March 1997. Max at The White Horse. The day is cold and windy but he doesn’t want to sit inside. The smoke and the uproar of the braying crowd make him feel trapped. He gets a pint of Bass at the bar and takes it to an outside table. There he sits looking past the Parson’s Green Clinic and Lady Margaret’s School towards the corner of the New King’s Road where Lula Mae will appear.
‘Better a small heartbreak now,’ says his mind.
‘When she comes around that corner,’ says Max, ‘my heart will leap up at the sight of her. Then I’ll tell her it’s all over.’
‘Are you in love with her?’ says his mind.
‘I’m so comfortable with her!’ says Max. ‘I don’t know if it’s love but we really like each other.’
There she is now, coming around the distant corner. Max’s heart leaps up and so does the rest of him. He waves to Lula Mae and she waves back as she walks towards him.
‘Ah!’ sighs a nearby drinker.
Max’s eyes fill with Lula Mae. He tries to imagine her as a little girl with pigtails, sitting on her father’s lap while he reads her Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. His throat aches.
‘Hi,’ says Max. Big hug, big kiss. ‘What’ll you have?’
‘Same as you,’ says Lula Mae. When Max returns from the bar they lift their glasses to each other.
‘Here’s how,’ says Max.
‘I think we already know how,’ says Lula Mae. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Max notices an aeroplane high overhead. Is it trailing a banner that says THIS IS IT? He looks back at Lula Mae. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he says. ‘L’haim! To life!’
‘L’haim,’ says Lula Mae. ‘You think I should have it?’
‘Of course you should have it,’ he says. ‘A child from you and me! Wow.’
‘You’re not going to ask me if I’m sure you’re the father?’
‘If I weren’t, you’d have told me,’ says Max.
‘You just got a foot taller,’ says Lula Mae.
‘There’s more to me than Lesser,’ says Max. Big hug, big kiss, broad grins, more schmoozing, two more pints. ‘So what’s our next move?’ he says.
‘What do you mean?’ says Lula Mae.
‘Well, some people when they have a child, they all live together and it’s a family,’ says Max. ‘Sometimes the parents get married.’
‘Are you proposing to me?’
‘I’ve been listening to the words coming out of my mouth,’ says Max, ‘and I don’t really know what I’m doing.’
‘Take deep breaths and calm down. It’s not as if my father’s coming after you with a shotgun.’
‘I know that,’ says Max, ‘and I’m calm. What do you think we should do?’
‘Double scotches,’ says Lula Mae. ‘My shout. This requires careful thought.’