Her Name Was Lola

37 Monstrous Virtue

June 1997. Max is chugging along comfortably with Moe and Lulu. Moe and Lulu visit the National Gallery, look at the Claudes, and encounter Linda Lou Powers from Austin. Moe and Linda Lou chat briefly, she says where she works, Moe admires her going-away view and so on. Moe has no need for a research visit to Holborn so Max sends him to Blacks for a new rucksack.

‘This is where you drop by Himalaya Technology and go out for lunch with Linda Lou,’ says Max to Moe.

‘What for?’ says Moe.

‘Hey,’ says Max, ‘don’t come the innocent with me, I’m the guy who’s writing you.’

‘Oh, really?’ says Moe. ‘How often have I heard you say that your characters develop a life of their own and you go with the action that comes out of that.’

‘That’s all very well,’ says Max, ‘but if you can pass up Linda Lou you must be dead from the waist down.’

‘No need to be coarse,’ says Moe. ‘Linda Lou is certainly attractive but Lulu is all the woman I need and all the woman I want. I’ve got no interest left over for anyone else.’

‘My God,’ says Max. ‘I’ve created a monster. So what are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going to go home and stretch a canvas,’ says Moe. ‘Tonight I’m starting a nude of Lulu.’

‘Wonderful,’ says Max. ‘Do you think you’re better than I am?’

‘Let’s just say that I think of you as a demiurge,’ says Moe, ‘a brute creator that gets things started but doesn’t really know what to do with them, OK?’

‘That a character of mine should talk to me like that!’ says Max. ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth.’

‘I didn’t ask to be written,’ says Moe.