Russell Hoban: Her Name Was Lola

‘Moe!’ says Max. ‘Please! I’ll write you back into Fulham, I’ll give you a skylight studio, whatever you want. I can’t tell you how sorry I am!’

Moe stops and turns a pitying look on Max. ‘I’m sorry too, because I just can’t work with you. I suppose you’ll eventually find somebody who’ll say the words and do the things you want and you’ll put some kind of a story together but it’s time for me to say goodbye.’

‘Where are you going?’ says Max.

‘Back where I came from,’ says Moe. He begins to spin and he keeps spinning faster and faster until he becomes a dim and blurry dust-devil.

Max feels his head going round as he spins too. He falls to the ground and everything goes black.

February 1998. ‘Let’s go, champ,’ says Max’s mind. It shakes him gently and breaks into song. ‘“Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”’

‘Now I know why people lose their minds,’ says Max.

‘You don’t want to lose me,’ says his mind. ‘I only want what’s best for you.’

‘And what’s that?’ says Max.

‘I can’t say. I’ll know it when I see it.’

‘You’re no better off than I am,’ says Max. ‘So where’s all this cheerfulness coming from?’

‘You always keep a little joie de vivre stashed away, remember?’ says his mind. ‘So I thought this might be a good time to open a can.’

‘That won’t help,’ says Max. ‘I’m an orphan father and I can’t write. Charlotte Prickles has gone strange and Moe Levy fired me. I don’t feel real any more.’

‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ says his mind. ‘When you felt real you weren’t. Now you’re a two-time loser and probably a two-time father and you’ve got two No Page Ones. Get real with that. Feel it inside you.’

‘Shit,’ says Max.

‘You’re boring me,’ says his mind. ‘You think Edward Lear wasn’t feeling lousy when he wrote “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy Bo”? But he got real with it, and the base metal of that reality was transmuted into the gold of art.’

‘Hang on,’ says Max, ‘I want to make a note not to write that down.’

‘OK, smartass,’ says his mind. ‘Do it your way. But don’t come crying to me any more. Be a fucking man.’

‘I’ve been that,’ says Max. ‘That’s how I got where I am today.’ He pulls himself together and thinks about his latest attempts at Page One. ‘Charlotte Prickles had a strange dream,’ he says. ‘I wonder what it was.’ He nudges Fujitsu/Siemens out of its screen saver of flying toasters and types:

THE STRANGE DREAM OF CHARLOTTE PRICKLES

‘Charlotte,’ says Max, ‘talk to me.’

‘I had a dream,’ says Charlotte.

‘Right,’ says Max. ‘Go on.’

‘“I had a dream,”’ sings Charlotte, ‘“You had one too. Mine was the best dream because it was of you.”’

‘Stop kidding around, Charlotte,’ says Max. ‘I’m serious. You had a strange dream. What was it?’

‘I’m trying to remember,’ says Charlotte. She goes quiet for a long time, looking inward. ‘There was moonlight on a river. The full moon reflected in the water, in the glimmers of the water in the night. Strange moonlight, not from now. Moonlight from long ago. The sound of a fish jumping. Close but far away, far away in time.’

‘Go on,’ says Max.

‘That’s all that comes to me now,’ says Charlotte. ‘Maybe I’ll have that dream again and I’ll remember more next time. If I do I’ll let you know.’

‘Thanks, Charlotte,’ says Max. ‘I’d be very grateful.’

March 1998. The vernal equinox again. Max feels it inside him. The world of it. He sees Lola pull up in the E-type. Sees the names and arrows large in front of them, small behind them. Sees her ribbon fluttering on the grass stem on Mai Dun. Tastes the Cristal and her mouth. Smells her skin, her hair, her breath as she names the stars of Ursa Major. In the evening he steps outside with a starfinder and a printout of the constellation from an astronomy website. He finds Ursa Major and reads off the seven names: ‘Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak, Dubhe.’ His throat aches. He goes back into the house, gets a bottle of Glenfiddich and a glass. He walks over to the common, looks up at the stars again. ‘Absent friend,’ he says, and pours some whisky on the grass. Pause. ‘Absent child?’ he pours some more. Then he pours himself a large one and drinks it standing there. ‘Will there ever be anything,’ he says, ‘to equal what I’ve lost?’

No answer.

March 1998. The evening of the vernal equinox at Diamond Heart. Morwen and a few friends are dancing naked around a fire on the hill called Kirsty’s Knowe. Others are marking the occasion indoors with candles, incense, chanting, musical improvisation and whatever stimulants come to hand. For the Zen poker and snooker players the night is always longer than the day even when it’s not. They carry on as usual.

Mick has invited Lola to look at the stars with him but she has declined. She steps outside her dome with a bottle of champagne, looks up at the sky, locates Ursa Major. She uncorks the bottle, says, ‘Absent friend,’ and pours a little on the ground. She goes back inside, pours herself a glass, raises it to the sleeping Noah, and drinks it down.

June 1998. Although Max is sometimes free and easy with Charlotte Prickles he never forgets that she’s his meal ticket. Having had no Page One these many weeks he is very careful when he visits her again. ‘Hi, Charlotte,’ he says. ‘I was in the neighbourhood and I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.’

‘After all these years you’re still calling me Charlotte,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you call me Charlie? You would if I were a walking-around woman.’

‘I didn’t want to get too familiar,’ says Max.

‘Nothing stays the same,’ says Charlotte. ‘You have to get more familiar as time goes by.’

‘OK, Charlie,’ says Max. ‘Whatever you say.’

‘Good,’ says Charlie. ‘I agree with what you said to your mind not long ago: sadness is the basic hedgehog condition.’

‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ says Max.

‘You didn’t,’ says Charlie. ‘The thing is, maybe we should put the usual approach on hold for the present and talk about ideas that probably won’t go all the way to the bank.’

‘I’m with you, Charlie,’ says Max.

‘Good. Do you remember, we were talking about my strange dream?’

‘I remember,’ says Max.

‘I said there was moonlight on a river,’ says Charlie. ‘A full moon reflected in the water, in the glimmers of the water in the night. Strange moonlight, not from now. Moonlight from long ago. The sound of a fish jumping. Close but far away, far away in time.’

‘I remember,’ says Max.

‘Tell me,’ says Charlie.

‘I was at Scout camp that summer,’ says Max. ‘My father had died in August the year before. Bugle calls for every part of the day. For raising the flag in the morning and lowering it at Retreat. We slept in tents with wooden floors. I had a little oil lamp I used for reading. Privies in the woods. We had camp-fires where we told stories and sang songs. We applauded the stories by saying, “How! How!” We went swimming in the afternoons. When they blew the whistle and yelled “Buddies!” you and your buddy had to join hands and hold them up together. We did a canoe trip down a river. Was it the Allegheny? I don’t remember. There were great blue herons, little green herons, turtles. We slept under the stars. The Big Dipper, the North Star, Orion the hunter. We heard the river in the night, we heard fish jumping. We heard owls and raccoons. In the mornings there was mist coming up from the river. We were in the water a lot. There were councillors in every canoe and we used to have canoe fights. All of us could swim or we wouldn’t have been on the canoe trip. We used to turn over each other’s canoes.’