the words,’ he said shyly. ‘They’re virulent.’

They worked long into the afternoon, utterly without realising it. Time had ceased to be a problem for them. Time became something delicious, the medium in which the words and the performances swam. It’s alive, thought Milena. It’s all become alive. She watched as performance after performance fell into place.

The Princess of the play was less superior now, more wary and confused. The King was less of a fool and more a good and quiet man. For the first time, you could believe that they would love each other. As the cast watched each other, all of them squirmed with delight. The whole damn play, thought Milena. It’s like some huge wriggling fish. This is what it’s supposed to be like.

It was late afternoon when they were done, and they burst out of the rehearsal rooms, throwing back the doors. They marched out of the room together, elated, their hands on the shoulders, on the neck, around the waist of their director.

‘Who needs Animals anyway?’ said Berowne. ‘We’re all Animals!’ They walked back to the Shell in a mob, telling each other excitedly how good they had been.

‘You do realise what this means,’ said Milena. ‘It means we’re doing all the plays the wrong way. They should all be like this.’

‘Ulp,’ said the King, covering his mouth and swallowing in mock alarm.

‘So what do we do next?’ Milena asked.

‘Anything we want’ said Berowne.

And as they kissed each other on the cheek, dispersing to their rooms, and as Milena climbed the stairs, silent among a few other cast members who lived in her section of the Shell, Milena felt she had some news. She could feel the news ripen in her like a heavy fruit about to drop. The news had been ripened by the knowledge that Milena had someone to tell it to. She had Rolfa.

Everything is happening all at once, she thought. She was aware that her life had taken wing.

When Milena got back to her room, Jacob was waiting for her. He stood up from the bed and said, ‘Someone’s been hunting for you. You and Rolfa.’

‘A Snide,’ said Rolfa, leaning back on the bed, looking pleased. ‘Papa would have hired him.’

‘A tall, thin man,’ said Jacob. ‘I told him no one of your name lived here.’

Milena listened to the silence in the room. Snides had viruses that helped them sneak and search.

‘They can hear thoughts,’ she whispered in fear.

‘Not exactly,’ said Jacob, with a sideways grin. ‘It’s not like that.’

The air seemed to prickle. ‘What is it like?’ Milena asked quietly. You know, don’t you Jacob?

Still the angelic smile. ‘You catch thoughts. You see things. You feel things in your head. They are very difficult to understand. If you are with many people, the thoughts are jumbled. Milena, you must stay with people.’

So I can still be part of the play.

‘What if he finds me alone?’

Jacob still smiled. ‘You are many people, Milena. The viruses come from many people. Let them talk for you. Let them recite your lines. Let them add up things. Let them read books. You won’t be traced. All these things are not personal.’

‘And Rolfa? She’s here all alone.’

Hood-eyed, Jacob turned, smiling to Rolfa. ‘Oh, Rolfa, her thoughts are not personal.’

So Postpeople are Snides as well. What, wondered Milena, are Postpeople for?

‘We better change rooms,’ said Milena.

Jacob nodded. Rolfa lay on the bed as if none of it mattered.

Milena went to Cilia. ‘We’ve got to trade rooms,’ she told her.

‘Drop anchor. Hold. Why?’ Cilia asked. She was told the story and was thrilled. ‘Right. Right away,’ she said. ‘We move.’

‘A new room?’ Rolfa beamed, and jumped up from the floor. There was a bustling of bags. Rolfa kept cheerfully hitting her head on the lintels of doorways. The beds, the cookers, the pans, the armfuls of paper, were all exchanged in less than an hour.

‘I’ll go buy us all supper. See you,’ promised Cilia.

The new room was even smaller and did not have a view of the river. After the excitement of the move and of being hunted, Rolfa sat staring, disgruntled and pouting.

‘There’s no space,’ she said.

‘There’s space enough. We got everything in.’

‘There’s no space for a piano.’

For a piano?

Rolfa, how much money do you have? Enough to keep you in food for a month? How much money do you think I have? Milena had to tell her that life would be different now. Rolfa would have to live the cramped and constricted life of a human being.