Her Name Was Lola

‘Will you feed me apples and lumps of sugar?’ says Lola.

  ‘All the time,’ says Max, smiling because Lola is looking very coltish in a short plaid skirt, purple tights, and fur-trimmed boots. A donkey jacket, purple muffler, and little black beret complete her outfit. Her fair hair is in a long thick plait that hangs down her back, ‘if I don’t eat you up first,’ he says. They kiss among the Dover paperbacks. The ice-skating elephants and crocodiles whirl in their pages, long scarves streaming out behind them. The lights are lit in St Martin’s Lane, the sky is dark and thick, rosy with the loom of London. Snow begins to fall. ‘When it stops we can turn St Martin’s Lane upside-down and make it snow again,’ says Lola. ‘This is what it is to be happy,’ thinks Max within the memory he’s typing. Lola’s cheeks are like cold apples as he kisses them. He falls out of the memory with a sudden drop. No more Lola. ‘Ahhh,’ sighs Max.

  ‘What a girl!’ says Moe Levy. ‘I love my Lulu.’

  ‘Your Lulu!’ says Max.

  ‘It says right here,’ says Moe: ‘“‘All the time,’ says Moe, smiling because Lulu is looking very coltish …” Hello? Are you there?’

  ‘Where?’ says Max.

  ‘In Chapter Four,’ says Moe, ‘APPLES, LUMPS OF SUGAR.’

  ‘Right,’ says Max. ‘I’m with you.’

  ‘I feel as if I’m going to blow a gasket,’ says Max’s mind. ‘Do we have to keep doing these memories?’

  ‘What else have we got?’ says Max.

  ‘No more Lula Mae?’ says his mind.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ says Max. ‘That’s all over, she’s going back to the States. She’ll send photos, I’ll send money.’

  ‘And have you become wise?’ says his mind.

  ‘Not yet,’ says Max.

  35

  Last Orders

  April 1997. Goodbye drinks at The White Horse. Tomorrow Lula Mae and the unborn Victor/Victoria are flying back to Texas. ‘Homecoming Queen,’ says Max. ‘Have you ever actually been one?’

  ‘High school and college both,’ says Lula Mae with a modest smile. ‘It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it.’

  ‘Have you told your parents you’re coming?’ says Max.

  ‘Oh yes, they’ll be meeting me at the airport.’

  ‘Told them about their grandchild-to-be?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘How do you think they’ll take the news?’

  ‘They’ll open a few bottles of champagne and they’ll be impatient to start spoiling him or her. I chose my parents carefully and they’re my kind of people.’

  ‘Probably a lot of jocks and ex-jocks hoping to see you again?’ says Max.

  ‘The jocks are a while back,’ says Lula. ‘Before you it was mostly executives.’

  ‘I wonder who’ll be next,’ says Max.

  Lula Mae shakes her head and takes Max’s hand. ‘I’m not the same as I was before I met you.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ says Max, patting her in the area of major change. He finds that he has to wipe his eyes.

  ‘Whatever happens,’ says Lula Mae, ‘Victor or Victoria won’t ever …’ She also needs to wipe her eyes.

  ‘Won’t ever … ?’ says Max.

  ‘Call anybody but you Daddy,’ says Lula Mae.

  Long kiss, long embrace. ‘Time for our last double scotches,’ says Max.

  36

  Forget fulness Remembered

  May 1997. Max’s pages are accumulating. He doesn’t know how Moe Levy’s story will end but he trusts that this will be revealed to him in the fullness of time. Moe has no complaints at the moment. He’s not a writer, he’s a painter, and he’s already done a portrait and many sketches of Lulu.

  Max’s mind is kept busy riffling through its files as Max’s memories become Moe’s life. Today he’s recalling a visit to the V & A with Lola. This will be the Moe and Lulu activity in Chapter Nine. No title for it yet. Max’s mind gives him Lola and himself back in early February. Up the museum steps they go, through the revolving doors and into warmth and brightness, long spaces and echoes, years overlapped like fish scales. Bowls and goblets, wine of shadows. Women, men, gods and demons in stone, clay, bronze, ivory. Some with open eyes, some with closed. Fabrics and jewels embracing absent friends.

  ‘Let’s go to the Nehru Gallery,’ says Lola. They hear music as they approach. On a dais musicians with sitar, tabla, flute and harmonium are playing a classical raga, far-away warm and bright in the dark London winter. The music is not loud but it is very wide. Max and Lola are standing in front of a display case in which they see Shiva Nataraja dancing in bronze, his hair streaming symmetrically to right and left. Dancing in a bronze ring of fire, Shiva Nataraja with his four arms, his hands with drum, with flame, with ‘Fear not’, with pointing to his uplifted left foot. Under his right foot is a dwarf all blackish green with patina. It has a long body, short arms and legs. Under Shiva’s foot it is like an animal, something that goes on all fours. Its baby-face, is it reposeful? Max thinks it is. ‘That’s Apasmara Purusha,’ says Lola. ‘The dwarf demon called Forgetfulness.’

  ‘Among other things,’ says Max. ‘Is he someone you visit often?’

  ‘Our lives are made of memories,’ says Lola. ‘Everything up to the present moment, even the word now leaving my mouth, is a memory. I come here every now and then to make sure Apasmara’s still under Shiva’s foot.’

  ‘He’s a dangerous guy,’ says Max, ‘but even if he got loose he couldn’t make me forget you. Fear not.’

  On the page Max is typing, that’s what Moe says to Lulu. ‘I’d just as soon you hadn’t put those words in my mouth,’ says Moe to Max. ‘They seem unlucky to me.’

  ‘Be brave,’ says Max. ‘We’ve all got to take our chances.’ He goes back to the beginning of the chapter and types in the title: FEAR NOT.

  37

  Monstrous Virtue

  June 1997. Max is chugging along comfortably with Moe and Lulu. Moe and Lulu visit the National Gallery, look at the Claudes, and encounter Linda Lou Powers from Austin. Moe and Linda Lou chat briefly, she says where she works, Moe admires her going-away view and so on. Moe has no need for a research visit to Holborn so Max sends him to Blacks for a new rucksack.

  ‘This is where you drop by Himalaya Technology and go out for lunch with Linda Lou,’ says Max to Moe.

  ‘What for?’ says Moe.

  ‘Hey,’ says Max, ‘don’t come the innocent with me, I’m the guy who’s writing you.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ says Moe. ‘How often have I heard you say that your characters develop a life of their own and you go with the action that comes out of that.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ says Max, ‘but if you can pass up Linda Lou you must be dead from the waist down.’

  ‘No need to be coarse,’ says Moe. ‘Linda Lou is certainly attractive but Lulu is all the woman I need and all the woman I want. I’ve got no interest left over for anyone else.’

  ‘My God,’ says Max. ‘I’ve created a monster. So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’m going to go home and stretch a canvas,’ says Moe. ‘Tonight I’m starting a nude of Lulu.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ says Max. ‘Do you think you’re better than I am?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I think of you as a demiurge,’ says Moe, ‘a brute creator that gets things started but doesn’t really know what to do with them, OK?’

  ‘That a character of mine should talk to me like that!’ says Max. ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth.’

  ‘I didn’t ask to be written,’ says Moe.

  38

  A Whole New Ball Game

  June 1997. Max is utterly gobsmacked by Moe’s put-down. As a writer of fiction he draws on himself, with whatever changes are required for the people he invents. They are taller or shorter than he is, braver or less brave, more honest or less, more aggressive or less. Better at sports perhaps, or talented in ways he isn’t. But never before has one of them assumed the moral high ground and lectured hi
m from there. ‘What do I do now?’ he asks his mind.

  ‘Explore your material,’ comes the answer.

  ‘I always do,’ says Max. ‘You know that.’

  ‘So keep doing it,’ says his mind. ‘You always say that if you knew how the story was going to come out you wouldn’t bother writing it.’

  ‘Give me a break,’ says Max. ‘This is a whole new ball game and I need time to think about it. Moe has made me so ashamed of myself. Lola is so much more than I realised. She keeps expanding like a flower unfolding. She fills my whole being with what she was to me, all that I never knew until now.’

  ‘Ever heard the expression, “A day late and a dollar short?”’

  ‘Yes,’ says Max.

  ‘There you have it,’ says Max’s mind.

  39

  The Big Store

  July 1997. Max dreams that he’s in a big store. Much bigger than Harrods. Very bright. Full of all kinds of things but it isn’t clear what they are. He seems to have bought something but his hands are empty. A pretty young woman in a black dress is facing him. ‘Thank you for helping me choose,’ says Max.

  ‘My pleasure,’ says the woman. They’re looking into each other’s eyes so Max kisses her. Tiny kiss, closed mouth. She smiles broadly, almost sings ‘La la la.’ ‘If I can help you with anything else, please let me know,’ she says as Max wakes up.

  He looks at his hands. ‘What did I buy?’ he says.

  40

  Noah?

  July 1997. ‘On March twenty-first Lola said she was pregnant,’ says Max. ‘She’d probably been a couple of weeks late with her period before she found out. Say she was due the first week in March, then she’d have been ovulating around the middle of February. That’s when our child was conceived.’

  ‘Right,’ says his mind. ‘And this is the middle of July so she’s five months gone.’

  ‘If she didn’t lose the baby when we crashed,’ says Max.

  ‘I don’t think she lost it,’ says his mind.

  ‘Why not?’ says Max.

  ‘It’s in the nature of things that you should have two children that you’ll probably never see.’

  ‘That’s hard.’

  ‘That’s your life. Get used to it.’

  That night Max dreams the Ark drifting through rain and storm and dark of night. The sky clears and it’s the dawn of a new day. Here’s the Ark stranded on the mountains of Ararat. Here’s the rainbow sign of the covenant. The little door up near the peak of the Ark’s roof opens and Max sees a face. The face of a child, a boy. The boy’s face comes closer, closer. His eyes grow bigger, bigger. ‘Noah?’ says Max.

  ‘Daddy?’ says the Noah child.

  41

  No Answer

  July 1997. Max turns on Fujitsu/Siemens, says, ‘Take me to Moe Levy’s place.’ Fujitsu/Siemens shrugs, hums a little, and sets him down in a desolation where the policemen walk in fours when they (rarely) go there. Sodden mattresses, rusty bedsprings, and broken prams litter the concrete yard. The lift doesn’t work, which is just as well since it seems to be used as a toilet. Max walks slowly up five flights, pausing to rest from time to time. A long balcony overlooks the yard and he goes from door to door (all of them covered with graffiti) until he finds one with the name Levy under the bell. He rings but the bell doesn’t work. He knocks but there’s no answer. He knocks again and keeps it up until he hears footsteps. ‘Whaddaya want?’ says a voice. Male? Female? Max is unsure.

  ‘I want to talk to Moe,’ he says.

  ‘Not here,’ says the voice. The footsteps recede.

  ‘Where is he then?’ says Max.

  No answer.

  ‘When’s he coming back?’ says Max.

  No answer.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ says Max to himself. ‘What’s he doing in a dump like this?’

  No answer.

  42

  Every Hour

  November 1997. Max has not attempted any communication with Moe Levy since July. He wishes he’d never gone to that dreadful council flat, he’ll certainly never go there again. He doesn’t feel too comfortable with Fujitsu/Siemens any more. He doesn’t check his e-mail or turn on the modem. Once in a while he scribbles something in longhand and he keeps a clipboard handy with yellow sheets of A4 but the top page says nothing except:

  3 BOTTLES OF RED CRISPS, OLIVES

  There is a poem by Walter de la Mare, ‘Goodnight’. It begins:

  Look thy last on all things lovely every hour

  This line has got into Max’s head as:

  Look thy last on Lola lovely every hour

  It’s in his brain like one of those pop tunes that won’t go away and Max is sick and tired of it.

  Lula Mae is also in his thoughts. He’s had short notes from her in her rounded and loopy handwriting. No Everest Technology printouts, the notes call up Lula Mae’s roundnesses, the generosity with which she gave herself. Photos of her, full-length frontal and profile. The pregnancy’s been coming along nicely, no problems. She’s had ultrasounds but she’s asked not to be told the baby’s sex. ‘I know it’s going to be a boy,’ she says, ‘and I don’t want to hear it from anyone else. Victor feels comfortable inside me and I love him dearly. He’s got a kick like a mule. I’ve been reading Edward Lear to him, I want to start him off right. I’m staying with my parents for the time being and I’m still with Everest. I’ll take my maternity leave when I’m closer to my time. They have a good medical plan so Victor and I will have the best of care. Thanks for the check. Give my regards to Clowed. Love XXX, Lula Mae.’

  Max imagines Victor reclining comfortably in Lula Mae’s womb, listening to her pleasant voice with his feet up, shaking his head thoughtfully from time to time as he takes in the tragicomic histories of the Yonghy-Bonghy Bo, the Jumblies, and the Dong with a luminous Nose. ‘Lucky kid,’ he says. He wipes his eyes and blows his nose.

  ‘He’d be luckier with two parents,’ says his mind.

  ‘Lula Mae could have stayed here,’ says Max. ‘But Austin is her homeplace and that’s where she wants to be. And London has become my homeplace. So there we are with an ocean between us.’

  ‘Is there something in you that doesn’t want life to be simple?’ says his mind.

  ‘I’d like it to be simple,’ says Max. ‘I just don’t know how to manage it.’

  43

  After the Flood

  28 November 1997. ‘Shalom,’ says Lord Bessington as the nurse shows him his grandchild, born at 03:15 this morning.

  ‘Really,’ says his wife, ‘he doesn’t look all that Jewish.’

  ‘That’s only because he’s not circumcised,’ says the Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. ‘When he’s decently covered there’ll be no mistaking that the stork who dropped him off was wearing a yarmulka.’

  The new boy, who is large (nine pounds, two ounces), well made, and with an abundance of black hair, squints at Lord Bessington, screws up his face, and lets out a yell.

  ‘You know you love him,’ says Lady Bessington. ‘He’s beautiful. Look at the intelligence in his eyes.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that he’s clever,’ says Lord Bessington. ‘He’s already demonstrated a talent for self-advancement.’

  ‘Come on,’ says Lady Bessington. ‘His father is a well-established writer. His Charlotte Prickles books are classics. I’m sure his genes are nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘In my experience,’ says Lord Bessington, ‘writers can be relied on for just the sort of moral unreliability demonstrated by this chap’s father. Our grandchild was born at quarter past three in the morning, so he’s already keeping late hours.’

  ‘For better or worse, the father’s name on the birth certificate is Max Lesser,’ says Lady Bessington. ‘But don’t forget that our Lola’s his mum. We’ve got to be genetically open-minded. I have to say I’m optimistic.’

  Lola takes the baby for a feed. He applies himself to her breast like a connoisseur. A hungry one. Lola’s looking wonderful. She had an
easy birth (natural) and she’s enjoying her son’s pleasure.

  ‘What are you going to call him?’ says Lady Bessington.

  ‘Noah,’ says Lola. ‘Noah Bessington.’

  ‘May he see rainbows,’ says her father before he can stop himself.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell Max?’ says Lady Bessington.

  ‘I begrudge Max Lesser even the memory of what we had,’ says Lola. ‘I’d like him to forget he ever knew me.’

  ‘His name is on the birth certificate because I play by the rules,’ says Lord Bessington. ‘So he does have certain legal rights if he chooses to claim them.’

  ‘I’ll deal with that when the time comes,’ says Lola. ‘But for the present he’s not to be told anything at all.’

  ‘Tsuck, tsuck,’ says little Noah. He knows a rainbow when he tastes one.

  44

  Synchronicity

  December 1997. WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN. Synchronicity! Nobody owns the passing moment. It isn’t exclusively yours or anyone else’s. This very moment (already past) as you read these words is shared by every creature living and dead, by every stone and leaf and door, by the trackless seas, the deeps of space, and whatever vast and trunkless legs of stone may be standing out in the desert.

  The naked baby in the photograph, though quite new, is well developed and beautifully finished in every detail. Genetically a good job. Blue eyes and blond hair. ‘My son,’ says Max. ‘My son the gentile.’ He wipes his eyes, blows his nose.

  ‘Victor Maxim Flowers was born at 03:15 on November 28th,’ says Lula Mae’s letter, ‘William Blake’s birthday (I looked up the date in the almanac). He weighed nine pounds, two ounces. We did natural childbirth all the way and he came out like a real pro, looking good. I had an easy time, as I’d expected, and you and I, Max dear, have a beautiful son. A Sagittarius. May his arrows always hit their mark.’ More eye-wiping, nose-blowing. ‘Your name is on the birth certificate and Victor will always know who his daddy is. All babies start out with blue eyes so we don’t know yet what color his will be. As you can see, he’s built like a fullback, and his grandad, who was one himself, has already given him a small Texas Longhorn T-shirt to grow into. If I can get him away from my mother now and then I’ll make sure that his Maxness is encouraged and given room to grow. I have known one or two fullbacks in my time (not counting Daddy), and although Vic seems to have my looks I hope he has your brains. Kind of. Now that he’s outside me I can see him when I read to him and that makes it more interesting. Today when we did the “Yonghy-BonghyBo” he said, “Ah!” sympathetically when we got to the turtle ride with its “sad primeval motion/ Towards the sunset Isles of Boshen”. Maybe it was gas but nobody can tell me he hasn’t absorbed the mood of that poem from all those prenatal readings. I’m breastfeeding, and from the way he takes to it I may not wean him (or myself) for quite a long time. Maybe Everest will let me work from home so I can fit my client visits into my own schedule. I hope you’re closer to Page One. Our next reading here will be Charlotte Prickles, Lollipop Lady. Love XXX, Lula Mae.’