Her Name Was Lola

29 The Mountains of Ararat

April 1997. Afternoon. ‘What about the raven?’ says Max.

‘All I know,’ says his mind, ‘is that Noah sent it forth and “it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth”.’

‘What then?’ says Max. ‘I want to know more.’

‘That’s all it says in Genesis, just what I told you.’

‘Maybe,’ says Max, ‘that raven is still out there, looping the loop, doing aerobatics, flying up a storm.’

‘Well, they are great flyers,’ says his mind. ‘This one must have gone crazy, cooped up in the Ark for almost a year. So I expect it would loop the loop and so on when it got out of there.’

‘What about Mrs Raven? There were two of everything but this bird took off on his own and was never heard from again. Mid-flood crisis? What?’

‘Don’t know,’ says Max’s mind.

‘The mountains of Ararat,’ says Max, ‘are they behind the boiler?’

‘Yes.’

‘But the raven’s not behind the boiler.’

‘Nevermore,’ says Max’s mind.

‘Hello,’ says a nurse. ‘Welcome back.’

‘It’s great to be back,’ says Max. ‘Where?’

‘Poole Hospital,’ says the nurse. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Not sure,’ says Max. ‘When is this?’

‘Sixth of April,’ says the nurse.

‘When did I get here?’ says Max.

‘Twenty-second of March.’

‘Not today.’

‘Right.’

‘What?’ says Max.

‘You’ve been in a coma and you’ve just come out of it.’

‘Lola?’

‘Lyla,’ says the nurse.

‘What Lyla?’ says Max.

‘Me Lyla,’ says the nurse. ‘I thought you were speaking my name.’ She shows him her name badge: LYLA MURPHY.

‘I wanted to ask about my girlfriend, Lola Bessington,’ says Max. ‘She was driving the Ark. Cark. Car.’

‘No injuries other than minor cuts and bruises and she was a bit shaken up,’ says Lyla. ‘She tested over the limit and had a summons to answer. She was discharged a couple of days after she was admitted. Her parents came and picked her up.’

‘She’s pregnant. Is the baby all right?’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Could you try to find out for me, please?’

‘OK.’

‘When can I go home?’

‘Probably in a day or two. They might want to do a follow-up EEG but I doubt it. I’ll see if I can find out about the other. Stay quiet for a while, OK?’

‘OK. Thanks, Lula Mae.’

‘Lyla, me.’

‘Sorry. Names move around behind the boiler.’

‘What boiler is that?’

‘The big black lying-down one.’

‘With names behind it?’

‘Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak, Dubhe.’

‘I was thinking of going to Dubai,’ says Lyla. ‘Nurses make good money there.’

Later she reports that there was nothing about pregnancy in Lola’s admission report. Max takes this to mean that she’s been told not to tell him anything.

That afternoon he’s moved out of Intensive Care to a ward with three other men, all of them old. One of them keeps wetting the bed. His name is Byron. Another stares at Max and moves his mouth but no words come out. He’s Neville. The third is Fred. He was in the submarine service in World War II. ‘Were you ever hit by depth charges?’ says Max. ‘Wouldn’t be here if we’d ever taken a direct hit,’ says Fred. ‘Close ones sometimes, the plates would start to buckle and you’d get some water coming in but you’ve got to expect that sort of thing from time to time.’

A nurse called Laura takes Max’s temperature, blood pressure and pulse. She gets an oxygen reading from a thing clipped to his finger. ‘How am I?’ says Max.

‘Blood pressure’s a little low,’ says Laura, and writes up his chart.

‘You’ve got to expect that sort of thing from time to time,’ says Max. Lying on the bottom and maintaining silence, he waits for the depth charges, feels the shock of the explosions, sees the water spurting in as the plates buckle.