The Child Garden

by Geoff Ryman

  Where is Rolfa?

  I still have your things

  Milena

  She didn’t sign it ‘Love, Milena.’ She thought that might frighten Rolfa away.

  Milena left the Graveyard, and went to the Zoo Keeper. She asked his assistant, the sleek young man, if Rolfa had been there. Had there been any news?

  ‘No,’ said the sleek young man. ‘Hoi. Can a Polar Bear become an Animal?’

  His name was Milton, and he was given to bad jokes.

  ‘Tell the Minister, I would like to be told when she reappears. It may be a joke to you, but she has no money, and she has to eat!’

  Milton was not used to high emotion of any sort. His face went blank and slack as Milena marched away.

  She went to the Zoo Café. She talked to the plump and surly woman who washed all the cups and filled them with tea. Had she seen a very tall woman? Milena asked her. Had anyone come in begging for food, someone perhaps who needed a shave? The woman looked at Milena through swollen, puffy eyes and shook her head.

  Milena visited all the pubs, all the kaffs on the South Bank, up along the Cut and back towards the Elephant. Had they seen a very tall woman, not Rhodopsin? The Tykes behind the bars looked surprised. ‘I think we would have remembered,’ they said. Milena crossed the bridges and tried the north. She went to the Comedy Restaurant. Rolfa had been in none of the shops, none of the stalls. She wasn’t drinking. She wasn’t eating.

  Milena went back to her room, and found Cilla waiting for her.

  ‘Well?’ Cilla asked. Milena slumped down next to her on the bed.

  ‘Nothing. Oh Cill, there’s nothing!’ Exhausted, Milena lay down, the back of her head on Cilla’s lap. Cilla began to stroke her hair.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Cilla. ‘She’s just working it all out. Don’t you remember after you were Read? All those new viruses hitting you on the head all at once? It takes a while to sort through the new filing system.’

  No, Milena did not remember.

  ‘She hasn’t come out to eat, Cill! She’s not like us, she’s not Rhodopsin. She hasn’t eaten in six days.’

  Then Milena had a thought. ‘Oh Marx and Lenin.’ She sat up and turned around. ‘Bears hibernate. It’s a response to stress. They go to sleep and hibernate.’

  ‘Then that’s fine, she’ll sort things out that way.’

  ‘No, no. They have to build up reserves of fat first. If they go under while they’re hungry, they starve to death in their sleep. I mean she hadn’t eaten properly for weeks when she left.’

  ‘Oops,’ said Cilla, who had recently looked into Rolfa’s famished eyes. ‘You think she’ll die.’ There was a pause, a stillness in the air between them. ‘I’ll go upstairs and get my coat,’ said Cilla. ‘I’ve got some oats for porridge, I can bring those, and I think some soy sausages.’

  ‘I don’t have anything,’ said Milena, and raised her hands and let them fall.

  ‘Where would she go to sleep?’

  ‘Anywhere quiet and dark.’

  They got help and candles. Berowne, the Princess, the King, all of the players. They went to all of the unoccupied rooms of the Shell, where people had recently died. They all went out together, and looked in every corner of the Graveyard, between the racks. ‘What a place!’ they all exclaimed. The King particularly liked it. ‘A good place to hide,’ he said. He had put on one of the sequined jackets. Milena thanked them all and said goodnight to them, hugged them with gratitude. She and Cilla kept on looking.

  They went to the night market, that Rolfa had always visited. The stallowners were still singing songs and piling up mounds of spicepaste or feather cushions. No, the stallowners said, they hadn’t seen the big one. They knew who Milena meant, but no, she had not been around for the last few days. The stallowners were moving mountains of fur, covered against the autumn chill and Milena kept thinking they were Rolfa. Finally she and Cilla rested in a kaff. They ate hot spicy chicken and warmed their hands around mugs of tea.

  ‘We’ll find her,’ promised Cilla. ‘All of us. We’ll do it.’ She kept nodding yes, to the steamy cafe windows. They walked back arm in arm to the Shell.

  ‘You get some sleep, love,’ Milena said to Cilla.

  Then Milena turned and walked across the Hungerford, across town. She went to South Ken, to the house of the Family.

  You do not have to like me, Milena thought, as she knocked once again on the door of Rolfa’s house. I don’t have to like you, either. You only need to tell me if Rolfa is with you—or help me find her.

  The door opened, as if by itself. Behind it, a huge old Polar woman stood on crutches. Her fur was white and smoky yellow and hung in satiny strands.

  ‘Rolfa? Rolfa? She’s still with you Squidges, in’t she?’ The old dam spoke to someone still hidden behind the door. ‘Shawnee?’ she asked. There was a low murmuring reply. Milena couldn’t hear because the old woman suddenly snorted back mucus and then swallowed with a noisy gulp. There were smears of mucus on the fur of her arms.

  ‘Yep. Yep. She’s gone. Where is Rolfa? Don’t know!’ The old woman shifted on her crutches, and suddenly Milena saw that she was miserable. ‘Seems like they would have told me if she was back.’ She breathed heavily, a deep sigh, as if her bulk made breathing difficult. ‘I am her mother, after all.’

  ‘You’re Rolfa’s mother?’ Milena felt something like dismay.

  ‘You’re the Cold Little Fish, ahn’t you?’ said Rolfa’s mother, not at all unkindly. ‘Why don’t you come inside?’

  ‘I’m very sorry. It’s cold for me inside.’ October winds buffeted Milena, blowing her scarf over her head.

  ‘Looks pretty cold for you out there too. I can’t stand up, honey, and I’d like to talk to you.’

  The mother Bear turned. She swung herself on her crutches towards a packing case and began to lower herself onto it. From behind the door, a little human maid in billowing furs scuttled forward and took the old woman’s arm. Milena stepped forward to help as well.

  ‘They made this over into my room. Nice, in’t it?’ the old dam said.

  Milena said that she agreed. The front room was as cold as Milena remembered it and even more stark. It was now completely bare, except for the packing cases. The old dam asked for tea and the human maid scurried away to fetch some. For just an instant her frightened eyes caught Milena’s.

  ‘I had to go and break my leg,’ complained the GE. ‘And end up in this place. I just feel like some old walrus who can’t pull her bulk around. It really is time I was put down. You sit by me, honey, and keep warm.’

  Milena did, and Rolfa’s mother enveloped her in a hug.

  ‘You’re the one who wants to help Rolfa sing, ahn’t you?’

  The familiar smell of lanolin and the familiar, basking warmth.

  ‘Yes, Mam,’ Milena said. She found herself using the honorific.

  ‘Well that’s good. Rolfa never was meant for anywhere, unless it was someplace she could sing. I’d have helped her too, but I couldn’t stand this place. Couldn’t stand it, you understand me? I expect Rolfa’s just the same.’ She paused. ‘There’s trouble, in’t there? She’s done another bunk.’

  ‘They tried to cure her,’ said Milena.

  ‘Of what? Being Rolfa?’ The old dam seemed to know, instantly, what Milena meant.

  Milena could only nod.

  ‘Well her father will be happy with that. That’s the biggest favour you people could have done him. I’m not happy though.’

  ‘Neither am I,’ whispered Milena.

  ‘Aw, hell, honey, I can see that. You want some whisky?’

  Milena shook her head. ‘She’s disappeared. I think she’s hibernating again. But she was very hungry when she left.’

  The bottle paused in mid-air. Again, the old woman understood: Rolfa was in danger.

  ‘I was hoping she was here,’ Milena said, and even to herself her voice sounded drained and hopeless.

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to go and look for
her.’ Rolfa’s mother looked at Milena. ‘We may have to bring in the rest of the Family, though. People are going to be pretty mad.’

  ‘I know,’ murmured Milena, and braced herself.

  Zoe was the first to come down the stairs.

  ‘You did what?’ Zoe demanded.

  ‘We gave her the viruses. It was the only way.’

  ‘You gave my sister your horrible Squidgey viruses?’

  Milena felt herself cringes. ‘It was a pre-condition of her performing. I’m sorry. It was a mistake. It was the only way I had to get her into the Zoo.’

  ‘My God,’ said Zoe, pressing her hand to her forehead. ‘She could have dropped down anywhere.’ Zoe looked at her mother. ‘We’ll have to call out the dogs, Ma,’ she said. Zoe looked back at Milena with a strange, grim smile. ‘You are going to have to come with us,’ she said. ‘And don’t think it’s going to be a pleasant ride.’

  Two huge cattle trucks roared up outside the Polar household. They were full of excited, yelping dogs. Young polar men stood on the rails that surrounded the flatbeds. They shouted out to the house as the engines rumbled. The engines were on display, nickel-plated and polished like mirrors. Bears swarmed out of the house, full of gleeful aggression, climbing up the slats of the trucks. One of them was blowing a hunting horn.

  This, thought Milena, could be a real mess. Zoe ushered her towards the trucks, hand on the back of Milena’s neck. Was there any way she could warn the Zoo? Could she slip the human maid some money to run across London? The trucks would get there first.

  Something growled at her. Between the slats of the truck, a pair of blue eyes, a husky’s eyes, were fixed on her. ‘He knows you’re a Squidge,’ chuckled a Polar teenager, astride the rails.

  Milena was loaded into the cab, squeezed between massive Polar thighs. They cushioned her as the truck swooped and veered across London, beeping its horn, swearing around horse carts, making people jump out of the way. Milena was not used to moving at speed; her stomach kept plunging in different directions. She felt slightly giddy and ill. ‘Yee-ha!’ called the driver.

  Suddenly the truck was bouncing up and over pavements and onto the embankment gardens. Here already? Milena had not even noticed them going over the bridge. The other truck skidded up beside them, brakes locked, sliding across the grass.

  Young Bears launched themselves over the sides. The slats were raised and the dogs bounded down. The Polar huskies looked like thunderclouds, thick and white and massive. The dogs were clipped onto leashes and then led, straining against them, towards the Zoo.

  The Bears filled the main lobby, laughing at the blank surprise on the faces of the Zoo administrators. The Tykes at the desks came forward to protest. ‘Aww!’ said the Bears and picked them up like the children they were. ‘Put me down! Put me down!’ the children wailed, and began to weep.

  Rolfa’s old socks and shorts were pressed under the noses of the dogs. Then they were let loose.

  Matinee performances were interrupted as packs of huskies surged down the aisles, sniffing. Dogs poured onto the stages, searching the corners and corridors of the backstage mazes. Zoe marched Milena through the upper floors. Broom closets and waiting room full of resting Postpeople were searched. In the rehearsal halls, musicians stood on chairs, holding their flutes and violins out of the reach of the playfully snapping dogs.

  ‘OK,’ said Zoe. ‘Where else could she have slumped off to?’

  ‘We’ve already looked in most other places,’ murmured Milena.

  ‘Well think of some more!’ demanded Zoe.

  Milena took Zoe on the small round that had been her life with Rolfa. She led her down the Cut, hoping to steer the Bears towards Leake Street and the Graveyard. They threw open the doors of the shops and ran up the stairs to the rooms above. The Bears had such fun. They took boisterous revenge for years of misunderstanding. Milena stood in the street and heard them laugh, incredulous at the way Squidges had to live, their small cookers, their few possessions. She heard things fall and break in rooms. Off in the distance, bells began to ring in the continuous series of strokes that signalled emergency. Dogs came lolloping back down the steps, their thick white coats and heavy feet looking as springy as mattresses. A Polar man reeled out after them, wearing some Squidgey woman’s sad straw hat.

  The Bears rollicked their way down Leake Street. A contingent was left to scour the Graveyard. Out on the other side of the tunnel, more trucks were pulling up in the embankment gardens. ‘We haven’t down that building,’ said Zoe to the newcomers, pointing towards the Shell. ‘I’m going to check the hospital. You,’ she said the Milena, ‘you just stick around where we can find you. Zoo main hall. Go on.’

  Milena spent the rest of the afternoon in the main lobby. She swayed where she stood with exhaustion, yearning to sleep, but forcing herself to watch. The Zookeeper will never forgive me, she thought.

  ‘Have a drink,’ said Rolfa’s mother. Milena took a swig direct from the bottle. Rolfa’s mother stood by her, balancing on crutches.

  ‘The Antarctic’s like this,’ said Rolfa’s mother. ‘Things go wrong, you just have to bear it. Simple things. You can’t pee. It’s so cold that when you widdle, it freezes before it hits the ground. You got to be real quick or just push it out in little jets because it freezes from the ground up. Depending on how low you crouch, you got about thirty seconds before frozen pee hits your fanny.’

  Milena took another swig. ‘It’s not a problem I’ve ever had to consider,’ she said miserably.

  A well known Zoo Animal ran past screaming, pursued by jolly dogs who trotted after her. The woman wore only a towel wrapped around her middle. Steam from her shower rose up behind her. It’s like a nightmare, thought Milena. It just gets worse and worse.

  ‘Then there’s the spit,’ said Rolfa’s mother. ‘You can’t spit anywhere near the sheds cause it freezes on the ground and won’t go away. It’s worse than concrete. You can’t chop it and it’s slipperier than a doorknob in a bucket full of snot.’

  ‘You have a colourful turn of phrase,’ said Milena, breathing whisky. From somewhere there was a crash and a splintering of lights. A dog lifted its leg against the corner of the main reception desk.

  Raising the bottle up in a toast, Milena said, ‘To my remaining friends, wherever they might be.’

  ‘You’re smiling,’ said Rolfa’s other. ‘Never saw a Squidge smile before. You got the funniest little teeth.’

  She likes me, thought Milena. Her smile became a little broader. ‘Thanks,’ said Milena.

  Dusk drew in again. Milena heard the dogs being loaded up into the trucks. Zoe came in and stabbed a finger in Milena’s direction. ‘You find my sister,’ Zoe said. ‘Or there will be real trouble.’

  You mean this wasn’t?

  Rolfa’s mother shuffled around on her crutches. She looked back over her shoulder at Milena and winked. Milena stood where she was, still with the whisky bottle and heard the trucks pull away.

  She wanted to die. She walked to the Shell by a back route, to avoid the Cut or the walkways where people might know who she was. She listened to the sound of broken glass being swept up, and people muttering under their breath. She staggered along Bayliss Road, named after the founder of the Old Vic, and down Hercules Road, past the William Blake Estate, where the poet had once lived. As far as Milena knew, Rolfa had never ventured this far.

  And then Milena turned right into Virgil Street.

  Virgil Street ran under an old railway bridge. Railway bridges fanned out from Waterloo, like branching realities. Along the brick façade, there were windows, more windows in other bridges. My God, thought Milena, she could be anywhere.

  And standing there in the gathering darkness, Milena heard Rolfa begin to sing.

  The voice echoed out the twilight blue, from all around Milena, as if the bricks were ventriloquists. The voice was powerful and fluid. It pounced on a note and then held it, and then, as if in rage, tore the note apart with a kind of screech.
Milena felt a shudder in her heart, and her breath go still. She tried to breathe, and couldn’t.

  ‘Rolfa,’ she heard herself whisper. ‘Rolfa. Where are you?’

  She walked towards the tunnel. On her left was a walled courtyard. She walked through the gap in its surrounding wall, and the sound was louder, harsher. Milena saw no one. She walked around the edge of the courtyard, peering into corners, hoping to see a niche or hidden doorway. The voice seemed to lead her, hovering in the air, a few steps in front of her.

  Virgil Street was lined with arched gateways. Milena walked slowly, as if on thin ice, her breath held. She found herself knocking politely on one of the gates. It slid sideways on runners. A Tyke was holding it open, a boy with his shirt off. There were other boys, swarming over the body of a coach. The coach was painted white with a red cross and the boys were working on the leather straps of its suspension. They were coachbuilders for the hospital estate, working after school.

  ‘That singing,’ said Milena. ‘Do you hear it? Do you know where it’s coming from?’

  The boys wiped grease from their hands onto rags. They had tough adult faces on tiny bodies, and they wanted to show how adult they were. They pulled on shirts, lifted up their alcohol lamps, and stepped out into the streets. Milena walked backwards as they advanced, as if into a cloud of the singing. The sound distracted her. The notes went wild and strange and ugly. Suddenly the tunnel was full of the sound of laughter, a wild, bitter, sarcastic hooting. Milena spun on her heel, expecting to see Rolfa looming over her shoulder. There was no one.

  ‘Can’t tell where it’s coming from,’ said one of the boys.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Milena asked, pointing to the other gates.

  ‘Hospital gear,’ the boys shrugged. They brought their lamps and opened the doors. Milena smelled clean linen, and walked between the racks. The sound of singing dimmed as they walked further into the warehouse. Milena ducked under one arch, and saw more neat and tidy shelving. Rolfa would never be here, she thought. As if the spirit of the place were inimical, the sound of the singing seemed to fade altogether.