Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

‘I’m not going to ring her up,’ he says to himself. ‘I’ll just stop by her office and probably she won’t even be there. I’m leaving this entirely to chance.’

‘What do you want,’ says his mind, ‘applause?’

Max enters the majestic glass tower of Everest Technology, goes to Reception, and says, ‘Would you ring Lula Mae Flowers in Sales, please, and tell her that Max Lesser is here.’

‘Is she expecting you?’ says the receptionist.

‘I think so,’ says Max.

The receptionist rings up Lula Mae, then says to Max, ‘Have a seat, she’ll be right down.’

Max sinks into some expensive black leather and picks up a copy of Fortune . THE FUTURE IS NOW, says the cover as Lula Mae steps out of the lift and he feels a rush of blood to his head. He’s read that the Sultan of Morocco once cited Virginia Mayo as tangible proof of the existence of God. Lula Mae is actually better looking than Virginia Mayo was.

‘I had to do some research in this part of town,’ says Max, ‘so I thought I’d stop by and ask you to lunch.’

‘I thought so too,’ says Lula Mae, ‘but I insist on taking you because you’re my first writer.’

‘That’s surprising,’ says Max, ‘because there are a whole lot more of us than there are of you.’

Lula Mae flashes him a smile that makes him dizzy, takes his arm, and marches him off to The Garibaldi, her favourite lunchtime spot. There are lots of male pedestrians on the way, and when she passes, each one she passes says, ‘Ah!’

The Garibaldi has a red signboard and a small statue of the hero of the Risorgimento in its window. ‘ Avanti, populo ,’ says Max.

‘Remember the Alamo,’ says Lula Mae.

When they’re seated and holding menus almost as big as the signboard, Lula Mae says, ‘Do you like Chianti, Max? Say yes.’

‘Yes,’ says Max.

Lula Mae almost nods and a red-shirted waiter appears with a bottle, opens it, pours a taster, and offers it to Max. ‘The lady will taste it,’ says Max. Lula Mae gives him an approving look, tastes the wine, almost nods again, and the waiter pours. Lula Mae and Max raise their glasses to each other.

‘“There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode; there never was a cowboy that couldn’t be throwed,”’ says Lula Mae.

‘“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,”’ says Max. Clink.

‘So,’ says Lula Mae, ‘this girl you were with in the National Gallery, she’s your girlfriend?’

‘Yes,’ says Max.

‘But here you are,’ says Lula Mae.

‘I didn’t know how not to be here,’ says Max. ‘You’re a man-puller and you pulled me. If I’m too small you can throw me back.’

‘Actually,’ says Lula Mae, ‘I like your non-Euclidean geometry.’

‘I like yours too,’ says Max.

‘My flat is just a short walk from here,’ says Lula Mae. ‘A good place for research, quiet and out of the crush.’

‘My kind of place,’ says Max. By now they seem to have eaten something and finished the Chianti and off they go. Lula Mae’s flat is tasteful and expensive. Among the books on her shelves Max sees George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Oliphant, Elmore Leonard, Buddhist Wisdom Books , Ortega y Gasset, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Aickman, and Lafcadio Hearn.

‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘You’re a dark horse.’

‘There’s more to me than my going-away view, Cowboy,’ says Lula Mae.

‘When I was in high school,’ says Max, ‘girls like you only hung out with football heroes. If we’d been in the same school at the same time you wouldn’t have looked at me.’

‘Maybe not,’ says Lula Mae, ‘but I’m looking at you now.’ There’s music: Dusty Springfield singing, ‘If you go away on this summer day, then you might as well take the sun away …’ The song stops and is followed by some muted bossa nova. ‘Grappa?’ says Lula Mae.

‘Yes, please,’ says Max. ‘How insensitive …’ sings Astrud Gilberto, and is cut off short by Lula Mae.

‘I like it better without music,’ says Max.

‘Me too,’ says Lula Mae. She seems different now and Max is touched by the change. He kisses her gently, one thing leads to another, and here he is a little later, shaking his head on the Piccadilly Line.

Max’s mind is silent for a while, riffling through the afternoon’s action. Then it sings, ‘But if you stay, I’ll make you a day like no day has been or will be again …’

‘What’s this?’ says Max.

‘Just trying to remember the rest of that song,’ says his mind. ‘Are you wiser now, Cowboy?’

‘Too soon to say,’ says Max.

February 1997. Another Sunday, Hyde Park. Max and Lola at the Round Pond, watching the model boatmen and their model boats. ‘Models are mysterious things,’ says Lola.

‘How so?’ says Max. He enjoys the sight of the sail models tacking, the steam models chugging.

‘Look at that Thames sailing barge,’ says Lola. ‘Totally realistic, and because it believes in itself there comes into being a model Thames running down to a model sea bounded by model continents on a whole model planet. Are you a model, Max?’

‘What do you mean, Lola?’

‘Is there a model Max-world extending outward from the realistic details of you?’

‘Lola, I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

‘No matter. Sometimes I talk crazy.’ Her profile is needle-sharp in the lens of the chilly afternoon.

‘Are you OK?’ says Max.

‘Do you mean, am I an OK person or are things OK with me?’ She’s looking past the boats and boatmen into the distance. The wind is blowing her hair in a way that goes to Max’s heart.

‘Are things OK with you?’ he says.

‘I don’t know, Max. I can’t help noticing that you’re different today.’

‘How am I different?’

‘Do I smell Lula Mae on you?’

‘You can’t,’ says Max. ‘There’s nothing to smell on me but me.’ It’s been a couple of days since he was with Lula Mae and he’s had a shower this morning.

‘I can smell her on your mind,’ says Lola. ‘It’s something I wasn’t expecting. I suppose I flattered myself that you’d have no interest left over for anyone else. When you came into the shop that December evening and said out loud that I was your destiny woman it was embarrassing but not dishonourable. It never occurred to me that you’d have a wandering eye.’

‘Lola,’ says Max, ‘most men have a wandering eye. It’s part of a genetic urge to spread one’s seed as widely as possible. We’re programmed that way.’

‘Men are programmed to leave the toilet seat up too,’ says Lola, ‘but they can remember not to.’

Silence. Max and Lola both watching the model boats and noticing that the Round Pond has become as deep and wide as an ocean. The wind is raising little wavelets. The Thames barge, approaching a lee shore, comes about and bears away. The model boatmen are intent on their radio controls. Some of them have full-size wives and children with them. The sky grows darker, the afternoon is gathering in.

‘It’s getting colder,’ says Lola. Max puts his arm around her but she doesn’t press against him. She turns to look directly at him. Her eyes are unfathomable. Max waits for what she’ll say next but she doesn’t say anything.

February 1997. Still that Sunday. Making their way out of the park through dusk and lamplight, Max and Lola are confronted by a very tall, very broad figure. ‘Madam,’ says the figure to Lola, ‘is this man molesting you?’

‘Basil!’ says Lola.

‘For it is indeed he,’ says Basil, kissing Lola on both cheeks, mwah, mwah.