Her Name Was Lola Read online

  To Dominic

  (a.k.a. Seamus Flannery)

  ‘The sun rises in the morning,

  you run your ship aground,

  you get court-martialled.’

  Commander Richard Farrington

  Captain, HMS Nottingam

  8 July 2002

  Contents

  1 Not a Dog, Not a Cat

  2 Amazing Grace

  3 When Max Met Lola

  4 Through the Night

  5 From Where, From What

  6 First Date

  7 So Far, So Soon

  8 Razor Blades

  9 Flashes, Flutters, Expectations

  10 Frank Sinatra, Doris Day

  11 Blighter’s Rock No

  12 When Claude Met Lula Mae

  13 When Max’s Mind Met Lula Mae

  14 Research

  15 The Scent of Lula Mae Flowers

  16 Doing Their Ching

  17 How It Was

  18 The Worst That Could Happen

  19 A Short Time With Basil

  20 Girl Talk

  21 Moe Levy’s Burden

  22 Further Research

  23 Freying Now?

  24 Girl Talk 2

  25 Boy Talk

  26 Two Little Words

  27 Ursa Major, Lesser Minor

  28 Overload

  29 The Mountains of Ararat

  30 Phone Talk

  31 Lola Lola

  32 Earth Work

  33 Victorian Attitudes

  34 Levy Unburdened

  35 Last Orders

  36 Forgetfulness Remembered

  37 Monstrous Virtue

  38 A Whole New Ball Game

  39 The Big Store

  40 Noah?

  41 No Answer

  42 Every Hour

  43 After the Flood

  44 Synchronicity

  45 Not a Retreat

  46 Making It Dark

  47 Form and Emptiness

  48 Not So Fast

  49 Frog Hollow Road

  50 The New Rucksack

  51 Joie de Vivre

  52 More Dark Than Light

  53 Absent Friend

  54 Prickles of Memory

  55 The Vessel Only

  56 The Enormity

  57 Kirsty’s Fetch

  58 Boilermakers No

  59 The Rainbow Sign

  60 Well, Really, What?

  61 Victor’s First Word

  62 River in the Mind

  63 Another Time With Basil

  64 A Far, Far Better Fantasy

  65 A Little Bit of No Luck

  66 Ark of Mystery

  67 Penelope’s Web

  68 Lolanesses

  69 ‘Smriti’

  70 What Searching Eyes

  71 Destiny’s Dentist

  72 Philip Nolan Lesser

  73 Her Name Was What?

  74 Whatever

  75 Thank You, God!

  Acknowledgments

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  1

  Not a Dog, Not a Cat

  November 2001. No letters on the mat this morning. Thirty or forty flyers for Thai, Chinese, Indian takeaway, Pizza, Painting & Decorating, various car services but no letters. Was there something yesterday? Max can’t remember.

  He goes down to the kitchen for breakfast, then up to his desk. He turns on the modem and computer, checks his e-mail. One offer to make him a millionaire, one to make his penis three to four inches longer overnight. He trashes both, then looks at what he did yesterday. Max writes novels that don’t sell, children’s picture books that do. His last novel, Any That You Cannot Put Downe, was published eight years ago. He’s been working every day but he hasn’t got anything that looks like Page One of a new novel. On the children’s book front he’s also without a Page One. He’s had considerable success with a series about a hedgehog called Charlotte Prickles but at the moment Charlotte isn’t telling him anything.

  ‘Give it a rest,’ says his mind. ‘We have a lunch date.’ It’s almost time to leave so Max puts his Underground book in his rucksack: A Beleagured City and Other Tales of the Seen and the Unseen by Margaret Oliphant. Also two videos lent by his friend Seamus Flannery, Living in Oblivion and Being John Malkovich, and off he goes. To Earls Court on the District Line, then the Piccadilly to Russell Square. Max has got a seat and is absorbed in A Beleagured City. In it a dark cloud separates the city of Semur from the daylight around it and the inhabitants are driven out by the invisible presences of the dead. ‘Absent friends,’ says Max’s mind.

  ‘Why did you say that?’ says Max.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says his mind. ‘Don’t let me distract you from your book.’

  Max comes out of Russell Square station and heads for Southampton Row and II Fornello where he’s going to meet Seamus for lunch. Just then the world becomes not there and he has to stop in his tracks while he sees nothing but moving shapes of black. ‘Shit,’ he says.

  ‘Try to be calm,’ says his mind. ‘Just stand there until the world comes back.’

  Max stands there for what seems a long time. The shapes of black keep moving and changing. The way they do it scares him. He’d like to think it’s his mind playing up but this feels as if it’s coming from somewhere else. The black shapes are as sharp as double-edged razor blades and Max fears that if he makes a wrong move blood will come out of his eyes and ears and nose and mouth. What would be a wrong move? A wrong thought? He pays close attention to the shapes of black. The distances between them are not always the same. A woman he can’t see touches his arm and says, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m OK, thanks,’ he says. ‘I was just trying to remember if I turned off the cooker.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Not sure but I’ll find out when I get home.’

  ‘Good luck,’ says the woman, and she’s gone.

  Is one of the black shapes moving away from the others? Is it something recognisable? Suddenly the world comes back. With a stench of desolation. It smells like a backed-up toilet in an empty house with broken windows. Out of the corner of his eye Max sees something following him. Is it a dog? A cat? It’s a little man, black as ebony, long body, very short arms and legs, large head, big ugly baby-face. He’s inching along on his belly and writhing like a dog that’s been run over. Max looks around. Lots of foot traffic but nobody is stepping on the dwarf. Nobody is taking any notice at all. The smell is almost making Max throw up but he wants to do the decent thing. He says to the dwarf, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘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 Max’s mind.

  Max comes closer. Like a jumping spider the dwarf springs off the pavement and there he is in Max’s arms. ‘Hold me,’ he says, sobbing a little. This is a very heavy dwarf. Max tries to put him down but his arms and hands have lost the ability to let go.

  Again Max looks around. Again nobody’s taking any notice. ‘OK,’ he says to the dwarf. ‘Nobody else can see you. Nobody else can hear you. Probably they can’t smell you either. You’re a hallucination.’

  ‘So?’ says the dwarf. He sniffles, belches, farts, then like a baby he goes to sleep in Max’s arms. What about the razor blades? Still there? Max isn’t sure.

  ‘Now what?’ he says to his mind.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says his mind. ‘We’ll just have to play it by ear.’

  ‘And nose,’ says Max.

  Max can’t put the dwarf down but he manages to sling him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He moves on, rounds the corner into Southampton Row. Now it’s a beautiful blue-sky day. The Russel
l Hotel looking absolutely real. Fresh wind blowing brown leaves from Russell Square. Hard sunlight glinting off the traffic. Tourists thick on the ground. Young ones with backpacks as big as steamer trunks, mineral water, London maps. Old ones with trolley bags. Ordinarily Max wishes they’d go away. Today he’d like to see more of them. The London Pride sightseeing bus is waiting for punters in its usual place. The luggage shop a little farther along is offering backpacks and trolley bags at SALE prices. The shop that sells electronic marvels of all kinds is flaunting its hand-held DVD players and other erotica. So things are fairly normal but although the sunlight is hard and bright there doesn’t seem to be enough light in the day for Max.

  At Il Fornello he gets a hearty greeting from the staff. ‘Dottore Max!’ says Bruno at the till. ‘How are you?’ Max isn’t a doctor but at Il Fornello any regular patron over forty is Dottore and those over sixty are Professore. ‘Dottore!’ says Juliano, coming to shake his hand. ‘Have you hurt your back?’

  ‘Heavy lifting,’ says Max. He wonders if he’ll be able to put the dwarf down to take his jacket off. Bad move? Paco comes to help him. The dwarf wakes up, drops to the floor, waits until the jacket is hung up, then he does his jumping-spider thing again. Max slings him over his shoulder and heads for Seamus who’s already in their regular booth.

  Seamus, also a Dottore, says, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Heavy lifting,’ says Max.

  ‘Best avoided,’ says Seamus.

  Max wonders if he can get the dwarf off his shoulder and on to the seat between himself and the wall. He can, with the dwarf asleep again and snoring quietly. Max sighs, sits down, takes the two videos he’s returning to Seamus out of his rucksack and puts them on the table. Seamus puts out three that Max lent him: Field of Dreams, The Devil’s Backbone, and The Princess and the Warrior. Juliano brings them each a half-pint of lager and as they clink glasses Seamus says, ‘Absent friends.’

  ‘Why’d you say that?’ says Max.

  ‘Who knows?’ says Seamus. ‘There are bound to be some out there.’

  ‘How’s work?’ says Seamus. ‘Page One?’

  ‘Not yet,’ says Max. ‘What about you? Episode Four?’

  ‘Slow going,’ says Seamus.

  ‘Gentlemen?’ says Juliano.

  ‘Scampi,’ say Max and Seamus.

  ‘Problems?’ says Max to Seamus.

  Seamus nods. ‘Gwendoline’s realer than Daniel.’

  ‘Women are realer than men,’ says Max.

  ‘You’ve noticed,’ says Seamus as Juliano reappears with two more lagers.

  ‘Are we hearing or have we heard music?’ says Max’s mind.

  ‘What music?’ says Max.

  ‘What they usually have here,’ says Seamus. ‘Right now it’s Georgy Zamfir and his pan pipes.’

  ‘Sorry,’ says Max. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘“Be not afeard,”’ says Seamus; ‘“the isle is full of noises,/Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not./Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments/Will hum about mine ears …”’

  Juliano brings the scampi. Seamus says, ‘You on for our usual video debauch at Virgin?’

  ‘Not today,’ says Max. ‘Got to get back to my desk so I’m there in case Page One happens.’

  ‘Was it yesterday, the music?’ says his mind.

  ‘I’ll get back to you, OK?’ says Max.

  ‘About what?’ says Seamus.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Max. ‘Thinking out loud.’

  Nobody has much to say after that. It’s Max’s turn to settle the bill. He does this and heaves the still-sleeping dwarf on to his shoulder. When they part Seamus wishes Max luck with the new novel and Max wishes Seamus luck with his Daniel Deronda for Radio 3. Then Seamus heads for Tottenham Court Road and the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street while Max walks back to the Russell Square tube station and the Piccadilly Line. In the train Max remembers not to think out loud. People look at him and move away anyhow. ‘What music are we talking about?’ he says to his mind.

  ‘Hang on,’ says his mind. ‘I’m giving you a picture.’

  Max sees the doormat at home with its accumulation of flyers and cards for car services. Also something square and white. No, something round and white in a clear plastic square envelope.

  ‘Now I’m thinking South Ken,’ says his mind. ‘I’m thinking V & A.’

  ‘What about the doormat?’ says Max.

  ‘Later,’ says his mind. ‘First the V & A.’

  The dwarf is asleep on Max’s shoulder. Max can’t see his face. He says to his mind, ‘Hallucinations are mental things, right?’

  ‘OK,’ says his mind, ‘but I didn’t think this guy up. I’m like a post office – things come in and I sort them. What stop is this?’

  ‘Earls Court,’ says Max.

  ‘We missed South Ken!’ says his mind. ‘Go back.’

  Max crosses to the eastbound Piccadilly platform and after about five minutes there’s a train. It’s crowded but people leave a little space around Max. Can they smell the dwarf? Max tries to look as if he doesn’t care. The dwarf is awake now and singing softly to himself.

  ‘What stop is this?’ says his mind.

  ‘Oh shit,’ says Max. ‘Knightsbridge.’ He leaves the train and lugs his burden to the westbound platform again. ‘Don’t talk to me this time,’ he says to his mind as he boards another train.

  ‘I didn’t talk last time,’ says his mind.

  ‘No more singing,’ says Max to the dwarf. The dwarf stops singing but hums to himself.

  ‘Where are we?’ says Max’s mind.

  ‘Earls Court,’ says Max. ‘Missed South Ken again. I don’t believe this.’ He and his mind and the dwarf go up to the street and after a quarter of an hour Max gets a taxi. ‘Can you take us to the V & A, please,’ he says to the driver.

  The driver looks around. ‘How many are you?’ he says.

  ‘It’s just me,’ says Max. He grunts as he shifts the dwarf and heaves him on to the seat.

  ‘I know how it is, mate,’ says the driver. ‘I’ve got back trouble too.’

  ‘Dwarves happen,’ says Max.

  ‘You what?’ says the driver.

  ‘Shit happens,’ says Max.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ says the driver. ‘But at least the Gunners are doing better than they were.’

  ‘I don’t really follow football,’ says Max.

  ‘How long you here for?’ says the driver.

  ‘I live here.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Fifteen years.’

  ‘What made you come here?’

  ‘Oliver Onions.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A writer. Dead now. Wrote a ghost story called “The Beckoning Fair One”.’

  ‘You a writer too?’ says the driver.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You ever seen a ghost?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ says Max. ‘You?’

  ‘In a way,’ says the driver, ‘you’re sitting next to one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Max. The dwarf is on his left. He doesn’t see anyone on his right.

  ‘Like the echo of a person,’ says the driver. ‘An echo you can see.’

  ‘Can you see it now?’

  ‘No, but if there’s nobody in here with me and I look in the mirror I like get the idea of her face.’

  ‘Someone you knew?’

  ‘No, she was just a fare I picked up in the Fulham Road. Her and a bloke, they were going to Waterloo. I had the divider closed so I couldn’t hear what they were saying but she was crying and shaking her head. She was a good-looking woman, very fine-featured, nothing common. Kept shaking her head and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. The man, I didn’t like the way his mouth moved and his hands. Didn’t like his tie. The fare was nine pound twenty and he gave me eleven quid but I still didn’t like him. They had one small bag, I think it was hers.’

  ‘What do you think was making her cry?’ says Max.

  ‘
I think he was telling her it was all over. I’d say she was better off without him but I can still see her crying and shaking her head. Here we are.’

  The fare is five sixty. Max tips the driver eighty-five pence. ‘The stories I could tell you!’ says the driver. ‘But I’m no good at writing them down.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t need to be written down,’ says Max. ‘Not everything does.’ As the taxi pulls away into the traffic Max shoulders his dwarf and looks up and down the Cromwell Road. The evening sky is a darkening dove-grey still luminous with a Caspar David Friedrich long, long blue that is like memory, like prayer, like regret. There is a little sickle moon, Max is never sure whether it’s waxing or waning. Against the sky the rooftops and chimneys, TV aerials and satellite dishes are like black paper silhouettes. Below the scissored-out black shapes are golden windows, orangey-yellow street lamps, the brilliant reds, green, and ambers of traffic lights, and the white headlights coming and red tail-lights going townward and homeward. The pattering of footsteps on the pavement makes him think of the wheeling of starlings, so many of them and nameless to him.

  Up the steps he goes, through the revolving door and into the warmth and brightness of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 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.

  ‘Nehru Gallery,’ says Max’s mind.

  All of a sudden Max feels a strange lightness and he realises that the dwarf is gone.

  ‘Don’t let’s celebrate yet,’ says his mind. ‘He’ll probably be back.’

  There are people all around with their voices and their footsteps and their cameras popping sudden flashes but Max feels all alone as he approaches the Nehru Gallery. Soon it will be Devali, and women in yellow, orange, red and purple saris trickle grains of coloured powders on to the floor in a likeness of Ganesha. ‘Listen to the music,’ says Max’s mind. On a dais musicians with sitar, tabla, flute and harmonium are playing a classical raga, faraway warm and bright in the dark London November. The music is not loud but it is very wide. Max is standing in front of a display case in which he sees 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 his mind. ‘The dwarf demon called Forgetfulness.’