Whatever Lola Wants (25 page)

They marched together through the woods. The trees and rocks felt like something had—what? Changed too? He sensed an explanation. Just beyond his reach. He hated the change.

Deirdre loved fishing more than any other thing. She'd say, enjoying her mature joke, “The excitement of my first trout hooked me forever.” But it irritated him, her sitting alone on the big rock high above the water like she owned it. Below, foam flecked by on the black surface. “Aw come on, Dee, let's at least try another place.”

“I like it here.”

“Pretty soon there won't be any fish left.”

“Daddy'll put more in.”

His father stayed in Florida for five days. He returned late in the evening but Benjie had permission to stay up. “I want to go into the Terramac caves.”

“Benjie, I'm tired.”

“I want to see it down there.”

“You should be asleep.”

“I really want to—to go down there. With you.”

“We've talked about this.” He took Benjie hard by the hand. “Way past bedtime.”

Benjie had to be dragged. He yelled, “No! Stop!” It hurt in his arm sockets. His father ignored him. “I could help you!”

Johnnie stopped. “Help?”

“Aren't you—aren't you afraid?”

“Of what?”

“A little bit afraid?”

Johnnie knelt to eye level with Benjie. “What are you talking about?”

“You know.”

“Benjie, you should be sleeping.”

“Of Terramac!”

“Terramac?”

“It's taking you. Away.” There. Spoken.

Johnnie looked hard at Benjie. Something the boy had heard someone say? Priscilla? He drew Benjie to him and held him tight against his chest. He shook his head hard so the boy could feel the insistent negative movement. “Don't worry, I'm here. Always.”

A lie. Less and less here. That his father spoke so easily was the proof he hadn't wanted to hear. He'd guessed right.

John Cochan picked the boy up and carried him to the bed in the big safe room filled with games and toys. Where did Benjie get these notions? A couple of times recently Priscilla had complained to Johnnie he was away a lot. Had the boy overheard? Or had she said that to Benjie specially?

Benjie knew his dad wouldn't let him go into Terramac because his dad wanted to protect Benjie from Terramac. He admired his dad, loved him for this. His dad hated flies and bugs and spiders, all those crawly things. Terramac's caves were full of bugs. His dad went down into Terramac. Many times. Why? Because Terramac—Terramac had control over him?

In the morning Benjie refused breakfast. “I feel sick.”

He didn't look sick. Priscilla said, “What's the matter?”

“My head feels big. And puffy.”

She felt his forehead. A bit warm. “Shall I bring you to the doctor?”

“I'll just stay in bed.”

“Let's not take chances. Get dressed.”

Once last year at 2:00
AM
, Benjie had had a headache so bad his mother took him to Emergency. Across the waiting room a teenage girl couldn't stop dry-retching, down the hall an old man screamed about bedbugs crawling up his nose. Benjie's headache went away.

At the breakfast table he drank his milk. His face went white, his stomach pounded, panicky tears filled his eyes.

Priscilla hugged him. “Benjie—”

He pulled back. “Don't.”

Deirdre said, “You can hug me, Mummy.”

Priscilla stroked her shoulder. Benjie ran, made it to the toilet just in time. He cried half the morning. Priscilla took him to his pediatrician. Nothing obvious wrong. They'd do tests.

He stayed in bed. Barney and Tick came home from France and Deirdre went exploring with them. They told her about all they'd seen, and had souvenirs from Paris, a tiny Arch of Triumph for Benjie, an Eiffel Tower for Deirdre. They'd gone to the top of the real one, they saw everything. Deirdre couldn't understand a lot but it didn't matter, it sounded wonderful.

Later Benjie found them far downstream, around the curve with the high granite walls. A dangerous place, he thought. Hawkweed everywhere, and daisies. A thin flow of water here, moving fast. His repellent kept the blackflies off but they buzzed around his head. Above the watery rush he thought he could hear the roar of Terramac machines. “Hey, Dee!”

“Here comes the lazy fweep!” Barney laughed.

Benjie stayed cool. “What're you doing.”

“Watching ants carry a dead bug,” Tick said.

“What're you doing, Dee?”

“I'm watching ants too.”

“Well, come back. Mummy wants us.”

“What for?”

“She said to come.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, Deirdre.”

“O-
kay
!”

They all got up.

“You guys don't have to come. My mother doesn't want you.”

Tick stared at Benjie. “Our bikes are there.”

“Get 'em later.” Benjie grabbed Deirdre's wrist. “Come on.”

“Hey, Benjie!” Barney shouted.

“What?”

“Fuck you!”

“Well, fuck you too!”

Deirdre followed Benjie, resisting his pull. When they were out of the brothers' sightline he let go. “I'm going to tell you something, Dee.”

“What?”

“Don't go with them if I'm not with you.”

“Why not?” She stood still.

His hand squeezed into a fist. “Because I said so!” He stepped closer, she pulled back. He spun around and marched toward the house. After a dozen steps, he turned. “Come on.” He watched her start, a step, another. He strode off. He turned. She'd stopped again. “Come on!”

“What does Mummy want anyway?”

“She'll tell you.”

When they got back their mother and Melissa weren't home. Deirdre went to her room, grabbed her stuffed koala bear and her worn lamb, lay on her bed, and cried into her animals.

His mother mustn't think Dee crying was his fault. Comfort her? He didn't.

•

Lola interrupted me. “I once had a stuffed snow tiger. All silver and white.”

Without thinking I said, “So did my son.”

She nodded, absently.

I glanced at her. Her eyes sent misty light my way. Stranger and stranger. Lola, remembering bits of her past. Something weird was happening here, as if Lola were evolving into a new kind of being.

•

A couple of
days later, a gray morning, Benjie told Diana they were going fishing and took Deirdre to the boulder. He had to go now, he was leaving for camp next week. His dad was away again so this was the time. He left a note for his mother:
We're going to the stream.
Afterward, when Priscilla read the note, she tore it up. Johnnie never saw it.

Benjie and Dee tramped through the high grass and the daisy fields to the brush, grown thick now. The vines grabbed at their ankles, last year's blackberry brambles scraped their arms. They'd smeared enough repellent on so the swarming blackflies weren't too bad. Where low branches cut across his way he broke them and left them dangling which made him feel good. When they reached the waterfall he took off his tennis shoes and socks and sat on the boulder. Deirdre said she wanted to fish from up there, it was her place. Benjie dangled his feet and stared at his toes and at the water below. It reflected the lead sky and trees on the far side. If he waded at the wide end where the pool emptied he could stand in water to his waist. Half of him above water, half below. The lower half near invisible in the tickling stream. Close to the waterfall was way deeper.

No wading today, today was for serious. He stepped back and jumped to the bank. Deirdre clambered onto the boulder. He walked away from her in bare feet, and around, lower along the stream, lots of brush. After a couple of minutes he could hear the waterfall as a thin tickle. Slowly everything became clear. Find the way down, then bring his dad and they'd go there together.

With no path the scrambling was hard, branches blocked him, pointed stones stabbed his feet. He put his shoes back on. Away from the water he pushed downstream through bushes and stunted trees. The skin on his bare arms poured sweat, on his face too. Mosquitoes and blackflies swarmed. He got back to the stream at an open space below a curving run with high wet stone walls, daisies, some wild strawberry blooms, tall grass. Not much water coming down. The flies settled on him where sweat had washed the repellent off. Low to the ground he worked his way back, uphill through thick brush to the top of the run where the wet walls started. He broke out onto a muddy bank.

He'd never been here before. Wide, very shallow water. Then he saw why: the stream divided. In front of him, broad slow water. On the far side, a cut in the rock and an opening into the hill. Half the water disappeared over there. He took his shoes off again. He waded to the other side. A kind of cave, half the water flowed into it. He sat on a rocky ledge at the opening. The right side looked wider.

He followed the ledge, slow, a few feet. His eyes got used to the dark, lots of light from behind, dim shapes ahead. The water flowed in near silence. The ledge petered out at a curve in the flow. He stepped into the water, sometimes you have to take the risk. Plenty of light. The bottom was a bit slimy. He slipped, and sat, didn't matter, his shorts were soaking anyway. Far ahead he heard a thin roar. On his hands and buttocks he inched his way forward. Suddenly a dip in the rock, like a slide at a playground. He grabbed out, much darker now, he slid slowly.

Stop! His own throat's whisper, soft as blackfly murmur. Stop! Back out!

The water ran in silence, the rock slimy-smooth. No!

No! Echo of his dad's voice, Grab out! The granite!

Benjie jerked his arm out, his fingers scratched at rock—

Graaaaaab!

In hard water he coasted across smooth flat slippery stone, nothing left for grabbing at, and the clutching surge of water slid him on.

“Daddy!”

Grab! Hold!

He rode the dark slide, on, nowhere to scramble. Spilling water brought him to the lip, over the lip, down, he rode the water down, all the while screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!! Daddy—”

No one heard.

•

Lola's eyes brimmed over. Their greens and purples swam together, their underwater sparkle speared into my heart. “I shouldn't have—been so explicit.”

“I had to know.” Her head shook. “Is there more?”

“There will be—” Suddenly nothing made sense. A God, in tears? And with feeling? How much I had taken for granted about the Gods? Or maybe just about Lola? “Should I—go on?”

“Of course!” Her smile seemed forced. “You have to.”

Now in her eyes, the brilliant sparkle back in place. Had I really seen tears? “I'll try.”

Six

1.

John Cochan trusted few men.
He trusted Yakahama Stevenson most, Terramac's
VP
Planning, Yak his closest friend. He trusted Aristide Boce,
VP
Financial, much of the time.

Johnnie spoke with Yak about everything, or nearly. Even about Priscilla, how she got down into his skin with her smart dreadful sanity about Benjie. Or how sometimes she went far away, as she never did before Benjie— How, she demanded, could Johnnie blame himself that Benjie was gone, or blame her? Often Yak had to talk Johnnie down.

Half a year back, in early summer on that worst of days, after Dee returned to say Benjie left the stream and hadn't come back, after Priscilla couldn't find Benjie anywhere, after she phoned Johnnie in Lexington, after he spoke to her in shell-control calm, Call the Sheriff, Get-him-now, after Johnnie arrived back and after the search party with the dogs found the sneakers and then the drowned body down in the little cavern fifteen feet below the lip, Yak sat with Johnnie in the farmhouse, drank bottomless gin with Johnnie all the black hours through, listened as Johnnie moaned, shrieked, held Johnnie while he gasped for air, while he vomited, huge heaves, his heart crashing against his ribs. Twice Yak slapped Johnnie's face to keep him from self-injury. The whole time he sat by Johnnie, two men floating in half sleep.

Priscilla too had wept, in her privacy, with her daughters.

All work at Terramac halted. Yak pleaded with Johnnie, Begin again. Pragmatic arguments: We've invested in the community, we've promised Merrimac County. Arguments from finance: We've borrowed too much, Johnnie, we have to produce. Arguments about dreams: Johnnie, this is the city of tomorrow, your city of marvels.

Priscilla cried softly. She too held Johnnie. No one held her.

In the end, Johnnie emerged from his anguish. Yes, they would go on. Terramac, Ben's shrine. Johnnie told Yak, You brought me through.

They began again, blasting and clearing and flattening, elevating, broadening. The tunnelling too began now. Here Terramac would soon rise, and later descend. At last, one perfect human habitat. Once again John Cochan had returned.

•

“Maybe,” said Lola.

Best just to go on.

•

2.

The picture on the postcard
showed a snow-covered mountain, pristine against a flat blue sky. Carney turned it over and reread the whole message:

A Ton of Cure
is a wonderful book, C.C. You should be pleased and proud. I thought it was finely insightful, and scary enough to maybe make people stop and think a little before acting and destroying. Congratulations.

The signature said Julie. No return address. Not even the mountain had a name, only Coastal Range, British Columbia.

How could he find her? What for? Just—to see her? Just to apologize yet again for lying about the application? Just to talk to her again. No, it had to be more than that. He'd loved her once, his first real love.

He returned to the office, sat on his large captain's chair, and Googled for Julie Robertson. He found her as vice-president of Action Entertainment in London, as manager of secretarial systems for T. Hutch and Company in Houston, as an occupational therapist in Raleigh. A hundred Julie Robertsons. He narrowed his search: Julie Robertson British Columbia. No Julie Robertson to be found there.