Opera

There was no answer, of course, and Lola wasn’t expecting one. She waited a minute to let the question sink then came up with an excuse herself. We’ve all got to want something, eh? She smiled, gathered her cards together, poured Michaela a smudgy tumbler full of wine and pushed it across. And looking at the colour of it through the glass, the dark redness blurring a pattern on her fingers, Michaela found herself asking without really meaning to. So what about you, Lola? What is it you want? For a moment, Michaela thought Lola was angry. She opened a black silk cloth, began to fold the fortune deck inside. Then she drew a deep breath. One thing, she said. Just the one. She leaned forward and whispered. I want a grand finale. Then she drew back her head and laughed. The laugh was forced, Michaela thought, too loud. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just her own embarrassment at being so naive as to think Lola would tell her anything that intimate.

She watched as the older woman stood up, smoothed the frock over her hips, topped up her perfume and went out earlier than usual. She might as well have written a message in the steam on the bathroom mirror: Subject Closed. It didn’t stop Michaela thinking, though, wondering as she sat in alone with the TV running, unwatched. What was it Lola wanted? Over days and weeks, watching Lola swilling tea dregs for big-eyed clients, listening to her go through her homilies and maxims, Michaela started to piece together something like a bigger picture.

Do what you want in this life, Michaela, you don’t get another one. Never apologize, never explain. Life’s too short to shut yourself in a box. And if a man starts thinking he can tell you what to do, get out quick. Jealousy’s a monster. It kills people. Jealousy kills people.

When Lola wants, she can talk up a storm. But Michaela looks past the talking now, knowing it’s not just for her. Michaela wonders who else is hearing, what they make of it. The boyfriends who turn up now and again when they need money, someone soft to lie against. The way Lola puts out for them the way she has for Michaela, not asking for anything back. Michaela has seen the look in their eyes at having found her, this woman right out of a big boy’s fairy tale. A woman who understands when they say No Commitments. They can’t believe their luck. Till the day they come round looking for her and she’s not there. Till they find she’s out in her tight dress, lipsticked to the hilt and not with them, that’s she’s out pulling other men who fancy a slice of Lola. Then the tune changes. Where Lola is, who she’s with, what she’s doing — stuff no one but Lola can answer, and Lola won’t. And they sometimes hit her, tell her they crack her ribs out of love. Sometimes they cry and threaten, phone till she leaves the thing off the hook. I don’t need a ball and bloody chain. Lola picks herself up and, to spite them, moves on, does it all over again.

There’s no point asking. Lola, why do you always go out with these possessive guys? You of all people? Why? She’ll only laugh. You’re worse than them, Michaela, she’ll say over her shoulder, door open in one hand, the bruises on her knuckles patched over with concealer and fake tan. And her eyes glitter as though this is a game, a contest, a piece of fun. If you’re that worried, stop me. On you go. Smiling that lush red smile, knowing Michaela couldn’t stop a bus, never mind a runaway train like Lola. That smile used to make Michaela feel like laughing. Not now. These days, she watches Lola pouting at the bathroom mirror — rattling those bangles she puts on her ankles, her wrists; painting her henna tattoo, a line of barbed wire, round the slender mushroom stalk of her neck — and it chills her to the bone. Stop me. On you go. And Michaela thinks about the kind of men who want Lola, how insane she can drive them simply by being the kind of woman they want. How sooner or later one of them will be bigger, drunker. Thinking further than that is something she doesn’t want to do at all.

And if I love you, then beware!

Again. Lola is singing in the bathroom in two languages, doing the rounds one more time. Michaela plumps the cushions on the settee again, listening. Lola is setting the mood through there, cracking up the nerve to hit the town. Michaela folds away a magazine, brushes crumbs from the side table, piles cartons of videos into a flaky stack. When the silence comes, the sound of Lola emerging to prepare herself, Michaela wants to be distracted. She doesn’t want to see Lola cinching her wrists and ears with metal, hanging her ears with hooks; Lola checking in the mirror, her face brittle and warm as Tiffany glass. She doesn’t want to see what card she flips over on top of the deck before she leaves, if it’s the same dark ace she’s had three nights running. But she will. She bets she will. She’ll watch Lola pick up Donny’s picture, hear that tease in her voice that’s almost a dare — Green eyes, kid, he’s got green eyes. Then the door will click, the sound of Lola’s heels will echo in the stone stairwell. Kid, she’ll shout, loud enough for the whole close to hear, a parting shot — I bet I find him before you do. And she’ll laugh. At the bottom of the stairwell, she’ll laugh and sing, voice trailing like Havana smoke, heading toward the finale.

Beware. Beware.