Marriage in Mexico

by Flora Kidd

  Only too glad to have a few minutes to herself to restore her appearance and to regain some of her composure before facing Sebastian again, Dawn went into the neat bathroom cubicle at one end of the trailer. There she found some of Judy's make-up and applied it lightly to cover up any signs of weeping. Through the closed door she could hear the quick authoritative staccato of Roberto's voice as he spoke to Judy and her answer, then the slower more drawling voice of Sebastian.

  As soon as she re-entered the main part of the trailer her glance went to Sebastian and his leapt to her enquiringly? and in spite of the presence of the other two people tension sprang between them immediately. They even moved towards each other as if pulled together by an invisible elastic cord.

  'We are going to Durango, now,' he told her. 'Judy will go with us and we'll stay at the same hotel as her tonight.'

  'A good arrangement, don't you think?' said Roberto brightly. 'It is natural when sisters meet after being apart a long time that they want to talk and talk and talk. This way you can do it and this evening we'll all have dinner together and maybe do a little dancing, hmm? A celebration of your marriage?'

  'Yes, but…' began Dawn, but her voice was drowned by Judy's. She interrupted to say:

  'Sounds a great idea to me—and now if you'd all like to leave for a few minutes, I'll change out of these clothes and put something more feminine on.'

  Almost before she realised it Dawn found herself outside the trailer and was walking towards the hired car with Sebastian. Now she must tell him, she thought, while they were alone and unobserved.

  'Sebastian.'

  'Mmm?'

  'There's something I have to say to you.'

  'Then say it.'

  'Now I've found Judy I don't need your help any more.'

  'So?' he drawled.

  'I don't feel under any obligation to keep my side of our bargain.'

  He stopped in mid-stride and she stopped too, bracing her shoulders and lifting her chin in readiness to do battle with him, knowing that there was going to be a battle when she saw the cold light in his eyes.

  'Meaning you're going to desert me?' he accused.

  'I suppose you could put it like that,' she replied.

  'I am putting it like that,' he said harshly. His glance drifted over her slowly and insultingly and she felt the hot colour of shame creep up into her face. 'I wonder where I ever got the idea that you're different from any other woman I've ever known?' he grated bitingly. 'I wonder why I imagined you'd keep a bargain if you made one? You've turned out to be no more trustworthy than the next bitch!'

  She flinched at that and although she felt an urge to hit him for insulting her she managed to keep her hands down and return his unpleasant stare.

  'If you think like that about me you'll be glad to be rid of me,' she countered coolly.

  Again his glance went over her, but this time it touched and possessed her and she felt the familiar thrill of excitement surge through her and weakly acknowledged that if he moved towards her and took her in his arms she wouldn't have the strength to resist. But he didn't move. He just stood there with his hands in his trouser pockets, his dark hair lifting slightly in the breeze which wafted down from the high bluffs of rock, his eyes hard and clear, devoid of expression as he studied her.

  'But I don't want to be rid of you, chiquita,' he said softly. 'You're very necessary to me and I'm not going to let you leave me.'

  'You can't stop me from leaving you,' she retorted. 'I'm not trapped in the gilded cage now without money and clothes. I'm going to stay here with Judy while she has to be in Durango and then I'll go to Hollywood with her.'

  'I see. Then I'll have to stay in Durango too and go with you when you travel north,' he replied coolly with a shrug of his shoulders. 'It isn't my idea of how to spend our honeymoon, but, if it's what you want to do, then we'll do it.'

  'It won't be a honeymoon,' she stormed at him. 'Oh, why can't you understand I don't want to be with you any more? This marriage isn't going to work, so we might as well end it here and now. Stop tormenting me and let me go.'

  'I'm not letting you go,' he said between taut lips. 'And don't think for one moment it's torment only for you. I'm in torment too.'

  He swung away from her and strode over to the car to unlock the trunk ready for Judy's cases, then he slid into the driver's seat, banged the door shut and sat there, staring straight ahead of him.

  He was in torment too! What had he meant by that? That being married to her when he was in love with Micaela was torment for him? Then why had he married her? Oh, they must have been both out of their minds yesterday to go through with this strange marriage both of them driven to madness by the wild sweet passion born of physical desire.

  Somehow she must think up another way to leave him, preferably before he had a chance to make love to her again. All the way to Durango plans sifted through her mind while she kept up a conversation with Judy. But it wasn't until she was standing in the beautiful baroque entrance hall of the hotel which had once been the elegant eighteenth-century home of a Spanish aristocrat that she hit on a plan which had a good chance of working.

  In a rack on the reception desk there were pamphlets advertising the various attractions of the area surrounding Durango and the trips which tourists might take and among the pamphlets was one setting out the schedule of the long-distance buses which passed through the town on the way to Cuidad Juarez at the border between Mexico and the State of New Mexico in the United States.

  After making sure that Sebastian and Judy were both too busy booking rooms for the night to notice what she was doing Dawn took one of the schedules. All she needed now was money, and she could borrow that from Judy, she was sure.

  The room she was to share with Sebastian was reached from the gallery, which was supported by pillars of creamy-coloured stone and edged by a balustrade of polished golden wood. The colour scheme of terra-cotta red walls and cream paintwork which prevailed in the hallway was continued in the wide airy room. Two double beds were covered with cream-coloured silky quilts and the window opened outwards on to a delicately designed wrought iron balcony from which plants of colourful bougainvillaea tumbled in a blaze of purple.

  Judy's room was next door and could be reached through a communicating door. Dawn waited until Sebastian had gone into the bathroom to have a shower and then she unlocked the communicating door, opened it and stepped into the other bedroom.

  'Judy, you've got to help me get away from here, now,' she said urgently.

  Judy, who was in the process of taking clothes from her suitcase to hang them in the closet, stared at her.

  'Why?'

  'Because I… I… can't stay with Sebastian any longer. I can't share a room with him here. He might—he might…' Her voice trailed away.

  'He might make love to you and persuade you to stay with him, I suppose,' Judy finished for her. 'Look, Dawn, why don't we sit down and talk about this sensibly?'

  'No. There's no time. A bus on its way from Aquascalientes to the border stops at this hotel to pick up passengers in exactly twenty minutes. All I need is the money to pay for my fares and meals. When I get to the border I can change on to another bus and work my way northwards across the States to Toronto. If I'd had the money before I'd have left long ago, or at least tried to find you on my own. But Farley stole all mine, so please will you lend me some?'

  'I've only got traveller's cheques,' Judy stalled.

  'Well, you should be able to change those down at the hotel counter,' argued Dawn stubbornly.

  'And you might not get a seat on the bus. Often they're booked up weeks ahead,' retorted Judy.

  'If I can't, I'll go to the airport to try and fly out. Please, Judy, come on!'

  'Okay, okay.' Judy picked up her handbag and followed Dawn to the door. Then she stopped short. 'You're going to need something warmer to wear if you're going to sit up all night on the bus and you're going to need a bag of some sort to carry the money in, and though I
still think you're a fool for doing this, I suppose I'd better provide you with something more suitable in the way of clothes. Here, get into these.' She pulled some jeans out of her suitcase, a neatly-checked shirt and a thick-knit cardigan.

  'Thanks,' said Dawn, giving her sister a kiss, and began to strip. In a few minutes she was dressed in Judy's clothes, having to turn up the bottoms of the jeans a little because they were too long. Then slinging her shoulder bag over her arm, she went with Judy down to the hall.

  There was no problem about cashing the cheques nor in booking a seat on the bus, and soon she was leaving the hotel to board the bus which was waiting in the courtyard.

  'Stall for as long as you can, please, Judy,' she pleaded. 'Let him come and ask you where I am then pretend you don't know. You're good at pretending.'

  'Okay,' sighed Judy. 'You always were stubborn. But good luck—and write to me. Let me know when you reach Toronto. Write care of this address.' She pushed a piece of paper into Dawn's hand.

  Dusk was covering the mountains with a blanket of deep purple as the bus ground its way through the streets of Durango and swept out on to the northbound highway. Soon the sky was completely dark and hung with brilliant stars. Sitting by a window, Dawn stared out. Over six hundred and seventy miles to Cuidad Juarez and it was now six-thirty. She would be at the border at about eight o'clock in the morning, all being well…

  And Sebastian? Where would he be then? What would he do when he found she had gone? How long would Judy be able to stop him from finding out that his wife of a night and a day had flown the coop?

  For the next hour or so the questions tormented her while she tried to find answers to them. The bus roared along the Central Highway, climbing hills and dipping down the other sides. A smiling stewardess came round with soft drinks and coffee. Dawn took a soft drink and sipped at it. Her stomach gurgled noisily and she remembered she had had nothing to eat since that late breakfast on the terrace at la casa chica with Sebastian. At the first stop she must get out and buy something to eat, if there was anything to buy.

  Gradually the monotony of the ride had a soporific effect on her. Her head began to sway, so she tilted the seat into a reclining position and settling her head on the small cushion which the stewardess brought to her she dozed intermittently.

  At the first stop she roused herself and left the bus to buy a hamburger at the restaurant near which the bus had parked and when she returned to her seat she settled down hoping to sleep all night. In sleep there would be forgetful-ness, for she must stop thinking about Sebastian, remembering how close to heaven she had felt whenever he had held her in his arms, how nearly she had realised a dream of romance.

  That was how she must think of it, her stay in Mexico, as a vivid colourful dream. She must pretend it hadn't really happened. But the trouble was she was so bad at pretending. And how could she account for the changes in herself, for the new awareness of her body and of its needs? Sebastian had awakened her to a new way of life, had quickened desire in her, and if she had stayed back there at the hotel in Durango he would have satisfied that desire…

  She moaned softly, covering her face with her hand, closing her eyes tightly to try to blot from her mind's eye images of Sebastian and trying not to hear the words of love he had spoken to her only that morning. Te quiero muchisimo. I love you very much. And she had spurned those words, answered them with a cold mocking accusation which he hadn't denied.

  Mercifully she slept, stirring sleepily to change her position whenever the bus stopped but not waking properly until the grey light of dawn filtered into the interior of the bus showing up the forms and faces of the other passengers. Sitting up, Dawn lifted the window blind and looked out. The sand dunes of a desert, grey and desolate, lifted in rolling curves to meet a cold grey sky streaked with pale silvery light. Then slowly the sky flushed with rose-pink light and the shapes of the dunes became rimmed with gold. Fascinated, she watched the greyness change to a dark red which gave way to pale rose which faded gradually to a bleached glittering yellow as the sun came up over the horizon. As far as she could see smooth billows of sand stretched, a sea of yellow waves shaped by the wind, under the blue arch of a cloudless sky.

  People stirred, stretched their limbs, opened their eyes, sat up and began to talk. A different stewardess came round with soft drinks and coffee. Dawn took coffee this time and heard an American voice behind her say it wouldn't be long before they would be crossing the border. That was where she might meet her first difficulty, she thought, when she was questioned by the U.S. Customs. She might be asked to show some form of identification. If she was she would just have to tell them the truth, that her passport and her tourist card, all her forms of identity, driving licence, social insurance card had been stolen.

  Now that the night was over and she was on the point of leaving Mexico she didn't want to go and was wishing she hadn't left Durango so precipitously last night. She wished she had taken Judy's advice and had stayed, stuck it out, showed Sebastian she could be the wife he wanted her to be, and pretend Micaela didn't exist.

  Overwhelmed suddenly by regret, she sat slumped in her seat, looking out but hardly seeing the glittering new buildings of the busy port of entry, Cuidad Juarez, named after Benito Juarez, Mexico's great national hero, the poor Zatopec Indian who had become President and had given the country a sense of nationhood.

  She would have to go back to Durango. Dawn wasn't conscious of making the decision, she just knew she would have to get off the bus before it crossed the border into the States and take the next bus back if she could get on it. She would have to sink her pride since she guessed Sebastian wouldn't sink his. She would have to go and show him again that she wanted him and what was more that she loved him enough to accept him the way he was.

  With a grinding of gears the bus turned off the street along which heavy traffic was streaming towards the bridge which crossed the Rio Grande into the U.S.A., and glided into the courtyard of a bus station. With other passengers who were not going to the States she trooped off the bus and went into the building where the booking office was situated. There was a line of people waiting to book seats, so she joined it, thinking there would be time to get breakfast once she had the ticket.

  She stood there in a sort of daze, thinking of Sebastian, wondering if he would still be in Durango or whether he would have flown back to Guadalajara. It never occurred to her that he might have come after her, but it worried her that she couldn't get him out of her mind. It was almost as if he were trying to get in touch with her over the long distance which separated them. She had never had much time for telepathy, but there in the busy bus station she began to wonder if there were wavelengths between the minds of people.

  'Excuse me, por favor.' The stewardess from the bus was there speaking to her, in rather garbled English. 'You are Seňora Suarez? Seňora Sebastian Suarez?'

  'Si.'

  'There is a message for you, at the information desk over there.'

  'Oh, thank you, muchas gracias.' Dawn left the line of people and went over to the desk where a young man with a swarthy face and a thick droopy black moustache eyed her with interest.

  'You are Seňora Sebastian Suarez?' he asked.

  'Si.'

  'I have a message here for you from a Seňor Roberto Suarez in Durango. He ask you to call this number straight away.' He handed her a piece of paper on which a number was written. She stared at it, feeling herself go cold with dismay. Roberto calling her? Something must have happened to Judy for him to go to the trouble of asking the bus people to make contact with her.

  'Could you, would you please show me how to make a long-distance call?' she asked the young man. 'I'm not quite sure.'

  He studied her over the top of the desk for a few minutes, then smiled and drew his own phone towards him.

  'I get the number for you, seňora,' he told her.

  'Thank you.'

  Within a few minutes she was listening to a ringing tone, then heard
the phone lifted at the other end and gasped with surprise when she heard her sister's voice.

  'Judy, it's Dawn. I received a message from Roberto asking me to call that number. Oh, Judy, are you all right?'

  'Yes, yes, of course, I'm fine. It's Sebastian. He's been badly hurt. He took off in his plane early this morning and it crashed near the airfield. Roberto asked me where you'd gone and if it was possible to get in touch with you, so I told him. Oh, Dawn, you've got to come back! You made an awful mistake… '

  'I know, I know. I was coming back. I'll get the next bus. Judy, is he… will he… oh God, Judy, he won't die, will he?'

  'I don't know. Roberto seems to think it's touch and go and that's why he wants you to come. Don't take the bus—fly back. There's a regular service from there to here. Let me know when you arrive and I'll come to meet you.'

  Tears were wetting Dawn's cheeks as she replaced the receiver and turned to thank the young man.

  'You have trouble, seňora?' he asked softly. Like Sergeant Moreles, like all young men with a smattering of Latin blood in their veins he couldn't hide his interest in a person of the opposite sex, couldn't prevent it from showing in the gleam of his dark eyes. Dawn wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.

  'Yes. Seb… my… my husband,' how strange it was to say that word, 'he's been hurt. I have to go back to Durango. Could you tell me how to get to the airport?'

  'Si, seňora. I will get you a taxi. Would you like me to call the airline and make a reservation on the next flight?'

  'Oh, could you?' She smiled. 'I'd be very grateful if you could.'

  'To see you smile like that I would do anything, seňora,' said the young man gallantly.

  It was surprising how kind everyone could be when you were obviously in trouble, thought Dawn later as aboard a fast-flying jet plane she looked out at a serene, hot blue sky. The weather was so clear she could see the land far below, copper-coloured mountains wrinkled with ages and riven by deeply shadowed dry canyons.