by Trevor Eve
Lomita answered and ended the brief call.
‘Five minutes according to the GPS.’
She said, followed by,
‘Please would you hold me tight, my sweet. Please.’
She didn’t need the second please, he was on his feet and swept her out of the chair and held her for all he was worth. At that moment she did receive all the love he had left in the world. He wanted it to flood into her body so that she would know.
He also carried all the guilt in the world; that he wasn’t sure if she should know. They broke apart and without words to speak they went downstairs: he carried her weight down the stairs and in perfect timing, they arrived at the lobby; through the multi-coloured hanging trails of beading the black mass of the Suburban pulled up outside the Isis Adelphia Hotel.
‘Back after we’ve had something to eat.’
Said Ever to the Chinese lady, with an impressive throwaway casualness.
‘Yes OK. And then you sign register, we forget to do the signing.’
‘Of course, that won’t be a problem.’
The beads parted for the last time.
And rippled back into place. As he hit the sidewalk he could see some wafts of smoke across the street behind the warehouse wall, and he smelt for a second, either from memory or from the now, the smell of the powerful dark of the smoke from fire.
*
Manita, as was expected, asked no questions.
Other than to express concern over the welfare of Lomita. Lomita was eased into the back seat by Ever and she immediately asked for the flecainade and a beta blocker: Ever, unusually for him, had no knowledge of this medication, but responding to Lomita’s desperation, gave her the tablets with some water; she would now wait for her heart to see sense and get back into a sinus rhythm.
It was an unnerving feeling, atrial fibrillation, delivering intense anxiety, disorientation, a suspension of confidence in the continuation of your life. Ever sat in the back of the black mass and nestled her in his arms.
The trip was to take them to the easiest border to negotiate, Tecate, Tijuana being the more direct but busier, with its concerns over drug cartels and the delays caused by a car search. Ever presumed Manita was more than familiar with the route but he felt a nostalgia for the Englishness of Kate on Waze. He programmed the route in, was comforted by her words, always calm and consistent in emotion, or lack of, giving him the feeling of isolation in his own private space that nothing could invade, guiding them on their way. He spoke to her once or twice, bringing no response from his fellow passengers. Whether Manita listened to Kate’s advice was really irrelevant to Ever, he just wanted her to talk to him in an English accent and make him feel that nothing had changed in his world.
That it was all the same.
Simple, it was the only thing that connected him to a place before, where nothing had yet gone wrong. Kate was ignorant of their situation, and he liked that.
A hundred and sixty miles and a two-and-a-half-hour journey. Down the I-5 and then a little kick east to Tecate, avoiding Tijuana, and then Mexico. Ever took over the driving an hour across the border, and felt no tiredness at all. He supposed adrenaline-fuelled anxiety conquered all. They were heading towards their first stop, San Quintín, hoping to get there before midnight.
Was he ever going to tell Lomita he wasn’t carrying a gun?
Chapter Thirty-five
A morning that had started, as all seemed to in Baja, with the rise of the shining sun.
Across the ocean flashing the room with a brightness that could only come from a divine source: Ever was still not recovered from the emotional onslaught of his father’s paintings.
He was now driving with Manita back into San José to the hospital to see how Lomita had fared through the night. Ever needed something to help him calm down, and asked Manita if by any chance she had any medication on her. She said that she didn’t but that wasn’t a problem as they could stop at a pharmacy in San José, where there was a large selection of pharmacies, some generous, some more particular. Ever was confused by Manita’s lack of questioning, he wanted to unload all that had happened, to get a reaction, to disturb her composure, but she just drove and all she had asked, albeit with concern was,
‘How are you today, Señor Ever?’
It was the first time she had directly used his name, he was convinced he had never heard it before, he would have remembered the strange inflection, making it sound circular not direct, and certainly the first time it had been coupled with the dignity of a Señor.
‘Well I feel I need a little something to calm my nerves.’
On their arrival in the town she directed him to a pharmacy by the church, which she described as a generous one.
‘Con dinero, baila el perro.’
She said rubbing forefinger and thumb together. A gesture his father used to make when he wanted a roll-up. He got the idea about money, but making your dog dance was lost on him.
Ever walked into his idea of retail heaven. Signs were displayed on the shelves in capital letter handwriting with a felt tip pen; the names of medication for sale. No prescription was needed: everything a boy could ever want.
A benzo paradise.
Lorazepam, diazepam, Valium, the Z family, Ambien, no Zimovane, those were truly his bag, his soul food, alongside Vicodin and painkillers of every name, tramadol, dihydrocodeine, and even, oh heaven, diamorphine, what a country, and the full range of erectile dysfunction pills, Viagra, Cialis, Levitra. It was endless. It was his toy shop.
He left with some diazepam and Ambien, and some Vicodin for those special little moments of pain.
He now felt medically self-sufficient; he should, he had enough diazepam, one hundred tablets, to finish himself off in one sleepy go. He popped a diazepam, the full 10 mg, as soon as got into the car.
Thrilled that he had ninety-nine more.
Other than that highlight, on his return to earth, there was a feeling of a mutual tension in the car. What condition Lomita would be in on their arrival?
‘Thank you, Manita, thank you for your help and everything.’
His wandering gratitude brought about no response, but he did feel grateful that she had taken him to the pharmacy, so made no demand for a reply. The practicalities of what had happened could not be faced by Ever, who had placed the survival of Lomita above all, but there was so much more than her health and he just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, he wasn’t sure which, be able to face the reality. It was all over, he supposed, when his brain alighted on the subject, with the momentary perch of a bird on a branch before it swoops off to new territories. A new focus was needed, one which carried a future, that was the problem he could not get beyond: there was no future. He could not perch on anything but the question of Lomita’s survival; not what would happen if she did survive.
*
The hospital corridor was surprisingly cheery for a hospital corridor.
There was a sense of life not death in the place. That was probably due to the Mexican music piped into the veins of the corridor.
They opened the door to the same room that they had left her in the previous night.
There was a nurse who was happy to leave after a few words from Manita.
Lomita’s hair was down now, lying with an independence on the pillow, not washed, she was obviously not strong enough for water to be applied too heavily to her body.
Manita was first to hold her hand.
‘Siento que ya no estoy aquí Manita—’
She stopped and started again in English as she registered Ever’s presence.
‘I feel like I am not here anymore.’
Then adding the question.
‘Am I?’
‘Of course you are, it will all be fine.’
Manita was able to say that at least; unaware as she was of the truth.
What else can you say? This is a fucking huge, big, massive mess that will crash around us and change us all forever?
And that was
with 10 mg of diazepam refusing the brain its full swirl of neurosis.
‘Can you leave me with Ever a while please Manita?’
She left, presumably to sit outside, and Ever took up a position by the bed and extended his hand towards hers.
They held.
Her eyes closed and she started to exhale with the faintest noise of congestion.
‘Hello Ever. How are you my sweet?’
She closed her eyes as if she was preventing more pain from coming in that could be received through the windows of sight and light.
‘I am OK. And you?’
‘I don’t know Ever, but will you at this point in my life, in our life, where all this has brought us – be true with me?’
A strange expression he thought; as strange as the first time she had used it. Truly. Do we like each other truly? He remembered.
‘Be true, yes I will. Of course I will.’
‘Tell me please Ever, what you feel about me.’
Ever did not know what to say.
‘In the way of my emotions?’
‘Yes.’
Said Lomita.
The banal directness of his own question embarrassed him but appeared to have flown over the frailty of Lomita.
‘I want to hear from you what you feel about me. After what I have done.’
Ever didn’t expect that coda to the question. He rethought his route through the unexpected turn in the conversation.
‘I don’t feel anything has changed in me, about you, with what has happened.’
‘It has for me. I can’t and don’t want to live with what I have done; the excuse that I didn’t mean to, or want to, would not even be true. That’s what I mean about true. Be true. I did what I did because of you Ever. So be true to me.’
‘You did what you did because of me, to stop me doing what you knew I would do.’
He wasn’t sure if that carried a question in its inflection, it was a repeat to allow his brain time. He needed some time. Diazepam did that. He couldn’t tell her he had no gun. He had no gun. He couldn’t do that. He made the decision then that he would never tell her that. He would not tell her that.
‘I did it for you Ever because of how I feel about you.’
There was a silence between them.
‘I love you.’
There was another silence.
One that he could not fill with the expected response, not because he didn’t feel anything, it was just rare that people said that to him. And he felt its rarity: its sinking in to his core.
‘I love you Ever. That is all that matters to me and I will take with me, to my God, the horror of what I did and I will face that and take full responsibility for that. I did it because I love you.’
That time of saying, her eyes had opened and the blue from them spread into the room and into his eyes; tears appeared from his ducts at the corner of his eyes, but did not run down his face; he said what he truly felt from the bottom of his heart, and maybe his soul had arrived to lend support.
‘I love you.’
Then the tears ran, at a pace, to escape his eyes: find a freedom in a world that was less painful.
They looked at each other, a smile did not physicalise, it did not need to. It lived deep inside, in another time and place; in a realm of feeling that took them away from the limitations of this existence.
These walls, the building, the town, the desert and the world.
She was on a silver screen with him and they were both in the sky with the stars.
The silence went on without effort, their hands joined with their hearts and their eyes. A tear moved tentatively out of Lomita’s right eye, shyly making its way down her face as if it were the first time it had ever left home.
It was a tear she expelled with a different feeling from all the other tears that had rolled on the same journey.
It was a slow and contemplative tear.
And they sat and sat, they had sat and sat so many times in their lives in modes of contemplation, isolated and alone; now in harmony in the same thought, with contentment and purity of love.
Ever wished their relationship had remained pure and had not been consummated; but then their physical connection had made them one in their understanding of how their lives could have been, it had shaped them to meet and end their days together.
*
Because that is what they’re facing: this is the end of it all.
Two hours passed in this state of connection, nurses put their heads around the door and had their own interpretation of what they saw; Lomita and Ever cared not for the world and its opinions, they existed only for each other.
And would for all time.
‘I want you to know this Ever, you are the only person who I have ever wanted inside me. Physically and in my heart.’
*
There was a knock followed by a doctor.
Dr Jose Serrano, according to his introduction; Lomita thought he was familiar but Ever had not seen him before. He took the chart from the end of her bed and studied it in preparation for asking some questions.
Lomita suggested that Ever should leave the room.
‘I am happy to stay.’
‘No, my sweet, please leave, just for a few minutes.’
The door closed.
‘¿Ingles o Español?’
She obviously hadn’t seen him before.
‘I don’t mind.’
Replied Lomita.
‘How long have you been taking the antiretroviral medication for your condition at this dose?’
The doctor had made his own decision.
‘About three years. When my CD4 cells fell below the accepted level of stability and I got repeated bouts of pneumonia. I have my cell count checked on a regular basis but it has proved difficult for me to get the cell count back up.’
He was studying the clipboarded chart.
‘It is below the level now and the X-rays reveal the presence of pulminory infiltrates. You have a very low arterial oxygen level that leads to the diagnosis of pneumocystis pneumonia, PCP.’
Lomita was hearing and that was about all.
‘We will need to put you on a course of steroids and a combination of trimetrexate and primaquine.’
‘Please slow down, even in my first language. Slower.’
‘Or, and I will be consulting the specialist on his arrival, trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole.’
‘I don’t really care.’
‘These are extremely powerful drugs and the question of using the second combination is based on whether your body can take them.’
Dr Jose Serrano revelled in the verbiage of his job.
‘That it has the strength to deal with the side effects. So—’
He was not giving up although his audience had.
‘We need to boost your immune system. You are on—’
More consulting of the clipboard.
‘Additional intravenous vitamin pushes and, yes, we are regulating immunoglobulin intake. I must explain.’
Lomita hadn’t asked.
‘There is a controversial aspect to the intensification of the treatment, as sometimes reduction is what can enable a boost to the system. But it can take about four days for that increase to appear. And—’
She didn’t want to, or care to, acknowledge his fading and.
‘You speak very good English.’
‘It’s my first language. Born in New Mexico. Moved to San Lucas after graduation.’
‘I understand that this puts enormous pressure on my system to fight this off, I probably don’t have the immune power, if that’s the right way of putting it, to do that, then. Do I?’
‘That we would have to see. You will be closely monitored, of course, but I have to tell you it is a tough infection and usually only gets those whose immune system has been compromised. We will wait for the specialist and we will consult and then we can start the appropriate course of medication. OK? That will be today, in about an hour.’
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‘I feel I have very little choice. But please don’t worry about me, I am fine.’
She moved her head to the side, away from his focus and smiled to herself.
Jose Serrano went for the door and invited Ever to return; deferring as he did so to Lomita.
‘Could you ask Manita to come in, my sweet.’
Lomita informed them of the severity of her condition. The details of the PCP infection, as a result of the weakening of her immune system due to the failure of the antiretrovral medication. It took her much less time than Dr Serrano. It wasn’t a surprise to Manita, and she didn’t register it as such. She had already anticipated a diagnosis that carried a fatal consequence.
Ever however could say nothing, he was physically incapable of speaking.
‘You understand now, I think, don’t you, my sweet.’
A world contained in one sentence.
Ever could only nod.
‘About everything.’
Ever nodded again.
‘Can you get in touch with Guillermo for me please; ask him to come in tomorrow. And now I do need to rest; Ever must go, it is too much for me, but please come tomorrow with Guillermo. He’s my lawyer.’
She said by way of explanation to Ever.
‘I need to rest now.’
*
The yeast-like fungus inhabited Lomita’s lungs.
It continued to do its worst; although there is very little coughing with this condition, the sputum being too viscous to move, the weight loss, shortness of breath and night sweats debilitate at a rapid pace.
*
Ever asked Manita to drop him off in San José.
He said he could get a taxi back later. He went to the old part of the town, sat in the church, knelt and prayed to God for help – advice – just asking and thinking what to do. He prayed for Lomita. Talking to God or anybody who would listen out there. A lost soul who had always floated in and out of a body was now a soul floating in a mess.