Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

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.

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.

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.

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.