HollyPollyMolly were at the Roundhouse.
Leo was coping with his feelings by making everything around him as big and noisy and colourful as it could be so that he could pretend to himself he was in control.
“Your girl-group called The Separations? Get them on a plane!”
Perdita Skyped Holly and tried to explain and Shep phoned their father.
Leo was paying for their tickets but their father was adamant: his girls needed a chaperone.
“Who we gonna get?” said Clo. “I don’t trust any of my friends.”
“There’s someone I can call,” said Shep. “He came to visit me in hospital.”
“They’ll have to share a room, Leo,” said Pauline. “My house is full.”
“Pauline! This is a capital city of the world. There are hotels. Every unexpected visitor who lands at Heathrow doesn’t have to stay at your house.”
“Like my house isn’t good enough?”
Pauline had bought new clothes, lost weight, and she smiled a lot. “You’re happy, aren’t you?” said Leo. “You must be happy because you’ve stopped buying your clothes at Marks and Spencer.”
“Happy?” Pauline shrugged. “Happy is too goyish, but I guess…I am…well, it’s a kvell.”
“Do I ever know what you’re talking about?” said Leo.
Then he said, “What about MiMi?”
“There’s an old Sephardi saying…”
“There would be…”
“Give time time.”
HollyPollyMolly were running through their numbers with Perdita and Shep when they heard someone clapping from the floor. The lights made it hard to see, but soon a familiar figure was waving at Shep.
It was Autolycus. “Hey, Perdita! I hear you found your dad!”
“I never lost him. He’s right there.”
“She’s a good kid—I wish my kids were like her.”
“I didn’t know you had any kids.”
“One story at a time or we’ll be into The Arabian Nights.”
By now HollyPollyMolly were singing again and Pauline was coming towards the stage with a big carrier bag full of sandwiches.
“I am so hungry!” said Autolycus. “Thank you, lady, thank you.”
He bit into a ham and cheese baguette.
“Who is this person?” said Pauline. “Is he staying with me?”
Zel and Perdita were walking hand in hand through the hot evening. “If you told this story to anyone they wouldn’t believe it,” said Perdita. “A month ago we were normal people.”
“They’re the ones you’ve got to watch out for,” said Zel. “I think it’s all because of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I said before—in either life, the one they ruined, or this one, the one they couldn’t ruin, because they couldn’t find it—we were going to be together.”
“That’s the Hollywood version.”
“Hollywood didn’t invent fate.”
“So am I fated to spend the rest of my life with you?”
“No—that’s where you get free will. You don’t have to marry me.”
“Did you just ask me to marry you?”
Zel swung her in his arms like this is a happy ending.
Shep and Pauline were sitting in Pauline’s garden. Pauline had told Shep the whole old story. When she got to the part about Tony Gonzales, Shep had his head in his hands. “That’s what he said! His last word:
“Pauline.
“Later I thought that must be the baby’s name but we decided to call her Perdita because of the sheet music. It means little lost one, right?”
Pauline nodded. “Tony said my name?”
“I swear it, Pauline. I always believed I’d done the right thing. Now…I don’t know anymore.”
“You couldn’t save Tony.”
“I tried, Pauline, believe me; we’re not heroes, Clo and me, but we didn’t cross to the other side of the road—we went in there.”
Pauline patted Shep’s hand. “Stop blaming yourself. You got nice hands, you know that? Tony had nice hands—working hands.”
Shep smiled at her and turned her hand over. “You got giving hands—wide palms. But, Pauline, if I had’a taken Perdita to the police she would’a been reunited with her mother.”
“And what kind of a childhood would it have been? The divorce, the horror of everything that happened afterwards. Milo. And Leo would have had Perdita half the time, MiMi the other half, and all the misery of loss and mistake and the two of them not able to speak to each other. Perdita is happy with you.”
“She never had a mother.”
“I don’t know that MiMi could have been a mother to her. MiMi had a terrible breakdown. It wasn’t only Perdita—it was Milo too.”
“Did you stay in touch with MiMi?”
She nodded. “I have never told Leo. But he never asked either.”
“How did you forgive him?”
“He doesn’t want to be forgiven. But how do you live if you don’t forgive?”
Shep said, “I think I was waiting for forgiveness from my wife—which was hard because she was dead. And because she was dead I was dead too—my heart was dead.
“When my wife died I couldn’t remember how to love—it was like she took the instructions with her. Then Perdita happened, like a miracle—it was a miracle—like a new start, the night, the rain, the moon like a planet coming in to land, and there she was, all wrapped in white like the moon had dressed her, and I tried to take her back, but I couldn’t do it, because she was my instructions to love.”
Pauline put her other hand on Shep’s. He covered her hand with his other hand. Pauline said, “I love having you all in my house. I feel like I’ll know you all forever. I’ve always lived here but I feel like I’ve come home.”
Shep said, “You ever been to Louisiana?”
At that moment the back door opened and Autolycus came out into the garden. He waved. “Just off to my shepherd’s hut. Nice place you got here, Pauline. Do you play poker?”
Shep and Pauline went inside. Shep sat down at the piano and started improvising. Pauline came and sat by him. “I wish I could do that.”
“Here…I’ll play the left hand and you put in some tunes to my chords.”
They started to do that. Pauline was hesitant—laughing. “How do you do those great big chords?”
“That is Pentecostal piano. I guess there are no Jewish Pentecostals?”
“Maybe I just haven’t met them yet.”
“These are chords for the Second Coming.”
“That’ll be my problem, then—we’re still waiting for the Messiah on his first visit.”
Pauline spread her hands—she was fast and deft and she could pick out a tune when Shep was guiding her with the chords.
“That’s it! You’re getting it now! I’ll book you a guest residency at the Fleece. You can earn your keep. Now try the left hand too—just stay in key and do these blockbuster chords. I’ll come behind you.”
Shep stood behind Pauline, leaning over her, his long arms on either side, guiding her hands and putting in a little jazz. He leaned in closer. Pauline leaned back against him. He put his arms round her.