Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

‘Then,’ she said, like some horrible sort of doll. ‘I’ve won.’

‘Yeah. Guess so,’ said Milena. ‘Happy birthday, or whatever.’

Thrawn launched herself onto Milena’s bed. Her smile seemed to say, anything that is yours, I will take over.

I really do feel like killing you, Milena thought. It really would be the simplest thing to take the kitchen knife that is behind me and cut you up and wrap you in the god-damned quilt and dump you in the river. Is that what you mean by victory?

Milena felt queasy, sick. I want to get away, from all of this. She wanted to hide her face, she wanted to weep, but she couldn’t, not in front of Thrawn. And she saw Thrawn’s face, saw its flatness. Thrawn knew what Milena had been thinking, Milena saw her face watching and waiting — hoping? The face wants me to pull that knife. Then she will scream and call people and destroy me. Or she would let me kill her and destroy me. I need a lock. I am fed up people coming into my room. I need a lock, and I need to get this woman Read, get her blasted full of virus.

‘We’re both crazy,’ said Thrawn. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go hand in hand to the Reading rooms? They could cure us both.’ It was a plea. She really meant it. ‘You see,’ Thrawn said. ‘If we don’t, something terrible is going to happen. I don’t know quite what. But I do know I can’t let you do this to me. I know that I am pretty clever. I think I’d have to destroy you. I get obsessed by things, Milena. I wouldn’t stop.’

It sounded pretty much like the truth. Milena found she was steeled for it. ‘You don’t scare me, Thrawn. Except for nuisance value, you have no hold over me. My career? I don’t care that much about my career. This room? Not even this room. You don’t know what I care about.’

And Milena turned and left. It was very simple. She just turned around and walked away from it. Thrawn would do something to the contents. Snip off all the sleeves from my shirts, pull up the herbs in my window-box, what else could she do? Set it on fire? Good, burn the building down, Thrawn. That will really get you on the production. They are going to send me into outer space, Thrawn. I will be where you can do nothing to me. Space for three or four months. Can’t touch me there, Thrawn. You can’t touch me at all. And no one else will need you, and no one else will want you.

But there was a leadenness in Milena’s feet and in her mind as she trudged down the stairs. Everything was weary. It was a leadenness that Milena remembering knew well. I wonder if that’s when it began? When I let it in? We destroyed each other Thrawn. No one is invulnerable. No one is immune.

And Milena remembered singing in her own wan, flat little voice.

It’s a dog of a song

The sky above was still fierce and blue and flawless, and from all around the horizon, there came a murmuring of song. The streets and yards were empty; it was high, hot noon and everyone was sleeping in the shade. It had been a beautiful summer. No rain for weeks. Already the air was beginning to smell of the urine of animals.

Ambling gently along

There was a stall, its battered, turquoise shutters closed. Underneath it, out of the sun, a family squatted. The mother with a straw hat and her hair in pigtails smoked a pipe. She rocked on her haunches, singing aimlessly a dawdle of song. The children were naked under blankets, and dirty. The old London, thought Milena the director. It’s going.

Then she looked up and saw the sign: a man falling on his face.

The Spread-Eagle, thought the Milena who remembered. Is this before or after I left the Shell? It was about then that I found the Spread again.

The pub was dark inside, and empty too, empty at lunchtime. It was too hot to swarm together in airless pubs. The floor was bare of nutshells, though the tables were still ring-stained. In the corner, someone was sitting. Milena couldn’t quite see her, because of the shadows, because of the dirt. Then the face looked up, pale and lumpy and forlorn.

‘Lucy,’ Milena the director said. ‘Hello. Remember me?’

Lucy was wearing the same coat as the last time, but it was an uneven black and grey now. The old woman looked up. ‘What?’ she croaked. She was crying. Her cheeks were smeared with the tears of the very old, tears that seem to have melted into the face, as if the eyes themselves had melted.

Oh no, thought Milena. The face was devastated.

‘Can I buy you a drink, love?’ Milena asked. Now she had money. Now she could offer.

Lucy’s face contorted and she lunged forward. ‘Puke!’ she exclaimed. She looked for a moment like an angry lizard. Then the old face collapsed again. ‘I’m hungry!’ she wailed, and swept a mug off the table.

‘I’ll get you some food,’ said Milena.

She went to the bar. The man behind it was tall, and burly with it. His unfriendly eyes didn’t blink as he looked at her, looked at her white, white clothes and new leather sandals, looked at her hair. It was a look that Milena had seen a lot lately, wearing her new Tarty clothes.

‘Puh! Pay!’ he stammered. ‘Muh! Muh!’

Another one, thought Milena. Someone else who’s got the bug. That’s three in two days. Marx and Lenin, is everyone going to get it?

‘Mug,’ she said, completing the word for him. She paid him twice what the broken mug was worth. As Milena walked away, she could feel his unblinking eyes, boring into her from behind. All these changes, Milena thought. They’re making people angry.

She went back to Lucy. ‘Come on, love,’ Milena said, wrapping her scarf around her neck. ‘Let’s go out to a kaff.’

‘There’s no bloody food,’ said Lucy. ‘Just those little stalls with those filthy black pans full of grease. You blow your guts out, you eat one of them. Wog food. Anyway, none of them are open when it’s too hot. They just fold the place up and sit under it.’

‘Proper sit-down place, love.’

Lucy looked up in complete helplessness. ‘Who are you?’

‘You only met me once before,’ said Milena.

Lucy leaned forward. ‘Where am I?’ she whispered.

Milena told her.

‘And what year is it?’

Milena told her.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Lucy, and her voice trailed off into a whine, and she started to weep again. ‘Bloody hell. Everything just goes on and on.’ Her hands began to turn round and round on themselves.

‘Oh, poor love,’ said Milena, and sat down, and tried to take the hands, to make them still. Even in the heat the hands were ice cold, lumpy, and as light as biscuits.

‘I thought you was my daughter. She’ll be dead, now.’

Where are her friends? thought Milena. Why is she alone? ‘Where’s Old Tone?’ she asked.

Lucy pulled her hands free. ‘He can do what he likes,’ she said, her mouth open with outrage, her head wobbling from side to side. ‘Is he a friend of yours?’

‘No. I thought he was a friend of yours.’

‘I know better where to get my friends from,’ said Lucy.

They’ve had a falling out. That’s why she’s upset.

‘Come on, love, let’s get something to eat.’

Lucy squinted at her. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded.

‘I’m a friend of Rolfa’s.’

The old face suddenly went gentle. ‘Aw, Rolfa. She was a dear. Is she dead now?’

‘No,’ said Milena and thought: not exactly. ‘Come on to the kaff, and I’ll tell you all about her.’

‘Oooh, yes. That will be lovely.’ Suddenly Lucy was cheerful. She stood up in stages, in jerks, everything quaking as if it were her bones and not her flesh that was shivering. Milena had to grab her to stop her falling. The terrible orange hair was half muddy grey from the roots. Lucy found her balance, and pulled at the hair.