The Child Garden

She spun and seemed to land in a park in winter. Hampstead Heath, she remembered. The expanse of hill sloping away beneath her was covered in snow. She could see her own footsteps. The branches of the trees were coated in ice, as if they had been dipped in glass.

Milena was waiting for the apothecary to catch up with her. The woman climbed the hill, panting, pushing herself up, hands on her knees. Milena could hear the rather satisfying crunching noises the woman’s feet made in the snow.

‘There!’ the apothecary sighed as she reached Milena and the top of the hill. There was a wreathing of vapour from out her mouth. ‘Whoo! That’s it.’ The apothecary pointed to a wagon, a black box on two huge wheels. Black smoke poured out of a stovepipe chimney. Winter ponies were watching the two women. The ponies were small and shaggy creatures, with hair that trailed into the snow. Winter ponies were fiercely loyal. If someone came for their master, they would attack. Their eyes, thought Milena, they have human eyes.

‘Shalom,’ said the apothecary, to the ponies. It seemed to be some kind of codeword. The animals went back to pawing back the snow with their hooves, and chomping the grass. There were other footsteps in the snow, leading to the wagon. The wagon was a mobile club for Snides and empaths. Boites, the wagons were called. The boites were continually moved from place to place. Snides and empaths gathered there, to do what exactly, Milena had little idea, except that it involved illicit viruses. They performed for each other. Mind-dancing they called it.

The apothecary climbed gypsy steps to the door of the wagon and knocked.

‘Ali, Ali it’s me,’ she called.

The door was pushed open. Men and women sat all at the lower end of the wagon, crosslegged on the floor. Milena could feel a current of hot air rise up out of the door. The apothecary pushed Milena in ahead of her and slammed the door shut.

‘Sorry everyone. Sorry,’ she said. ‘Good?’

‘His best,’ said a bearded man, his eyes dim, his speech slightly slurred. ‘He’s weaving all of us into this one.’

The wagon leaned forward on its nose. The wooden floorboards all pointed up the sloping floor towards a man in black, sitting crosslegged on a thin rug.

He was Al, Al the Snide.

His eyes were closed in concentration. Then they opened. They opened and were staring direct at Milena.

‘That’s it ladies, gentlemen.’ he said. ‘That’s all for now.’ There were jars of potheen lined up along the edge of the floor, held in place by a rack. ‘Keep warm, drink something. We’ll complete the tapestry later.’ He stood up with one smooth movement. He was still tall and lithe. The hat and cape had gone. He looked at Milena with sadness.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ said Milena.

He pulled on a sealskin coat. He caught something in Milena’s mind,

‘Real seals weren’t killed making it,’ he said. He paused. ‘And yes, I’m still defensive.’

The room chuckled warmly. They all understand, Milena realised, they all hear what I’m thinking, they all know. I feel naked. Do I mind?

The room chuckled some more. The faces were ordinary, rough, but not unkind.

‘Would you mind being a strand?’ one of the empath women asked Milena. Milena didn’t understand.

The woman’s face was suddenly crossed with concern. ‘Don’t worry, love, we’re just asking if you want to be part of the tapestry. We all like you.’ The woman looked at one particular man. ‘You have to tell them or else they don’t know,’ she said. She looked back at Milena with pity. ‘Do you, love?’

‘Salt and wool,’ said another dancer. She also was smiling. She wore a Postperson’s headscarf. There was a murmur of assent from the other empaths.

Al the Snide thumped down the slope of the floor, in black boots, smartly pulling on gloves. He looked at Milena with expectation. Then he smiled and closed his eyes for a moment, as if embarrassed.

‘Sorry,’ he suddenly said. ‘I keep forgetting you can’t hear me. Do you mind going for a walk? We can talk then.’ His pale, pale face was even leaner, but the eyes were less faraway, less self-concerned than they once had been.

Outside, the air seemed to have daggers of ice in it. In bare branches a community of crows had gathered, cawing and croaking to each other in smoky mist. Al helped Milena down the gypsy steps.

‘The problem is to get him alone,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’ Milena was completely taken aback.

‘Max. I will need to be alone with him.’

‘You already know what the problem is?’

He nodded, and kept speaking.

‘So going to a concert or something is out. Too much mind noise. It would be best just to visit him. And tell him what you are doing. Why you think it’s best to try and trick him, I don’t know.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not used to this,’ said Milena.

‘I know,’ he said darkly.

You want this over with quickly, she realised.

‘I suppose I do, yes,’ he said aloud, and looked back up at her, his lips drawn thin.

And Milena found herself thinking: I wonder what he feels about Heather? She thought it, and he looked away.

‘I treated you badly once. So I feel I owe you something,’ he said. ‘I won’t charge you for this.’

‘Thank you,’ murmured Milena. But she thought: I never mentioned money; it never even crossed my mind.

He was trying to keep things businesslike. ‘We need to tell Max openly what we are doing. Our approach is that I’m simply helping him to remember. Arrange an appointment to meet. It’s always easier if people co- operate.’

It still rankled Milena that he had mentioned money. ‘You don’t owe me anything,’ she said.

He punched the palm of his gloved hand. ‘I wish you people could hear!’ he exclaimed. It was so indelicate, having to speak.

‘Look. You are Heather. At least half of Heather was you. Maybe most of her.’

He still loves her, thought Milena. Oh, poor man.

He sighed, and ran a hand over the top of his head. ‘She’s buried deep now, isn’t she?’

He looked at the top of Milena’s head, as if to see Heather there.

‘You already know that,’ said Milena. ‘Why ask?’

Al shrugged. ‘You don’t hate me any more. That’s something.’

‘I did something far worse to Rolfa in the end. Far worse than anything you did.’

‘Ssssh,’ he said, and held up his hands. ‘I know. I know.’ And there was more than pity in his eyes. There was comprehension. ‘The bastards with their bloody Readings,’ he said. ‘It’s all about control. They don’t care what they kill in the process. I’m sorry.’

And Milena knew there was no answering comprehension in her. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me. How have you been? What you’ve been doing?’

He looked suddenly, coltishly pleased that she wanted to know. He made an awkward, embracing gesture back towards his boite. ‘I make my tapestries. As I told you before. I make patterns out of all the people I see. The personalities are like colours. I make them and hang them in the air for the other Snides. There’s enough of us now. We work in ordinary jobs. Don’t let on, most of the time. So I make them tapestries and they buy them.’

‘Take them home and hang them on the wall?’

‘They remember them,’ he said, correcting her, shyly. More viral memory.

‘But you hate viruses.’

‘I hate their viruses. I love the ones people make for themselves.’ He looked at her face, searching it. ‘If only you could read,’ he said. ‘You’d know all that.’

They walked on. ‘Until you’re Snide, it’s hard to believe how complex people are. Like a whole universe. There’s all this chattering going on in their heads. Mist we call it, like the inside of clouds. It fogs everything, stops