Her Name Was Lola

65 A Little Bit of No Luck

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.’