Mermaid

by Margaret Millar

  “Donny not a real people. He a pig.”

  “He gives me chocolate bars and imitates Mrs. Holbrook and makes me laugh.”

  Manny moved his mouth around as if he intended to spit in the ocean. Then he remembered he was below deck and he swallowed instead.

  “Besides,” Cleo added, “if we were having a party and Mr. Whitfield suddenly appeared, it would be okay because Donny would be here . . . Don’t you think so, Ted?”

  Ted didn’t even hear the question. He was busy examin­ing the pictures on the wall with the air of a connoisseur.

  “Okey doke,” Manny said, and showed her how to open the red leather case where the phone was concealed. Then he and Ted went to see the boat’s navigation room.

  It took about five minutes and considerable lying to reach Donny at Holbrook Hall.

  “Hey, Donny, it’s me.”

  “Who’s me?”

  “Cleo. Guess what. I’m on the Spindrift.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I’m with Ted. You remember Ted, who picks me up at school sometimes. He’s the one that drives the car you like, the kind your dad’s going to buy you if you ever get off probation.”

  “That’ll be in about a million years,” Donny said bit­terly. “Maybe more.”

  “Oh, don’t be so gloomy. Come on down and we’ll cele­brate.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “I’m getting married.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the baby.”

  “No kidding, you’re going to have a real baby?”

  She didn’t like the question. “Of course it’s real, dummy. And I’m sailing to Ensenada on my honeymoon. You can come along if you want to.”

  “Sure I want to. A lot of good that does. You know how they watch me around this joint, like I was public enemy numero uno.”

  “Dream up something. Like the laundry truck. Remem­ber when you stole the laundry truck?”

  “I got caught.”

  “That was just bad luck, hitting the tree,” Cleo said. “Why don’t you try again?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  He didn’t have to think about it very long. That was the morning Aragon left his car keys in the ignition.

  The party had all the elements of success, beginning with the people: Manny Ocho and the crewmen about to visit their families for the first time in weeks, Cleo ready for her honeymoon, Donny, who’d finally escaped from Holbrook Hall and didn’t intend to go back—“If dear old dad shows up we’ll throw him overboard”—and a foot­loose young man who’d been kicked out of his house. In addition, the Spindrift carried plenty of booze, and one of the crewmen, Velasco, had purchased a quantity of hashish from a lower State Street bar, using money he had col­lected from the others on board.

  The party began with lunch: guacamole prepared by Velasco and served with corn chips, and beluga caviar which Whitfield kept in a supposedly foolproof safe. None of them actually liked caviar but it had such an impressive price they felt duty bound to eat it. Cleo tried to pretend it was black tapioca but Velasco kept talking about “feesh eggs. Nearly three hundred dollars a pound for feesh eggs,” and Ted sang a song about virgin sturgeon needing no urging. Ocho sprinkled his share with Tabasco sauce and rolled it up in a tortilla.

  When the others had finished eating, Donny scooped up everything that was left on their plates and piled it on his own—guacamole, corn chips, caviar—until it looked like a heap of dog vomit. Eventually he had to go on deck to throw up. Cleo went with him, and being very suggestible, she threw up, too.

  Then she and Donny sat side by side in the bow, watch­ing the gulls quarreling and listening to the music coming from the cabin, Velasco playing the harmonica and Ted singing dirty fraternity songs. Cleo couldn’t make out the words of all the songs because the cabin was tightly closed to prevent the odor of hashish from reaching the wrong noses. Donny was sweating so much his hair was wet and water rolled down from his forehead onto his cheeks like tears.

  “Your face is very red,” Cleo said.

  “What do I care? I can’t see it.”

  “Is my face red?”

  “I dunno. I can’t see that either.”

  This was such a hilarious joke that Donny doubled up with laughter. Cleo wasn’t amused. Throwing up had made her feel quite sober.

  “Donny,” she said. “Do you ever have foggy moments?”

  “Foggy? Naw. I get flashes, great big bright white flashes. I see things never been seen before. It’s a blast, man.”

  “Why do you call me man?”

  “It’s just an expression. Besides, you got no boobs.”

  “I’m going to grow some when the baby comes.”

  “Naw. You’re built like a man.”

  “Oh, I am not. Look.”

  Cleo took off her T-shirt.

  “Pimples,” Donny said. “Just a couple of pimples.”

  “Roger liked them.”

  “He would. He’s gay, stupid.” Donny looked at her sharply. “Don’t tell me you ever made it with that creep.”

  “Practically. We were even supposed to be married, but suddenly it wasn’t such a good idea. I’m going to marry Ted instead.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t told him yet.”

  “Oh, wow. You really are a kook. I thought you were related to him.”

  “We’re only sort of related. Anyway, he was away at school most of the time and I was at home so we hardly knew each other so we’re practically strangers. He’s the father.”

  “Father?”

  “Of my baby.” She giggled. “Me and Ted, we made it, right down the hall from where Hilton was sleeping. Only it turned out he wasn’t sleeping. He came charging in and made a horrible fuss.”

  Donny threw up again over the railing. This seemed to give him extra insight into the situation. “You can’t have the kid. There’s no such thing as being sort of related. If you and Ted are related, the kid will be even more half-­witted than you are.”

  “I’m not half-witted,” Cleo said obstinately. “And I also got boobs.”

  “You should have an abortion.”

  “Well, I won’t, so there.”

  “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Wait’ll the kid comes out with two heads and one leg . . . Oh, for Christ’s sake, don’t start crying. I’m just trying to get you to face facts. If Ted doesn’t want to marry you he won’t, and you can’t force him.” Donny had one of his bright white flashes. “Unless he’s stoned. That’s it. We can get him stoned and drag him to a preacher.”

  “We don’t need a preacher,” Cleo said. “I saw this tele­vision movie where as soon as the boat left the dock the captain began marrying two people.”

  “My old man wouldn’t go for that. He’s against mar­riage.”

  “Then how about Manny? Or you?”

  “Me?” The idea had instant appeal to Donny but he refused at first to admit it. “I couldn’t do that. I’m not the captain.”

  “You’re the owner’s son, you could just make yourself the captain. You could proclaim it. You got rights, Donny. As soon as the boat leaves the dock you can say, ‘I proclaim myself captain.’”

  “‘I proclaim myself captain.’ Hey, I like that.” Donny stood up straight and assumed a Napoleonic pose. “I pro­claim myself captain.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Cleo said.

  The party ended early, with everyone going to bed wherever they lost consciousness.

  Festivities were resumed the following morning when Ted and Velasco went ashore for fresh supplies. They didn’t bother with caviar or more avocados for guacamole; they went directly to the bar on lower State Street where Velasco had purchased the hash­ish. It was closed, so they made a buy from a man standing outside a pawnsho
p and then returned to the boat.

  Throughout the day Cleo tried to persuade Manny Ocho to cast off without waiting for the arrival of Donny’s father. Ocho, who despised Whitfield, would have liked to oblige, but he had too strong a sense of survival. Jobs like his didn’t come along very often. Rich men were getting stingier, learning to skipper their own craft and picking up unpaid crews here and there, mostly teenagers and restless young men like Ted who wanted travel and adventure more than wages.

  That night Ocho had a telephone call from Palm Springs. Whitfield said he would drive up the next morn­ing, check in at his condo for an hour or so, then come aboard ready to sail.

  Ocho broke the news to the others that this was to be the last night of the party. They cheered themselves up by opening a case of Johnny Walker and starting a series of toasts: to the Presidents of the United States and Mexico, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the man who invented scotch, and the Spindrift, “the greatest ketch ever caught.” This was Ted’s contribution.

  “When you catch a ketch,” he said. “The ketch is caught.”

  Donny laughed, but neither Cleo nor the three Mexi­cans understood the pun, even when Ted repeated it with emphasis and gestures.

  “When you catch a ketch, the ketch is caught.”

  “Aw, the hell,” Velasco said, and proposed a toast of his own, to Señora Pinkass and her girls of Tijuana.

  The final toast was proposed by Ocho to Whitfield, or rather to “his money, which keeps us all afloat.”

  But the party lacked the festive spirit of the previous day and night. The imminent arrival of Whitfield cast a pall over the deck as thick as a summer fog. In addition, the stuff that Ted and Velasco had purchased from the man outside the pawnshop turned out not to be hashish but ordinary marijuana mixed with tea leaves.

  They smoked it anyway, of course, and eventually Velasco played his harmonica, though Ted declined to sing. He was pretty confused by this time and wanted to go ashore. But Cleo sat on his lap and Donny brought him another tumbler full of Johnny Walker.

  “Come on, Ted,” Cleo said. “You’ll spoil the party if you don’t sing.”

  “I don’t remember the words.”

  “Sure you do. What about that one, ‘Dirty Gertie from Bizerte’?”

  “Madame,” he said with great dignity, “I am not accept­ing any requests from the audience.”

  “Not even from me?”

  “And who are you?”

  “Me. Cleo.”

  “Aw, leave him alone,” Donny said. “He’s got a lousy voice anyway.”

  Donny remained the soberest of the partygoers. He dreaded meeting his father and trying to explain how he’d gotten away from Holbrook Hall. He might be able to convince him that Mrs. Holbrook had given him special permission to go to Ensenada on the Spindrift. But then his father might remember that the school wasn’t allowed to do anything like that without an investigation and report by the probation department and a lot of other crap. No, words weren’t going to work, none that he’d thought of so far.

  At six o’clock Manny Ocho turned on the radio to get the news and the weather report. It was then that Cleo found out about Roger Lennard’s death. Roger Lennard, thirty-three, had been found dead, possibly a victim of foul play. A description was given of Lennard’s visitor, who had been heard quarreling with him. Cleo knew at once it had to be Hilton and she phoned the police and told them. Then she went back to sit on Ted’s lap again.

  But there was no lap. Ted had passed out on a couch and was lying on his back with his mouth open, snoring. Cleo listened to him for a few minutes, frowning. She wasn’t sure she wanted a husband who snored; it might keep her and the baby awake.

  Manny Ocho and the two crewmen watched an old movie on television which Cleo had seen half a dozen times before. She went up to join Donny, who was sitting on the bowsprit, brooding.

  “Do you snore, Donny?”

  “You ask the stupidest questions. How the hell would I know?”

  “You don’t have to shout.”

  “You don’t have to listen. Go away and leave me alone.”

  “I have nowhere to go. Ted’s asleep and the others are watching a movie with a lot of cowboys which I don’t like in the first place.”

  It was dark by this time and everything on board was wet, even Cleo’s hair. She shivered with cold and sadness.

  “Poor Roger,” she said. “He wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for me. Does that make me a sort of murderer?”

  “You did the poor slob a favor.”

  “Maybe they’ll put me on probation like they did you.”

  “Lay off, will you? I’m trying to think.”

  “I hate to be alone.”

  “You’re not alone—you got the baby. So why don’t you and the kid go below and have a nice heart-to-heart talk?”

  “You can be real nasty, Donny.”

  “Bug off.”

  She watched the rest of the movie with Ocho and the crewmen. Then all four of them went to bed after a final nightcap.

  Donny sat on the bowsprit for a long time trying to straighten out his head. He feared his father’s power but he wanted the same thing for himself. He despised Whit­field’s collection of young women, yet he lusted after every one of them. He hated the sound of his father’s voice, but he wanted to hear it.

  He watched a lone star trying to break through the over­cast. When it was no longer visible Donny went below to the captain’s cabin and took the phone out of the red leather case and called the house in Palm Springs.

  It was eleven o’clock. Donny let the phone ring a dozen times in case his father was drunk or in bed with some chick or asleep.

  Eventually Whitfield answered and he didn’t sound drunk or sleepy. “Who the hell’s this?”

  “Donny.”

  “Donny? What are you doing up so late?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you.”

  Whitfield was immediately suspicious. “Listen, son. You know the school has a limit on spending money.”

  “I don’t want any money.”

  “Well, that’s a switch. Don’t tell me you simply wanted to hear my voice.”

  This was so close to the truth that Donny couldn’t speak for a minute. No sound could get past the sudden lump in his throat.

  “Son? What’s the matter, son?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How’s school going?”

  “Fine. I’m even taking stuff like—ah, Latin.”

  “Latin? That’s terrific. Amo, amas, amat, right?”

  “Listen, Dad, I heard the Spindrift is going to Ensenada.”

  “Now where did you hear—?”

  “I’d like to go along. The school will give me special permission because I’m doing so well in my studies like, you know, Latin, I’m working real hard.”

  “Yes. Well, you realize I’d like to take you, son, but the fact is I’ve invited other company.”

  “You wouldn’t have to tell them I was your son. I could pretend to be one of the crew.”

  “You’re putting me in a bind, son. I’d certainly like to reward you for your change in attitude and behavior but I honestly can’t. This is very special company, if you know what I mean.”

  “Sure. It’s okay.”

  “Donny, you remember that BMW you wanted me to buy you as soon as you get your driver’s license back? I’ll get one for you, how about that?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now Donny, it’s obvious that you’re disappointed. But be patient. Wait a few more years until you’re off proba­tion and you and I will take the Spindrift all around the world. Tahiti, Bora Bora, Fiji. How’s that for a deal?”

  “Screw you,” Donny said and hung up. By the time he got off probation he’d be an old man.

  He went to bed
alone in the captain’s quarters. Getting up at dawn the next day he showered and dressed for the new role he was about to assume. The clothes came from his father’s mahogany wardrobe.

  The white tailored slacks were too small, so he wore his own jeans, threadbare at the knees and seat. The navy-blue blazer didn’t come close to buttoning but he put it on anyway. The captain’s hat was too large, so he stuffed some toilet tissue in the back to make it fit. Then he opened one of the drawers of the rolltop desk and took out the two guns his father always kept there, a Smith & Wesson .22 and a German Luger. Donny used his limited knowledge of firearms, gained during a short session at a military acad­emy, to make sure the guns were loaded and the safeties in order. Then he dropped the .22 into the pocket of the blazer and tucked the Luger in the waistband of his jeans. Already he felt like a new person, and the image in the mirror beside the wardrobe reaffirmed the feeling. It was a captain who stared back at him, a commander, a leader of men.

  He went back to the galley.

  Velasco was at the stove, mixing up a batch of huevos rancheros in a large iron frying pan. “Hey, Donny. You looking good all dressed up.”

  “I am your new captain,” Donny said.

  “By golly, no kidding. You hear that, Gomez? We got a new captain.”

  Gomez, who had gone back to sleep with his head on the table, was not impressed. Donny kicked him on the butt and Gomez woke up with a moan of pain.

  “Salute me, you bastard. Salute your new captain.”

  “What the hell, by golly,” Velasco said. “What you doing, Donny?”

  “Call me captain and salute me.”

  “Maybe later. The eggs, they burn if I don’t stir.”

  “Screw the eggs.”

  Donny went over and pulled the iron frying pan off the stove and dumped its contents on the floor. The mixture oozed red like a fresh kill.

  “Hey, Donny, what the hell, Jesus Christ, what you doing?”

  “Salute me, pachuco.”

  “Not pachuco. Last night you and me, all of us, amigos. Amigos forever.”

  “Forever just ended,” Donny said. “You got that?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Mix up another batch of eggs and serve them to me in my quarters.”