Her Name Was Lola

5 From Where, From What

November 2001. Max is afraid that Apasmara will destroy him. And of course it’s Max’s fear that gives Apasmara that power. What did Max do that made Apasmara come to him with Lola’s music? Before we get into that we need to know something about where Max is coming from.

Now in 2001 Max is forty-four. So when he met Lola he was thirty-nine. Unmarried. What, had he never up till then found the right woman? Who can say what makes a woman the right one? Who can say what makes a person move forward or step back?

People are composed of memories, losses, longings and regrets. Max’s father, now dead, lost a favourite toy as a child: a Noah’s Ark. ‘Noah and Mrs Noah and all the animals were printed on glossy paper that was glued to their plywood shapes,’ he told Max. ‘The Ark itself was yellow with a red roof. Did I play with it down in the cellar? I’m not sure. In the winter it was always warm and cosy there from the coal furnace. I liked the smell of it. There was a big black boiler by the opposite wall, it was a lying-down thing with big rivets. I used to think the Noah’s Ark had fallen behind it somehow — there was just enough space between it and the wall. There were cables and pipes and cobwebs and I could never make anything out with a flashlight or find it with a stick. I didn’t like to reach in with my hand because I was pretty sure there were spiders. By now the glossy paper would be all black with mildew but even now, in this house, I still want to look behind the boiler now and then.’ Max remembers how his father sounded when he told that story.

Max has been in love many times with women who loved him back but he always fell out of love after a while. Constancy has not been his strong suit. In all fairness he ought to have been wearing a sign that said, IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO when he appeared in the Coliseum Shop in 1996 and said that Lola was his destiny woman. None the less he was being perfectly honest: he believed it was necessarily so. He had truly fallen in love (in his way) and when he presented himself as an idea whose time had come, he was doing it in good faith.

Lola was too sensible to take Max’s outburst any more seriously than the sort of shout she might hear when passing a building site. But at the same time something in her responded to his craziness. Mummy and Daddy and Basil were boringly sane while this man definitely had a screw loose which was not without its appeal. And his non-crazy remarks about Monteverdi and Lorenzetti showed him to have the kind of mind she was very comfortable with. For the rest of that evening she found herself replaying his declaration in her head. She was certain he’d show up again and she wondered what she’d do. She tried to imagine presenting Max to her parents. Lesser was almost certainly a Jewish name, and although one or two of Daddy’s Jewish colleagues had dined at the house, there were none that he played golf with. Her mother had sometimes entertained Jewish singers and musicians but that was nothing that created problems. As Max was an artist, it wouldn’t be like bringing a pawnbroker home but questions would be asked, with amiable interest, about Max’s origins and education. At that point in her imaginings Lola gave herself a mental shake and resolved not to think too much about Max. She did, however, look for him in Who’s Who. He wasn’t there.