Geoff Ryman - Child Garden

‘Hmmm,’ said Thrawn looking away half-interested. ‘But it was Crabs that was the success, wasn’t it. Now you’ve got hold of someone else’s music and someone else’s poetry. I suppose you think you’re on to a good thing. Do you really think you could cube like me?’

‘Yes,’ said Milena.

And part of her pre-rehearsed speech fell into place, as it had been delivered so often to the walls of her room. ‘You’re the one who can’t do without me, Thrawn. Until I came along, no one would work with you. Can you imagine yourself directing? Getting along with forty or fifty people? Not futzing around, not bursting into tears, not playing any of what you call your little jokes? You also have a very poor visual imagination, Thrawn. I know it sounds strange, but you’re only good at duplicating what is in front of you. When you reform from scratch, the images are muddy. Toll Barrett wouldn’t have you, Thrawn. Why should I be any better than him?’

Thrawn still mused, as if unconcerned. ‘So. You’re going to take my ideas and execute them badly at public expense. Vast public expense. Don’t you think that’s dishonest?’

‘No. I’m getting rid of someone who is deeply unreliable and who is likely to ruin a project at vast public expense.’

‘Getting rid of me, are you?’ Thrawn managed an absolutely convincing, confident chuckle. ‘I wonder what Charles Sheer thinks about that?’ Does she believe it herself, I wonder?

‘I don’t know what Sheer thinks. And neither do you.’

And Milena reminded herself. I am the stronger really. I no longer have to worry about hurting her. I am going to have to hurt her. I am going to have to break her.

‘But I do know,’ continued Milena. ‘That Sheer wasn’t much impressed by either out-theatre or the Crabs. So I am moving beyond those. Because this cannot be and will not be junk. And you can’t produce anything else.’

That’s right, Milena told herself. This is Rolfa’s. It isn’t mine. I don’t count. You will not get your hands on it, Thrawn. You don’t have your hands on it.

‘Why are you doing this?’ said Thrawn. She looked wounded. ‘I work with you. I give you the best I can. I’ve only produced junk, because that’s what’s been called for.’

And Thrawn sang, as accurately as her voice could manage, the opening of Inferno. Sang it with feeling. She could imitate any feeling.

‘That is beautiful music,’ Thrawn said with conviction. ‘I know what we’ve got with the Comedy. Don’t cut me out as soon as we’re finally going to do something good,’ she said.

‘You just said I could never do anything on my own.’

Thrawn gave her head an annoyed little shake, brushed that away. ‘Who can do anything on their own in the theatre? You know what I’m like. I don’t always do or say the right thing,’ she shrugged, giggled.

You have, absolutely, to dominate. You are almost afraid not to, as if you will cease to exist if you do not.

‘But all the shit to one side. You know, I know. You’re the strong one really. I got the wild humours. I got to move sometimes. Yeah.’ She did a kind of wiggle, and the hunger showed itself. She was under the illusion that it was somehow charming. ‘But you can ride with that,’ she chuckled, confiding. ‘You’ve done it for so many productions.’

So many productions. Why not one more? Milena felt herself begin to weaken.

Outside her window, the electric lights were reflected, rippling and distorted on the moving river. Milena wished she had a lamp, a huge, brilliant electric lamp. She wanted light suddenly. She wanted to escape from that dark room, to some other, large and airy place where there was no Thrawn.

‘Let’s just say I’m tired of riding it,’ said Milena. ‘Let’s just say you’ve worn me out. Let’s not plead high intentions for the moment, Thrawn. A lot of this is selfish. I don’t want to work with you again. I want to try someone else. Directors change technicians all the time. Even ones they like.’

‘I’m not just a technician, am I?’ Thrawn stood up, changed tack. She had a rueful smile, and she pressed her hands together prayerlike, pleased. ‘Suppose we say I’ve put in my own bid for Dante. Say I’m ready to move up to directing. Let’s not plead good intentions for the moment. I’m as ambitious as you are. You’ve only directed one major piece. Badly. I can put in my own bid for Rolfa Patel’s opera. And I’ll be more willing to shorten it. Cut it a bit. Like you did to Falstaff, so don’t get all weepy and artistic on me. I’ll be cheaper.’

For just a moment, Milena felt fear. It almost made sense. No. Hold on. I have the approval.

‘The approval,’ said Thrawn, as if reading her mind, ‘has been given for the opera’s good social effects. I could get those same effects in shorter time, less expense. Think about it. You try to cut me out, I cut you out.’

That is delusion, Milena repeated to herself. She has no lead. No one will work with her, they gave her to me as a last resort. What if it’s worked too well? What if they’ve forgotten how she was before? Then they are fools, and will deserve what they get. And I will keep fighting to do it well.

‘Go ahead,’ said Milena. ‘Try it. Say I have the same idea as Milena Shibush, only I’ll do it cheaper and nastier. More giant crabs, more badly imagined dragons. Give me the largest theatrical production that anyone can remember as my first job.’

Those delicious rehearsed lines, lumbering into place like old-fashioned scenery. Then feeling overcame Milena. ‘This is all so boring, Thrawn. You are all so boring. Why do I have to jump through these hoops, just for you.’

‘Because,’ said Thrawn, in a little-girl voice acrid with sarcasm. ‘You owe me something.’

‘I don’t owe you anything.’

‘What about your first success?’

Let me out. Let me breathe.

‘Poor little Milena,’ chuckled Thrawn, and shook her head. ‘Always afraid.’

She came close. Milena could smell her breath, feel her breasts against her.

‘I warned you,’ said Thrawn. ‘I told you that you would hate me.’

Milena could feel the nipples through the shirt. Thrawn’s nose brushed against her forehead, against her hair. Not this again, I am very tired of this too. Milena pushed her back, pushed her away.

‘I could tell them, Milena. I could, of course, tell them about us. About our little peccadilloes, eh? And maybe ask a few questions about you and Rolfa. I wonder if they’d like your opera as much if they knew it was a monument to bad grammar?’

Let her have it, thought Milena.

‘I already told them that, Thrawn. They already know, and they don’t seem to care. So go ahead and tell them, my girl, go ahead, and I will tell them how you took the light out my eyes and threatened to burn out my retina. I will remind them that you somehow escaped your Reading.’ They will whip you in so fast that you will puke with giddiness. You try that, Thrawn, and I will use the Consensus to squash you flatter than a fly.’ Thrawn was right. Milena hated her. Milena had not known that.

Thrawn looked shocked. Then she giggled. She tore the quilt off Milena’s bed. She pushed it into the sink into the bowl of chicken-pink water.

‘God damn it!’ squawked Milena, and hauled it out, stained and wet.

Hatred gave Milena words. ‘You are firmly ditched, Thrawn. Ditched. The production goes ahead, without you.’

‘I’ll just keep it up,’ said Thrawn, with a false girlishness. She spun around. ‘I’ll just keep coming and coming until you give in.’

People commit murder in circumstances like this.

‘You keep coming, Thrawn. You see what good it does you. You will get nothing out of me, Thrawn, nothing ever again. You’re right. I do hate you.’