“Yes?”
“You know what I’ve told you about things like that,” said her mother for Melanie’s benefit. “It isn’t always a good idea to talk to people you don’t know, even if they seem nice. Especially after dark. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Don’t do it again, then.”
Susan shook her head slowly. “It was all right. He was ill but he’s better now.”
Her mother bit her lip and turned away and Susan sensed the worry churning in her mind. She smiled.
Back turned to her, her mother jerked. “Susan,” she snapped, “stop it. . . .”
Susan followed her to the kitchen.
Out of sight of Melanie her mother turned to face her, gripped the girl’s arms above the elbows and tried to see down into her eyes. But the eyes were veiled. She said, “Susan . . .” Then she stopped and the frown came again, deeply. Her tongue stumbled, not seeming able to find the right words. “Your father and I,” she said. “We’re very worried. We were talking . . . we’re both very worried about you. You will take care, won’t you? Be so very careful. . .
Susan nodded quietly. “I shall be careful.”
Her mother reached up and stroked the hair from Susan’s forehead. Her eyes were flicking from side to side across the girl’s face as though she was trying hard to understand something. “Susan,” she said, and the words seemed to be squeezed out against her will, “Susan, dear . . . who are you?”
A long wait. The television played softly in the lounge. A car passed in the lane and the sound vanished in the distance. Then Susan shook her head. “I’m sorry, mother,” she said. “I don’t know what you mean....”
She picked up the teacups and carried them into the other room.
In British s-f nowadays, all roads lead eventually to Mike Moorcock’s Ladbroke Grove flat-and-office, where a hot argument on the virtues of the Ontological Approach or a stiff debate on the Metaphysics of Time may—at any hour of the day or night—compete with (what I am assured is) a connoisseur’s collection of rock ‘n’ roll (full-volume, of course), or with Moorcock’s own excellent blues guitar— while one of the young literary protégés of the household pecks out the end to a rent-payer story on the typewriter in the living room, and three-year-old Sophie struggles to open the concealed Victorian lock of the latest strongbox or escritoire Daddy has brought home from a walk down the Portobello Road.
You understand, I am exaggerating—but not much.
And perhaps you understand, too, how interest and enthusiasm on the part of (particularly new, but also established) authors spreads and multiplies around such a focal point. The results do not all show up in New Worlds (or in Impulse): far from it. The stories that germinate in sessions like these, or on the trip home, are as likely to turn up in the higher-paying American magazines, or in the flourishing British paperback book market.
Among the younger writers most often found in the center of the Moorcock ferment are Charles Platt (“Lone Zone” in New Worlds, No. 152) B. J. Bayley (“All the King’s Men,” No. 148), Langdon Jones (“The Leveller,” No. 152, and “The Empathy Machine,” Science Fantasy), Hilary Bailey and Thorn Keyes, who both produced exciting “firsts” in 1964, and Johnny Byrne—
Born, Dublin, 1937. Convent and Jesuit educated. Came to England, 1957. Studied some more and then went on the road, sleeping under bridges, picking apples in Kent and pears in Somerset.
Jobs include art gallery manager, barman, electrician’s mate, Christmas tree feller in the lake district, lifesaver on the Isis in Oxford, dullage sorter on Liverpool docks, editor of three small circulation magazines, door to door vac salesman, seller of devotional articles—monstrances, chasubles, altar breads, prie dieux, etc., to the English Catholic public. A spell in Paris teaching English to foreigners and finally the same kind of teaching here in London.
“Yesterdays’ Gardens” was commissioned for a French children’s magazine. ... By the time I got round to writing and translating it, it was no longer needed. It is dedicated to the son of Anselm Hollo, the Finnish poet who lives and works in England.
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?”