by Trevor Eve
‘What are you looking at?’
She shark bit him; to be honest he was looking at the car which was of greater interest to him than she was, although he didn’t have the heart to tell her, he didn’t want to disappoint, guessing that she must have felt super-attractive and confident behind the wheel, he smiled again and crossed the road into the public parking, where he had left his car.
As he drove out onto Canon Drive all the girls were climbing into their car with their takeout order. He wound his window down for air, the heckling started again on recognition, and he thought how unacceptable it would be now, if it was the other way round. They screeched the wheels on the road, like he used to when he first got a car, demonstrating their dominance in the most masculine of ways, screaming out of the window as they drove off.
He waved and found the reversal quite an interesting experience.
His only silent comeback was that they weren’t as attractive as they thought they were.
*
On his drive home, he passed by 633 North Oakhurst Drive.
He dropped the letter through the letter box, which was, he had observed, in the door and not the traditional mailbox at the bottom of the driveway.
He had crept quietly, not wanting to go through any explanations now, and walked back to his car which he had left round the corner on Elevado. A Beverly Hills police car drove by, the toughest police force in America, they say, in possibly the most respectable neighbourhood in America, at least the only city without a slum area. They slowed down at the unusual sight of a walking human, and having wound down their window, observed that Ever had a respectable car to get into; they accelerated and looked for other riotous trouble.
A quiet night was probably ahead.
*
Opening those gates at the entrance to Havenhurst.
He secreted his car underground. The first thing he did on entering the darkness was to go to the supply of logs in the corner of the room, to the left of the fireplace, and look at the hiding place.
The hollowed-out log, two from the bottom, where he had secured the Glock 17. It was there. Comfort. He took it with him, up the one flight to the one bedroom that was housed upstairs, and in true movie style, put it underneath his pillow, safety off. Why? He wasn’t sure, but it made him feel secure and at least no one else was going to get it.
No tequila, the stars would go on burning without him.
For one night at least.
They would manage.
He very rarely slept the sleep of the innocent, and tonight he felt the need to resort to one of the sleeping pills his doctor had given him, with the instruction not to make a habit of it.
That was six years ago, and he had made a habit of it; with the help of his friendly pharmacist he had downed a considerable number in his time. Zimovane, one of the Z group of drugs, a non-benzodiazepine. Zolpidem is another member of the grey cell killing Z family, more common in the US, where it goes under the trade name Ambien. Now they, Ambien, they are special, they take your brain away for a while and what they do with it you can never remember. But tonight it is a Zimovane, the medical name for this hypnotic agent is zopiclone, a fuzzy-brain maker, that did not always work but he limited himself to a maximum of 15 mg a night, never more, twice the recommended maximum dose. He took less if he could, you felt shit in the morning. The claim was that they were a contributor to something or other, dementia, that’s it; the one to look forward to if you can remember.
Those medical folk again.
There was no hope, then.
It, at least, staved off the dream he had had since childhood, which always felt like he was not asleep but fully awake, and hovering above his bed was a large, pale blue hand, there comes his dislike of the colour, swollen as if someone had blown it up like a washing-up glove. Pale blue, there it was, without any explanation as to why, or any indication of any action that it might take, but it was always frightening, even as an adult he found it frightening, it woke him from what already felt like a woken state and he found himself now disorientated with a genuine feeling of terror. Panic. A panic that it hadn’t gone because the waking state brought no relief as he had had no concept of having been asleep. He was just there. He supposed it was because it always seemed to have the intention of taking him away, where to, he never knew, and, to be fair to the swollen pale blue hand, it never had. In thirty years. But he supposed there was always a first time. One night.
This was a sleepless night, even with the drugs; his thoughts were of Clarissa, Jacob and Lomita precisely in that order. The time spent on each was not consistent with the order, the pain was greater with some than others and the love also carried a variation in intensity. But, as always with Ever’s brain, the choice was not really his.
He lay there being played with by his brain and wondered why his brain had these times of acting with complete independence.
Chapter Seventeen
Ever felt he needed to be more anonymous.
He thought that he should trade in his rather stand-out rental and purchase an old car.
Or at least purchase an old car and keep the rental, if Lomita was still going to be in his life. He could buy a car, he had a ten-day period to transfer the title, but could give a false name, never do the transfer and then the car would be untraceable to him. He had in his mind a thing that he wanted to do, that would carry too much shame to tell anyone, even to acknowledge to himself. And he needed the shame car to be able to do that thing and then he could just be rid of it. Drive it to a waste patch in Koreatown or the like, and with no record of ownership coming back to him, he would be able to just dump it. And with it hopefully the shame and the guilt.
But probably never that, with his brain, they would both stay with him.
He just hadn’t worked out whether what he had decided to do would make him feel better about his father. He was worried about the state of his brain, he could feel the anxiety and the pressure and the dark; that feeling of doing the extreme without caring about consequence.
*
As was once said of him at school by his housemaster.
This boy has no moral compass. How the housemaster knew at the age of fifteen had always been a mystery to Ever. But in his own way, though not a bad person, Ever understood what he meant; he had no stop buttons, no censorship for when he wanted to do something. He put his head down and did it. Consequences later. He remembered the time when he had to change his modus, whether conscious or not. He was still small for his age, with constant bouts of illness, and was bullied endlessly – then during one episode of being beaten up by the same lumpen idiot, he decided to pick up a broom and swing it wildly round and round, screaming that he had gone completely insane. Making contact with the broom on the side of the bully’s head, severely damaging his eye socket, something he was not proud of. But from that moment he was known as a crazy guy, the boys started to leave him alone; one or two more manic screaming fits were needed, at certain times, to solidify this new persona, and it proved to be a successful self-protection process.
This crazy guy persona, at school in England, got him promoted from the Fourth XV at rugby to the First XV as he employed this same degree of mania on the pitch, and that too proved to be a success. Head down and go.
Reputation seemed to be all.
An interesting concept that had stayed with him all his life. But as his life progressed, he wondered whether the put-on mania was in fact not put on, but the start of a mental change that would begin to haunt him and that he couldn’t control.
*
Anyway here he was, having a bit of a struggle in life, going upstream while it felt the current was getting stronger and forcing him back.
But what was it that was pushing him on?
Why was he doing this? Had he forgotten?
He thought he wanted to kill Ingmar Lorken.
No, he knew.
He returned to the Lorken gallery.
Downtown, with the hope of seeing the
man himself, not to speak to, but to find out where and what he did during the day. Ever didn’t valet park, he just sat in the car and waited. He saw no one but made the decision that he would do this every day until he saw Mr Lorken and could get the pattern of this man’s life.
*
Let’s see what Lomita has to say.
Hopefully not fuck off, get out of my life.
There was an obvious trepidation. Almost a sweat-inducing panic, as once again he extended his digit to exact the pressure, thinking, strangely, given the circumstances, that Manita should polish the brass bell button.
He waited and heard no footsteps; unsurprising as the door was opened by a person in a wheelchair.
It was Lomita, looking tired, but with a smile, that smile, and he cried, with relief. Released it all on to the herringbone-pattern red brick step.
She said nothing, letting him expunge his pain, and the air around joyously responded to her wave, encouraging him inside. She wheeled herself across the brown floor, this time to waiting double doors, that were open, on the right of the big brown room. It was the dining room.
Places were set for two, adjacent to each other. She wheeled her chair to the head of the table, with her back to the garden, and he was afforded the seat on her left, offering a view of the recently manicured lawn that gave its pristineness away not only by its physical immaculacy but by the smell of fresh cut grass that always made Ever think of cricket. And incongruously, at that moment he thought of his 101 not out, made when he was fourteen.
And then she spoke.
‘Unfortunately, I was still awake when your letter came through the door, and I had, I suppose as a result of that, a bad night.’
That was not, Ever thought, a good start.
‘But I’m not about to reprimand you, or anything, you are a grown-up, I am presuming anyway, otherwise where do we possibly begin. But you used my name. My name.’
The last two words were repeated with greater force.
‘And that is not a name that I throw around in any context. Let me give you a brief history of myself, my sweet.’
That phrase again.
‘I think I should make something clear about myself.’
This took him completely by surprise; he was convinced the opposite would happen, that that exact proposal would be directed towards him, demanding an explanation from him.
‘I…’
She continued.
‘Was married to a man I thought, or rather took to be a lawyer, which indeed he was, but that was not all he was. He was Robert, or in fact Roberto dePirizone, that means nothing to you, but he was known as the boss, he was Italian, here in Los Angeles, in the very early sixties. So, use your imagination. I came here, and had, in pursuing my dream, my dream to be an actress, contacted a man who had given me his card years previously, when I was working in the Carlton Hotel in Pittsburgh. My home town. He had told me, and indeed did tell me when I arrived, that he could get me into motion pictures. I never, through a set of circumstances that I am not ready to go into, never did make a motion picture as such. But I made a lot of money, that is the point I am getting to: that is the answer to the question that you are sitting there wanting to ask me, that you were so concerned with that you dropped a note through my door at eleven-thirty at night.’
Her tone was increasing in volume, backed up with a suggestion, or maybe more than a suggestion, as she went on, of anger.
‘And let me tell you, just because we have had dinner and you got an erection when holding me, gives you no claim to my name. Although it is my maiden name, and no one connects me with my past, which was—’
She halted.
‘No, I am not going to explain all that to you now. Yes, in answer to your selfish concern, my financial status if checked by some pretentious gallery, would be more than adequate for whatever it is you want to do. And that brings me to the question. What do you want to do, my sweet? What is the little mess you have found yourself in? Are you wanting me to buy these paintings, or just for me to appear to be impressive enough for them to hang them for a private view? And be honest with me. I don’t know you, I like you, but those are two very different things. And knowledge clarifies a situation far more than liking someone. So, tell me about your little mess.’
Ever was incapable of saying a word and wanted to leave, but his hatred of people leaving tense situations instead of resolving them insisted his body remain in the chair. He looked out at the garden and got lost momentarily in the colours, now that the sun was dropping behind the trees making them golden. The threat of darkness was starting, it was always a threat, and he realised his life was indeed a little mess. How could he tell her what he really wanted to do, which he probably was not mentally stable enough to be able to explain with a logic that would convince or substantiate itself. He was defeated. She, presumably, sensed his defeat and continued –
‘We are eating food from Mr Chow’s, they are delivering. Squab with lettuce and spare ribs, followed by duck and pancakes. We will drink a sauvignon blanc from Australia, Margaret River, I prefer it from there, the grape has a more mineral quality, as long as it’s ice, ice cold. And you like San Pellegrino don’t you? So that too.’
He nodded and with effort spoke.
‘Thank you. I could tell you, but you know, Lomita, I think I am wrong, and there probably is little point, so maybe if you don’t mind we can eat and then I should take my leave.’
‘As you wish, but I hope you like spare ribs, I ordered them because men always seem to like them and I hate them.’
Men always like them, lodged. He knew so little about her and had, in a rather patronising way, because she was old and seemed frail, overlooked the fact that she had lived a life, had her own disasters, and joys, and tragedies; he felt like his mother. Just looking at everything from his point of view, his perspective and, yes, he did suppose that his intention, however much he shrouded it in the vagueness of liking her, was to quite simply use her.
‘I think I wanted to use you.’
He didn’t think he had said it but he had.
‘You wouldn’t be the first.’
And that laugh gurgled in the back of her throat again, it forced a smile that he tried to resist forming across his face, and he too made the sound of the first suggestion of laughter.
The doorbell rang, at what he assumed was the tradesmen’s entrance; he could hear the distant exchange of words indicating that the food had arrived.
And sure enough, after what seemed minutes sitting in silence, a tray arrived carrying the wine and San Pellegrino and a bucket of ice, obviously to back up the need for the sauvignon to be at its particular ice-cold temperature. But it would weaken its mineral strength, the ice, he thought, staring at the silver bucket, seeing a convex face stare back. His reflection was surprised by his concern. Manita left the room, without attempting to pour anything, returning with the ribs and squab and lettuce. Lomita was in mid flow.
‘…and people pouring my wine in restaurants, and the water, is my absolute hate. I get so annoyed, I drink at my own pace, they don’t feed me for God’s sake, I don’t eat at their pace, so why in God’s name do they demand I drink at their pace. Moneymaker that’s all. The ribs are all for you. Did I tell you I hate them?’
‘You did.’
The first words he seemed to have said in a while, they sounded flat, but in no way did he wish to appear ungrateful or rude.
‘I am in a little pain so have taken a Vicodin, which I love – it makes me go a little trippy.’
The word ‘trippy’, which initially seemed out of place coming from her mouth, on reflection seemed appropriate as this was a girl who had grown up in the hippy era. A sixties, Aquarius, flowers-in-her-hair girl.
‘I have…’
She went on. There was no stopping her, he didn’t intend to try.
‘A pharmaceutical treasure chest, all brought back from Mexico, where I have a house. I love Mexico. Manita and I are always down th
ere, I much prefer it to here. Don’t you want this plum sauce on your lettuce with your squab?’
Not really sure what squab was anyway, or the way to eat it, he spooned some of the sauce onto the lettuce. It seemed a very simple dish for a restaurant to bother with, and he got no tips from her as to what to do, she had pushed the squab to one side and was doing her usual, well it was only his second experience of her eating habits, but he was familiar with her thing of picking at a lettuce leaf. It tasted like chicken and he took a knife and fork to the whole thing, in the absence of any alternative being proposed, desperate to move on to the spare ribs. The things that all men loved.
‘You mentioned though, that you sometimes watch a movie after dinner, and I assumed, I’m not sure why, it would have been one of yours.’
He instinctively thought he should attempt to crawl out of the hole.
‘Well I am sure, sorry, because of your looks. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to appear, sorry, I can’t think of the word.’
‘You haven’t quite regained your composure, have you my sweet? Wrap it.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The squab, wrap the lettuce around it.’
He obeyed.
‘Did I say one of mine or just a motion picture?’
‘You said… I’m not sure.’
He said in deference; still crawling out of the hole.
‘I thought you did?’
He doubted now.
‘That’s what has stayed in my mind at any rate.’
‘My, I must have had a weak and trusting moment both at the same time. Not much chance of that. At least let’s get on a clearer footing as to what it is you want, and in a way who the fuck you are, other than that you are in my house, eating, and you have to be nearly fifty years younger than me. It is a little disconcerting, also because sex is not something I go in for.’