‘Closer,’ says the dwarf. His voice is like dead leaves skittering on the floor of that empty house with the backed-up toilet.
‘Not sure this is a good idea,’ says Moe’s mind.
Moe comes closer. Like a jumping spider the dwarf springs off the pavement and there he is in Moe’s arms. ‘Hold me,’ he says, sobbing a little. This is a very heavy dwarf and Moe tries to put him down but his arms and hands have lost the ability to let go.
‘Shit,’ says Max, as he reads what he’s typed. ‘Where’s this coming from?’ He remembers thinking about using Apasmara Purusha but what he’s written is a little too real, like something that’s already happened. Or is going to.
On the Fujitsu/Siemens screen the cursor is beating like a heart at the place where the next line should start. Nothing happens. Behind the cursor Moe gets tired of waiting in the dark. ‘What now?’ he says to Max. ‘I’m standing here holding this heavy stinking dwarf and I’m waiting for my next thing to do.’
‘You’re stuck there,’ says Max. ‘All of a sudden your memory is gone. Apasmara made you forget everything.’
‘Why?’
‘He was sent to do that.’
‘Who sent him?’
‘A woman you can’t remember. She sent Apasmara to take away all memory of her.’
‘Why? What would make her do that?’
‘What you did.’
‘What did I do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What came before what I did?’
‘You loved each other.’
‘OK, we loved each other. What then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Think! Explore your material. What did I do?’
‘I’m telling you, I don’t know.’
‘That’s great. You’ve got me holding this lousy dwarf and you don’t know why and you don’t know what’s coming next.’
‘Moe, I’m sorry to leave you holding the dwarf, I really am.’
‘You could delete that part and back up to where we were before he jumped into my arms. Come on, you can at least do that much for me.’
‘I’m sorry, Moe, that might stop the next thing from coming to me and I daren’t risk it. Besides, Apasmara’s not real, he’s only a hallucination. The weight and the smell are all in your mind.’
‘Wonderful. Thanks a lot. I’ll see you around.’
Max quits the word processor programme and goes back to the Winslow Homer painting that is his screen wallpaper. But instead of that boat in the Gulf Stream he sees Noah’s Ark stranded on the mountains of Ararat. The raven flies out, loops the loop once and The Gulf Stream returns. ‘Sorry,’ says Max’s mind.
‘No problem,’ says Max.
22
Further Research
March 1997. Lula Mae with no clothes on is a feast for the eye and two or three other senses. Max is grazing quietly on her when she says, ‘Max?’
‘What, Lula Mae?’
‘How come you’re here with me?’
‘What a question!’
‘I don’t want the obvious answer — most men like a bit of strange and most men who see me want to have me. I’m looking for the you/me specifics that resulted in our sleeping together for what is now the fifth time. Don’t you wonder where it’s coming from and where it’s going?’
‘When I’m with you I’m not thinking of that,’ says Max.
‘What about when you’re not with me?’
‘Then I try not to think of it.’
‘Say more.’
‘Much of the time I don’t understand what I do. And all of the time I don’t understand my life. Do you understand yours?’
‘Until now I don’t think I’ve tried to. What about you and Lola?’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Are you in love with her?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is she in love with you?’
‘Looks that way.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘She’s very careful with words.’
‘But you’ve slept with her, yes?’
‘I feel disloyal, talking about her like this.’
‘That’s a hot one: you don’t feel disloyal shagging me but you don’t like to talk about her while you’re in my bed.’
‘Life is full of anomalies, Lula Mae.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘OK, I’ve slept with her.’
At this point Max’s mind is unable to refrain from a little cluck of disapproval.
‘What?’ says Max.
‘You know very well what,’ says his mind. ‘Shtupping Lula Mae is already an intrusion into Lola’s privacy but this kind of talk makes it worse.’
‘Lola’s privacy!’
‘That’s right. Your nakedness and your lovemaking are private to Lola. Now you’ve exposed Lola’s nakedness to Lula Mae.’ Another little cluck.
‘I’m not a good man,’ says Max.
‘Could do better,’ says his mind.
‘Hello?’ says Lula Mae. ‘Are you there?’
‘More or less,’ says Max.
‘If you and Lola are in love,’ says Lula Mae, ‘why did you look me up in Holborn?’
‘You told me where you worked and then you gave me your going-away view. I’d have had to be dead not to respond.’
‘OK, that was one time. What about since then? What are you looking for with me?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I’m just greedy. What about you? Your attractions aren’t just physical, you could pretty well have any man you fancied. Why are you spending time with me?’
‘When it started I was a little bit trying to make up for all the girls you couldn’t get in high school. Your face is full of never-had-enough and I was touched by it.’
‘And the greatest of these is charity,’ says Max. ‘You’re a real Christian, Lula Mae.’
‘In my way. But now it’s become something else.’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s got me taking a long hard look at myself.’
‘And what are you seeing?’
‘A woman who’s been walking through a maze where all the pathways bring you out again and you never reach the centre.’
‘What’s at the centre?’
‘Maybe I’ll never know. In the meantime …’ She rolls over on to Max and he stops asking questions.
23
Freying Now?
March 1997. Ring, ring. With the smell of Lula Mae still in his nostrils and the taste of her in his mouth Max picks up the phone and says hello.
‘Hi,’ says Lola. ‘It’s me.’
‘Hi,’ says Max. That voice of hers! Always that clear stream in a dappled wood.
‘I’m taking a day off,’ says Lola. ‘This Friday is the vernal equinox.’
‘Yes,’ says Max, ‘the same thing happened last year.’
‘And Friday, of course, is Freya’s day,’ says Lola, ‘very auspicious for what I have in mind.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a mystery drive to a picnic at a special place. Can I pick you up around ten?’
‘I’ll be ready.’ After they ring off he says to himself, ‘This isn’t right, I must wind things up with Lula Mae.’
‘And not before time,’ says his mind.
‘I know,’ says Max. ‘At first I thought she was someone I could walk away from and no harm done on either side but it’s not that simple.’
‘Surprise, surprise.’
‘It’s a funny thing,’ says Max, ‘she could have any man she wanted. But I have the feeling that she’s always wanted a kind of man she’s never had.’
‘And you’re it?’
‘Well, yes. I’m nothing much to look at and I’m not a great lover but it might be that I appreciate her in a way no other man has.’
‘I’d have to have a heart of stone not to fall about laughing at that,’ says his mind.
‘You may scoff
.’
‘I just did.’
‘I’ll see her one last time,’ says Max, ‘and I’ll tell her it’s over.’
‘That’s the way to do it,’ says his mind.
24
Girl Talk 2
March 1997. The moon waxes and wanes, the sea responds with spring tides and neap tides, the waves fling up the pebbles with a grating roar and draw back again as they did when Matthew Arnold listened on Dover Beach.
A few days after Max and Lula Mae’s fifth get-together Lula Mae and Irma Lustig are lunching again at The Garibaldi. Irma flickers an eyelid and a red-shirted waiter appears with a bottle of Chianti. He opens it, pours a taster for Irma, she tastes it and fractionally inclines her head. The waiter pours two glasses and vanishes. ‘Zum wohl,’ says Irma.
‘Happy days,’ says Lula Mae.
‘What’s new?’ says Irma.
‘I’m pregnant,’ says Lula Mae.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ says Irma.
‘I thought you told me to be careful.’
‘And you carefully got pregnant. You’re not going to tell me it was an accident?’
‘Not really. All of a sudden I didn’t feel like taking the pill.’
‘Ovulation makes one hot to trot.’
‘Yup.’
‘Your interesting Max was the lucky man?’
‘Lucky or not, he’s the one.’
‘I seem to remember that he craved recognition from your kind of woman. Do you think he craved this much?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Are you keeping it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you told him?’
‘No.’
‘Are you going to tell him?’
‘I haven’t decided.’
‘Why not?’
‘He says he’s in love with Lola Bessington.’
‘Miss Too-Sure-of-Herself?’
‘Yes. I’d feel bad about coming between them but I doubt that she’s the right woman for him. He needs someone whose moral standards aren’t too exacting.’
‘And you are the right woman?’
‘I have doubts about that too. Sometimes I think being a single mother is more my style but at other times the idea of a proper family is tempting.’
‘Everest Technology gets more and more complicated,’ says Irma, ‘but there’s nothing as complicated as men and women.’
‘And we all come without manuals,’ says Lula Mae.
While Lula Mae and Irma tuck into their lasagne and drink their Chianti the not-yet-risen moon is waxing, comet Hale-Bopp trails its fiery tail unseen, night and day are approaching parity, and Lola Bessington, between customers at the Coliseum Shop, listens to Die Winterreise with tears running down her cheeks.
25
Boy Talk
March 1997. The vernal equinox will be on Friday. This is Thursday. Lula Mae will be seeing a client in the New King’s Road and Max has arranged to meet her at The White Horse in Parson’s Green at half-past five. He’s pretty sure he’s going to tell her it’s over but he’s not altogether sure it is. He’s having lunch now at Coffee Republic in Fulham Broadway. He’s grateful for the little hubbub of noise and people around him, he’d rather not be alone with his mind. He’s finished his sandwich, and while he lingers over his second coffee the lunchtime rush has subsided and he notices, alone at a table across the room, a short white-haired man who could pass for an older version of himself. He recognises Harold Klein, the art historian, from his TV series, The Innocent Eye. Klein seems approachable so Max approaches. ‘Mr Klein,’ he says, ‘may I join you?’
‘Please do,’ says Klein. ‘I know you from your photo. I’ve read your books and liked them. They’re the kind of thing I might have written if I could write novels.’
‘Thank you,’ says Max, ‘I’m flattered. I enjoyed The Innocent Eye but what really knocked me out was your monograph on Odilon Redon.’
‘Well, he tells it like it is,’ says Klein, ‘and I tried to do the same.’
‘You succeeded brilliantly.’
‘You’re very kind,’ says Klein.
‘I feel that I can talk to you,’ says Max.
‘So do I,’ says Klein. ‘So talk.’
‘I’m too sober,’ says Max. ‘Let’s go get pissed.’
‘OK,’ says Klein, and they remove to The Pickled Pelican in Moore Park Road. Max brings pints of Pedigree, doubles of Glenfiddich, and bags of crisps to their table. ‘Mud in your eye,’ he says as they clink glasses.
‘Down the hatch,’ says Klein as the football on the TV bursts into a roar. ‘Unburden yourself.’
‘What did you say?’ shouts Max.
‘Unburden yourself,’ shouts Klein.
‘I’m not a good man,’ shouts Max as the TV goes quiet and the rest of the pub turns to look at him.
‘That makes two of us,’ says Klein.
Max then spills his guts and tells Klein all about Lola and Lula Mae, his doubts, his fears, his indecision and his confusion. Klein listens patiently and nods his head while Max keeps the Pedigree and Glenfiddich coming. When Max has finished, they down their third boilermakers in silence. At length Klein, with a Godfather gesture, index finger pointing upward, says, ‘I look at you and I see myself twenty-five years ago, always greedy for more love and other love. Always unfaithful.’
‘What can you tell me?’ says Max.
‘Probably,’ says Klein, ‘you’re a little bit in love with Lula Mae and maybe she’s a little bit in love with you. If she weren’t, she’d have moved on by now. You want to end it with her and at the same time you don’t. You don’t want to end it with Lola but you’re backing away from This-Is-It. Shall I be honest with you?’
‘Not necessarily,’ says Max.
‘You’re bad news,’ says Klein. ‘If you care about these women at all, the best thing you can do is get out of their lives before you get in any deeper. Better a small heartbreak now than a big one later.’ With that, Klein falls asleep. Max wakes him up, they visit the Gents, then leave The Pickled Pelican.
26
Two Little Words
March 1997. Max at The White Horse. The day is cold and windy but he doesn’t want to sit inside. The smoke and the uproar of the braying crowd make him feel trapped. He gets a pint of Bass at the bar and takes it to an outside table. There he sits looking past the Parson’s Green Clinic and Lady Margaret’s School towards the corner of the New King’s Road where Lula Mae will appear.
‘Better a small heartbreak now,’ says his mind.
‘When she comes around that corner,’ says Max, ‘my heart will leap up at the sight of her. Then I’ll tell her it’s all over.’
‘Are you in love with her?’ says his mind.
‘I’m so comfortable with her!’ says Max. ‘I don’t know if it’s love but we really like each other.’
There she is now, coming around the distant corner. Max’s heart leaps up and so does the rest of him. He waves to Lula Mae and she waves back as she walks towards him.
‘Ah!’ sighs a nearby drinker.
Max’s eyes fill with Lula Mae. He tries to imagine her as a little girl with pigtails, sitting on her father’s lap while he reads her Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. His throat aches.
‘Hi, Cowboy,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ says Max. Big hug, big kiss. ‘What’ll you have?’
‘Same as you,’ says Lula Mae. When Max returns from the bar they lift their glasses to each other.
‘Here’s how,’ says Max.
‘I think we already know how,’ says Lula Mae. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Max notices an aeroplane high overhead. Is it trailing a banner that says THIS IS IT? He looks back at Lula Mae. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he says. ‘L’haim! To life!’
‘L’haim,’ says Lula Mae. ‘You think I should have it?’
‘Of course you should have it,’ he says. ‘A child from you and me! Wow.’
‘You’re not going to ask me if I’m sur
e you’re the father?’
‘If I weren’t, you’d have told me,’ says Max.
‘You just got a foot taller,’ says Lula Mae.
‘There’s more to me than Lesser,’ says Max. Big hug, big kiss, broad grins, more schmoozing, two more pints. ‘So what’s our next move?’ he says.
‘What do you mean?’ says Lula Mae.
‘Well, some people when they have a child, they all live together and it’s a family,’ says Max. ‘Sometimes the parents get married.’
‘Are you proposing to me?’
‘I’ve been listening to the words coming out of my mouth,’ says Max, ‘and I don’t really know what I’m doing.’
‘Take deep breaths and calm down. It’s not as if my father’s coming after you with a shotgun.’
‘I know that,’ says Max, ‘and I’m calm. What do you think we should do?’
‘Double scotches,’ says Lula Mae. ‘My shout. This requires careful thought.’
27
Ursa Major, Lesser Minor
21 March 1997. Morning of the vernal equinox. Max is waiting on his front steps with a sleeping bag and a small rucksack. At ten o’clock Lola pulls up in a seriously green E-type convertible with a black top. ‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ says Max. ‘Nice ride.’
‘Birthday present from Daddy. It’s a ’62, three point eight litre. They made them with bigger engines later but Daddy says this one’s a Stradivarius and it does a ton without breathing hard.’
‘I’m breathing hard just looking at it,’ says Max.
‘This colour is British Racing Green,’ says Lola.
‘A fast colour,’ says Max.
‘Nothing illegal today,’ says Lola. She notes the sleeping bag and smiles. ‘Expecting to get lucky?’
‘You never know,’ says Max.