Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

‘What about him?’ says Lola.

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Lola. ‘London, I suppose.’

‘London,’ says Noah. ‘We going?’

‘No,’ says Lola.

‘Dad coming here?’

‘No.’

‘Why no?’

‘That’s just how it is.’

‘His name?’ says Noah.

‘Max,’ says Lola.

There’s someone at the door. Lola opens it to a rush of cold air and Basil. ‘Dad?’ says Noah.

‘No,’ says Lola. ‘Basil.’

‘Lola!’ says Basil. Here he is in his Barbour and cashmere polo-neck, six foot two and ruggedly handsome in a silky way. All the uproar of Christmas in London blows in with him. The lights, the noise, the whole thing. He’s turned Diamond Heart upside-down and a little sparkling snowfall seems to come down around him. Mwah, mwah! Big hug. He pauses to clock Noah. ‘Yellow and black stripes,’ he says. ‘But not a WASP.’ He reaches out to pat Noah on the head. Noah backs away.

‘I told Mummy and Daddy not to tell you I was here,’ says Lola.

‘You can’t blame them,’ says Basil. ‘They’re worried about you, Lo, and so am I.’

‘You can call me Lola,’ says Lola. ‘I’m sorry you travelled all this way for nothing. You must have many things to do back in London. Don’t let me keep you.’

‘Why are you being so hostile? What’s bothering you?’

‘Now is bothering me, Basil, and I need to be left alone to get on with it.’

‘You mean Now with a capital N?’

‘That’s what I mean: the big Now that includes everything all the way back to before there was anything.’

‘Before there was form, before there was emptiness?’

‘What do you know about form and emptiness?’

‘I had a Buddhist wisdom period when I was about your age, Lola.’ He coughs, falls silent for a moment. Then his voice changes. ‘Right now what I know is the emptiness of life without you.’

‘Don’t, Basil. Now is where you mostly don’t get what you want. I can say it better with the sarod. Listen.’ Lola has begun, sooner than Indira expected, to compose a raga of her own. It has the same title as Indira’s: ‘Smriti’. ’Memory’. She begins the first melodic sequence, letting herself be the vessel for what has come to her. Noah is with her on the nakkara. Lola has composed only the opening of the raga but as she plays, she hears more and goes with it. Happiness, sadness, longing and regret. She loses track of time, barely noticing the cold air when the door opens and closes. When she’s gone as far as she can with the music she looks up. She and Noah are alone.

March 2000. Another vernal equinox. Noticed but uncelebrated by Max. He’s working but so far nothing significant has happened. While trying for Page One with Fujitsu/Siemens he takes little mental side trips. He’s always had a rich fantasy life but now his waking dreams take on a nobler flavour than before. ‘Let’s do the train one again,’ he says to his mind.

‘OK, boss,’ says his mind, and sets the scene: some bleak out-of-the-way place under a dark sky. A few ravens croaking around and looking black. A little thunder, maybe some lightning, some Hammer Horror effects. A level crossing with no barrier. Here come Lola and Noah in the E-type. Noah’s ten or eleven. Lola looks as she did three years ago. O my God, the car has stalled on the tracks. She can’t get it started. Max can feel the vibration in the rails. Now he hears the train. Now he sees it, coming fast, its single white eye boring through the greyness. Doesn’t the engine driver see the car? Is he asleep? Doesn’t Lola hear the train? She’s still trying the starter. Max runs to the car, tries to push it out of the way. The E-type doesn’t move. Max puts his back to it, gets a good grip on the rear bumper, heaves back with all his strength. Yes! The car is off the tracks, Lola and Noah are safe but Max falls to the ground and is crushed by the train. His dying words: ‘They’re safe!’

‘Why didn’t Lola grab Noah and get out of the car?’ says Max’s mind.

‘Maybe she couldn’t unfasten their seat belts,’ says Max. ‘Maybe she fainted. We can always change the details.’

‘Get real,’ says his mind.

October 2000. Max is of course a little crazier than some. But he’s more or less reasonable and he reasons that it’s pointless for him to bang his head against a wall of noncommunication. He doesn’t know where Lola is but she knows where he is and if she wants to see him or talk to him she’ll get in touch. In the meantime he gets through the days one at a time.

In his morning reading of The Times Max spots an item about a honey buzzard who lost its bearings on a migratory flight from Scotland to Africa. This bird, a juvenile, had only learned to fly a month before. Tracked by satellite, it flew three thousand miles without food or rest. It was thought to have died of exhaustion until signals picked up from the middle of the Atlantic indicated that the bird had landed on a floating object more than two hundred miles from the nearest land. ‘Hang in there,’ says Max. ‘Don’t give up.’ Next morning there’s no news but two days later there’s another report. The signals have continued but the bird is presumed dead. ‘Dammit,’ says Max. Thinking of the honey buzzard’s flight he can feel the ardent wingbeats, see the deadly waters far below. ‘All those hours with no food, no rest! Lindbergh got a ticker-tape parade and this one winds up dead.’

‘It lost its way,’ says Max’s mind.

‘Maybe a little favouring wind was all it needed for a landfall,’ says Max. ‘Just a little bit of luck.’

January 2001. Max still thinks about the honey buzzard, still sees the deadly waters far below. He visits Charlotte Prickles. ‘I’m trying to see the river in my mind,’ he says. ‘It’s still the summer river when I was a boy.’

‘The river,’ says Charlie. ‘Sunpoints on the summer water. Dragonflies. The sound of cicadas. You have the bow paddle. Who has the stern?’

‘My father?’ says Max.

‘Your father,’ says Charlie. ‘Drops of sunlit water dripping from the paddles as you lift them after the downstroke. Your father steering you through the rapids, past the rocks, into quiet water. On and on.’

‘To the sea?’ says Max.

‘Forty days and forty nights,’ says Charlie.

‘The flood,’ says Max. ‘Why do I keep seeing the Ark and the raven that flies out from Noah’s hands, from my son’s hands, from my hands? What does it mean?’

‘An understood mystery is no mystery,’ says Charlie. ‘This is yours. Live with it.’

April 2001. The population of Diamond Heart is a constantly changing one. Most who come there stay for two or three weeks and then return to whatever they do ordinarily. Business is good in the autumn when summer slackers resolve to pull themselves together for the coming season. But the rush is in the dark days of winter when nights are long and spirits low. This sometimes continues into the spring.

As various types arrive and depart to be replaced by new ones, Lola has not lacked for suitors. In her years as a long-term attraction at Diamond Heart she’s become a challenge to every male who fancies his chances. At the Diamond Heart Ladbroke’s the odds have favoured this one and that one but so far no one has reached the winners’ circle. Has Lola sworn a vow of chastity? Not at all. Her libido is in good shape but Noah’s existence has imposed a critical standard that no one has been able to bend.