Page 32 of The Next Chapter

‘Not sure. She didn’t say much. Just went really quiet, actually. But I’ve planted the seed.’

I’m almost certain this is not what Dad meant when he urged me to get in touch with Lola. But the more I see of her, the more the thought of getting to hear her memoirs without her knowing who I am… well, it’s starting to appeal. Like, a lot.

The truth of it is that now, I’m more curious than ever about Lola. All those questions I had as a child are back, but the answers I’ve spent a lifetime telling myself don’t make sense anymore. I don’t know how to feel about her. And I hate how messy it all is. I don’t like mess, as a general rule.

Mercifully, we’re almost done. I can see the shore by the hotel up ahead. I power my arms, praying that they don’t give out on me now. Not when we’re so close to dry land.

‘You’re really getting into the swing of it all now.’ Lola’s voice takes me so much by surprise that my kayak rocks dangerously with all of the flailing I’ve got going on.

She reaches out a hand to steady me and for a moment I’m obsessed with that hand. I want to photograph it and compare it to mine, but later when no one’s around to see how weird I’m being.

‘Thanks, I’ve had a really lovely morning.’

I feel very proud of what I consider to be the first sane sentence I’ve ever muttered to her, but Lola just chuckles, like she knows I’m lying. Which I am. It’s been traumatic.

‘If you like to read, the hammocks in the garden are a good place to go,’ she tells me. How does she know that I like to read? Some weird genetic-based telepathy? Or just the fact that my performance this morning screams ‘BOOKWORM’?

‘I’m reading a really good book on J. Robert Oppenheimer, actually,’ I tell her, and she nods, like this might be something she already knows. ‘You know, the guy who invented the atom bomb. They just made a film about him,’ I say, thinking please God brain, shut up. ‘They think he didn’t say the whole “I am death” line after that initial test. It’s fascinating.’ Lola frowns. ‘It’s not that I’m, like, into weapons of mass destruction or anything, I’m the opposite, probably a pacifist, to be honest, though who isn’t these days?’

I’m out of breath by the time I come up for air. The chances are, if I announced to Lola right now that I’m her daughter, she’d think she made the right call all those years ago.

We aren’t moving anymore. We are the only two people floating as everyone else makes their way back to shore.

‘I’m a pacifist too,’ Lola says. And then she’s pushing away with her paddles, leaving me behind. I obviously know that Lola is a pacifist. It’s on her Wikipedia page that she protested against the Iraq War. In the grainy photo of her there, one of the last before she disappeared from public life, she’s in front of the Washington Monument with a ‘choose peace not war’ T-shirt that she’s wearing as a dress.

She glides smoothly onwards. Did she quit the band to take up kayaking?

Seb circles back for me as everyone else starts to drag their kayaks out of the water.

‘What did she say?’ he asks quietly, lining up next to me as I begin a slow paddle.

‘Nothing important,’ I reply, thinking that really, it was a bit of an unusual first proper conversation to have.

Chapter Five

Having hauled my kayak, which seems seven times heavier than it had been a couple of hours ago, out of the water, I resolve to spend the rest of the afternoon in a hammock with my Oppenheimer book.

‘I think I might take a nap,’ Seb tells me back at the cottage. ‘That drive yesterday killed me. Can you manage a few hours on your own? I want to work on Lola some more tonight.’

‘Course.’ I wave him off with the calm of a woman who hasn’t been having a prolonged breakdown all morning. ‘I’m going to do some reading.’

He looks at the massive tome that I have tucked under my arm. And okay, maybe it’s not your standard holiday read, but Dad always loved history and he got me into it. Now I can’t even see the word Stalin without thinking of him. Plus, it’s hard to feel sad or lonely when you remember that there’s been billions of humans before you, all going through the same thing. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

Seb, having eaten half a cheese sandwich (and complaining loudly about the rye bread, I might add) and chain-smoked three cigarettes, unfurls his bed and lays down to close his eyes.

‘Hey, did you notice on the hotel schedule that Lola runs basically every activity, except skydiving?’

I have obviously committed the hotel timetable to memory already. I enjoy the thought that even when we leave, I’ll know what Lola is doing at set points in the week. It’s creepy yet comforting, like long distance stalking. Anyway, I reply, ‘Yeah, I did notice that. Do you think she has any help? Aside from Noah.’

‘Doesn’t look that way.’ Seb’s eyes are still shut. ‘Must be why this place is a bit of a dump. It’s a lot to run on your own.’

‘Yeah, it’s a pity. It could be amazing, you know, with the scenery and everything.’

‘Yep. Still doesn’t make sense. If Lola is a total loner and hiding up here, why the fuck does she want to sell her story?’

‘No, I know… No idea beyond the money. Or the sick thing.’

‘I know what I said yesterday.’ Seb opens his eyes briefly. ‘But she doesn’t look sick. Must be the money thing. Either way, should we go to the karaoke tonight?’ he says sleepily.