November 2001. Vibrating like a caesium clock, Max makes his way southeast through Soho. The years from 1996 onwards print his footsteps as he goes. From Berwick Street to Broadwick, Broadwick to Wardour, then across Shaftesbury to Whitcomb and Pall Mall East. Lola-and-Max phantasms beckon and lure as he passes places where they ate, drank, and dawdled. Max’s thoughts pop like camera flashes and flutter like the pigeons of, here it is: Trafalgar Square.
England expects! shouts Nelson from his column.
‘Me too,’ says Max. So many footsteps, faces, seconds, minutes, hours, pigeons. Is she here? If not, why not? Multitudes of voices, wings, cameras. Was that Trafalgar Square memory a message from Lola or was it not? His chest feels wet. ‘You pissed on me!’ he says to Apasmara.
‘It’s all in your mind,’ says the dwarf.
‘I have no control over him,’ says Max’s mind.
‘Why not?’ says Max.
‘Don’t get heavy with me,’ says his mind. ‘We’ve got to stick together to get through this.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Maybe you’re trying too hard. Maybe if you ease up a little …’
‘If I ease up a little, what? Suddenly she’ll appear and everything will be the way it was before it stopped being that way?’
‘Stop straining for special effects, Max. Just go for ordinary memories with no frills.’
‘Can we do straight memories now?’ says Max, ‘like regular people?’
‘Let’s try,’ says his mind.