Her Name was Lola
Part 1By Steve Finbow
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It became a friendship only they were aware of – to their other friends, neither of them existed, only in rumour, only in absence, only in denial – the friendship was short-lived and they would never meet again, or so they thought, so they, surprisingly, hoped. He was in his local pub when they first met. Well, to be entirely truthful, they didn’t actually meet that night. He saw her sitting at the bar opposite him. He thought it strange that a young woman, in her early twenties maybe, should be sitting at the bar with the regulars – the regulars were mostly retired or resting actors and sundry theatre people – it wasn’t until he spoke to her the next evening that he found out she was American, and that, to him, explained her presence at the bar – but we are getting ahead of ourselves. He ordered a drink, looked up; she was staring at him and he, not wanting to seem rude, looked away and took his drink to the table he usually sat at – four tall stools surrounding a raised round table; his seat looked out onto the street that led to the street he lived on – and opened his book. He had about forty pages to read of Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons, he was struggling with it and wanted to finish it that night, so he hunched over and proceeded to read. He bought and drank another two pints that evening, finished the novel and read the introduction to Christopher Hitchens’ Love, Poverty, and War – it was his habit to carry two books – one fiction and one non. He looked across at her and noticed she was also reading and, surprisingly, not being hassled by the pub’s Viagra vanguard who, on other nights, surrounded themselves with their much younger Thai and Russian girlfriends.
She left the pub and stood at the crossroads, looking in all directions, looking lost, looking somewhat confused, and then she walked away and he thought that was it, that he would never see her again. He went home and took a bath and went to bed. The next day he had his column to write and spent most of the day fact checking and researching and at 6 o’clock decided he had earned a pint. And she was there but this time occupying a chair directly opposite his table. He placed his bag on a seat, took out his book, and put it on the table, thus claiming possession. He stood next to her at the bar. She was reading. She was also smoking, which he didn’t care for, but he seemed to attract women who smoked – maybe they smoked because they were nervous and he was attracted to neurotic women. He ordered a drink – or rather nodded to the barman – most of his communication in the local pubs consisted of nods and grunts – and was about to sit at his table when she said:
‘The book you were reading last night, was that for business or pleasure?’
He said, ‘I find reading, whether for business or not, always to be a pleasure.’
She smiled. Her hair was long and blonde and her eyes were slightly Asiatic yet green like wet jade.
He paused, not knowing if continuing would mean anything, but eventually said,
‘And what are you reading?’Holding the spine between thumb and forefinger, she flipped the book over; it was Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The Visit and he was upset to see that the book looked broken, destitute, as if she’d found it in the street. She flipped it open and he saw notes in the margins, underlinings, which saddened him more.
‘I know the author,’ he said lying, ‘but not the play.’
‘I’m Clara Zachanassian. I mean I’m playing Clara Zachanassian.’
‘Oh, you’re an actress.’
‘Yes. I’m memorising.’
‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ he said and returned to his table and his book.
He read, distracted by her presence. He was at least twice her age. He was married – sort of. There were two other women in his life, three if you counted the quarterly weekends away with a woman he’d been seeing for ten years. ‘No time,’ he thought. And yet. He glanced up occasionally and took her in – trainers, jeans, and a sweater – casual, relaxed. He’d noticed her long fingers, her nails French-polished and unbitten. Her voice was slightly nasal but sensual and he wondered if she came from New York, a city he had lived in for two years ten years ago, and guessed she did and invented a mini-biography for her: rich girl, a little spoiled, looking for attention. He finished his drink and decided to have another, crossed to the bar, and nodded. He knew the future – it was simple – nothing to trouble it and he wanted it to be easy, no ripples in time, just a flat expanse of knowing what was to be, but for some reason he said:
‘Would you like one?’
She looked up and smiled, a slightly crooked smile, mouth closed and the left cheek raised as if in that smile were a question, one she would never ask.
‘Yes, I’d like that. Red wine, please.’
‘Large or small?’
‘Large.’
OK. He repeated her request to the barman.
‘May I join you?’ She said.
‘Yes,’ he said.
They talked for three hours; he made a number of trips outside to inform his wife by mobile phone that he was in Soho with friends and couldn’t get away, and no, it was fine, he’d pick something up on his way home. They talked about New York, she was indeed from there and had grown up only one block away from where he’d lived for a year – 13th and 6th Avenue. She read a monologue from the play and he listened intently and thought she was very good and projected into the future where he saw himself visiting her in LA and they would go to The Dresden Rooms and Hank’s Bar. She told him about her childhood – she was adopted, Jewish, had had problems with her weight, slept around. She was twenty years old. He remained calm and changed the subject. He told her he was married. He qualified this by saying his wife was a friend, she was from New Zealand and a photographer, and he had married her so she could remain in the country and he didn’t love her but they were good friends and still shared a flat but he wanted her to move out and she was moving out after Christmas. He hoped. She said she had a boyfriend in New York, he was half-French or Swiss – he wasn’t really listening – who worked as something or other in the music industry. He told her he was a writer and that he wrote short stories, articles, and had a bi-weekly regular column, that he’d started out as a poet but hadn’t written anything he considered good for ten years, since he left New York in fact. She was in London for six months studying at the British American Drama Academy, and the play was the end of term performance and would he like to come see it and he said he would and she smiled that lop-sided smile and he bought her another drink and another and they swapped email addresses and he put her mobile number into his contact list – her name was Lola.
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Click here for Steve Finbow's bio and a list of works published.
© 2005 Me Three
