Lomita For Ever

by Trevor Eve

  *

  He returned to the house and sat in the main room.

  Listening to Lana and staring at WELL, DID YOU EVER?

  The fire would burn on the beach during the journey out to sea and, because of the weight, only Jeff, Manita and Ever would be in the boat. The priest, Francisco, would say his prayer and final blessing on land; Lomita wasn’t even a Catholic, Ever thought, but this was Manita’s wish. The ceremony should be kept low-key and essentially a secret.

  The sun was going down and the sea, in reflected sunset, turned a vermilion red.

  *

  The Vermilion Sea.

  The moon would be in its second night of fullness and a bottle of tequila was brought down in preparation to toast Lomita’s departure. It was now a celebration. A private celebration of a private life. The priest started his prayers.

  Dios te salve, María;

  llena eres de gracia;

  el Señor es contigo;

  bendita Tú eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de Tui vientre, Jesús.

  Santa Maria, Madre de Dios,

  ruega por nosotros pecadores,

  ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.

  Amén.

  With the Ave Maria completed, the four of them struggled to lift the coffin into the boat, which was floating in the shallows, buffeted by the waves that rolled in. They waited for a lull in the set, the engine motored to keep the boat steady as possible. The coffin was lifted aboard.

  They would wait for moonrise. Manita and Ever climbed on, drenched to the skin waist down. With practicality taking over from emotion the boat motored out to meet the whales, the priest making the sign of the cross in the distance lit up by the flames.

  There was silence during the journey out, the boat travelled slowly, the moon started its rise over the horizon, a red-painted giant; they headed towards it to the east and a straight beam of moonlight shone directly across the boat. They followed its reflection on the water like a calling. The moment came for the drop of the body into the sea, having sailed beyond the current line. Jeff and Ever lifted the end of the coffin to the edge of the boat, the boat leaned with its weight, countered by Manita on the opposite side of the boat, the balance of the coffin continued to tilt the boat seaward, washing water onto the boat. The lid was removed, the coffin turned and the tarpaulin-covered body started its slide into the dark blue.

  *

  There was a sense of presence and the noise of some motors.

  They, on the boat, turned around towards the shore and saw about twenty fishing boats, paddle boards and kayaks, with candles burning on the windless night and the boats lit up, keeping the distance of respect and paying a silent tribute. The illumination backdropped by the rocks and the beach, a silent moment of adoration for Lomita Tracy Nairn.

  *

  A silent goodbye.

  The love sent, the body disappeared to join the Sea of Cortez and the humpback whales.

  *

  At the moment of submersion two whales breached within feet of the boat.

  The world was in tune with a divine spirit and moved with it.

  A trio of whales slapped their tails on the surface of the water, sending an echo rebounding back from the shore.

  Ever looked back to the beach and saw the fire burning on the beach, beyond the floating tribute, beyond, to the lights of the house where he would live.

  He marked the burial spot in his mind for all time. Lomita would forever be close, be seen, be there.

  Manita crossed herself, the moment was over, and again in silence the boat made its way back to shore.

  Goodbye.

  Each of them whispered in their own way.

  On their return Jeff deposited the coffin onto the fire and took his leave, climbing into his truck. The priest departed with a wave, leaving Manita and Ever, who with the intimacy of a hug sent Pedro on his way back up the twenty-four steps to the house, the boat having been beached to be dealt with on a new day.

  *

  Ever took a shot of tequila.

  He lay back on the sand feeling the fire and watching the coffin burn, lose its shape and take away its association with death. He was feeling the moon and feeling the stars. He was a wound feeling everything. He didn’t want to leave the beach; he didn’t want to break the connection with the sea and where she was.

  He pondered with his God on whether a person who had done what she had done, and what he had done in thought, could ever consider themselves not to be evil.

  Then why was there a divinity at her death?

  *

  ‘Well done.’

  He said to Manita when she wished him goodnight. After what had seemed an age sitting on the beach together. They had had a long journey of it all and he still had no idea what Manita felt about the whole thing. He supposed he would never know; their lives would no longer be forced together.

  They would live apart having experienced so much together.

  That night went with diazepam and tequila into a dream of haze, part spent on the beach and part in the bamboo rocker outside his room and then his phone rang.

  Again.

  *

  A FaceTime ring.

  A serious ring. It was Clarissa. It was the fourth time she had called him and he was unable to bring himself to pick up.

  He couldn’t deal with his reality now. He let it ring out.

  *

  He went to his bed, there was a letter addressed to him, placed on his pillow.

  The handwriting he didn’t recognise, it simply said Ever on the envelope.

  Ever, my sweet,

  You are lost now, I know you are, I am in the easier place. I am gone although we will always meet whenever you want, I want you to know you have a wonderful heart that is punished by your head. Let it all go, follow your heart and all will be well. You won’t be lost. This is short and true because I could go on and on about what you mean to me. But you know that, ask your heart.

  See you soon, my sweet,

  Lomita for Ever.

  There was nothing to say to that, other than a feeling that he had met who he was meant to meet. He felt worryingly bereft of emotion, wrung out, a little dry, if he was honest, which was what he intended to be now. Honest that is.

  That his life, for the first time, had in it some kind of honesty and revelation: the finding out the truth about a secret, the opening, the cataract removal, the glasses on, the sight restored, the engine started, the road opened, the trains running, the race won, the exam finished, the bike ridden for the first time, balance, the learning to swim, the understanding of the alphabet, the first spoken word, the triumph of walking, the eating on your own, the co-ordination of limbs, the principle of life, the geometric understanding, the arithmetic formula, the tying of a shoelace. One foot in front of another, the forward process.

  *

  The handwriting was as elegant as the writer.

  With a curl and an impracticality of line, not functional; not there for the reason of placing one letter after another; it showed a lifetime of trying and wanting to express; but being held back by behaviour, process, event, an effort to hold it all together.

  An avalanche of movement on the page, waiting to be unleashed.

  A thunderstorm that never rained.

  Never got there.

  Almost, but not quite.

  *

  It took a long time to get there but he imagined the phone call with Clarissa.

  Version 1:

  Your four weeks are way up, what’s going on?

  I am going to quit my job. Are you both well?

  What do you mean? How are you going to live?

  I’ve sorted it, and you will always have money, I will send you an allowance. It’s just that you can’t be with me. You can’t be with me. It is not good.

  What the fuck are you talking about?

  What I have just said is how it stands. I love you both, but I will finish with you both. Please understand, and
in a few months maybe you can come and see me but right now you cannot.

  Where the fuck are you?

  Mexico.

  That’s great. That’s just great. Ever, you are a shit.

  So are you. I love Jacob and I will see him but you I’m not too bothered about. Is that all you can say? Does it not go any deeper than that?

  No, I don’t think so, fuck you.

  Version 2:

  Where are you?

  I’m in Mexico, it’s really hard to explain but the man who bought my father’s paintings and who basically fucked his life has been shot. You might have heard about it, Ingmar Lorken.

  Yes I have, that’s you, you’re connected with that, what the hell have you been doing?

  No, well yes, but the old lady I was staying with, she shot him.

  What the fuck! Have you lost it again Ever? Have you? Oh, please God no.

  Listen, I want you to come to the house she gave me.

  She what, why, why would she do that, were you fucking her? Ever this is sick.

  Neither was what he wanted: both were ridiculous realities.

  Ever couldn’t even complete this conversation, as the details would take a lifetime to explain and a phone call would be impossible. Was his life with them? Follow your heart. Not your fucking crazy head.

  He wanted Jacob, he wanted to see Clarissa. He wanted life with a family, he wanted children and love and sharing. Not isolation, like his parents, like Lomita. He wanted to belong to the human race for the first time. He was a human. With a thousand to one chance of a healthy life.

  A thousand to one.

  Good odds.

  He’d take them.

  But to be honest, he didn’t really care. Because it had been well worth it.

  And death had never appeared to be that tough an option.

  *

  A situation that hadn’t been anticipated.

  Was the press attention that the killer of Ingmar Lorken would receive.

  Two days after the burial there were photographers taking pictures of the outside of Casa Lomita, an investigative reporter who asked for an interview regarding the final works that Lomita Nairn had bought from the man she killed.

  The work of John Everett Millen.

  Ever did not give an interview but became aware of the notoriety that his father’s work had achieved.

  Mr Chang, the hotel owner in San Diego, who had picked up the work for a pittance, now claimed, in an interview, that he had commissioned the work from this outstanding artist.

  Ever had the idea of sending two paintings to an auction house in Los Angeles in the wake of the scandal. The association of horror and murder with an artist is the stuff of Caravaggio.

  It was with a perversity that he asked Guillermo Gonzales, as an executor of the Nairn Estate, if he would be so kind as to call the newly opened Los Angeles branch of Christie’s and ask if they would be interested in auctioning two paintings recently bought by the woman who shot Ingmar Lorken. That they were being sold as part of her estate.

  Their response was typically dismissive at the opportunism of the inquiry.

  Mr Gonzales left his contact information. Days later he received an email, stating that they would be prepared to include them in their July catalogue. He thought, what the fuck. Divine justice?

  The Wave and The People on a Bright Day were transported back to Los Angeles. Ever, of course, valued the paintings and put an excessive reserve of $250,000 on each painting.

  He waited.

  *

  Clarissa and Jacob exited the terminal at San José del Cabo airport.

  Small, neat, completed and then rebuilt after Hurricane Odile in 2014 decided she didn’t like it.

  Heat that hits, both of them standing with four suitcases, three for Clarissa and just the one for Jacob. They stood with a letter, Fedexed from Guillermo Gonzales containing an address and a request not to contact Ever in advance, he was in a bit of trouble. The inference was emotional turmoil.

  They had no idea how long they would stay or whether they wanted to stay, just the arrival occupied their thoughts.

  They had made the trip.

  She was aware that the person who had killed Mr Lorken had also purchased John Everett Millen’s work. She had called Ever but there was no response. But there had been no specific information about him on the news, just the passing reference to the last works this woman had purchased.

  She supposed she was looking for a taxi but they were both fazed out, having flown in to Los Angeles and then taken a connecting Alaskan Airways flight down. They wandered to the rank and handed the address over to a short heavyset man with no English: they don’t often get those rides so there was a mild, surprised joy at the prospect.

  Big trip.

  For all of them.

  *

  Ever was having an afternoon swim after a couple of calming beers at lunch.

  He’d had a nap and was using the ocean to wake. To clear the dull head. He always swam out towards where Lomita had been buried, not that far, just in the direction, and always at the same distance out came the moment in his head, the decision to just carry on swimming to solve all the doubt and effort and worry and anger that he had towards the world and himself.

  His father’s ashes had ended up in the sea and Lomita was in the sea; it seemed an understandable place to be.

  He supposed that every day, on his swim, he was contemplating the simplicity that suicide would bring. When would the balance swing, was it just a question of time, before he would keep swimming, the weakness would take over, three times going under, life flashing before your eyes, who knows that one? And then, problem solved.

  The puzzle of it all.

  This was a routine; he never quite understood what it was that made him turn around and return to the shore. Maybe one day he would have the courage, no it wasn’t courage it would be what, weakness, no, not a direct opposite, it would be what, it would be being alone. That’s what would do it for him.

  Being on his own forevermore, having lost the confidence in his ability to form, construct a life with someone.

  He let the wave bring him onto the sand and he stumbled, he was on all fours, clumsily returning to the beach. The adoring sun dried his back in seconds and allowed the heat to warm him after the wet had gone. The sun had moved to the west, it was behind him as he walked past the jagged rusted remains of the shipwreck and it followed him up the twenty-four steps to the house where he hosed the sand off his feet and left the rest of his body salt-covered. Standing with the hose, experiencing his daily realisation that he was doing this action, again, that he was still here.

  That he had swum back.

  This time.

  *

  Pedro opened the smile of a front door and ushered two people inside.

  They stood on the marble floor looking towards the ocean and the man who had just slid back the glass door to make his entrance. There was not a beat to count in the moment before the word bounced around the room.

  ‘Dada!’

  Jacob ran, in bumpy, wobbly fashion, towards his father, who picked up his bundle of joy and hugged him to the salt on his body. There had been no time between them, it was all carrying on as if there had been no gap, no space, no physical separation. It was completely normal.

  Clarissa stood motionless and could understand nothing.

  She took in the world around her and it was beyond a word, a question, there was nothing she could say. Hello even refused to come out of her mouth. She stood, Pedro came in for the second time to complete the four-bag line-up inside the door; he understood the moment had stopped in time and that it was his moment to leave.

  Clarissa would be waiting for an explanation and it would take a long time. Time to explain and time to understand, Ever sensed all this from Clarissa while she stood, emotionally in collapse at the door, which smiled behind her.

  *

  But they would have a long time.

  Ever thought,
and, in his own moment, he hoped it would be a lifetime. Outside, the osprey’s whistled notes could just be heard, but only recognised by Ever. The welcome was just beginning.

  ‘Water, Dada? Please? Carry me. Now.’

  Clarissa, Jacob and Ever in the same room; but all in a different place.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The epilogue or the afterword.

  *

  The pale blue hand finally has reason for Ever.

  It has become an understandable reality to Ever after all these years.

  While he sleeps, the pale blue hand, now welcomed, comes to guide his astral body, shrouding the soul, into a higher realm.

  There on the astral plane, Ever and Lomita come together in a non-corporeal world where time and space are of no consequence, in endless process.

  Lomita, a true ethereal beauty, united with Ever through the depth of their love, his soul now filled with contentment.

  In death there is no judgement.

  At last he has become a soulful human being.

  Ever’s journey through life will always hold confusion.

  But now, at least, he is not alone, his soul travels with him.

  *

  The final word.

  *

  John Everett Millen’s paintings, The Wave and The People on a Bright Day, sold at Christie’s for $450,000 and $500,000 respectively.

  Ever’s father’s work was finally celebrated. The money was put into Jacob’s bank account.