The Year's Best Science Fiction 11

YESTERDAYS’ GARDENS JOHNNY BYRNE

Uncle Ernie sat in an armchair, his eyes vacantly held by a book. From time to time he said things softly to the child playing on the carpet. His niece had taken the roof off her doll’s house and was engrossed in arranging the tiny articles of furniture.

“Can I play with the box, Uncle Ernie?” she asked him again. When he didn’t answer she sang a rhyme she had made up herself.

“I met the man again today,” she added after a moment

“What man?” Uncle Ernie was not really listening.

“The man from the silver cup, the man in the silver cup who lives in our garden.”

Uncle Ernie shuddered in spite of the heat. He laid down his book and stared in silence into the fire.

“Your tea is cold,” she said accusingly. He didn’t answer and she jumped up, saying hopefully: “Give me the box and I’ll fill your cup with nice hot tea.” She filled one of her doll’s teacups, adding tiny amounts of milk and sugar. He handled it carefully when she put it in his hands. “Don’t forget to stir it, Uncle Ernie,” she sang, going back to her house.

“Go to bed, go to bed.” He was almost pleading. Then he remembered something important. “You are going away tomorrow, go to bed.”

“You must give me back the box first. The man said that you must. You took it and it’s mine. That’s not right.” Her voice was very serious.

“There is no silver cup in my garden. Nobody can live in a silver cup.” Uncle Ernie tried to control himself. “And I told you never to go into the garden.” His voice rose to a tired shout.

The child looked up happily. “Am I going home tomorrow?” She smiled. “Then I can take it to bed with me, can’t I, Uncle Ernie?” She was silent for a moment. “Am I going home tomorrow?”

Uncle Ernie looked bleakly at nothing. “No, you’re not going home tomorrow. You are going to stay with Dr. Esslin and his wife. I’ve told you that you can’t go home again. Your house blew down in the night, remember?” He looked at her doubtfully, trying to decide if she was still young enough for this kind of talk. “They are calling for you early in the morning,” he added finally.

The child altered carefully the position of a bed. She didn’t appear to hear him. “Why do you never go into the garden?” she said suddenly.

“Gardens are bad for people. They’re bad for the hair, bad for the bone and worse for little children.” Uncle Ernie spoke as if he were remembering a well-remembered lesson. His niece echoed him parrotlike:

“Why is the garden dry and yellow?” She never looked at him when she asked this question. “When I was little it was green and noisy. Why isn’t it noisy now?”

“It’s quiet,” Uncle Ernie said absently. He was remembering and answered her questions from long habit. His eyes turned to the forgotten book once more, and he said several times, “Gardens are bad: they are yellow and full of dust.”

Something in the way he said it made her angry. She kicked the house and the boom it made thundered hollowly round the solid rock walls of the room. She began to say and do things she knew would make him angry. “Why did you send the birds away?” She stopped and, pressing her arms tightly to her back, she pushed her neck stiffly forward and tried to imitate a sparrow. “When I was small I saw little birds that went like this. And wet things that used to crawl up tree trunks. Then when it was time for bed this is what the big black ones used to shout high in the sky at night.” She made loud shrilling noises and flapped her arms awkwardly.

She calmed down and her voice lost its shrillness. “The man who gave me the box that you took from me couldn’t tell why the sky is always red. Jimmy Esslin made up a song about that,” she added and sang:

“Gardens are poison,” said Uncle Ernie. “They’re bad for the hair, worse for the bone and a danger to little children.” He wasn’t listening.

“Can you tell me the name of the dancing flower again? It had real silk on its wings. My daddy showed me how to hold it so carefully in my hand, just like that!” She held out her hand and showed him how. “It moved if you held it properly and when you opened your hand it danced all around you and then went home.”

“Yellow and dust, bad,” said Uncle Ernie staring sightlessly at the pages in front of him. “Bad it is ... so bad.”

“You told me a lie!” she remembered suddenly.

Uncle Ernie looked up at her.

“That place a long way down the tunnel. The place where you said Mama and Daddy are buried,” she pointed, “they are not there at all. The man from the silver cup told me that you lied. They were in the garden when the big light came the night they vanished. . . . Oh, it was very bright. I saw it through my bedclothes. And they were in the garden when it came and I heard them make a noise just before the windsong came pushing all the houses down. The garden was gone after, and I didn’t see them again. The man said that they burned up with the birds and trees all yellow like the grass. The man said that they were still in the garden only I couldn’t see them.”

“There is no man in the garden. Nobody lives in my garden, gardens are bad.” Uncle Ernie spoke as if he were trying to convince himself.

“You told me a lie,” she said relentlessly. “You told me a big lie.”

Uncle Ernie came to life and snapped shut his book. “To bed with you. The Doctor will be calling early for you in the morning.”

“The Doctor wants to do something to me. I don’t want to go.”

He got cross with her. “Remember what happened to the little girl you played with last year. She went into the garden and stayed in the air. Remember! She didn’t go to the Doctor. Remember what happened to her afterward.”

“I don’t want to go. I want to go home. Jimmy Esslin makes fun of me because of the marks on my face.”

Uncle Ernie began to pack up her toys. “You won’t see Jimmy Esslin. You won’t see him again. He wouldn’t stay out of the air.”

She began to plead with him for the box he had taken from her. “Will you tell me what is in it if I give it to you?” he asked her.

“Nothing!” she answered, her voice too high.

“And what were you doing with it the last time you had it?” Uncle Ernie had wanted to ask her this before.

“Just playing!” she said. “Can I have it with me in bed, now? It’s mine,” she warned him. “The man said it was mine. He said everything I wanted was in it.”

Uncle Ernie considered for a moment.

“Will you go with Dr. Esslin in the morning?”

“Only if you give me back the box.”

He gave her the box. “I’ll be quiet,” she said. “You won’t hear a thing.” She held it tightly.

It was small, black and rectangular and had a concealed lid. She shook it first and then opened it too quickly for him to see how. She showed him the inside. “Look, Uncle Ernie, there’s nothing in it, isn’t it nice?”

He lifted up the doll’s house and took her to the bedroom. She undressed and got into bed still clutching the box. She kissed him and whispered, “Thank you, Uncle Ernie, thank you.”

After he left she got out of bed and started to play again. She crept silently to the kitchen and got some hot water. She went back to her room and unpacked her tea service. Sitting on the floor she made a pot of tea, handling the water and tea grains with elaborate care. She began to chant softly:

Almost happily she repeated this several times. Then her voice became a whisper and she started to coax: “Come out now, come out, Uncle Ernie, come out for your tea.” She was speaking to the box, which was on the floor beside her. Nothing happened, and she raised her voice just the tiniest fraction. “Uncle Ernie, come out for your tea this instant!”

Uncle Ernie shuffled out and she helped him drink the tea. After he had finished she fussed over him for a while and then sent him back.

Then she called the man—the man who had given her the box.

They spoke for a long time and played games with the box. She cried when it was time for him to leave, and wanted to go with him.

He stayed and told her about skies that were blue and suns that were white when you looked at them. He told her about rain that didn’t burn and fruit that grew and was good for the bone. He said that children looked beautiful with hair and she remembered. She was asleep when he left. She had a busy day tomorrow.