The Child Garden

aesthetics in my proposal. The costings were complicated enough, and frankly, they seemed to me to be the main issue. Obviously, the Consensus has some interest in a performance of the opera. The Consensus orchestrated it. But the Comedy lasts over fifty hours. Any performance at all would be very expensive and difficult. I’m proposing that the Comedy be Britain’s contribution to the Revolution Centennial. Staged as I suggest, it would become a public event, like fireworks, if you like. We would be saying in effect, here is a great new opera — there hasn’t been one in some time — and here is the great new technology to go with it. It would become a tribute to the Revolution itself.’

Moira Almasy was considering something. ‘It would do those things, I think, but I worry, for example, about the sick.’ She did not glance at Charles Sheer. ‘I worry about all the people who won’t be able to get away from this, but who might want to very much. Imagine you’re ill with a virus. Imagine that you’re dying. All you want is quiet, peace. You don’t want one hundred nights of an opera to take over the sky.’

‘Where else could we stage it?’ asked Milena, in a smaller voice. She had to admit, imagining it, that Almasy had a point.

‘Down here. You can hologram a whole sky into a tiny room and it will look real.’

‘I don’t want it to look real. I want it to be real.’ Milena knew she was on her weakest ground here. ‘At New Year, the streets are full of parades and singing. People are ill then and nobody minds.’

‘New Year doesn’t last for fifty hours,’ said Moira. ‘Do we have to stage all of it?’

‘The Comedy is not just a string of arias. Every single note refers to something else in the opera. It is a fifty-hour-long, unified piece of music. If it’s cut it will make less sense.’

‘I know!’ exclaimed Milton the Minister, suddenly sitting up. ‘I know what we could call it!’

‘You want to change the title of The Divine Comedy?’ Moira Almasy was from Europe and still had a capacity to be horrified by British provinciality.

‘There’s never been anything like this before, right?’ said Milton. He chirps, thought Milena. It’s very annoying. Milton’s eyes gleamed, his teeth gleamed. ‘We need something that’s never been thought of before, something mint new. How about…’ He paused for effect, his eyes glittering. ‘A Space Opera?’

There was an embarrassed silence.

‘No one’s thought of it before!’ he explained.

‘I wonder how the Italians would like it?’ said Moira Almasy.

‘Or, I know!’ said Milton struck with fresh inspiration. ‘We could call it The Restoration Comedy!’

Charles Sheer was making nasty snorting noises on his pillow. He was trying to laugh, but the virus wouldn’t let him.

‘I mean, why does it have to be Dante? Why can’t it be something British? If we’re paying for it? I know! We could do Paradise Lost!’ exclaimed Milton.

This idiot is going to cost me the Comedy.

‘Certainly,’ said Milena. ‘If you’ve got Milton set to music, Milton.’

‘I have,’ said Milton. ‘It’s by Haydn and is called The Creation.’ Milton looked pleased. ‘Haydn changed the title too,’ he added. He looked so pleased.

‘It would at least be shorter,’ sang Charles Sheer, gleefully. The melody was from The Creation.

Milena could begin to feel it slip away. The new Minister grinned like a puppy dog, happy to have been part of things.

Moira Almasy spoke, looking pained. ‘We… we seem to be straying from the original point.’ Her brows were knitted, fighting back the bouquet of confusion scattered by Milton. ‘We know the Consensus is interested in this particular work. Ms Shibush seems to have an unusual idea for presenting it. It is new, and it has a strong international element. If we make it our Centennial contribution, we might be able to ask other theatrical Estates to sponsor it with us. Even those in Europe.’

‘There’s a German version of The Creation,’ offered Milton.

‘Yes, Minister,’ said Moira Almasy, who evidently ran things instead of Milton. ‘We can present both ideas to the Consensus.’

Milton sat back, making a generous gesture with his hands. ‘I just thought I’d throw a little something into the pot.’

The delighted little man whose name Milena could not remember spoke again. He had greasy hair and a tracery of purple veins on his purple cheeks. He still smiled, but his voice was solemn. ‘It’s never in anyone’s interest to innovate,’ he said, and peered at Milena. ‘Least of all the innovator. People always think its just a way of advancing someone else’s career. Or they worry that they’ll be blamed if it fails. We don’t live as long as we used to, Comrades. Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky that in our short lives we have a chance to help instead of hinder something as insane but as essentially workable as this. And that,’ and he peered at Milena again, ‘we are lucky enough to have someone who is willing to pay the cost.’

What cost? wondered Milena the director.

There was silence, and in the silence, things swung Milena’s way. The Pears were all looking at Milena as if she were Frankenstein’s monster and they were deciding whether or not to create her.

Moira Almasy spoke. ‘Milena has now produced roughly one hundred and fifty outside projects. She has no Mainstage experience, but this will not be on a stage. She is one of the few directors we have with experience of Reformation technology. But. There is no guarantee that Reformation will work on this scale. So there will have to be a test. I’d like that to be made part of the proposal. That will mean, Milena, that you will have to go into space.’

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.