The Child Garden

‘I suppose the People part means that my work is used for political ends. It makes people feel and think in the ways they are supposed to feel and think. It’s not much different from a virus.’

An unexpected burst of laughter, then. It swelled.

‘Except that I always think of the great socialist ends after everything else.’

A warmer, but less certain, shorter laugh. Is this going to get dangerous?

‘I thought when we were doing the out-plays that they were a way to make people love themselves and the London they live in. It seems to me that London now is at least as interesting as London was when all those plays were written. I wanted all the Estates to be proud of each other: the Reefers, the Cordwainers, the Tugboys, the Slump Bobbers. They’re part of London too. I did not, however, set out to make them love two hundred foot tall Crabs.’

A grateful laugh now, of relief. This isn’t going to veer off in any funny direction. This is going to work.

‘I think people should love giant Crabs, particularly if they sing well.’

Pause.

‘Those of us who work at the Zoo often have to love giant singing Animals.’

A larger laugh. But the trees whispered, that’s enough.

‘You can get too high-minded. People should be easier on themselves. Life isn’t high-minded. If it’s got a mind at all, then it’s out of it. Attack was just fun. It was an excuse to get in as many holograms as we could.’

We, meaning you and Thrawn, the trees sighed in and out.

‘Sometimes fun can cost lives. The woman I worked with on Crabs is no longer with us. The woman who set all of Divina Commedia to music is no longer with us either. I used to think I destroyed them both. Now I think that to blame myself is just another way of making myself too important.

‘The most socialist thing I ever did, the best thing I ever did, was trying to get people to help the sick instead of shutting them away and burning the bodies. I had a lot of help, from Milton John, from Moira Almasy. And that was nothing to do with being an Artist.’

Milena stopped, visibly wondering what she was going to say next, taking her time.

‘Am I an Artist at all? I don’t know what the word means. I do what I can, in the way I can do it, when I have an idea. I don’t know where the ideas come from, except that I don’t have them. By that I mean the 'I' that I know doesn’t seem to have them. The 'I' that I know keeps trying to think of ideas and they don’t come. The ideas seem to come of their own accord, in their own time, without me. So I can’t really claim any credit for them. Or responsibility, either. Life just gives them to me. You, my friends, the ones I can see in the front row. You gave them to me. And the city, and the history that made it and made me too. So who is the Artist, then? Is there an Artist at all?’

Suddenly she grinned.

‘Maybe we should be giving this award to each other, just for being here. The only way to be a People’s Artist is to be as private as you can. That’s when you touch something that isn’t just you.’

And Milena said to herself, to the trees in the wind: Rolfa, I love you. I want to live with you and sleep with you. And I can’t. I don’t tell them that. To do that would be to try to tell them the whole truth. And who can tell the whole truth? You’d never stop talking.

She said that aloud. ‘Maybe that isn’t the whole truth. But if I tried to tell the whole truth, I’d never stop talking.’

Another small chuckle. Some of them were still working it out.

‘We’re all people. We’re all artists.’ She shrugged with helplessness. ‘Thank you.’

There was a settled warmth to the applause that followed. Cilia, the Princess, Peterpaul, Moira Almasy, they all stood up. Moira’s jaw was thrust out as she smiled. Cilia was grinning and grinning as if her face could not spread wide enough. Peterpaul was applauding, looking serious, looking straight into her eyes. Toll Barrett was nodding ‘yes’. Even Charles Sheer was applauding.

And a Crab-like voice in Milena’s head said, You’re good at making speeches, Milena. That could be useful.

And another voice, lowering, slow, said It made you look better than you are. They’ll never guess.

Milena stood, still and quiet, embarrassed, battling to keep her modesty. Perhaps she was wrong to think that arrogance and pride would destroy talent, but it was what she believed, so she tried to preserve her humility. It was a tactical decision. She exploited herself and had to protect herself from her self.

And how many selves, how many voices?

Be easy on yourself, Milena. Here is the sun, here is the applause, and the light, and the silence.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN An Ending up of Friends (The Dead Spaces)

Milena remembered walking towards St Thomas’s hospital. A nurse led her. He was a big man, about seventeen years old, calm and smiling. She remembered his sun-bruised skin, dark purple cheeks and clear eyes. The picture of health. He sauntered, at ease with his body and the world.

‘We’ll go round this way,’ he said, as they crossed the road. His teeth were perfect and white, and he had golden-green curly hair.

‘How did you know to ask for me?’ asked Milena. ‘Did she tell you?’

‘The Terminals said she was part of the Centennial and to find you out in the Slump.’ He held open a door, and they entered the Coral Reef.

The hospital was full of tunnels and dens, like natural caverns. The Coral Reef walls glowed softly, fluorescent, so that there would always be light, so that the dying did not awake in the dark, afraid that they had already gone. The Cancer Ward, it was called. People were dying for the lack of it.

In each of the dens three or four people lay in beds, young people, thirty or thirty-five years old, suddenly stricken, suddenly dying. Very suddenly they lost weight, fell ill with a variety of diseases as their immune system failed. Their bodies wore out, their hearts, their lungs, their livers, all expiring in concert.

‘It’s an epidemic, really, isn’t it?’ Milena said, keeping her voice low.

‘There really isn’t a word for what it is,’ said the picture of health. He held a door open for her. Milena smelled, very faintly, the stifled odour of illnesses and drugs and damp bandages and disinfectant.

The Doctors were still trying to break the Candy that shielded the genes of growth and maturing. The Doctors were still trying to find a way to synthesise the proteins that cancer had made, that had prolonged life. We all forget, thought Milena, we all have to forget that half of our lives has been lost.

Except for the Tumours, except for Lucy; they can’t the at all.

‘What’s wrong with Lucy?’ Milena asked. Lucy had been missing for several months. It seemed likely that she was very ill indeed.

The nurse stopped and shook his head. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said. ‘She’s getting better.’

‘Yes, but from what?’ Milena asked.

The nurse shrugged. ‘Old age?’ He beamed. ‘The human condition? She also is in — ah — another condition. But maybe that isn’t quite so miraculous.’

Miraculous?

The nurse led Milena on down the corridor, and indicated a doorway, and bowed slightly as if presenting Lucy to her.

Picture of health, thought Milena, looking at his puce and smiling cheeks, even you will be cut off.

Then she went into Lucy’s room.

Lucy had a room to herself. She sat up in bed and Milena could see in that instant that she had changed utterly.

Lucy looked very calm and dignified, perhaps even stern. Her hair was no longer orange. It was the colour of friable, dry soil, a muted grey. It was going darker in a line, along the parting near the scalp. Her leathery old skin