by Geoff Ryman
The word was like a cold wind.
'The Centennial is only two years away. So there is not much time. You would have to be ready to go up this autumn. Is that all right with you, Milena?'
In the silence, Milena could only nod yes.
'You would have to be made Terminal. And you would probably have to be Read, finally.' Moira's eyes were firmly held on Milena's. Yes, we all knew, Milena. The Consensus was saving you for something.
'What a thing it is,' said Moira bleakly, 'to have a friend in the Consensus.' She was saying it out of pity.
'Speaking of friends,' sang Charles Sheer. The words now fell on the aria 'Nessun dorma' from Turandot. 'Nessun Dorma' means 'No one's sleeping'. It was a reference to the effect of staging the opera at night.
'Speaking of friends
Is that mad person,
Ms Thrawn McCartney,
part of this project,
part of this mad endeavour?'
'No,' said Milena, tunelessly.
chapter twelve
THE WILD HUMOURS
(WHAT YEAR IS THIS?)
Milena was carrying parcels. She opened the door to her room, and on her bed, in the last of the daylight, sat Thrawn McCartney.
'Get in here and sit down,' said Thrawn.
Oh, that face. The devouring eyes, enraptured now that what Thrawn had wanted to happen had happened. The teeth were bared as if to rend flesh. The face could have been beautiful, if it had ever stopped eating itself. Milena the director felt the feathery brush of fear.
'In a moment,' said Milena, and found herself actually trying to smile. 'Surely you'd be more comfortable on the chair?' Meaning, get off my bed. Milena went towards her sink, to put down the rice and the peppers and the lumps of chicken flesh. She started to fill her bucket.
'What do you think you're doing?' Thrawn demanded.
'Putting my groceries away,' said Milena dismally. What she hated most was the impossibility of being direct as soon as Thrawn was near. Everything was veiled, every gesture she made was masked as another, hiding one part of the truth with another. Milena was afraid, irritated beyond measure, weary and dishonest.
'OK, Milena,' sighed Thrawn. 'You seem to like these little games.'
I hate them. I only ever play them around you.
'You haven't been to see me.' Thrawn sounded hurt, vulnerable. 'I have all kinds of new diddly boobs. I know you think it's all right to neglect people. But you're neglecting your work, Milena. That's your job, isn't it. To find out what I'm doing and see if the Consensus can use it?'
'If you say so.' Milena had just finished rinsing the peppers. Who would have thought it was such a long, complicated process to put away three pieces of food? Her back to Thrawn, Milena began to wash the chicken. She was thinking: this is my room. I did not ask you here. Do not think I am going to give you the full benefit of my attention.
'One of them duplicates what you are seeing exactly, and overlays it. A wall say. You see a wall, and it looks the same as it always has done and then the stones grow faces.'
Why can't I tell her to go? Milena was wondering. Is it because I don't want to hurt her feelings? Is it fear? What am I afraid of? Why am I worried about telling her to go, when I have something so much bigger to tell her? Why is she conducting the conversation, when I am the one with something to say? Milena felt small, mean, weak and bursting with things that had been left unsaid.
'I was talking to Sheer today,' Thrawn went on. She had started to pace. What diversionary tactic now? What evasion now? Why is my life full of crazy people? 'Oh really?' said Milena, trying to sound if something neutral had been said. Unfortunately the chicken was now clean, and wrapped in moist cloths. Milena was wiping her hands. Am I going to suggest we go out? If I do, that means we won't talk properly because we are in public. If I stay here, the hop skip and jump, the games, will be worse. Only in hop, skip and jump, the rules don't keep changing underfoot.
'He mentioned that you might have a new project. He didn't seem too pleased with the idea.'
He wouldn't mention it to you, Thrawn, because he hates you and only dislikes me. He doesn't talk to you at all. Why, wondered Milena, is it so difficult to call someone a liar?
'In the meantime,' said Thrawn, her arrogance perfectly ludicrous, not so much in her words as in the way she swanned around the room, lip curled at its size, at the one cold bed. 'I need a new production.'
'Well,' said Milena, still with a horrible neutrality. 'I hear Toll Barrett needs a good technician. I think he's doing The Last of the Mohicans?
One small trick she could always play back: take what Thrawn said at absolutely face value.
Thrawn snorted. 'I know about that shit. I'm not interested. What about The Divine Comedy?' A very small trick, when Thrawn could play it back for bigger stakes, and always seem to both of them to be more honest.
'This is my room. Will you please leave?' said Milena. It sounded feeble even to her.
'Not until we have a few things straight.'
And I always end up saying the right things in the wrong place. Jumping when I should skip.
'Milton tells me it's all going ahead. Why haven't I been told?'
Milena, dear heart, this is it. You have to ditch her. If you don't, she'll have you forever. Somehow she has a hold on you. The hold is a knot in her own head, a knot that uses her fearsome intelligence to tie itself tighter and tighter. And you are now bound up in it, and you have to get free. Basically, you are the stronger. You are the one playing with the full hand. Mother of God, mother of anything, don't let me falter.
'You're not part of it, Thrawn.' Direct enough. Blown by the performance, a nervousness from which psychopaths are exempt.
'You know you can't do anything on your own,' sighed Thrawn.
'I put on one hundred and forty-two productions,' said Milena.
'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 T
hrawn 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.'
'Then,' she said, like some horrible sort of doll. 'I've won.'
'Yeah. Guess so,' said Milena. 'Happy birthday, or whatever.'
Thrawn launched herself onto Milena's bed. Her smile seemed to say, anything that is yours, I will take over.
I really do feel like killing you, Milena thought. It really would be the simplest thing to take the kitchen knife that is behind me and cut you up and wrap you in the god-damned quilt and dump you in the river. Is that what you mean by victory?
Milena felt queasy, sick. I want to get away, from all of this. She wanted to hide her face, she wanted to weep, but she couldn't, not in front of Thrawn. And she saw Thrawn's face, saw its flatness. Thrawn knew what Milena had been thinking, Milena saw her face watching and waiting — hoping? The face wants me to pull that knife. Then she will scream and call people and destroy me. Or she would let me kill her and destroy me. I need a lock. I am fed up people coming into my room. I need a lock, and I need to get this woman Read, get her blasted full of virus.
'We're both crazy,' said Thrawn. 'Wouldn't it be nice if we could go hand in hand to the Reading rooms? They could cure us both.' It was a plea. She really meant it. 'You see,' Thrawn said. 'If we don't, something terrible is going to happen. I don't know quite what. But I do know I can't let you do this to me. I know that I am pretty clever. I think I'd have to destroy you. I get obsessed by things, Milena. I wouldn't stop.'
It sounded pretty much like the truth. Milena found she was steeled for it. 'You don't scare me, Thrawn. Except for nuisance value, you have no hold over me. My career? I don't care that much about my career. This room? Not even this room. You don't know what I care about.'
And Milena turned and left. It was very simple. She just turned around and walked away from it. Thrawn would do something to the contents. Snip off all the sleeves from my shirts, pull up the herbs in my window-box, what else could she do? Set it on fire? Good, burn the building down, Thrawn. That will really get you on the production. They are going to send me into outer space, Thrawn. I will be where you can do nothing to me. Space for three or four months. Can't touch me there, Thrawn. You can't touch me at all. And no one else will need you, and no one else will want you.
But there was a leadenness in Milena's feet and in her mind as she trudged down the stairs. Everything was weary. It was a leadenness that Milena remembering knew well. I wonder if that's when it began? When I let it in? We destroyed each other Thrawn. No one is invulnerable. No one is immune.
And Milena remembered singing in her own wan, flat little voice.
It's a dog of a song
The sky above was still fierce and blue and flawless, and from all around the horizon, there came a murmuring of song. T
he streets and yards were empty; it was high, hot noon and everyone was sleeping in the shade. It had been a beautiful summer. No rain for weeks. Already the air was beginning to smell of the urine of animals.
Ambling gently along
There was a stall, its battered, turquoise shutters closed. Underneath it, out of the sun, a family squatted. The mother with a straw hat and her hair in pigtails smoked a pipe. She rocked on her haunches, singing aimlessly a dawdle of song. The children were naked under blankets, and dirty. The old London, thought Milena the director. It's going.
Then she looked up and saw the sign: a man falling on his face.
The Spread-Eagle, thought the Milena who remembered. Is this before or after I left the Shell? It was about then that I found the Spread again.
The pub was dark inside, and empty too, empty at lunchtime. It was too hot to swarm together in airless pubs. The floor was bare of nutshells, though the tables were still ring-stained. In the corner, someone was sitting. Milena couldn't quite see her, because of the shadows, because of the dirt. Then the face looked up, pale and lumpy and forlorn.
'Lucy,' Milena the director said. 'Hello. Remember me?'
Lucy was wearing the same coat as the last time, but it was an uneven black and grey now. The old woman looked up. 'What?' she croaked. She was crying. Her cheeks were smeared with the tears of the very old, tears that seem to have melted into the face, as if the eyes themselves had melted.
Oh no, thought Milena. The face was devastated.
'Can I buy you a drink, love?' Milena asked. Now she had money. Now she could offer.
Lucy's face contorted and she lunged forward. 'Puke!' she exclaimed. She looked for a moment like an angry lizard. Then the old face collapsed again. 'I'm hungry!' she wailed, and swept a mug off the table.
'I'll get you some food,' said Milena.
She went to the bar. The man behind it was tall, and burly with it. His unfriendly eyes didn't blink as he looked at her, looked at her white, white clothes and new leather sandals, looked at her hair. It was a look that Milena had seen a lot lately, wearing her new Tarty clothes.
