Crowned Heads

by Thomas Tryon

  She complained of illness, fever, and Cupie said they ought to get Pat O’Connor down to look at her; he came, but she wouldn’t let him in, she screamed at him and rushed through the door onto the patio, trying to strike him. He waited around the bar, undecided, then went back up the hill.

  She wouldn’t eat. Cupie went with soup and buttered bread. She lit the stove heater with kindling and newspapers and sat while Lorna lay on the bed, holding her head and crying. Cupie took and cradled her in her great arms against her rolling bosom. When she got up she brought her into the bathroom and then into the shower. She held her there and helped her wash—there had been vomiting—and shampooed her yellow hair and rinsed it, and got her out and dried her. She left her sitting in the chair while she stripped the bed. She brought clean sheets and cases and made them up, then got her back into bed and sat with her. When the Delco went off Cupie had to leave her in the dark, because Steve said she couldn’t have matches for a candle or lantern. She wanted cigarettes and Cupie had been lighting them for her, one after the other, and putting them out for her. Don’t leave me, Lorna whispered, I’m afraid. Cupie stayed and sat with her in the dark, talking. It remained overcast for several more days. Cupie went to the yacht club to learn news of the end of the regatta. There was no word. She returned and brought Lorna out onto the patio, and sat her in a broken rocker from the storeroom. She sat there, they said, like an old grandmother, rocking, and you would hardly know her. The hair; the makeup. Someone went and secretly snapped pictures of her through the bougainvillaea. They said they bet that those papers they sell in the supermarkets would pay to put them on their front page.

  What’s happening to me? she asked no one, sitting on the patio in the rocking chair. She could hardly remember. They had moved her from the front, that she remembered. There had been a fire, that she remembered. She had been drinking, that she remembered. She was waiting for something, that she remembered.

  The MorryEll. She longed for one familiar friendly face. Richard, she thought; oh, Richard. She knew she looked terrible, her mirror had told her that. But she would put it all together as soon as her hands stopped shaking and her heart stopped booming and her eyes stopped crying. It was what the doctor had warned her against: too much external stress, which produced internal stress. That’s what he had said, and it had happened, way down here in Mexico, South of the Border. That was strange and a little funny; you came to “get away from it all” and it was all right here waiting for you.

  People certainly weren’t being very sympathetic. Cupie was, but it was a sympathy Lorna couldn’t understand. That sort of forgiveness only embarrassed her; she thought Cupie was really silly, stupid even. She herself could never forgive a thing like that.

  She had been thinking of suicide again. She realized that she’d been considering it as far back as when the tennis players were there—how long ago was that? Walking on the beach, she had wanted to walk into the water and swim away, as far as she could swim, until she was tired, and then she would just drown; it would be easier, she had thought. Now she didn’t know. She didn’t want to cut her wrists again; she hated the sight of blood. She didn’t have enough pills.

  Perhaps the doctor was right, perhaps she did have this urge to destroy. Not others, surely not others—she never wanted to do that. Herself, her own body, her own soul, she could hurt them as much as she wanted to; they were hers. But hurt somebody else? Never. She couldn’t bear to see others suffer, or to be the cause of their suffering.

  She didn’t know what she was going to do. Cupie said sit and rest, just rock. Sit. Rest. But what would she do when she had rested? Rocked? Would she stay here forever, resting, rocking?

  Where was Richard?

  What was happening?

  How was the weather in New York?

  What will I do? she asked no one.

  No one replied.

  It rained again. The sun came out. The place steamed. It rained again. She could not say which she disliked more; both were oppressive, both inimical. Both seemed fatal. Back there, behind the bougainvillaea, it was like a swamp. She sweated interminably, dabbing with Kleenex and sighing. What should she do?

  Cupie came with news. Jack had gone to Mirabella for the weekend, had been on someone’s boat, had talked on the ship-to-shore telephone. The MorryEll with three other boats had left Cabo San Lucas two days before. She waited, dying of excitement, but no boats arrived. She sat on the beach, not caring what she looked like, gazing out at the mouth of the bay, praying. To hold back her cries she bit the back of her hand and tasted the salt deposits secreted through her pores. They didn’t taste any different from her tears.

  She watched, waited, yearned. She whimpered like a dog waiting to be released, to be taken for a walk on a leash. She begged silently. God. God …

  She made another survey of herself. Her fingernails were bitten so far back she hardly recognized them as her own. Or her hair, yellow, lank, horrible. And her face. She applied more make-up, foundation, eye shadow, liner, lipstick, rouge, powder, anything, everything. She ransacked her case, trying to find something else to add. Eyelashes, plenty of those. She chose the longest. Glue. Trembling hand. Sticky mess. Faulty vision. What did it matter, it was a face, wasn’t it?

  But whose?

  Oh, God.

  Rain.

  Sun again. Someone had left behind a green plastic eyeshade, and she appropriated it. On the beach in her scorched caftan, sitting, staring, waiting. She was so tired. People kept looking at her, but no one asked for an autograph; except one. A woman who came up from out of the blur of faces that had got off the noon boat, holding out a Wrigley’s spearmint gum wrapper. Would she sign it? It was for her niece. She said, I’m so happy to have met you, Miss Doone, and good luck with your career.

  Didn’t she know?

  This was how the cookie crumbled.

  Cupie would come and talk with her, about anything, talking but receiving no replies. Don’t you think you ought to go home? she would suggest gently. Go home and get well? Lorna would shake her head. Can’t. Can’t. Any day now, any moment, just a little longer, look, see the sun, good weather, white sails, just a little longer, see the birds, what kind of birds are those?

  She felt more feverish. Pat O’Connor sent some pills. She didn’t know what they were; she flushed them down the john. She went to the village for more ricea, hiding the larger bottle and using a small plastic one from her cosmetic case, keeping this in her raffia bag so it was with her at all times. La Loca, they called her.

  Steve came with her overdue bill. She said she hadn’t the money to pay it. He said she must make other arrangements, they would be needing the cabaña. She asked how she could leave; he must wait until money was wired or her friends arrived. She called the boy to bring her grapefruit juice and spiked it from her plastic bottle.

  It was a curious thing that she sometimes thought she saw things quite clearly when she was drunk. Perhaps it was a property of the ricea; she didn’t know. But she saw how foolish she had been about Emiliano. She had traded Security for Romance, and she should have learned from past mistakes that this was folly. The fatal error. He had lured her; this Mexican, with his winning smiles and caballero ways, had come on with her, and she knew about that type of person, on the make for rich American divorcees. That fatal type. She did not find it difficult to hate him now, that dark Emiliano and his wretched Rosalia. She told herself not to think about either of them anymore. She told herself to cream her elbows too, but didn’t….

  The sky cleared and the sun came out again, for once and for all, it seemed. It was very hot. Of the clothes she had salvaged from the fire there were few that fit her, she had put on so much weight. She struggled into a pair of sharkskin shorts and tied on her bandanna halter, and a pair of kick mules whose heels balanced her precariously. She did her face, then tied her hair back with the Hermès scarf, and screwed her pearls onto her ears. She put on her wrist watch; it had stopped, but she wound it and reminded
herself to check the time and set it.

  She went to the dining room and ate her breakfast, chattering across the room to anyone who would listen to her. Wasn’t it nice to see a blue sky? Wasn’t it hot, though? Had anybody heard what the weather was like in New York?

  She spiked her jugo de naranja with ricea from her plastic bottle, and had her usual coffee and rolls, with lots of butter. Her hand trembled as she drank and ate. She thought she ought to do something about her nails, and after breakfast she went clicking along the walkway in her heels, going to Numero Uno, to look through the burned cabaña for her good nail file, which had been lost. She found it under a piece of rattan that had peeled from the plaster wall. The file was black and bent from the heat; she threw it away.

  She stood on the patio, supporting herself by hanging on to a post. It was charred, and the soot came off on her hands and her shorts. Through her dark glasses she looked out to the bay, where people were water-skiing. There was no sign of a boat from Mirabella.

  Then she saw Emiliano.

  He came along the beach, carrying his equipment. He did not look at her, but went out on the rocks, where he sat putting on his fins and goggles. He slipped into the water and disappeared. The god returned to the deeps. Muy bonitos, los pies, she thought, very pretty feet—but of clay. She watched the path of the snorkel projecting along the surface, and the bobbing cork that kept water from getting in the tube. She could see Emiliano’s dark form under the water, his powerful legs scissoring, then idling as he swam down there. She went along the walkway until she got to the sand. She took off her mules and placed them side by side, then went out on the first rock. She looked over to the beach, which was filled with sunbathers and swimmers. When she had crossed several more rocks she was out of sight. She went rock by rock until she was where Emiliano swam. His head came to the surface and he looked up at her. She had sat down and she smiled at him. Buenos días, she said. He nodded. My watch stopped, she told him, qué hora es? She pointed to the marine watch on his brown wrist. He told her the time, then submerged again. Gracias, she said aloud, and set her watch. Very nice of him to give her the time of day. His spear gun was lying on the rocks. She bent over it, looking at the thick black rubber band that stretched over the spring mechanism. She could see Emiliano’s brown body under the blue water, and his white trunks. Her hand trembled as she picked up the gun and pointed it. She couldn’t control the tremors, but she saw how to lift the safety catch and pull the trigger. The shining steel spear hit him through the back of the thigh, exactly where she had aimed. The blood that rose around him was dark, and he thrashed, the blue fins breaking the surface of the water, and the foam was red. She dropped the gun and clambered to the highest rock where she could see the beach, and started screaming. Hurry, she cried, there’s been an accident.

  When she turned back, Emiliano was holding on to a rock, his leg stretched immobile behind him. There was a lot of blood, brighter now. He bit his lip in pain. I’m sorry, she told him with a little shrug; it just went off.

  They carried him to the sand and laid him down. Someone got a horse and rode to Pat O’Connor’s house. Lorna stood at the back of the crowd, trying to explain how the accident had happened: it was the safety catch; it hadn’t been set. Emiliano’s eyes were closed and he was suffering. She couldn’t bear to look at him or at Rosalia either. Rosalia was crying. When Pat came, he needed a hacksaw to cut the metal spear in order to slide it out of the flesh, then they brought a speedboat from the yacht club and when the wound was dressed they took Emiliano to Mirabella.

  Lorna picked up her shoes and went to her cabaña. She drank ricea and sat on the edge of the bed, holding her stomach. The sight of blood had made her sick. Pat O’Connor came in and said it was a rotten thing, what she had done. The spear had severed the knee tendon, hamstringing Emiliano like a horse; he would never be able to dance again, would probably spend his life on crutches. She said she was very sorry, honestly, but it had been an accident.

  When Pat had gone she sat waiting for something to happen, someone to come. Nothing, no one, did. She ventured out of doors, coming along the walkway, and when she passed the office she heard Steve Alvarez talking with Pat O’Connor; Steve was saying he’d sent for the police. She would be taken to Mirabella and held. She did not go past the office, but went behind it. She passed through the mango grove, across the fallen, rotting yellow fruit, to the horse palapa. No one was there, and she untied a horse and led it away. She tightened the girth and got into the saddle in her sharkskin shorts and high-heel shoes. Her raffia bag hanging on her free arm, she urged the horse around the lagoon, toward the village. She looked behind her; no one seemed to have seen her leave.

  She went first to the cantina, where she bought a pint bottle of ricea. She bought Mexican cigarettes and asked for matches; these were American, and on the cover they read “ENJOY!” and below that “HAVE A GOOD DAY!” She went to the store and bought a box of emery boards. She had tied the horse in some shade, and when she came out of the store she went into the church and sat on a bench. It was hot in there, but somehow she was shivering. Two women with black handkerchiefs tied over their heads came in and prayed. One noticed her and nudged the other. La Loca. They spoke with their flat, brown faces close together, then went out. A little Mexican child stood in the doorway. She was the most beautiful thing; she ought to be in the movies. Lorna held her arms out to her; the child looked, then ran away. Lorna sat filing her nails with one of the emery boards, and tried to pray. She thought of herself as some tragic heroine who had taken sanctuary in a church; she had seen such situations in the movies. Maureen O’Hara in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Then Charles Laughton had poured caldrons of hot liquid down on her tormentors. Lucky Maureen. Scratch scratch scratch with the emery board.

  She stayed in the church until she heard the whistle, then went to the window and saw the excursion boat coming into the bay. The plink plonk of the marimba floated melodiously over the water, and she tried to decide which of the figures at the rail had come for her. She could imagine what Mexican jails were like. She reached into her bag and took out the package of matches. ENJOY. She lit one, and stared at the flame in her shaking hand. HAVE A HAPPY DAY …

  Later she stood looking down at the beach from Pat O’Connor’s terrace, watching the burning thatch of the church. There was a lot of activity. People were streaming across the beach from the hotel, boats were maneuvering in the bay. Horns and whistles blew. The Tashkents were out on their terrace watching, too, as the small figures tried to save the church, and the smoke rose upward in a straight black pillar as if it were holding up the blue sky. Tashkent, Tashkent, Lorna thought, filing her nails and watching the flames; no, she couldn’t honestly recall Tashkent’s Select Kosher Deli in Santa Monica. Scratch scratch scratch….

  She shivered again, and used the little tin cup at the faucet for water, into which she poured some ricea. She screwed the cap back on the bottle, returned it to her raffia bag, put the cup on its hook, and mounted the horse, heading it for the trail. Neither of the Tashkents noticed her. On the adobe wall a little spotted lizard moved, darted, sunlight into shade. She started up.

  Like most of the beach horses, this one was only hoofbeats away from the glue factory. Even with the saddle and pad she felt its raw boniness, the thews, the flanks tight and dry as beef jerky. It panted and heaved loose-jointed over rocks and stones, its head circled with a nimbus of flies, nodding rhythmically at the end of the taut, sinewy neck, the dusty mane coarse and bristly, the short ears flat against the skull. She could feel the saddle slipping and she yanked on the reins. The horse came to a grateful halt and she got off. She tightened the cinch, got back on, and kicked the ribbed belly until the pathetic creature moved again, bearing her up the hillside.

  Jungles she did not find amusing. Nor glamorous, mysterious, or exotic. This one was merely a green forest, green above, around, below, and though there was nothing in it she particularly dreaded, n
o unseen animal she thought of as waiting to pounce on her, it was the jungle itself she feared. But she feared more being put aboard the boat by the police before the MorryEll arrived, and so she lived with her fear and went up. Hot, dank, stifling, a moist steam bath, condensed vapor and humidity that clogged the nostrils and made her breath rattle as the motion of the horse joggled it out of her.

  Her back ached, bent from keeping her head ducked against low-hanging foliage. Even with the moisture her eyes felt dry, scratchy; even with the heat she felt a chill, and her forehead where she touched it was cold, and her neck and breast. Her sweat felt cold and she undid her scarf and used it to blot herself. The path grew narrower as the horse, obeying the constant urging of her nervous swinging feet in the stirrups, plodded upward.

  For a time she followed the reverse course of the river, and near the water the air seemed fresher, easier to breathe. From time to time she lost sight of the stream as the trail veered away, but she could still hear its sound. She let the reins hang loose, but the horse paid no attention to the absence of command; it went on at its own dogged pace, making its own way.

  The water flow grew louder, and she recognized the sound of rapids. No, not rapids, a waterfall, spilling between some mound-shaped rocks into a clear pool where brown fish hugged a sandy bottom. Was this where the greedy Spaniards with their looted gold had drowned? She got off the horse and pulled it under a tree, weighting the reins with a rock. The horse yanked free and ambled loose-hocked to the water and drank noisily. It threw up its head and nickered once, twice. There was a pause, then something, another beast entirely, answered from the green depths beyond. The horse’s ears pricked up and she snatched the reins, led the horse to a berry bush, and tethered it. She pulled up a tuft of grass and held it out. Horsie, horsie, she said mildly; horsie didn’t want any. It ate at the bush instead.