Siren

by Kuli Roberts

  And sure enough, the large wooden door of the bridal suite was ajar. As she approached, she almost absently wondered if the camera crew was lying in wait for her. Totally inappropriate, but she wouldn’t put anything past them.

  Inside, there was the large four-poster bed – but the duvet was moving. Clifton was already in bed. Why hadn’t he waited for her? Surely there were traditions to follow, like carrying your bride across the threshold? But right then, she really didn’t care, all she wanted was her husband. How strange that word sounded, strange and wonderful at the same time.

  As she approached the bed, the duvet moved again and Clifton’s head popped out, a vacant look on his face. Vacant was not good, not on a night like this, but she was willing to overlook it if he was ready to ravish her.

  But there was something still moving under the duvet, somebody else who wasn’t Clifton.

  As her anger rose, another head popped out. This one was glassy-eyed, his chin covered in designer stubble.

  ‘I see you started without me,’ Zinhle said, wiping away a tear as she turned and walked out.

  PART THREE – YELLOWBONE

  1999–2009

  Chapter 10

  MAURITIUS, THE PERFECT place for a honeymoon.

  There is the hotel, its thatched roof blending in with its oceanfront surroundings, and there are the palm trees sticking out of the golden beach sand like giant sentries, the sun shining down from a cloudless sky. There is Clifton, bronzed a shade darker than on his wedding day, astride his new Jet Ski, and there is Zinhle in the skimpiest of bikinis, climbing on the back and putting her arms around his waist.

  ‘Alright, babes?’ he asks as he revs the machine. She smiles and nods.

  Caught unawares, Zinhle lets out a short, nervous laugh as they roar off into the bay, camera rolling. It’s clear that Clifton has done this before as he manoeuvres the Jet Ski in a broad arc through the water, still gunning it to the max, until he nears the beach again and eases off a little. Zinhle is either laughing with excitement or crying with fear, for a moment it’s hard to tell, but as she climbs off the machine with the camera in her face, it’s clear that she’s exhilarated. Clifton bounds off the Jet Ski to land at her side and puts an arm around her, bringing her close.

  A little later in the day, they enjoy a romantic dinner on the patio of the hotel restaurant. Over his swimming shorts, Clifton wears a flower-patterned shirt, the buttons undone, exposing his muscled torso. Zinhle’s sarong shows off her shoulders and olive skin. They’re both sipping mojitos, nibbling the sugar on the rim of the glass, and there are prawns and lobsters to eat, but their focus is each other: they smile and giggle, lost in each other’s eyes, the Indian Ocean the backdrop to their love.

  The camera follows as they walk to their cabana, hand in hand, their fingers entwined ...

  ‘OK, that’s it,’ Zinhle said, turning to Max the cameraman and Refilwe the producer, immediately behind them. ‘No more today. We’re done.’

  ‘OK, Max just needs to get a few cutaways of the inside of –’

  ‘No more!’ Zinhle barked, cutting her off. ‘We need time to ourselves now.’

  Seemingly unaffected by the tirade, Refilwe looked to Clifton for support, finding none. ‘The lady has spoken,’ he said, backing her up. ‘That’s it for today, guys.’

  The annoyingly persistent Refilwe was still taking chances. ‘OK, let’s just get a last shot of the two of you going into your room. Then we’ll leave you alone, promise.’

  It seemed a fair compromise, so Max the cameraman steadied himself and peered through the viewfinder. ‘Action!’ Refilwe said, and there were the newlyweds walking hand in hand towards their room. Clifton opened the door with a key card and they were inside, closing the door behind them. ‘And cut!’

  Zinhle let go of Clifton’s hand and moved to the mini-bar to pour herself a large vodka. ‘I can’t take much more of this,’ she said, not turning to look at him.

  ‘We have a contract to fulfil.’

  In her anger, she whirled around. ‘Is that all you can say, that we have a contract?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ he shot back. ‘You won’t talk, you won’t let me explain.’

  ‘What is there to explain? I find you in our wedding bed with a man, and you think there are things to explain? Now, if you don’t mind, I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow I need to pretend I’m in love with you again, and I really need to be up to it.’

  ‘Is that what it is?’ he asked, taking a step towards her. ‘You’re pretending? Really?’

  His eyes were pleading, but right then she didn’t trust anyone or anything. ‘Goodnight,’ she said, pointing at the couch. ‘It may not be too comfortable but it’s all I can offer right now. Sorry.’

  When she woke it was not yet light. She glanced at the clock – four-thirty – and then over at the couch. It was empty, the thin duvet neatly folded.

  Wherever Clifton was, she didn’t really care. Maybe he’d found a warm body to cushion the blow. Male, female, she had no idea, and it was really no concern of hers, not anymore.

  Snuggling into the pillows, she closed her eyes in search of a few more hours of sleep before the cameras once again demanded her attention.

  When they finally returned to Clifton’s apartment after seven days away – it was meant to be ten, but Zinhle cut it short, faking a stomach bug – the cameras were mercifully absent. On their wedding day, they’d left this apartment so full of hope for the future, buoyed by their love for each other, but now there was nothing to fill the void. Conversation was brief, eye contact avoided. Zinhle was almost afraid to look into his eyes to find the man she’d fallen in love with, for she knew that that man did not exist; he’d been nothing but a figment of her overactive imagination.

  It was still his house so she gave him the master bedroom, relegating herself to one of the spare rooms. For the most part he kept to himself, talking a lot on the phone, setting up auditions with his agent, haggling over TV contracts.

  By the morning of the second day, she’d already had more than enough. She found him in the kitchen making a sandwich.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ she asked, keeping her tone as agreeable as she could manage.

  ‘Why did I do what?’

  ‘Why did you want to be with me? Why did you ask me to marry you, when what you really wanted was –’

  ‘What can I tell you?’ he said, throwing up his hands in surrender, the cheese knife in his hand. ‘I’m bisexual. I have always been. I like having sex with women – you know that – but I also really like men. That’s just how it is.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you think I had a right to know?’

  ‘Of course you did, but would you have married me then? And all those companies, the sponsors and the rest … what they want is a love story between a man and a woman, a local celeb getting it on with a beautiful, sexy woman. They just eat that shit up.’

  ‘So you used me – all of this was because of the sponsors.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Clifton backtracked desperately, ‘… but sure, that was part of it.’

  ‘You think love can be bought and sold? What kind of a man are you?’

  ‘Oh, why don’t you do yourself a favour and grow up!’ Clifton sent the knife clanging down onto the plate. ‘You think I loved you but I never did. At the end of the day, you’re a nice piece of ass, and for a time there you really had me going. Marriage?’ He let out a haughty, abrupt laugh. ‘What was I thinking? I must’ve been out of my mind to marry a foolish little girl like you.’

  Zinhle recoiled as if she’d been struck. ‘Foolish, yes, that’s it. You’ve got it. I was a fool. For believing anything you said or did had any honesty in it.’ The words were spoken softly, laden with sadness, and then she was done. Really, there was no more to say. She walked to her room, packed a few things into a bag and headed for the door.

  As she waited for the lift, a part of her wanted him to follow, to say somethi
ng, anything, to make her stay. When there was no sign of him she knew that he was right, she was a silly girl who’d made the biggest mistake of her young life.

  ‘You have to go back,’ Mabel told her. ‘He is your husband. Your place is with him.’

  ‘Ma, I can’t go back, never.’ No way could she tell her mother all that had happened; it would be beyond her comprehension. Not that Zinhle understood much of anything herself. Her husband was a practising bisexual who could somehow manage to keep his hands off her, but not off other men. A lot there to get her head around.

  ‘You have to go back,’ her mother repeated. They were sitting in the living room, sipping their cups of tea. Mabel had a job to go to, but had delayed her departure to try and talk some sense into Zinhle. ‘Anyway, you are home now, at least until that husband of yours comes to get you.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen, Ma, believe me.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. And if he wants to apologise, you must let him.’

  When Mabel finally left, Zinhle was glad to have some time to herself, to think about what she was going to do with the rest of her life now her plans were all shot to hell.

  Her mother’s prediction came to mind when Clifton’s BMW pulled up outside. As she let him in, she thought he looked more than a little sheepish. She made him coffee – black, three sugars, just the way he liked it – then sat down on the couch to hear him out.

  ‘I’m sorry for what I said,’ he began. ‘Really, none of it was true.’

  ‘You mean about you being bisexual?’

  ‘No, that’s true. I mean, what I said about not wanting to marry you. All that stuff.’

  ‘So you’re saying you love me?’

  He threw up his hands: ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘But you love others also.’ The silence coming from him was deafening. ‘That doesn’t leave us with much.’

  ‘OK, look, I know I’ve messed up this marriage thing. Maybe I should never have proposed.’

  ‘Maybe? You think?’

  ‘OK, I shouldn’t have. But there’s still this TV contract hanging over us.’

  ‘Are you still on about that? We gave them the perfect honeymoon, the perfect wedding. What else do they want?’

  ‘They have to see us back home. You know, the happy couple starting their life together.’

  ‘Oh, really? They might have a problem with that.’ And as she spoke, she knew why Clifton was there, why he’d followed her to Soweto to ask her to return. Not to get her back, not to declare his undying love. This was business, nothing more.

  ‘Alright,’ she said, letting out a drawn-out sigh. ‘I’ll come back. We’ll perform for the cameras, show them we’re the perfect couple.’ Seeing his expression brighten consumed her with sadness.

  ‘Great.’

  She held up a hand, a silent protest at his change of mood. ‘But I have conditions.’

  ‘Conditions? What kind of conditions?’

  In many ways, the pretence was easier. Confronted with harsh realities, it’s acceptable to sometimes be a little abrupt with your partner; but what was happening here was not real. It was a heightened reality, far removed from the conventions, and some of the difficulties, of actual marriage.

  The reviews of Zinhle’s acting had not been great, but here she was giving an Oscar-worthy performance that nobody would ever acknowledge. Even the irrepressible Refilwe seemed taken in by the sham. There were times when Zinhle was sure that Max the cameraman had figured something out, but then passing on his suspicions to Refilwe would have done him little good, so she wasn’t really worried.

  And then the strangest thing happened. Acting for the cameras, in front of her bisexual husband, made it possible for Zinhle to believe that at least some of it was true. Despite everything, she was still very fond of Clifton, even if what she felt could no longer be called love.

  After one long session, they found themselves alone in the master bedroom. Their bodies were close together and, despite herself, Zinhle began to feel stirrings. So she did what had once seemed so natural, reached up and brought his head lower to kiss him, and their tongues were dancing to an old tune in each other’s mouths, his hands moving up to her breasts and fondling them in that oh-so-familiar way, tantalising her nipples through the fabric of her dress.

  Before long, clothes were being shed as they found their way over to the bed, rediscovering that same ravenous hunger for each other. Still, she had the foresight to insist on a condom, and he was not about to deny her.

  Soon they were engaged in a bout of frantic fucking, Clifton moaning as he’d never moaned before, and when Zinhle reached orgasm her entire body trembled, having long been deprived of such pleasures. She’d been more intrusive this time, cupping his balls during oral sex and inserting her finger into his anus. It gave him pleasure, and she loved that it did, loved fucking him, loving everything about the whole experience.

  After that, everything was easier. It made completing the TV assignment so much more possible: there was a naturalness to their interaction they no longer had to fake, and the last shot was completed with smiles all round and the popping of a couple of bottles of Veuve Clicquot.

  Alone in what was to have been their home, Zinhle and Clifton relaxed on the large couch that was the main feature of the living room, watching some of the footage left by a grateful Refilwe. They sat on opposite ends of the couch, but the atmosphere was laid back. ‘You look great there,’ Clifton said as they watched themselves eat an evening meal in Mauritus. ‘That sarong looks amazing on you.’

  ‘And you don’t look too bad in that shirt. Who would have thought flowers were your thing?’

  His laugh bordered on the nervous – did he think she was having a little dig? ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, almost as an afterthought. ‘There’s nothing feminine about you.’

  As they sprawled on the couch, their feet were close together. Clifton’s toes touched hers playfully. ‘Fancy an early night?’ he asked, his eyes darting towards her.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The sex was more intense than anything that had come before. Perhaps because they both knew what was to come, they experienced each other as if for the first time, with an almost manic intensity. For Zinhle, it was as if her nerve endings were exposed. No sooner did she orgasm than he was on her again, kissing her, caressing her, and she was ready for whatever he and his condom-clad cock were ready to give; once again, she reached for his tender spot. Sometime in the night they must have both fallen asleep, from exhaustion more than any real desire to find rest.

  When Clifton finally opened his eyes the following morning, Zinhle was already dressed. ‘Up already?’ he asked her sleepily.

  ‘You need to get up too. It’s time.’

  All her possessions packed into two suitcases, Zinhle sat at the dining table while Clifton wrote her a cheque for one hundred thousand rand. She kissed him on the cheek as he handed her some cash for the taxi waiting downstairs, then with tears in her eyes wheeled the suitcases to the lift.

  Chapter 11

  SHE MIGHT HAVE turned her back on the showbiz life, but it still had a few things to show her.

  With Clifton’s money deposited in her bank account, she could give some to her mother, who was able to cut down on her domestic work. And then Zinhle embarked on her plan of action ... doing absolutely nothing.

  She watched a lot of TV, coming to admire the work of Selinah Gumede, who played the duplicitous Fezeka in Heritage, South Africa’s most successful soapie. Shown in more than thirty African countries, there was talk of it getting an airing on an American channel with exclusively African content.

  If Heritage creator Caesar Mabaso was the king of African daily drama, Selinah was surely the queen. She ruled the roost, making a good living in a role that was surely not too demanding for an actress of her consummate skills.

  Zinhle took over most of the cooking in the house, but in the process ate too much and began to put on weight. ‘Are you planning on m
aking a living as a couch potato?’ Mabel asked after coming home from work one day. ‘Because if you are, you’re doing a great job.’

  ‘Go easy, Ma,’ Zinhle said, reaching into her second bowl of popcorn that day. ‘I’m having a hard time.’

  ‘And things aren’t going to get any softer if you just sit around, except maybe your ass.’

  There was a voyeuristic edge to Zinhle’s TV-watching when the four-part special, The Marrying Michaels, aired in prime time. It was almost more than she could take, watching herself onscreen sitting next to Clifton as they explained how they met and fell in love. There was nothing false about what she saw; everything seemed genuine. Looking for early signs of Clifton’s duplicity, she could find none. Maybe there was nothing to see. Maybe he was the man she’d fallen in love with, and nothing more.

  A few days after the second episode aired, the phone rang.

  ‘Am I speaking to Zinhle?’

  ‘Yes. Who is this?’

  ‘You are speaking to Asanda.’

  ‘Asanda who?’

  ‘Just Asanda.’ A slight pause. ‘You haven’t heard of me?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no.’

  ‘Oh.’ The voice seemed to retreat a little before recovering. ‘Well, anyway, I’m an agent. I wondered whether you had representation.’

  For the first time in a while, Zinhle thought about Cynthia and how their relationship had ended. ‘At the moment I don’t.’

  ‘Excellent. Well, not really excellent, but maybe we can fix that. Why don’t you come through to the office so we can talk?’

  A MAN

  Those were the words in bold gold lettering outside the Sandton office. It gave Zinhle a moment’s pause, but then she read the smaller words in green in between:

  Asanda MANagement

  It was clever, eye-catching and rather cheeky, like Asanda herself. The woman with only one name was all business. The shelf behind her expansive desk was strewn with photos: Asanda with Nelson Mandela, Asanda with the Dalai Lama, Asanda with Bill Clinton ... A former advertising executive, she had a reputation for getting results for her clients. Her office made Cynthia’s set-up look rather drab, and Zinhle tried to warm to the woman on the other side of the desk.