by Trevor Eve
But his main concern was the exposure of this condition to two innocent people. His embarrassment at incrementally revealing who he really was.
He called to make an appointment with his doctor, Dr Aran Anand.
An American Sikh doctor, whose entire staff were dressed in white, himself included; they wore white turbans and were all part of an ashram. Any offspring they had were all sent back to India to be educated at a boarding school there, so they rarely saw their children. But they were dedicated to the cause of helping the community of Los Angeles, at least the wealthy part of that community, in a place they considered had the best and the worst the world could offer. A fair description, Ever had always thought, of the city.
Heaven and hell.
He carried so much guilt that it was difficult for him to stave off the anxiety it produced; he was in a turmoil as to whether he should tell Dr Aran the whole story of his anxiety and depression, which had never been treated by him, or just deal with the STI scenario.
Anyway he booked an appointment for tomorrow morning at eleven. They were always so pleased to see him, he was always fitted in. He had, after all, been a patient since he was a child.
The two things that dominated his thoughts at the moment, that were at the forefront of that grey smudge of his, were to get his gun and buy a car.
He had decided to conceal the real reasons for both these actions from Lomita. Because, from his perspective, both appeared to have an understandable logic as to why he should carry them out.
His thoughts to himself in the moment – the rental on the car was running out, and was too expensive, so a cheap car fulfilled the need; collect the gun, because it was irresponsible to leave a weapon unsecured in an apartment that could easily be broken into? Was that too feeble as an excuse? The first one he knew he could pull off. Was he feeling unwell? Was the sweating in the night a result of the dream, or was he in fact ill?
The facts, then the worry – his brain on the anxiety train again: what if all the carriages crashed into one another? A pile-up.
Then there was Lomita. It had been a natural, spontaneous act which he loved. Loved her for it. Loved her. Wanted to stay with her. Wanted to be comforted by her. They had awoken for food, but he had no appetite, no sensation of hunger, no sensation of anything physical. Eggs were suggested, she was going to eat two poached eggs: he wasn’t, he had declined the offer, when Lomita had left the room.
He was left alone, alone in her room, was he accepted, was this expected to be the norm?
He didn’t want this, he didn’t want to repeat what he had done. It was done; he felt it never needed to be done again. He wanted to phone Clarissa and speak to Jacob. He wanted the life he had constructed, not be an intruder in the construct of someone else’s life, he didn’t want to be a part of a life he had not created, not built, not laid the foundations for.
He was entering at the end of her life: his life was at the beginning. He was feeling panic again, rise up through and into his bowels, then his stomach, then his throat, and then his mouth turned sour: these problems he could stop creating for himself. For all those around him.
He felt like being sick, he walked calmly, as calmly as he could, to the bathroom, knowing on his arrival he would put his head over the toilet bowl, with control, and throw up. He was right. He swilled his mouth out and sucked at the tube of toothpaste in the absence of his toothbrush. He didn’t feel he had reached the toothbrush sharing stage.
Clarissa and Jacob wouldn’t leave him, would they?
He returned and sat tentatively on the edge of the bed, feeling he had no right to get back into the bed. Her bed. He felt his intentions had changed: there was forward movement.
*
He checked out the internet as he sat.
Without the full weight of ownership, on the bed – for cars. Autotrader. Maximum price $2,000, saloon, mileage irrelevant. He looked for cars exclusively in Chinatown and Koreatown. Anonymity he thought, both of car and place. He had never had any connection to that area of LA.
I don’t know, a fucking Nissan, Toyota, Honda, that would do it, a car with no memorable appeal at all. An instantly forgettable one, what kind of car was it? Oh, I don’t remember. What colour? Oh, kind of beige, browny, kind of colour. Maybe a four-door or two-door? I don’t know. You just couldn’t remember anything about it? Nothing specific, no, not really.
That’s what he wanted. A kind of ordinary sponge-pudding-cake of a car.
He looked on Autotrader, put in the 90012 zip code for Chinatown, the price, under $2,000.
The third car that came up was perfection: a used Honda Accord EX V6 sedan in a dull, faded, red colour with 176,000 miles on the clock. Price – $1,900. A dull, sun-worn red, reminiscent of the insignificant burgundy Wagoneer he had seen the day he met Lomita. Private owner.
Perfect, but he had to email the seller to get the number. Not so perfect, he wanted no record of this sale, he was going to give a false name on taking all the paperwork, he was convinced with the right seller that money could buy blindness and disinterest; he was not going to fill in the paperwork before he did what he had to do; that gave him ten days.
He was going to have to open up a new email account, which would take minutes, Joe Smith or the like. He started the process.
It took six minutes.
*
He appeared in the kitchen, minutes later.
Lomita was eating her eggs: he declined, again, the offer of any food. Not a word was spoken after his refusal, he felt a mild embarrassment in the company of Manita, but she seemed to carry no censoriousness of any kind. He was grateful for that and thanked her for the attention she had given to his clothes. On the walk back across the big brown room he returned to the guest bedroom. Even his mother had given him the guest bedroom, he had guest bedroom knowledge; he decided he must terminate his lease – on his apartment – although, where would he go afterwards? He couldn’t face the thought of there being an after, as that would change everything, it was only the fact that the before had some sort of positivity; the after carried something that he didn’t know – he didn’t know how he would feel about not knowing, how he would feel, or how he would cope. It would be the biggest unknown ever, and he wasn’t very good at dealing with what was, what was the known, let alone the unknown.
A massive unknown space, the only thing that existed would be the completion of his obsession; he would have carried out his task. So maybe keep the lease and let it run its course. One more week, pay up till then, and move his stuff out when he wanted. Otherwise all the convenient closures at once might lead to a connection. The only connection that he could think of, that could lead back to him, would be the gun, but it was a Glock – with Glock ammunition – so to trace it back to him would be an endless million-million-fold task.
Forget that.
Don’t think, don’t add that to the list.
He was getting no response on his FaceTime audio from Clarissa and didn’t try again.
He wasn’t perhaps in the most coherent frame of mind to speak to them. But what did he do now, in the immediate future, in the absolute happening now, in Lomita’s house? How did he get out, was he well enough or would he sink back into the deep?
His questions were answered by Lomita in her wheelchair, knocking on his door and without waiting for a response, opening it and asking if he had organised what she had asked regarding the gallery.
He nodded the confirmation, and then she dictated the next action. That they should go to his apartment, he was not going alone, she insisted on that, to get his gun, and he should come back here and stay until he had had a few days after his doctor’s visit so his recovery could be monitored. She of course was still under the belief it was a visit to deal with his emotional condition. That was information: this was a surprise.
‘I feel, and I have given it thought, so hear me out, that you should not consider it your position now to sleep in my room. If that is OK with you. I really need some
time to deal, if that’s the right way of putting it, with what has happened. This is not a negative response, it’s just a request for a lull in the middle of this storm.’
‘That sounds fine with me,’
Ever said, completing her speech without a pause. Relieved but he didn’t expect her to be the one to voice it.
‘F-i-ne.’
There was a suggestion of disappointment that there was no objection. The ‘i’ was stretched in reflection.
‘Give me thirty minutes and we’ll go. Good?’
He nodded and she did a U-turn: a slick, well-practised manoeuvre.
She was, in her understanding of the situation, way ahead of him. I guess, thought Ever, she is mature.
But he always seemed to have to wait for her.
Both Lomita and Manita appeared to have agreed not to let Ever out of their sight. They now sat in the same configuration as when they had first met on their drive in the black Suburban. It turned left down the slope into the underground parking off Bedford Drive and instead of valet parking, as was custom, Lomita stayed in the car, but like a guardian angel, or maybe just a guardian, Manita followed him to the third floor and into the lobby of the doctor’s office, where they both sat. After the joys of reunion with two familiar faces, he was then called in, by a younger face he didn’t recognise.
*
The man dedicated to curing humanity of its ills greeted him with the usual hug.
He competed with Lomita on the fragility scale. Super thin, with a long beard, as full of energy as always.
‘Well, what is it Ever? How are your folks?’
He broke the news of his father’s death, accidental, about which Dr Aran was profoundly shocked and saddened. It was his father, not his mother, he had known. At least the best.
‘I need an STI test, the full works; I slept with someone and they were ill, I don’t know, stupid, I know, but I want an HIV test as well.’
‘Well, options: I can send you to a clinic for an oral swab test, the quickest result to see if antibodies have developed, proteins that the body makes against the virus, not testing for the virus itself. But it can take three to twelve weeks for those antibodies to develop, so I should probably do your bloods and send them to the lab. I would have to do that as a follow-up anyway. Or I can do a combination test, looking for antibodies and antigens. They can test for everything but the blood HIV test is a little more reliable. But the best is the NAT test, nucleic acid testing, actually looking for the presence of the virus in the blood. What is the timeframe? I mean when did intercourse take place?’
Dr Aran always spoke with the confidence of someone giving a lecture, in a thin voice, with many downward strokes of his beard, and although he always offered options for any scenario, Ever always knew he would make his own choice.
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘OK. Repeated?’
No judgement at all, one of the amazing things about doctors. They deal with life and death, and the imparting of the good and bad to patients all the time, with a consistent equilibrium.
‘No, just once.’
‘A thousand to one. If luck lies in the bed with you.’
If luck goes with the fuck, Ever reinterpreted silently.
Dr Aran’s was an unusual response. Ever smiled at the attempt, though, to lighten the situation.
‘That is possibly just enough time for an initial test. I think we’ll go with the NAT test. The most expensive, and the results will take a few days. I can give you a finger prick test right now, but you will still need a follow-up. So, no, I think pointless, and unnecessarily concerning, and revealing ultimately nothing conclusive, so—’
He was talking to himself, really, not Ever. As usual. But with consideration.
‘And after the NAT test you will need a follow-up after six weeks, for complete accuracy. And then again in six months.’
‘Six months?’
‘To be absolutely sure. Yes. But in the meantime, you can be on the alert for what is usually described as the worst ever flu-type symptoms. Sore throat, swollen glands, sweating etc. The body’s initial immune reaction to the virus, and then a dormant period.’
Ever had a weak moment.
And with that, Dr Aran put both his hands to the side of Ever’s neck to feel his glands and took a temperature check.
‘But I haven’t seen you for—’
He checked his records.
‘My goodness, Ever, nearly three years, so I’m going to give you a full medical. Temperature normal. But your pulse is high. What are you taking, medication-wise?’
‘Nothing.’
Lied Ever.
He always did, lie that is.
‘But I always get checked by my doctor in London, you know.’
Ever volunteered with a vague lack of concern.
‘But he’s not me, and they miss things there, they don’t check like I do.’
There was a humour in Dr Aran’s reply. And a finality.
The process of blood extraction was started by the nurse who had escorted him in; she had been taking notes in the corner, practised in invisibility.
‘I’ll be right back.’
The bloods were done; as the nurse left with the vials and her notes as to what to do with them, Dr Aran returned and asked Ever to drop his pants for the digital rectal examination.
‘Even in one so young.’
Was Dr Aran’s comment.
Lube, a finger and a wipe-down.
‘Small and smooth, fine. All done.’
And the nurse, as if on cue, returned for the muscle testing, arm extension, press down, to check for the supplements that he might need.
‘What have you been doing Ever?’
He placed various bottles of supplements on his body, one after the other, and muscle tested him with each one to detect possible depletion in his organs, thus finding the relevant supplement that might revitalise his system.
‘Your adrenals are shot.’
That is usually the case, to be fair, Ever thought.
‘But your heart is racing here, stress levels are high. Wait, I’m going to give you the finger prick test just to see where we are.’
The nurse went for the necessary equipment.
‘The bloods will follow up, but we may get some sort of indication. It should normally be after at least four weeks, but we can see if your antibodies are active against a virus. It’ll take twenty minutes for the result, so I suggest you have some acupuncture here with Dr Sheema.’
Ever also knew her well and that it would be a pleasant enough, if not this time an entirely relaxing, waiting experience. He always came out with a load of herbs and vitamins, sold on site by another white turban-wearing Sikh woman, Lola, who had also known him since he was a child. Remarkably she was still working there. They were pretty much all faces he remembered, apart from the nurse in the room, who had escorted him in, the prettiest face and the youngest face he had ever seen there.
‘Good. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be fine, and if not, I can deal with it.’
And with that the doctor was off, light-footed, even in his clogs, with a stroke of the beard, hand drawn from chin downwards to the end, being the typically final gesture on his departure.
The needles were mainly placed around the meridians to promote relaxation; she always seemed to have a way with the four-way pulse procedure of knowing what was needed. He was drifting into a doze when a hand squeezed his arm, the thin wrist carried a gold IWC Schaffhausen watch.
‘No antibody action, I think you’re going to be fine, I’ll be in touch with the bloods and take it easy on yourself. God bless.’
Done and dusted, thought Ever, all he had to do now was pray. He paid under the watchful, but he had to admit, caring eye of Manita. He wanted to hug Lomita with a relief that she wouldn’t be able to share.
Thank you, thank you, he kept saying to himself in the elevator to P2, the parking level housing the Suburban.
‘What did
he give you?’
The first question that was fired at him as he opened the big black shining hunk of door.
‘Nothing. He told me to take it easier on myself, and I had some acupuncture, which was great. And these supplements’
Showing, with a child-like enthusiasm, his white paper bag.
‘Did you tell him you were consuming diazepam to calm yourself?’
‘Yes.’
He lied for the second time in an hour.
‘He said that was OK, I told him they were prescribed by my doctor in the UK. No more than ten milligrams a day for three weeks maximum, after that if my anxiety state is still high, to return and, anyway, I’m glad I went. Thank you for taking me.’
‘We’re not done yet, my sweet, your apartment.’
Ever was feeling lame.
They drove, this odd combination of people, to Havenhurst, and pulled up outside, not down in the underground, as from the sidewalk there would only be three steps for Lomita to negotiate. Yes, she was coming in, there appeared to be no choice.
The apartment was dark and cool. Curtains drawn, everything as he had left it, their effort over the years of fighting the sun from invading the cool had caused them to fade from the green to an insipid version. Patches where the sun was less ruthless gave a hint of the original colour. It was more successful as a colour with the fade, in fact. Nature at work again.
There was a smell of trash that needed to be emptied and he noticed the apartment had the same brown flooring as Lomita’s house. Without the shine, it was wood minus effort. An equation which equalled no Manita.
Lomita didn’t comment on his accommodation, probably realising his lack of commitment to it, and therefore that it didn’t demand an attempt at a consoling appreciation.
He went to the logs, left of the fireplace, and sure enough, the second one from the bottom of the pile, hollowed out during an entire stoned evening with a Swiss Army knife that he always carried, still contained the Glock 17. Lomita asked to look at it and handled it with a surprising authority.