The sun was a good idea, her idea, it has life and brilliance and health and warmth. All the things missing in those fifteen minutes.

Ever was still fixed on the resulting aftermath.

That revenge was taken. That murder happened after that. And maiming.

It worried him that he condoned that aftermath.

‘Why show me that?’

‘I don’t know. No one has ever watched it with me.’

She was scraping, with her thumbnail, some candle wax off the white marble table. Removing the red dried spill, cleaning and cleansing.

Ever thought the wax shape resembled India or Africa. They always to him looked like they had run out of energy as they thinned towards their southern tail, run out of spill.

‘Just bad things happen, things that shouldn’t.’

Said Lomita.

‘Did you feel better when what happened to them happened? To those people?’

‘Yes, I did. But eventually it was worse, because I had joined them. And then you are finished. Polluted.’

‘Would you mind if I had a drink?’

Said Ever.

‘I will join you. Martinis?’

‘In or out?’

‘Out, I think, don’t you?’

Said Lomita.

Ever knew what was coming next.

‘I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’

The length of the 8 mm agony. He was shaking as he waited; he wanted to ask for a diazepam to calm down.

It had been a day.

My God, if you are listening, what a day.

WELL, DID YOU EVER?

That was never going to leave him. He had never seen that one before. Did it mean what he thought it meant, were those his final words to his son? The fifteen minutes he was glad of, but he didn’t need to change, he was already at his sartorial peak.

Armani outlet and a shirt. It gets no better than that for Ever. The truth, here, was a one-sided affair. Lomita had revealed her truth but Ever was incapable of revealing his truth. The imbalance provided yet another area for guilt to build, to persecute and prosecute his mind.

Chapter Thirty-three

Ever was swimming in the ocean alone.

He swam alone, there was no one else to swim with, he floated in the water watching the whales with their leap of child-joy out of the water. The triggerfish and the skipjacks swimming around him, right by his feet, happy at his being there, and as happy as he could be, being there.