Siren

by Kuli Roberts

  Camps Bay had always been a refuge for her, but never home. Her mother’s home, yes, but not hers, at least not until now.

  When she arrived, there was a surprise visitor. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ Richard du Ploy said. ‘Visiting your mother.’

  It hardly seemed possible, but there it was. After all these years, her parents had finally found each other. Something was happening between them, that was for sure, and in a curious and roundabout way, it seemed right.

  Mabel seemed almost laid-back about it all. ‘He was just there,’ she told her daughter. ‘We started talking, and then it was like we couldn’t stop. Really, it was you who brought us together, when you started working for his programme. After that, it was just a matter of time.’

  After going through some difficulties in the wake of Siren’s departure, The Trigger had recovered sufficiently to hold its second place in the ratings. In a bizarre turnaround, Selinah Gumede jumped the Heritage ship to land at The Trigger; with a reworked storyline, a brand-new character was created for her. It was more than Richard could take, though, a bastardisation of his original vision. Having tired of the rigours of daily television, he resigned, and was now in the planning stages of a novel.

  It was strange seeing them sitting there at the kitchen table, Mabel and Richard holding hands, but it was just another thing Siren had to get used to. Like her pregnancy.

  Neither of them asked Siren who the father was, and she was grateful for that. To her, it seemed particularly cruel that a man she barely knew had delivered his seed in her Ferrari, now a burnt-out shell. But she was not burnt out, and that was the important thing; she had another chance to make things right.

  In a very real way, they were a family, both Richard and Mabel helping her through every phase of her pregnancy. More often than not, Richard would drive her to hospital appointments a few kilometres away, and they would talk over coffee. ‘Your mother is a wonderful woman,’ he said. ‘You’re lucky to have her.’

  ‘It would seem that we both are,’ she replied. ‘You hurt her and I’ll kill you.’

  Richard failed to suppress a laugh, but then he was serious again. ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing that. I don’t know how much your mother has told you, but she never did anything wrong, it was all me. I was the one hiding behind white privilege; I contributed to the evils of apartheid, just like most whites in this country. But I changed. It took me a long time to see the light, but eventually I did. And now I can see your mother for the wonderful woman she is, the wonderful woman she always was. If only I had seen it sooner.’

  Listening to the man who was her father talk like this was both liberating and disturbing, and she wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘Everything happens in its time,’ she said finally. ‘This is the way everything was supposed to be. Even me losing my family, and then having a baby with someone I didn’t really know.’ And then the tears came – she could not hold them back.

  ‘I’m so sorry if I upset you,’ Richard said.

  ‘It’s not you. They told me something today – about the baby.’

  ‘What about the baby?’ he asked, panic creeping into his voice. ‘What’s wrong?’

  PART SEVEN – BABALWA

  2018–2020

  Chapter 28

  IT WAS AN EASY delivery.

  Siren sailed through it, Mabel holding her hand, Richard waiting impatiently outside.

  A healthy baby, three kilograms, a girl they named Thando.

  As Siren held her in her arms, the tears came and would not stop. ‘It’s my fault,’ she told her mother. ‘It’s my fault she’s like this.’

  ‘It’s nobody’s fault. Look at her. She’s beautiful.’

  Siren could not look at her, not properly, not the way a mother should look at her newborn child. The pink, mottled skin, the white strands of hair – it was more than she could handle.

  Oculocutaneous albinism: a genetic disorder affecting the eyes, skin and hair. There was no one in Siren’s family with the symptoms, but here they were in her baby, against the odds. Countless times Mabel told Siren not to blame herself, but really, who else was there? Not Franc the hunky model, who probably did not even know he carried the albinism gene, and was unaware of his parental status. No, this was all down to her. No other way to see it. A freak occurrence, brought on by her dissolute lifestyle, her wasted life.

  ‘Take her,’ she said to her mother, and when later that day she was released from the hospital, it was Mabel carrying the child.

  When Thando needed to be fed, Siren would hold her, feeling only a tenuous connection with this pale little thing latching on to her nipple. All she could think about was the day her baby would be weaned from her breast, for only then could she start thinking about herself and what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

  ‘But you can’t,’ Mabel argued. ‘Your place is here, with your baby.’

  ‘You know I can’t stay here. And I can’t take her with me, that wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘A mother’s place is with her child,’ Mabel said, and listening to her Siren knew that she was right for, after all, hadn’t her mother always been there for her? But this was different. She needed to find her place in the world again, and she couldn’t do it while looking after Thando. The baby was better off with Mabel: she would grow with a firm foundation.

  After a while, even Mabel had to concede that it was probably the most sensible course of action. ‘Your daughter, she needs you, yes, but not like this. She is nothing to you, it’s like she’s a ghost. And Thando, she is a normal child who needs love and affection, just like anybody else. If only you could see that.’

  As Siren packed her bags for a return to Jozi, she hoped that one day she would.

  Chapter 29

  THROUGH INTERMEDIARIES, BRENDA Archer informed Siren that she was no longer interested in representing her, that she was nothing to her, not a client, not a friend. Vusi at The Trigger would not take her calls. She was a virtual pariah in an industry that took no prisoners. It was unkind, it was brutal, but it was her reality.

  Cynthia was not answering her messages either, and a call to her office revealed that she was unavailable. Just when she thought her old friend was also blackballing her, she got the real story from another actress on The Trigger, someone Cynthia used to represent. The agent was in rehab, for the fourth or fifth time, nobody was sure. ‘Maybe this time it’ll take, but somehow I doubt it.’

  There but for the grace of God go I, Siren thought, saying a silent prayer. One stint in rehab was more than enough for her, and keeping clean for the duration of her pregnancy had been a priority. Now she was back home, did she feel the pull of the coke and all those other stimulants? Only every second, every minute, every hour.

  Just when Siren was sure she was alone in Jozi, she got a call from Barney Thabete. ‘I was beginning to think everyone had forgotten about me,’ she said to the lawyer who’d been her husband’s best friend, and had since become a firm family ally. ‘Thanks for calling, Barney.’

  ‘Siren, I wonder if it would be possible for you to come through to the office? There are things we need to discuss.’

  Barney’s officious tone disturbed her. ‘No problem. How does tomorrow morning sound?’

  ‘That would be fine.’

  Even before arriving at the offices of Thabete and Associates, she had some idea the news was going to be bad. The question was – how much?

  ‘Very bad,’ Barney told her, his expression suitably grim. ‘As the executor of Sipho’s estate, I recently received a letter from SARS. It turns out that he owed a whole lot of back taxes, and they’re targeting his estate, with you his sole beneficiary.’

  ‘OK, so how much are they asking for?’

  Barney allowed a dramatic pause before answering. ‘Five million rand.’

  The house would have to be sold, and there was the flat in Ballito where they’d always planned to go for
holidays and never did. His two remaining luxury cars – the Bentley and the BMW – both would have to go. His properties were heavily bonded, and in a depressed market would not realise much in liquid assets. There was the Camps Bay house, but Siren would never ask her mother to sell.

  Siren uttered a silent prayer of thanks that she’d kept hold of her own house. During and after the marriage it had been rented out, and now was almost paid off, so that would be added to the pot. Everything that had a saleable value had to go, yet still would barely make a dent in the tax bill.

  For a couple of days, she cursed her dead husband for leaving her with such a heavy burden, but then her anger gave way to practicalities. This was just another thing to deal with, on top of her hard-earned sobriety, the birth of Thando and everything that came with it. Something more for her to handle, that was all it was.

  ‘We need more money,’ Barney said to her once everything had been sold. It became a mantra that Siren quickly tired of hearing. Bankruptcy was one way to go, he advised. ‘Then they will have to wait for their money like everybody else.’ Of course there were drawbacks. Everything she earned would be attached to the debt, leaving her in the worst kind of financial servitude for years to come. Still, it seemed like a possible solution.

  Before she could make a decision, she got a call from another old friend.

  Chapter 30

  TEMPEST WAS A psychological thriller, a bold new direction for its star, Keenan Thompson. There was a whole week of shooting in Cape Town, but Siren was only required for two days, little more than a brief cameo. Her scene was with Keenan and revolved around a missing diamond.

  ‘Thanks for doing this,’ he said on her first day on the set. ‘Your former agent didn’t want to give me your number, but somehow I convinced her.’

  ‘Things haven’t exactly been easy,’ she said, trying not to sound too grateful.

  ‘That’s the industry for you.’ The pain was evident in his voice. After The Edge of Everything took a bath at the box office, his career had faltered, forcing him to take roles in a series of inferior B movies that nobody saw; but the advance word on Tempest was that it had a first-rate script and a young, talented cast, albeit with a novice director – Keenan Thompson himself.

  As a director, he displayed none of Jacques’s bizarre histrionics. His approach was more direct, simpler, and as an actor himself he took time to prepare Siren for the scene in a subtle yet effective manner. And then, switching hats, he was the actor playing opposite her, knowing the scene intimately and nailing it. The budget was tight, with not a lot of leeway for multiple takes.

  Only when she had completed the scene to Keenan’s satisfaction did she spot another familiar face. He saw her too, but seemed almost reluctant to approach. The years had treated him well, and he’d retained that boyish quality she had once found so attractive. ‘How are you, Sandile?’

  He offered a grateful smile. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Things didn’t end so well between us.’

  ‘That’s true. But then again, you were sleeping with somebody else.’ She thought back to those days, and the TV producer whose husband she had caught in bed with her husband Clifton. ‘Anyway, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Assistant to the second AD. Maybe not the best job, but it’s a Hollywood movie and I’m learning a lot. Keenan is really an excellent director. This movie is gonna make some waves.’ He looked at her in that longing, puppy-dog kind of way she used to find appealing. ‘Hey, you wanna grab some dinner later? I know a great little place where we could –’

  ‘Thanks, Sandile, but my schedule is pretty full.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said, looking uncomfortable. ‘I’m actually engaged – to an actress, would you believe. Really, no strings. It would just be nice to catch up.’

  And so later that day they had a coffee, and for Siren it was like hanging out with an old friend. Sandile told her about his career, how he’d tired of directing daily television and was now writing film scripts on spec, hoping to get one made into a feature. ‘It’ll happen one day,’ he said. ‘I just need to keep pushing.’

  In the same spirit of openness, she told him about her struggles to get her career firing on all cylinders, the loss of her husband and child, and her struggles with alcohol and drugs – leaving out any reference to her pregnancy and Thando.

  ‘This business, it can be brutal,’ he commented. ‘But you’ll make it back. I have every faith in you.’

  His comments lifted her. ‘Thank you for that, but I’ve burnt a lot of bridges.’

  ‘Bridges can be rebuilt. It might be difficult, but it can be done.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll star in one of your movies.’

  He smiled at the prospect. ‘Maybe you will.’

  ‘Hey, it’s been great catching up, but I really need to go. Thanks for the coffee.’ She began to stand, but his hand grabbed her arm, stopping her.

  ‘One more thing before you go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you ever thought of trying voice-overs?’

  Chapter 31

  IT WAS A lot trickier than it looked.

  Firstly, it was a matter of having the voice or not having it. Sometimes, though, having the voice was not enough; it had to translate to audio in just the right way. Some of the world’s best actors did not know how to use their voice for effective voice-over work.

  Sandile was patient with her. At the home of a friend who’d built his own studio, they recorded her voice, using different intonations and the dummy track of a radio commercial he’d worked on.

  After many attempts, he appeared satisfied. ‘I’ll get it heard around. You never know, we might be onto something.’

  Sandile worked as a freelance promo producer for one of the top TV stations, and he used her to voice a promo for a movie. It was a romantic, vaguely sensual melodrama, and Siren’s delivery was just about sultry enough. It seemed to do the trick. ‘I let the on-air manager have a listen and he says I can offer you a freelance contract. It could be regular work for you.’

  And so, after years of thinking about looking good for the camera, Siren was now the voice behind the scenes, exploring a totally new world. It was slow at first, but before long the bookings started coming in. Sexy and sultry appeared to be her thing, and from promos she expanded her horizons to include commercials for both radio and television. A local insurance company picked her to be the voice of their new campaign, and the money they were offering was substantial.

  Of course, she could not fully enjoy the fruits of her labour. In her rented one-bedroom flat she lived frugally, channelling all the money she earned to Barney, who passed it on to SARS. Finally she was making inroads, although still she could not relax. There was always more money to be made, even if it was not really hers. The day will come, she told herself, just be patient.

  Despite her growing workload, Siren always found time to work with Sandile whenever he asked. After all, it was he who got her started in the voice-over business, a gesture of friendship she would never forget.

  They were catching up after a session when he mentioned a script he’d been writing. He had some news: his production company had received some backing, and shooting appeared to be imminent. ‘All the funding is in place and we’re in the middle of casting, looking for locations.’

  The news gave Siren pause. ‘You didn’t say anything before.’

  ‘There wasn’t much to tell. For a long time, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.’

  ‘So who’s directing?’

  ‘Busi Busani-Wood. I met her at uni. She’s done some TV stuff. We actually wrote the script together.’

  ‘And there’s a part for me, right?’ She was half-joking, but his hesitation gave her pause. ‘There is a part for me. Right?’

  ‘You can forget it. Busi won’t work with you. She says you’re trouble.’

  ‘But you can
tell her otherwise.’

  A nervous laugh. ‘Don’t think I haven’t tried. Really, she doesn’t want to know.’

  Siren’s sigh was shot through with frustration. ‘Well, at least let me read it.’

  Fumbling in his bag, he produced a worn, dog-eared script. ‘That’s my copy. Let me have it back tomorrow.’

  As soon as she got home, she poured herself a ginger beer and sat down with the script.

  Two hours later, when she turned the final page, she knew that this was a movie she had to do, with a lead part made for her.

  Babalwa told the story of a Xhosa woman from the rural areas who, against the odds, manages to educate herself and take on a powerful mining company trying to appropriate the land she grew up on. Through sheer persistence and force of will, she mobilises her own people, finally getting the mining company to make concessions that benefit the community in ways that transform their lives. It was a well-written, perceptive script, the sheer power of the story carrying the reader along.

  Within minutes of finishing, she called his number. ‘The script is great, Sandile. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘And I have to play Babalwa. I am Babalwa.’

  ‘Hey, I’m really glad you liked it, but there’s no way I can even get you an audition. Busi won’t see you.’

  Chapter 32

  BUSI BUSANI-WOOD WAS in a good place. Her dream was on the brink of becoming reality. The budget was small but the finance was all there, and for once everything seemed solid, not about to disappear like so many times before. The crew was ready to go, as was most of the cast.

  That they had anything at all was something of a miracle. For Busi, the Marikana massacre and its aftermath had been the genesis of an idea, and that’s what it might have remained had it not been for Sandile, who brainstormed with her and with his youthful enthusiasm helped her shape the concept into something resembling a story. They’d worked tirelessly on the screenplay together. Somewhere in that process, the character of Babalwa was born, and as soon as she existed she refused to be silenced.