1 Lola lived with Peter Cadwallader for nine months.
1.1 When they split for good, he gave her 10,000 dollars.
1.2 In their nine months, she’d stolen as much again.
1.3 She took it to Kathmandu. It was a fresh start.
2 In Nepal she met Pemba, the “stepfather” who taught Ralph Tibetan.
2.1 He ran a small pottery, catering for the tourist trade.
2.2 He never married Lola, nor were they romantically linked.
2.3 Pemba sold her heroin.
3 And Ralph is the prodigal mother’s son who came off the plane at Kathmandu wearing a blue school uniform for want of other “good” clothes and didn’t recognize his own mother, in her sari, with her face painted red and gold to celebrate because she did that, and she jumped up and down spotting him and waved her arms, but he just weakly smirked as if his face itself were bleary with London rain and said, “Hi, Mum,” and then she grabbed him by both lapels.