Whatever Lola Wants (29 page)

So, after fifty why do you risk the second half of your life by inhaling clouds of filthy oil-smoke? Can't you quit crossing swords with catastrophe? He said aloud, “Grow up, Carney.”

From the bench on his rear deck he gazed over the little valley to the hill across, birches tinted thick green with late spring leaves. He watched reeds in wind-choreographed sway, two crows glide along an air-stream, five butterflies flitter down by the lilies. Four brown ants carried a dead honeybee off along a plank. He felt tied by invisible wires to huge and tiny worlds.

Early in the afternoon he played his cello. Clumsy, his bound leg hurting, the bow drew across the strings, and melody drifted up to the beams. Pain retreated. A sense of cheer filled his arms and chest, his privacy as embracing as that rare thing, the best of human contact. Even with mistakes, the melodies satisfied him.

When Bobbie arrived she found Carney staring across the lush field. “I worry about you.”

Carney said, “No worry needed.”

“You're not out there making a better world, you're not writing another book, you aren't even getting laid.”

Carney laughed. Lynn in their time together had been a rarity, lithe of mind and golden-smooth. So too Marcie. And the rest? All games. “You know a woman sweet as my cello?”

“Have you tried to get in contact with Julie?”

Carney glanced at her, smiled, shook his head once, said nothing.

“You're lost,” Bobbie said.

No, not lost. No, Carney hadn't actually tried to contact Julie. Yes, he felt pretty sure he'd find her. Soon.

•

Lola hasn't returned. The cloud floss at my side is empty as a well-made bed. Down below, new events, and she'd be intrigued. What if she never comes back?

•

Carney in the
Jaguar, top closed this morning against the cool May air, headed onto the Interstate, cruised through Vermont into New Hampshire, then chose a local road down to Manchester. Just after Hooksett he stopped along a wide shoulder. He got out and stretched. He'd spent several days tracing Julie, starting with where Charlie had left off. No driver's license for Julie Robertson, the New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles had told him, no phone in or around Manchester listed in her name, no home address either. She had to be in an institution, constant care. No phone in her name, just the place itself, with extension numbers. Through the Internet he found addresses of six significant treatment centers; she might be in a smaller institution, he'd try those after, start with the bigger places. The first three told him they couldn't connect him, he had to call the room directly as all patients had their own phones. So unless she'd designated her number as unlisted, she wasn't there. The fourth had a central phone but no extension for a Julie Robertson. The fifth: “Just a moment, I'll see if I can put you through.” Carney broke the connection.

He lowered the Jag's top. Maybe he'd take her for a long drive and they could talk. Or maybe just walk. If she could walk. If she had a wheelchair he'd push her along. He wouldn't apologize. They could share good memories. He'd cheer her up. If she was depressed. Charlie hadn't been clear about much. He didn't need Charlie's context. He'd have his own soon enough.

Into the northern outskirts of Manchester. East, past the Derryfield Country Club, there it was, a two-story converted schoolhouse, Winchester Center. He parked, walked into a lobby. A small woman with graying hair behind a desk glanced up at him. He asked to see Julie Robertson. He identified himself as C. Carney.

“She doesn't usually accept visitors.”

“Please. Tell her who I am. It's very important.”

She scowled. “I can tell her. But she makes her own decisions.” She got up. “Have a seat.” She walked down the hall.

Carney sat. Why didn't the woman just call through to Julie? Carney watched as the woman opened a door, stepped inside.

Half a minute later she came out. “I'm sorry, Mr. Carney, she won't see you.”

Carney got up. “She said that?”

“She did.”

He sat again. “I'm staying until I see her.” One thing to say don't call, don't write. But after he'd driven all this way? “Maybe in half an hour she'll change her mind.”

Carney waited the half hour, sent the warden in again, again came back with Julie's refusal. He read a magazine, waited an hour, two more magazines, another half hour. He said to the woman, “Do you have a washroom I could use?”

Ms. Wilkoski stared at him for several seconds. “First door on your left down the hall.”

“Thank you.” He walked slowly. He found the door, opened it, closed it again and moved, silent as possible, toward the far door the woman had opened several times. No name outside. He opened quietly, stepped inside, closed up again. Dim light. A bed dominated the space. Beyond it, a wheelchair by the window. Two small sitting-room chairs. A door to what could have been a bathroom; Carney thought he saw the glint of white porcelain. Lying in, rather than on, the bed was a small figure. Carney said, “Julie?”

The figure remained still.

Carney stepped closer. “Hello, Julie.”

“…no …”

“I had to see you again, Julie, I had to.”

“…nothing to see …”

“Charlie told me you didn't want visitors but I—”

“…see me …like this …”

“It's so dark in here, Julie, I can't see you like anything at all.” He had meant to be light but the words hung heavily in the air.

“…too late …you've seen …seen me …”

He stepped closer to the bed. He did see her, a tiny body under the blanket, above it a face and arms only, shrunken except swollen at her jaw joint, the skin on her arms tight on bones except at the elbow, the wrist, swollen and red-looking, near to no flesh beneath the skin. He said, “Charlie told me. Julie, this is awful, what can I do? Is there anything anybody can do?”

“…let me …die …”

“Anything—anything but that.”

She gave Carney a desiccated whisper.

“I didn't get—”

“…you shouldn't …be here …”

“I had to—”

“…taken away …the last of it …”

“I'm sorry?”

“…you have …what I …lost …”

“Julie? What?”

A rattly cough from her. “…had …had …what I lost …gone now …”

“Can you tell me?”

“…no …”

A long silence.

“…yes …gone …”

Carney waited. How godawful terrible.

“…gone …”

“What's gone, Julie?”

More silence. Finally: “…lived in …your memory …nineteen …long ago …”

“Yes. You do.”

“…did …gone …only place …only place …in world …”

“The only place—?”

“…only place …place in world …still nineteen …beautiful …someone thought of …me …beautiful …”

“You were beautiful, so wonderfully beautiful—”

“…gone …now …not possible …now …memory gone …”

“Julie, it's still there, it'll always be there.”

“…no …replaced by …me …now …”

“I—I'll always—”

“…selfish …C.C…. too late …”

He reached out, took her hand. Cool little sticks between swollen knuckles, but no heat from the swelling. He wanted to warm her fingers with his hand. Slowly her fingers cooled his. Would her toes, her pretty toes, look, feel like this? For a minute, two, he didn't move, or speak. Nor did she.

The door opened. Carney remained still, holding her cool hand.

A man's voice spoke by his ear. “You have to leave, sir.”

Carney felt a pressure on his arm, pulling him to the door. He yanked his arm away. “Just another few seconds, please.” He leaned over Julie, saw her eyes again for the first time in thirty years. Too dark to truly tell, but he thought he saw the same fine sweet blue. Her eyelids didn't blink, she stared only at the ceiling. He placed a light kiss on her forehead, a cool forehead. He whispered, “Goodbye.” He turned and let the man's hand guide him from the room.

He drove home, to the farmhouse. She's right. I am a selfish selfish man.

He had to speak about Julie. To Bobbie? But he said nothing to Bobbie. It took him five days to call Charlie, who sat with him while they wasted themselves with a bottle of bourbon. Carney cried, furious at himself. Charlie had little to say, except that it had hit Julie out of nowhere. Almost exactly four years ago. An auto-immune attack, the body's own defence system assailing the joints, new blood vessels swelling the joints, stiff and crippled joints. Six months from onset to no longer being able to walk. None of the therapies worked. And she'd been deteriorating from then on. She'd tried to starve herself to death, but they fed her intravenously. And she'd made Charlie promise not to tell Carney where she was.

2.

John Cochan strode up the
one-time nave at precisely 8:37 near the end of June, just as he did on most mornings when in Richmond. Setting Intraterra North's headquarters in the old church made him part of the community, an insider. No room dividers here, every aspect of Terramac connected with the others. Halfway up the walls ran a walkway from which little offices enclosed in plexiglass jutted out, a kind of shelving for desks and their people. The ground floor was an open space, work tables, surfaces cluttered with electronic gear. People conferred, yet the room stayed calm, thanks to sound-deadening walls and a buffered ceiling.

At the far end five steps led up to the old chancel. The stage with plexiglass facade was separated from the hall and divided into two offices, each with a large wooden desk, surveying the technological ground floor. His own office on the right, Aristide Boce's on the left. Boce usually spent two-three days at Intraterra's Montreal headquarters.

At precisely 9:10, as most mornings, the phone rang. Yakahama Stevenson calling from Terramac City. Vice-President for Planning, Stevenson preferred on-site work. A week ago, amidst the thunder of a dozen machines, after months of measurement and a marathon calculation stint at his computer, Yak had insisted that a third of a mile below ground in the darkness under nature's roof, there had to be a truly huge chamber. His reckoning estimated it as much as half a modest mall long and the height of a cathedral. But how did it lie, this space carved out long ago by the roar of mighty water tearing through sandstone, leaving the surrounding granite bare? Two years ago Yak and Johnnie had hypothesized such a river once ran deep under ground, now a remnant of its prehistoric volume, rising to the surface as cool springs, perhaps feeding Lake Champlain or silently seeping into the bed of the Sabrevois River.

So Yak over the last week had taken responsibility from Harry Clark, Chief of Architecture, for setting, late in the evenings, half a dozen small blasts deep below, down where only the most trusted Intraterra employees went, a secret kept from the hundreds of aboveground workers; though rumors did arise. The charges were laid by Clark's first-rate demolitions man, Jake “Bang” Steele. The last two little detonations had established the area, empirically testing Yak's equations. Now on the phone excitement filled Yak's voice: “I think we found it, Handyman.”

“How big?”

“Not clear yet. But pretty damn big. We'll know tonight.”

“Good.” Johnnie smiled. “Go-o-o-o-d. See you tonight.” Just where would they blast? Not by the little curving passage, please not there.

•

I just caught a glimpse of Lola, drifting in the eternal infinite realm, our eir. She didn't look my way. Doesn't she care anymore? I keep saying to myself, You're an Immortal, she's a God, how can all this matter so to you?

Anger. Fear of loss. Untenable to feel like this. Damn!

•

3.

With scribbled directions to Magnussen
Grange, fly rod, cello, and hard-hat in the trunk, Carney eased his Jaguar toward Burlington, into and out of Richmond, a couple of sharp-curved miles to a covered bridge across a burbling stream, Gambade Brook. East along country roads to a white gate.

He still felt shaken from seeing Julie. That such a beautiful human being had been reduced to deadened skin and swollen joints, this was a great sorrow. For the world. For himself. A tragedy for Julie.

Milton Magnussen's phone call had carried the weight of fear and concern. The Terramac project was daily becoming more visible, more outrageous, helicopters battering the air overhead, busloads of workers down from Quebec, massive deliveries. Theresa on her own had filed for an injunction to keep Cochan from continuing. Intraterra immediately slapped a lawsuit on her, the requested injunction was turned down, the suit stood in place. More worrying, half a month ago Cochan had made an offer to buy the Magnussen land, all of it, for $10 million; if the offer was accepted he would drop the lawsuit as well. Of course they'd refused. Then last week they received a second offer, a sharp formal letter, the price now $9 million. And no mention of the lawsuit.

So. Could C. Carney come out to the Grange? Despite what he might assume, Theresa admired Carney's work. She'd read about the lead decontamination camp he'd set up in Idaho, and seen Red Adair on
TV
calling Carney the best there was, and heard on the radio about the coal-mine fire in West Virginia. In what sounded like a well-timed afterthought Milton let Carney know that Gambade Brook, where it flowed through Magnussen land, held some first-class trout and these days pretty much nobody fished there.

•

Lola's back! Here at my side! She says nothing of where she's been. Her eyes, though turned my way, seem trance-like. But she's listening again. Her smile, small as it is, propels me. I've caught her up on the down below.

•