Killing Karoline
Page 20
For more than thirty years of my life Karoline and I are inextricably intertwined. But one day, having let her breathe for a while, I realise it is time for her to go. It is time to be me again and forever. I make the trip back to Home Affairs, but this time when they ask for my ID number it rolls automatically off my tongue.
‘You want to change your name?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are getting married?’
‘No,’ I laugh, ‘I’m kind of getting divorced.’
A few clicks on the keyboard and Karoline is gone.
Epilogue
* * *
When I was a little girl the fairy tale that most captured my imagination was Snow White. In it a narcissistic, Evil Queen banishes her innocent stepdaughter, Snow White, from the kingdom and sends her deep into the woods to be killed, so that her own image shall remain ‘the fairest in the land’. But Snow White, being the plucky little thing that she is, doesn’t die, and instead it is the Evil Queen who ends up six feet under. The precise cause of her eventual demise depends on which version of the story you read. For me, the most believable is the one in which, on seeing that Snow White is still alive and has returned to the kingdom, the Evil Queen implodes into dust as a result of her own denial, self-obsession and cruelty.
In all the fairy tales I read – but never quite believed – as a child, the heroines always lived happily ever after. It didn’t matter what had come before; evil queens, wicked stepmothers, grisly ogres or marauding giants. The baddie would always get their comeuppance, meeting an appropriately gruesome end; either crashing down from the beanstalk, exploding with a bang into their witches’ shoes or dissolving in a cauldron, bubbling and spitting on their own murky poison.
I soon came to believe that happily-ever-afters never actually happened in real life. Because the once-upon-a-times were so full of treachery, deceit and ill will, the only believable endings were the ones in which the heroines ended up in abusive marriages with the Big Bad Wolf, or topped themselves after exchanging a handful of beans for a bag of smack. For the longest time I thought there was no possibility of my story ever having a happy ending, because I never saw myself as the heroine of my own fairy tale. In my world, I had always cast myself as the villain.
At the time of writing, it has been nearly thirty-seven years since I was wrenched from the womb on a cold Johannesburg evening, and in that time there has barely been a day I have not thought about Kris. I often wonder how often she has thought about me. I’ve had come to terms with the fact that she and I will probably never have any further contact, but where this was once a source of tremendous torment, today it is just the ways things are. Does it make me angry? Of course. She’s the only person who can answer the questions I still have, the only person who can tell me about the father I will probably never know. But I have had to learn the hard way, that while there’s nothing wrong with anger, it’s how we choose to process it that matters. I am grateful to have reached a point of realisation that I couldn’t continue to harbour that destructive kind of anger. There will always be questions, but some of the most important ones are those I have had to answer for myself.
People often ask me if I hate Kris. The truthful answer is yes, there are times when I do. But more often are the times when I pity her, and the only way I am able to reconcile her anger and behaviour over the last fifteen years is to assume that the trauma of giving up her firstborn child damaged her irreparably. I can only guess that she holds such guilt and shame about everything that happened back then – and maybe even in more recent years – and that to acknowledge me would be a reminder of that. People have often said it is her loss. These days, I agree.
According to a letter Kris once wrote, the two of us only ever really bonded on one occasion. One occasion in seven and a half weeks. It was in England the night before she had handed me over. We had been in the bath together and I had beamed a huge smile at her. That she felt we bonded only that one time makes me sad, for her and for baby Karoline. Perhaps it is all she allows herself? But we are forever linked, a lion and a liar who roar and mewl on separate sides of a vast, dark plain.
Sometimes I lose myself in a memory that never was or a dream I once had while wide awake. When these times come I am either bubble-wrapped in candy-floss happiness or being wrenched to the ground, heart raw, knees battered and hands bloody. Neither is preferable, but I know that, either way, one will end and the other, too, will fade away. The past is already written, and now belongs to the stars. A storybook of sparkling constellations burning out above us in the dark of our own individual skies. There is nothing to be done to alter what has come before. No matter how many times the sea wipes its new wave over the shore, the hearts we draw in the sand will always have been hearts. Nothing is ever fully erased. There will always lurk a ghost memory. And so, that once upon a time I was a baby called Karoline will always be true. I have come to accept it, having learned over time that so much of what troubles us in life is based on our inability to find acceptance. For so long I existed in a state of duplicity that I was unable to reconcile the truth. But now that Karoline is gone, I have been able to save Sara-Jayne.
There is saying: ‘There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently.’ After more than three decades, I still find myself in search of that elusive ‘side’ that is The Truth. But I am gradually accepting that, above everything, it is my own truth that will lead me to where I am supposed to be. There is something to be said for dancing to the beat of your own drum. These days I know that, even if the music stops, I will keep on moving. Not only do I have my own momentum, but I’m the only one who can adjust the volume. My own music is now so loud that the dead are beginning to dance to it.
And so, no, there are no fairy tales, there are no happy endings. There is only time, and the possibility of another chapter.
Acknowledgements
* * *
In certain support groups I’ve attended over the years, one of the overwhelming precepts has been thus: in order for one to find true serenity, attain genuine inner peace and to live free from resentments, deceit and the sickness of secrets that often lurk on life’s underbelly, it is first necessary to clean house. To ensure one’s own slate is wiped clean – om jou stoep skoon – to keep your side of the street free of debris. One must also make amends to those one has harmed. This is crucial. Only then can one begin to see the promise of a clearer, detritus-free horizon. But it’s a choice, you either do it. Or you don’t. This book, is not that. At all. This book is my truth.
There are, of course, so many people to thank for accompanying me (and Karoline) on our journey from this book’s inception to its end, not just in the writing, but in the real life, times, places and spaces in my life too. Many, I feel deserve nothing less than to be recognised with a parade of enormous, bronzed effigies drawn along Las Vegas Strip by cantering Lippizaner Stallions to a rousing 1973 post-Cabaret recording of Minnelli’s ‘If my friends could see me now!’ But alas, it was a heart-breaking moment when my publisher Mel, told me there were to be ‘no statues, no stallions and no fucking Minnelli!’ and instead three days before going to print, demanded via WhatsApp, my long overdue acknowledgements: ‘When are you sending the fucking acknowledgements? We need the fucking acknowledgements NOW!’ And so, here you go Mel and I’m sorry!
To my wonderful, eccentric one-of-a-kind Mum, I love you, I THANK you, and I hope I make you proud. To Ben, my oldest friend, ditto, and promise me you’ll live forever (or at least until I die). To my siblings whether by blood, paper, water or mishap; Adam, Alex, Brett and my Georgia – for the love and happiness you have gifted me, I hope I have at least one gifted the same back to you. To Debra, thank you for the jigsaw pieces. To Ken I truly appreciated that meeting.
Thanks to those who love me in spite of the crazy: The Dame Emma Scott, Shaun Blumberg, Lula B-W, Aoibhlinn Hester-Wynne, Bean and, of course, Susan and Kelly.<
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To my boss, Tessa V-S for her unyielding support and flexibility during the writing process, I truly appreciate you. To my wonderful listeners on CapeTalk, thank you for your continued love and support!
To the first man who ever touched me (!) Dr Michael Wright (and wife Heather) – thank you for inviting me to your home in Simonstown some 28 years after delivering me at Sandton Mediclinic. Thanks to my always encouraging law professor, Kim Everett, and my brilliant and inspiring English lecturer, the late Dr Sue Acheson.
To Alex & Dot, thanks for keeping me not dead and the angels who take care of me when I struggle to do it myself. To Shaun Fraser, for a wonderful edit of my manuscript – thank you for my baby’s first short back and sides). To everyone at MFBooksJoburg and Jacana Media – thank you so much for your hard work.
To my Siza for rescuing me and being my best boy.
And so, of course, to my Mel, who I can’t be jealous of any more ‘cause I’m a published author too! But also mainly because you’re one of the good ones and you get me. For some reason you’ve believed in me, and in this book and why it was a story that deserved to be told. You’ve only lost your shit on a couple of occasions. I’ve deserved it far more. We are naughty, fabulous, kitty-cats who roar when rubbed the wrong way. We must take MORE selfies in 2018 and get free stuff. I luff you.
(To the innumerable folk I know l have left out – please put it down to the fact my brain don’t work so good no more, rather than the fact my heart may not be in the right place.)