The Child Garden

And still she didn’t feel any better, and still she couldn’t rest.

She went to the railway arches and collapsed onto the pavement, and waited for Rolfa. The sun came up under an edge of retreating cloud and she felt it on her pale face. She didn’t care. She saw Rolfa approaching.

Milena stood up, and brushed her clothes and ran her fingers through her short hair, to get rid of the tangles. She waited. Rolfa came up to her.

The fear returned. Milena didn’t know she was afraid. All she knew was that she could not be herself. She would not be able to speak.

‘What are you doing here?’ Rolfa asked, blinking.

‘Oh. Oh,’ said Milena and flung her arms awkwardly about herself.

‘You are in a state. What have you been doing?’

‘Oh. I just went out. You’re a bad influence on me.’

Milena’s eyes were sparkling, almost swollen with unspoken message.

‘I don’t think anyone could have a bad influence on you,’ said Rolfa. ‘You’re immune to it.’

‘Are we having lunch today?’ Milena’s voice was wan and hopeful.

Rolfa stood very still, her fur stirring in the light morning wind. ‘If you like, Little One,’ she said and gave Milena’s head, her hair a very quick stroke, a kind of pat. Then she walked on, down the tunnel.

Milena followed her, thrilled. She’s got a pet name for me! She toddled, feeling small and tender.

‘Another busy day,’ said Rolfa sourly, as she swung open the big yellow doors that never needed to be locked.

As they walked between the racks in the dark, the silence between them became uneasy. Milena had been wanting a flood of revelation, had reached a peak of joy. Now nothing happened. Rolfa, Rolfa, I know you are, you must be. Rolfa, say something about it. Rolfa, give me a sign. But Rolfa had gone dark, silent, like the racks.

Rolfa coughed and shuffled and turned on her alcohol light and seemed to ignore Milena, and simply stared down at her desk, the suddenly shaggy and intolerable mess of it.

‘Tuh,’ said Rolfa, the shudder-chuckle. She sat down, slumped at the desk and Milena’s heart ached for her. Rolfa picked up a score and held it up, looking at it, questioning, as if no longer certain of its worth. Milena made sure that it was printed, not handwritten, not a manuscript.

‘Do you ever write music yourself?’ Milena asked.

Rolfa sniffed and shrugged.

‘I’d like to see some, if you do,’ Milena said.

‘Oh! I get a few snatches descend on me from time to time,’ said Rolfa. She turned and tried to smile. ‘But I don’t write anything down.’ She shook her head and kept on shaking it.

She must simply remember it, thought Milena. But there could be an accident, anything could happen.

Memory. A full score in memory. Milena had another transfiguring idea.

She jumped up. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go now.’ She did a worried little dance. ‘I don’t want to, I just have to.’

‘Toilet’s over there,’ said Rolfa and pointed.

‘No, no you don’t understand. I’ll be back. Lunchtime. On the steps. Don’t forget?’

Rolfa gave her head a shake, meaning no, she wouldn’t forget and a kind of wondering, pale smile was coaxed out of her.

And Milena ran. She had about ten minutes. She ran all the way back to the Shell, up the flights of stairs. She heard a door opening on the landing below her, and spun around, and stumbled back down the steps, legs akimbo. And there he was.

‘Jacob!’ she gasped.

‘Good morning, Milena. And how are you today?’

‘Fine! Fine. I’m great! Jacob! Can you remember music?’

‘Do you mean written music, Milena? Or do you mean the actual sound?’

‘Both. Both.’

‘Yes, if it is part of a message. Yes. I can remember.’ He nodded and smiled with beautiful ivory-coloured teeth.

Milena was still panting, a queasy trail of sweat on her forehead. ‘Fine. Great. Can you come somewhere with me at six this evening?’

Jacob’s face clouded over. ‘Oh. I’m sorry, Milena. I don’t think I can do that. I must run my other messages then. I must go to everyone in the building, and then deliver messages for them. I’m very sorry, Milena.’

‘What if I helped?’

Jacob looked blank.

‘What if you took one half of the floors and I took the other? You’re supposed to come about five, right? So we’ll both start about four thirty, run back and forth until six and men go on. Agreed? Agreed? It’s very important, Jacob.’

He beamed. ‘All right, Milena. I will help you. That will be very good.’

Milena gave a little snarl of delight, and kissed him on his cheek. ‘That’s great.’ And suddenly she was weary.

‘Do you have any messages for me, Milena?’

‘Yes. One for Ms Patel. Tell her I’m too tired. I just won’t be there for lunch.’

Tell her I love her?

‘Tell her I’m not as immune as she thinks.’

And Jacob, for some reason, winked.

That afternoon, Milena ran from room to room on seven floors of the Shell. She had never known mere were so many people living there. Faces she had only glimpsed suddenly became alive for her. She knew what the insides of their rooms looked like, she knew whether or not they made their beds, she could smell what they were cooking. They did not want to give her messages.

‘Um. I’ll wait for Jacob in the morning,’ many of them said.

‘I’m an actress. I’ve got good memory viruses too.’

They might give their heads the slightest of angry shakes. They were angry with Jacob for deserting them, leaving them to this stranger. Milena was embarrassed. She was embarrassed by all this weight of life that was going on without her. The rooms were often full of people lounging together on beds, drinking, talking, playing chess on little resin boards.

Milena went to Cilia’s room and it was full of the Vampires, twenty of them, thirty of them, packed in, talking, agreeing, disagreeing, laughing.

‘What are you doing?’ Cilia asked, rising to her feet.

‘I’m helping Jacob out.’

And Milena explained, breathless. Milena the Postperson, someone called her, smiling. How does he know my name? Milena thought. I don’t know his.

‘Anybody got any messages?’ she asked. ‘I’ll take them.’ She knew then why Jacob always asked. It was nice to be needed.

In the evening she and Jacob hid behind the costumes as Rolfa sang.

‘Can you remember? Can you remember it?’ she asked him, whispering, desperate.

Jacob smiled and nodded, and put a finger to his lips.

It became routine, for a time.

Milena and Rolfa would have lunch together every day. Sometimes they ate in the Zoo cafe. Rolfa would always cringe just before going in. She had to duck to get through the doors, but it was more than that. She did not belong. She looked huge on the narrow benches, ridiculous bunched up under the tiny tables, her knees pressing up under them, dragging them with her when she stood up. Her fur hung into the soup, the cups were too small for her to drink from. Watching Rolfa eat was a fascinating spectacle. For Milena, it was like being in the mead hall with Beowulf. Rolfa’s appetite and manners were of a previous historical era. She munched and belched and slurped and splattered, looking rather forlorn and helpless, as if there was nothing she could do about it. She would have two or three helpings of chips, which she shovelled into her mouth with thick and greasy fingers. She had to stick her long pink tongue down into cups and lap and lick to get anything out of them. She had to lap to drink anything — her tongue got in the way if she tried to sip like a human being. She leant over her soup bowl like a lion over a stream,