Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

‘There’s no talking to you when you’re like this.’ said Milena and turned, and fled. She closed the purple door behind her, her heart pumping. Only when she was away from Thrawn, could Milena realise her own anger. That’s it, Thrawn, she told the purple door. That’s it, you’ve done it. We finish this show, and then I get someone else. There is no reason why I should put up with this when no one else will.

Milena turned and trooped down the Coral steps, making as much noise with her feet as she could. That machine belongs to everybody, there will be other people who will learn to use it, and the very next show, you’re dumped, you’re ditched.

The thought calmed Milena, until she reached the street.

‘Ahi,’ said a Tyke, standing up, holding out red scarves for sale.

‘No,’ said Milena.

The Tyke pursued her. It was fat and dirty and bundled in woollens, and its voice was piercing and high. Milena could not even tell what sex it was. ‘Look, lovely scarf, beautiful scarf, for the lady, very cheap, and very warm in winter.’

‘Go away!’ shouted Milena, and threw off the Tyke’s light touch. Marx and Lenin! Do they see me coming? Milena glared at the child, still feeling a throbbing in her heart.

The child shrugged. ‘Go freeze, then,’ said the child. ‘And take it out on someone else.’ The Tyke spun around and walked away, feeling in a pocket for a pipe. Horses trotted past, making a clatter. Milena felt even smaller, weaker.

Someone has just threatened to burn out my eyes. Milena was shivery, feverish, tears beginning. She stood still in the street, a hand clamped across her forehead. How could I let her? How could I let her do that to me? How could I stand there and do nothing?

She needs a Reading, thought Milena. She began to walk again, still driving her feet down against the pavement. I never thought I’d say it, but she needs to be Read, and wiped, and to start all over again, as a decent human being. And I need to be wiped too, for putting up with it. Why? Why do I do it?

They both were a tangle, tangled in each other.

It was a long walk back to the Shell. The sun was shining, crisp, bright and cold.

Well, thought Milena, consoling herself. At least I learned one good thing. I have a talent. I never thought I had a talent. Just a small one.

I can imagine flowers.

The sister Bulge smelled of rosemary and sage. A bay tree grew out of its walls, and a current of air made its leaves rustle. The Bulge could commandeer its own genes and grow other forms of life, out of itself, out of memory. It grew garden herbs; it grew the flesh of chickens. It lactated orange juice.

‘May I offer you a drink, Ms Shibush?’ offered Mike Stone, Astronaut.

‘Oh, don’t bother, please,’ said Milena. She was mortified. She had thrown up all over him and dislocated his shoulder and he was still being so nice. If only he wasn’t so polite, she thought. If only he would get angry, I wouldn’t have to feel so awful.

Mike Stone kept smiling. Even his teeth looked tense. ‘The circulatory system behaves differently under conditions of weightlessness.’ He informed her. ‘Dehydration may sometimes result. It is advisable to drink plenty of fluids.’

Milena relented. ‘Then thank you very much, I’d love a whisky.’

Mike Stone’s smile did not slip. ‘I’m afraid I have no alcoholic beverages. Would you care for an orange juice?’

‘Yes, yes, that will be fine,’ said Milena. ‘Thank you.’

‘Right-o-rooty,’ said Mike Stone.

Right-o-rooty? Milena began to see the humour of the situation. It had indeed been quite an introduction. Oh God, she thought, I’m going to laugh. I’m going to go into one of those silly giggling fits where you can’t stop laughing.

The prophecy was self-fulfilling. She looked at Mike Stone, at the way he moved. He was very tall, and very slim, with coathanger hips, and his muscles seemed to have been pulled too tight, like piano wire. I had heard Americans were starched, she thought. This one looks like he’s ironed every morning. He’s being so proper and pukka and nice. Milena felt her cheeks clench.

He held up her orange juice in benediction. ‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.’ he said. Then he looked at Milena with the complete seriousness of a child. ‘Wine is the blood of our Saviour,’ he said. ‘We should not drink it or any alcohol except in a spirit of communion.’

‘Ah,’ was all Milena managed to say. She took the drink from him, her arms bobbing in weightlessness like waterwings under water. Poor man, he’ll think I’m laughing at him. He’ll think I’m laughing at his religion. Milena was giddy with a desire to laugh. She turned away, to hide from him. She looked out of a living window, down onto the Earth below.

It was beige and blasted, white plains with blue mountains, discolorations like age spots, dry canyons like crows feet. The Bulge was in orbit over a desert. It moved beneath them, slowly drifting.

Milena thought of production schedules and holograms; she thought of Thrawn McCartney. Even that didn’t make her feel serious. Everything made her want to laugh; everything seemed funny. The weight of her life had been left below.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Mike Stone. Milena had a quick glimpse of him waddling closer to her, as if on slippery ice. He looked like an elongated penquin. ‘I look through this window and I say "Hallelujah!"’.

‘Hmmm?’ said Milena, not trusting herself to speak.

‘In five minutes, we’ll be over Mount Ararat. From up here, the outlines of Noah’s Ark are clearly visible.’

‘Mmmmmm!’ said Milena, trying to sound impressed.

‘Of course, Ararat would have been underwater for most of the Flood. We know how deep the Flood was: two-thirds of the highest mountain. Now. Mount Everest is 8,840 metres high, which means the Flood was 5,893.32 metres deep. Which is very nearly the height of Mount Ararat. Do you believe in reincarnation, Ms Shibush?’

‘Mmmm mmm,’ said Milena, shaking her head.

‘Neither do I,’ he said, and sipped milk through a straw. ‘Post-millenarian Baptists such as myself do not. But I have a thought I’d like to share with you. If only Noah survived, then he is the ancestor of us all. And we would have his memories stored in our racial subconscious. Many is the time that I’ve sat in this spacecraft, Ms Shibush, and felt that I was Noah. If there was another Flood, I could repopulate the Earth, grown by Chris from memory.’

‘Mmmmm,’ said Milena, as if giving the thought serious consideration.

‘I should explain. Chris is my Bulge. The name is short for Christian Soldier Two. The first one died. Would you like to see my snapping turtle?’

Mike Stone reached into the pocket of his jumpsuit and produced a live, suede-coloured snapping turtle. ‘Chris grew him for me. Had one since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.’ He held it out for Milena to examine. ‘He also tried to grow me back my old Army knife, but the blade was soft.’

Milena had to turn around to face him. He loomed over her with round and innocent eyes. A child, she thought, am I talking to a child. She was in extremis. Her cheeks were compressed, her stomach muscles were clenched, her back was held rigid. She did not laugh. But her eyes brimmed full. Tears of mirth slid down her cheeks.

Mike Stone fell silent. He looked at the tears on her face, and then down at the floor. Moved beyond words, he pressed the turtle into her hands. ‘It’s nice to know,’ he said, ‘that someone understands.’

The turtle bit her. It snapped, as it had done in childhood.

And Milena awoke, a child in England.

She woke up in her room in the Child Garden. On the windowsill, there was her candle, gutted and blackened, with a spread of wax on her breakfast plate. She had been reading in the night. The book, old and heavy, had slipped out of grasp, and worked its way down between the bedding and the wall.