Her Name Was Lola

67 Penelope’s Web

April 2001. The population of Diamond Heart is a constantly changing one. Most who come there stay for two or three weeks and then return to whatever they do ordinarily. Business is good in the autumn when summer slackers resolve to pull themselves together for the coming season. But the rush is in the dark days of winter when nights are long and spirits low. This sometimes continues into the spring.

As various types arrive and depart to be replaced by new ones, Lola has not lacked for suitors. In her years as a long-term attraction at Diamond Heart she’s become a challenge to every male who fancies his chances. At the Diamond Heart Ladbroke’s the odds have favoured this one and that one but so far no one has reached the winners’ circle. Has Lola sworn a vow of chastity? Not at all. Her libido is in good shape but Noah’s existence has imposed a critical standard that no one has been able to bend.

They don’t stop trying. The latest hopeful is a retro type called Geoffrey who wears a gold chain with an ankh. In London he drives a Mercedes but he makes his annual Diamond Heart pilgrimage in a white Bedford camper decorated with scenes from the Kama Sutra. Geoffrey is a dentist with a moustache and a beautiful jet-black toupee. He has hairy hands. He’s always got his Nikon with him and he’s been snapping Lola on her way to and from the Ghoshes’ studio and on her evening walks. She ignores him as long as she can but one day she confronts him and says, ‘I wish you’d stop taking pictures of me. It gives me the creeps.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Geoffrey (snap, snap), ‘but I can’t help it. Your face speaks to me.’

‘Read my face’s lips,’ says Lola. ‘They’re saying, “Go away.” She’s only a few steps from the studio but she’d like to clear away this annoyance and compose herself before going in.

‘I’d love to have a proper photo session with you,’ he says. ‘The shots I’ve got so far don’t really do you justice.’

‘I don’t need justice,’ says Lola, ‘only a little mercy. Please take yourself and your camera elsewhere.’

‘Do you believe in destiny?’ says Geoffrey.

The sarod in its hard case weighs eight and a half kilos, and with a healthy swing and a good follow-through Lola could certainly flatten this turbulent dentist. She changes to a two-handed grip on the case and something like a snarl starts far back in her throat.

One of Geoffrey’s hands has jumped on to her arm. ‘Think about it,’ he says. ‘Fate works in mysterious ways. Sometimes both people realise what’s happening, sometimes only one.’

Lola shakes off the hand which does not drop to the ground and crawl away but remains attached to Geoffrey’s arm. ‘I have a large friend who’s a black belt,’ she says. ‘If I phone him he’ll be up here like a shot to sort you out.’

Geoffrey’s hands fly up in front of him, palms out as he backs away. ‘Peace!’ he says. ‘I can see that you have a lot on your mind. We’ll talk about this another time.’ He goes off singing, ‘“I met her in a club down in old Soho, where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola. See-oh-el-aye cola, el-oh-el-aye Lola la-la-la-la Lola.”’

Lola, somewhat ruffled, smooths herself down and goes in for her lesson. Her concentration is perhaps a little more intense than usual. Mr Retro is not the only current aspirant. There are of course others, some of them not at all objectionable to a less critical woman. To these she says, when they suggest this or that, ‘I’m sorry, but all I can think about is this raga I’m trying to compose. I really have no time for anything else.’

Lola’s ‘Smriti’ is in a state of becoming; it’s becoming her and she’s becoming it. The becoming changes every day, and every day Lola discards the work of the previous day. Playing what she’s written, she hears a thickness of tone where it should be fine-spun. She hears a tempo false to the impulse of the melody, hears a clumsiness of ascent and descent. She hears the music not voicing what is in it that wants to speak and she shakes her head and starts again. Memory! Sometimes the widening ripples of dark waters, sometimes flecks of gold in the bed of a stream. The blue sky reflected in a lake, the grey sky over the sea. Changing lights and changing shadows always, images dim and deep or sticking up sharp and dangerous. Lola will not stop until this raga lets go of her. And the raga won’t let go of her until it has said everything it needs to say.