Geoff Ryman - The Child Garden

But even that was taken away, the knowledge, the memory. And you would have to start again, dead, exhausted, climbing up the weary steps.

Good morning, Milena.

Good morning, Jacob.

And how are you today, Milena?

Fine, Jacob, fine.

Lovely weather, isn’t it Milena?

Not really Jacob. A bit cold.

Oh yes, it’s cold, but it’s warm too, Milena.

Do you have any messages for me, Milena?

Do you have any messages for me, Milena?

Do you have any messages for me, Milena?

Only one Jacob, only one. That you deserved better. You did not deserve to end up here like a sack of garbage in worn-through shoes and one old suit dying alone with no one to see, and that we cannot make it up to you and the flowers on the grave will not be seen by you. And if that’s the meaning, Jacob, if that’s all the meaning I can get then I should bloody well try. Bloody well try again. Because if that’s all there is then a mistake has been made, and the mistake is mine.

Milena remembering still had the crucifix, here, now, she could feel it, in her hand.

Ready to pass on.

And there was Mike, moving like clockwork, back erect, lighting candles in their home, their home together, amid the smell of food that he had cooked, against a window showing the slate-grey marsh, and the black reflection of clouds of smoke drifting over it, smoke from the cremation of the dead.

‘What?’ said Milena, easily amused, at least by him. ‘All this? What? Tell me?’

Mike’s thin lips turned all the way inward, fighting down a smile. He made her sit, and made her begin to eat, and poured her some wine, and then sat down.

‘Milly,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking. We should have children.’

Oh. Milena set her fork back down on the table. ‘Well you go have them, then.’

Breezy, everything was so simple and breezy back then.

‘That’s my idea,’ said Mike Stone. ‘I thought that since you’re busy and don’t like sex, you could donate an ovum, and I could donate a sperm cell and we could affix the result to the wall of my bowel.’

‘You make it sound like a recipe,’ said Milena sitting forward, suddenly disturbed. ‘No Mike,’ she said.

‘I’d like to do it very much. It makes sense.’ Milena remembered his daffy, trusting eyes.

‘It’s very dangerous,’ said Milena.

‘So’s going up in space. I’d rather do this. I’d find it more interesting.’

Mike. Why are you so… so… nice? It isn’t good for people to be nice. What if I make you bend too far? You won’t know and neither will I. Until it’s too late.

‘I had a friend, Mike.’

‘I know. Berowne. You told me.’

‘He was nice and brave too, Mike. The placenta came away just afterwards. He bled to death. The blood hit the ceiling. And there was this baby left.’

Milena was surprised by feeling, thinking of the infant. ‘It hadn’t been part of the deal. Berowne was supposed to take care of the baby. And Anna didn’t want him, couldn’t look at him at first, not until Peterpaul came along to help. So there were three lives ruined. No, Mike, no.’

‘It’s what I want to do,’ he said. ‘I’ve been consulting people. I’ve thought about all sorts of new ways to protect myself. And other people who do the same thing.’

‘Yes and everyone thinks he is the one who is going to get through it, and for what?’

‘For a beautiful new baby.’

‘I’m not taking the responsibility. I’ve been through it all before. You think Berowne went around swinging from trees? He made it, he made it all the way through to delivery and out the other side, but they couldn’t keep the placenta down. One good shove, and out it came and he was dead, dead in seconds, all the blood just pumped out of him.’

‘There are stitch viruses. They can give me a stitch virus which will meld the placenta, hold it to me.’

‘Please. I told you, I’m scared. I’m scared to death of all this biology. We’re going to get something else wrong soon.’

‘That’s a different issue to my being pregnant.’

‘I’m immune to it all. I don’t have to worry. But you’re not. What if these stitch viruses keep on stitching?’

‘They don’t,’ he said, unafraid. ‘They’re safe behind Candy.’

Milena sighed and shook her head. He was right, they were getting off the issue. ‘I don’t want to make another orphan,’ she said.

‘One of us is bound to be left. For a time. Both of us are bound to the. That’s no reason not to have a child. Otherwise, no one would have any children. And I like children. And someone has to be left to carry on.’

Make it breezy again, Mike. Take away the fear again. Tell me I’m just working too hard, that I don’t wake up every morning feeling like I’m lead sheeting on a roof.

Mike kissed her on the end of her nose.

‘No harm can ever really come. Even if someone dies. Death is going to come anyway. People always react to the thing that’s just happened. Not to what’s happening now. Out of step. I’m not Berowne.’

Milena went quiet again. Is there just a glimmer, she wondered, just a little tickle of jealousy? Thinking: hoi, that’s my job. Men always seem to take over everything. Even this?

‘So tell me, slowly and clearly,’ said Milena. ‘Why it won’t kill you. And tell me what I’m supposed to do if it does.’

Milena remembered sitting at her desk in her new flat, working. She has a box that plays music to her. Das Lied von der Erde throbs gently in the background. Milena looks at maps of the Zoo Estate. She is trying to find the best place for a hospice for the Bees and for the sick. Milton wants to put them far out into the country. Milton the Minister is still alive.

The shutters of her lacquered rooms are closed against the weather. It is cold and from somewhere below comes the smell of coffee. There is a bleakness in Milena’s belly, fear in the shadows, a tremor of anxiety in her hands. It is winter still, and she is not yet completely free. Thrawn is still out there, somewhere, with her one tiny machine.

‘How’s it going?’ asks a familiar voice.

Milena glances up, quickly, and looks back down. She talks to the map. ‘The Angels will be here soon, so you might as well go.’

Milena is Terminal now. The Consensus knows when it happens, and Angels come to break up the light.

‘Look at me,’ says Thrawn.

Milena pauses and then does look round. Thrawn’s head is shaved; it is covered in stubble and little criss-cross cuts. She is smiling a faraway smile and is dressed only in a white vest and torn trousers. From somewhere, there is the smell of cooking alcohol, from the stove most likely. Thrawn’s arms and knees twitch with cold. My God, thinks Milena, what a state.

‘Look, Thrawn, part of me is very sorry how things have worked out, but I’m hardly likely to ask you to work with me again, am I?’ Milena looks back around at the map.

‘Are you sorry? Oh that’s good.’ Thrawn’s voice is breathy, like a little girl’s. Milena turns up the volume of the electronic box. The music becomes loud, the soprano’s voice like a steam whistle, the flutes like knives. The Dead Spaces between the flats will kill the sound. Must see about that smell of alcohol, thinks Milena, trying to cancel out what stands behind her.

‘Milena!’ shouts Thrawn over the noise. ‘Milena, look around, I’ve got a really good effect.’

Milena ignores her, eyes narrowing.

‘That’s your job, isn’t it? To use my ideas? Please look around!’

Damn it, where are the Angels? I’ve been through all this before; I can’t take any more of it.