Lomita For Ever Read online

  About the Author

  Trevor Eve studied architecture before attending The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he won the Bancroft Gold Medal. He is a multi-award-winning actor, including two Olivier theatre awards. His career has spanned over forty years in theatre, film and television. He received an Honorary Doctorate from Newman University in 2014. He is married to Sharon Maughan and has three children.

  Lomita For Ever

  Trevor Eve

  This edition first published in 2019

  Unbound

  6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

  www.unbound.com

  All rights reserved

  © Trevor Eve, 2019

  The right of Trevor Eve to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ‘How It Seems to Me’ by Ursula K Le Guin is reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Ursula K Le Guin.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-78965-042-6

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-78965-041-9

  Cover design by Mecob

  For Sharon

  Super Patrons

  David Baillie

  Stephen Bruce

  Adrian Eden

  Terence Flanagan

  Judith M. Galloway

  Dan Kieran

  Ewan Lawrie

  John Mitchinson

  Justin Pollard

  How It Seems To Me

  In the vast abyss before time, self

  is not, and soul commingles

  with mist, and rock, and light. In time,

  soul brings the misty self to be.

  Then slow time hardens self to stone

  while ever lightening the soul,

  till soul can loose its hold of self

  and both are free and can return

  to vastness and dissolve in light,

  the long light after time.

  – Ursula K. Le Guin

  Chapter One

  ‘So, I think things started to go a little wrong in the womb.’

  Everett Millen whispered to himself while staring. Staring at his mother, whose whiteness was turning pink in her swimming costume; a little tight, the fat escaping the restrictions of the one piece bought for a different body.

  This was a rare visit to his mother’s home. She was asleep, well, more passed out, after lunch, on a yellow garden recliner. The plastic strands were wound round and round in a basket weave to form a springy web. He could see the build-up of sweat where skin met plastic. He went inside to fetch a towel. At least to protect her from the sun.

  His mother had always called him Ever.

  He has been known forever as Ever.

  Chapter Two

  He drove out of Palm Springs on Interstate 10.

  Hot and dry like a purring cat hanging around his neck: stifling. He liked the heat, but he was allergic to cats. So there was a dissonance between this image and his comfort.

  The gas station man, who was of South Asian descent, felt the necessity to inform him, with a natural courtesy, of the correct ‘pay first’ procedure at American pumps.

  Ever knew this anyway, but in a descent of brain fog he was happy, for that brief moment, to have the burden of thought and decision removed from his mind.

  Paid and full, the car drove west on the freeway towards the large sprawling mass of human life; organised, but in the way a child might spread building blocks from the centre outwards until the boredom hit and the blocks were just kicked and piled, not really in any order, just piled, without enthusiasm, while waiting for tea.

  This was his lot, so get on with it and be positive because, Hindu-style, if you do it well, you might not have to come back.

  He let the heat wrap him until the mountains gave way to the alien invasion of the wind turbines, then rolled up the windows and air-conditioned himself. No alien air for him today; besides, he needed to get rid of the cat.

  The outlet stores of Cabazon were now behind him, thirty minutes out of the desert; the white gloss shopping bag sat on the passenger seat, the neat folds of his purchase collapsed into a crumple. For the next part of the journey he relished the thought of the suits he had just bought at irresistable knock-down prices. So, mentally dressed in Armani and Gucci, he drove off the interstate and entered the sprawl. He was getting sorted, that would bring some calm, a sliver at least. But he wasn’t carrying, yet.

  Packing heat, that is.

  A gun, that is.

  The LA basin was waiting with its lid on; the sun had done its damage to the nitrogens, creating ozone, resulting in the photochemical smog. Eyes burn from PAN – no God of the wild, but peroxyacyl nitrates; breathing becomes harder, buildings form pollutants on their surface; the people spew out their dolly mixture of emotions and, well, everyone wants your blood, and when all the blood is gone, the soul is easy pickings. The Angels have to work hard in their city recovering all those lost souls.

  One hundred and ten miles, north-west a bit, towards the middle section, where the wealth increases and the buildings change and the time invested in the environment becomes apparent.

  Ever was driving into Beverly Hills. No e at the end of Beverl-y. One of the first things he’d learnt about American culture. That, and always be positive, and if someone asks you how you are, don’t tell them beyond great. Never say how shitty you really feel.

  *

  In Palm Springs, Ever had stayed in a room at The Willows Hotel that had once been inhabited by Albert Einstein, and it was there that he put the proposal to himself.

  The connection within his brain that received the proposal interpreted it as a solution, and it seemed less than odd. It seemed completely and refreshingly understandable. He knew why it was, he knew why he was there.

  Ever considered himself English, though born in America and ambitious in the very general sense of the word, with a desire, through that ambition, to accomplish whatever he set his mind to. But, to achieve this particular ambition, he just needed to be lifted out by the bored child that had piled the blocks; picked up by the neck and saved. Saved to carry out his purpose.

  Out of the sprawl, that to him was everywhere.

  Physically, but mostly mentally for him, it was a mass of a mess that seemed, every day, to cover more of him and make the possibility of ever coming up for air more inconceivable. This was obviously the way to do it. That’s what he told himself anyway. He was getting a little older now, and quite honestly just pure pissed off at the way nobody seemed to listen.

  Energy equals mass, was as far as he could get, in the context of Einstein, but it seemed that the two words had a correlation to what was needed: one to get out of the other. Logic, the last resort of the intellect, the defence system that breaks down all that the imagination can construct. Fuck it, he thought, why not? What else was he going to do? Wait like everybody else? For how long? Until you die, of course, like the people in the sprawl.

  No, Einstein was right. Energy equals mass times double chaos.

  Sleeping in a hotel spiritually inhabited by Einstein from days past had had an effect. An inhabitance. A takeover. Mini though it might be.

  He had made his decision.

  *

  The car pulled into the short drive.

  The
eighty-year-old baronial studded gates slowly opened on an uneven path and he drove into the underground parking lot. He sat, and sat, contemplating what he had agreed with himself to do. The jazz station 88.1 fuzzed its clarity, as the signal struggled for life under the soil. He had unplugged his own music and now Miles Davis had finally died, God bless him, giving way to an unenthusiastic Frank Sinatra, singing ‘What a Swell Party This Is’ – a Palm Springs resident whose boredom sometimes leapt out of his singing, killing the desire to listen. He would have done it. He did do it. Sold his soul, or more precisely, sacrificed his soul. Maybe that’s what left his singing – maybe his soul just disappeared into the cool desert night; then he would drive back to LA for another fix, replenish his soul and start to sing with genius again.

  The plates on the rental were registered to the state of Utah, with a background of the Delicate Arch rock formation. This had instilled in Ever the feeling of being a pioneer, even though he picked the car up in LA. The Wild West plates were now feeling calm, no more wind blasting them up the highway. His shadow crossed the insects, dead on the headlights, as they blinked off on the time delay.

  He paused, turned and patted the car before leaving, as if it were a horse.

  Dark would bring his doubt, when he had no relation to the rest of the world, nothing to distract him, just surrounded by the black, pushing itself into his clothes and then covering his skin. Dark: he was now getting dark. But he would rise. Rise out of it all, and that was the important thing. Keep on track.

  The flight of stairs up to the ground level brought his first awareness of noise: the metal opener inserted in the lock. Unusual, but eminently simple and successful, it allowed him access to the courtyard, then four steps to the Spanish apartment. He opened the door and the faded heat of the day seemed a memory clinging to the curtains across the window. Backpack and white gloss shopping bag were placed inside the door. Lamplight only, a ‘no’ to the overhead option. Then his eyes fell on his intention. The paper bag containing the medical marijuana that would now take him out of the anxiety state, delaying the paranoia, at least until the morning light when he could handle it a little better. Not a lot better, but somehow the options in life became more apparent, more optimistic, in the day. At least other people seemed to be getting on with it, so there was a hope. A possibility that it was all possible.

  *

  His life had become, at this point, a Q&A, with himself and whoever was around to listen.

  To satisfy the need, his need. It was real what had happened. It was true. That much was known. What was it in him that drove him to ask the questions all the time, why couldn’t he get on with it?

  Like everybody else?

  But how many other people had decided to do what he was going to do?

  Not many, he supposed.

  But then it was because he had never felt human, never felt the need to construct like the rest, always waiting for the thing to happen that would take him out of life’s systematisation, the process that he was going through.

  Life was going to be different for him, from now on, that’s what he wanted, why else had he come? And if it wasn’t going to be different then he would make it different by his own devices. His own determination. His own action. That defines it: an action, the ability to do an act.

  Here he was, living in his own cinematic experience but holding an objective viewer’s eye on all his activity. Ever had done this since he was a child, though he didn’t know then that everybody else didn’t do it; now it was the only way he could turn his life around.

  *

  Enter the movie from the left, walk straight in and become him. Grasp the role.

  He would welcome the sight of himself in this as yet unwritten movie. At least he hoped he would, and he was prepared, if needed, to involve himself in other people’s lives uninvited.

  Not to harm but to engage, to connect.

  He must watch, observe, and make himself invaluable to this end.

  To change his life through another.

  A parasitic involvement: an osmotic method of dependency.

  Because he had always needed help: this time was no different.

  Just a new script.

  Chapter Three

  Rodeo Drive.

  It runs perfectly in whichever way you choose to look at it. No soul, a monument to consumerism, the church for shoppers and watchers. He walked up and down believing himself to be the troubled looking for the troubled with a feeling that he could be the salvation.

  Who would he salvage?

  It would be a pay-off, a trade for what he had decided. Save one, drop one, like in knitting.

  He took a break, a rest if you like, from the long, meandering trek from his apartment along Fountain down onto Santa Monica Boulevard then into the world of the artificial, and cooled himself in the public parking car hotel, two free hours, that eased off Rodeo and cosseted the shiny metal rooms in which the pampered drove themselves around. And there he would have a little smoke. A little of the medical to give himself the cloudy belief that he was doing good.

  Sitting next to a 1995 burgundy Jeep Wagoneer, he looked at the plastic wood and thought what a beautifully unnecessary concept of design the car was. Plastic wooden panels to convince no one, so that it existed as a falsehood from the start, in fact, was pleased with itself as a fake. The perfect car for Los Angeles, but the colour was wrong. Burgundy, a solid block, lacking in excitement, a complete non-thriller as a tone. Dulled by the sun, which had varied the intensity of colour in patches that were infinitesimally scratched by the endless washing that is demanded by the LA car; it looked outdated, not oozing enough class to pull off old age, to become a classic.

  Then came one, and then another female form, lifted by scalpel-inflicted pulls of skin and muscle to defy the downward drag of the concrete gravity. An attempt to reach perfection, to rise to the heavens where they might exist on the goddess plane, to breathe the rarified air of the beautiful.

  One was carrying a Bijan bag, yellow with squiggly script; the knowledge that everything was expensive in the store gave the bag an arrogance to hold its own despite its lack of taste. Another skyward-lifted face, carrying three large Barney’s black bags; cheaper, maybe, maybe not, but the choice of car proved disappointing. A Lexus. A pale blue Lexus. A colour he had hated going back to the beginning of time. His time, anyway.

  *

  A dullness that was smashed.

  By a loud Spanish voice, propelling itself into a cell phone with an anger that seemed to have no effect on the old lady she was pushing in a wheelchair towards a large black Suburban that beeped as the lights flashed at the button command of the now-shouting Mexican.

  The old lady was left by the side of the car as the phone argument continued, sitting calmly in the wheelchair. A black raven was obscuring her face; the large, black, wraparound glasses that could be for blindness, or just sun terror. They seemed heavy for her delicacy.

  He watched, taking a long inhalation on the medical; the wheelchair woman turned, and the look betrayed an assessment that put blindness out of the question. She continued to stare through the Spanish shouts, a smile stretched across the tight landscape with lips that wore red; he envisioned the red oozing into the tiny ravines that ran top and bottom of the chasm. He smiled back, he felt, very slowly, time between them paused, until the play button was pressed by the Mexican, the film started again and the wheelchair was pushed to the back of the car.

  The old lady stood now, not looking, and, slowly supporting herself along the side of the car, walked to the right side and rested, while the Mexican listened intently on the cell phone, manipulating the wheelchair into the cavern that had opened up at the back of the black mass of metal. The look came back his way, but the smile had gone; now she just stood staring, and he felt he was waiting in the dock.

  Go on then pass the judgement, I am not going anywhere. Really I am not.

  The door slammed shut on the other side of the car. No e
ngine started but the immersion in the phone call had obliterated the existence of the waiting lady.

  Now, without thinking, he got up and walked towards the stare.

  He was entering the film, walking in as an extra.

  But he appeared to have lines.

  *

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘You’re British.’

  ‘Yes, well, English actually.’

  ‘Oh my.’

  She said, lingering in the moment.

  ‘Manita will help me in a minute. Do not concern yourself. She has a family issue.’

  The offer of information seemed unnecessary and excessive to a stranger.

  He didn’t wait, but opened the door.

  ‘Un momento por favor.’

  Came from the driver’s side. Not abusive, but firm. Followed by the translation:

  ‘Please, if you don’t mind, just a minute.’

  He’d got the message first time.

  ‘Manita will come, it’s OK. Thank you.’

  He returned the large black block into its hole. As the lady had made no effort to climb into the car, he assumed she wanted to allow the phone call its own privacy.

  He walked away with the nod of his head, repeating the pattern three times, a nod, then a nod, then another nod, and returned to his position by the Jeep Wagoneer. Pulling hard on the medical as he hunkered down. And she stood, still not looking in his direction. He felt such a sadness for her and a sense of disappointment in the behaviour of the Mexican woman. Money can’t buy you love. Money can buy you a big black hearse to be driven around in. What’s the difference, alive or dead? Dead or alive.

  The driver’s side opened to release the sound of Mexican music carrying a relentless joviality as the carer came round to help the patient patient into the car.