Hushed

by Joanne Macgregor

  He passes me the now-crumpled little cardboard cup. As I take it, our hands touch, and though I can’t be sure, it seems like his fingers linger, slow to pull away. I glance up from our hands to his face, but he’s already turning around.

  And then he’s gone, and I’m alone behind the truck, holding the cup and the cream in my trembling hands.

  Chapter 19

  Steel cage

  The beach is a long white expanse of wind-rippled sand. It stretches endlessly in both directions, bounded on one side by scrubby fynbos dunes and on the other by the cold Atlantic. Massive boulders huddle shoulder-to-shoulder in the grey water, and long strands of slimy kelp lie marooned on the sand. The rising sun dissolves the mist and glistens on the inky-green seaweed but then slips back behind threatening clouds.

  While seagulls, cormorants and gannets squabble noisily in the distance, Logan Rush runs the length of the beach, past the ranks of cameras and crew. Then runs it again. And again. Over and over he sprints one way, turns around, strolls back to his starting spot, and repeats the performance — first through the mist, then through the wind and a steady, fine rain. Between takes, I wordlessly hand him the coat and blanket, and Cilla, drinking endless cups of coffee from a thermos mug, stalks over to give him more instructions.

  A small gaggle of curious onlookers has collected on the road above the beach. It won’t be long before the Rushers find out exactly who’s here, but Logan’s bodyguard — a mountain of a man called Thabo — has cordoned off the site with tape and barricades to make sure no one bothers the stars. I check with catering to find out what will be available for Logan’s lunch. Steak or grilled fish. Again. Surely I can find something better for him in town?

  “I need to get something in the village — want to come with?” I ask Becka.

  “Nah, can’t,” she says, rolling her eyes towards the VIP cast bus where Britney sits out of the cold and wind, waiting for her scenes to be called.

  “Anything I can get for you?”

  “Some gum — sugar-free and berry, cherry or strawberry flavour — and butt-glue if you can find it.”

  “Come again?”

  “You know, the spray-glue that comes in aerosol cans? Wardrobe’s run out, and Britney needs her bikini stuck onto her so that when she does her fight scene, it doesn’t shift and give a nip slip.”

  “Now I’ve heard everything.”

  The short walk into town is peaceful once I’m past the small crowd watching the shoot, and it’s good to be away from the constant hubbub of the set. Becka’s gum is easy to find, her spray glue not so much. I’ll have to improvise.

  I find a seafood restaurant and order a take-away platter of sushi and sashimi, and by the time the siren sounds for the lunch break, I’m back on set with Logan’s lunch — fat slices of tuna, salmon and butterfish, smoked eel maki, California rolls, small mounds of shaved pink ginger and emerald wasabi, and several prawn nigiri stretched out like sunbathers on a beach.

  Cilla, Phillip, Britney, Becka, Logan and a couple of others relax on folding chairs around a long trestle table set out under a shade awning with a canvas back to provide some privacy from the watchers. The sun has burned off the cloud cover, the wind has dropped, and it’s getting hot — Cape Town is living up to its reputation for having all four seasons in one day.

  Logan has abandoned his jacket in favour of a faded T-shirt and polarised sunglasses. We haven’t spoken since our charged moment behind the van this morning. When I place the sushi platter on the table in front of him, along with a pair of chopsticks and sachets of soy sauce, he looks a question at me.

  “I thought you could use something different to eat.”

  “They didn’t have lasagne? Or fries? Or ice cream?” His lazy smile is back.

  “All of the above. You want me to go get you some?”

  “No he does not,” Cilla snaps from the other end of the table.

  “Sit,” Logan says to me, dipping his chin at the empty seat on the other side of him. “I’m going to need help finishing this.”

  I pass the packet with my other purchases to Becka. She pulls out the pack of gum and hands it to Britney — who takes it without thanks — then holds up the stick of glue. It’s the kind schoolkids use to stick their notes into exercise books.

  “And this?”

  “Best I could do, I’m afraid.”

  Britney, who’s been watching our exchange, shakes her head. “No way are you putting that on my skin.”

  “Okay, Miss Vaux,” Becka says, hiding a smile. “I’m sure the crew and crowd won’t mind a wardrobe malfunction.”

  Logan snickers. He’s already gobbled most of the sashimi and is now unravelling California rolls, separating the salmon and crab from the rice and avocado, which he pushes away to the side.

  “Don’t you think this is just the tiniest bit crazy?” I ask him, speaking softly. “A teaspoon of rice won’t make you fat.”

  Logan peels a slice of tuna off its bed of rice. “It’s just for today. Soon I’ll be able to eat cheeseburgers if I want.”

  “You’re all obsessed,” I say, looking around the table.

  Only the cinematographer, Becka and I are eating normal food. Britney toys with a garden salad (no dressing), Logan nibbles at the last of his raw fish, and Cilla eats half of her grilled chicken breast and steamed vegetables — perhaps she’s trying to set a good example. Phillip eats nothing; what do polyps feed on?

  In low voice, Logan asks me, “What are you obsessed with?”

  Apart from you?

  “Um, endangered species, I guess. Rhinos, whales, marine turtles. And sharks, of course. You know, all the creatures that need our help.”

  “Yeah, you’re good with helpless beasts,” he says, with a slight emphasis on the last word. “You’ve got a good touch.” His lips curve in a smile. “Can I ask if you find them appealing? Interesting?”

  Are we still talking about animals? I sneak a glance at him, but his eyes are hidden behind his Aviators.

  “Very much so. I’d like to get to know … them … better, find out all I can about them, see how I can get involved in their plight.”

  I quickly check the faces around the table. Cilla’s holding forth about the Actors’ Equity Guild to the man on her right, and Becka and Phillip are listening in on that conversation. Britney, however, has her sharp eyes fixed on Logan and me.

  “Yeah, I also think that would be an interesting area of … exploration.” Logan puts a slice of ginger into his mouth, then delicately lifts a pink sliver between his chopsticks and offers it to me.

  I badly want to take it between my teeth straight from the end of his chopsticks, but I can’t have Logan feeding me. Not in full view of everyone.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the ginger with my fingers and popping it into my mouth.

  The ginger burns sharp and sweet on my tongue, as it must be on his. We’re tasting the same thing at the exact same moment. It’s like a long-distance kiss.

  Britney cocks her head and gazes at Logan suspiciously. If she were capable of frowning, there would definitely be lines furrowed between her eyes right now.

  I smile innocently at her. “You should try some — it’s good.”

  “May I?” Britney asks Logan.

  She dips her lashes and opens her mouth like a baby bird waiting to be fed. He snags another piece of ginger with his chopsticks and deposits it playfully into her mouth.

  “Yum!” She giggles and licks her lips. “More!”

  I swallow and look away. Cilla smiles with satisfaction at the flirty little tableau of her two stars.

  “So … sharks,” Logan says to me. “What can you tell me about them? I probably should have researched them for this role.”

  “You mean you haven’t?”

  “Um, not really,” he admits.

  “I would’ve thought you’d want to know how they move and behave — for your performance, I mean.”

  He grins and ducks his head, as though e
mbarrassed. Cilla and Britney are both listening to us now.

  “You’ve missed out on something special — they’re awesome creatures.”

  A great idea pops into my head. Not only could Logan study sharks for his craft, but maybe a close-up encounter with them might sensitise him to their plight. Maybe he could use his fame to help raise awareness.

  “You know what, you should go shark diving!” I say.

  “Do I even want to know what that is?” Logan replies, pushing his chair back from the table.

  “I don’t think our insurance would cover that,” Cilla says.

  “It’s perfectly safe,” I reassure them. “Well, there was that one case where — but never mind about that. What happens is you get into a huge, steel cage, and it’s lowered into the water where the sharks are. They do it in False Bay — near where you had your birthday party yacht moored.”

  “How do you know where we were for his birthday?” Britney asks.

  Crap. She’s sharper than she looks.

  “It was all over the Twitterverse,” I say.

  “Oh, really.”

  She scrutinizes me as though she suspects I’m fishy in some way.

  “Are you saying there were sharks in that water?” Logan sounds mildly alarmed.

  “Oh, yes. Well, Seal Island’s close by, isn’t it?”

  “Seal what now?”

  “Seal Island. It’s this massive, breeding colony of seals on a chunk of rock in the middle of the bay. Sharks feed on them all around there. Every so often, a swimmer or a surfer gets bitten — or worse.”

  Even when he curses, Logan sounds chilled.

  “Anyway,” I continue, “the cage dive operators chum the water with blood which brings the sharks, and you can see them from right up close. I should probably mention that not everyone thinks chumming the water is a great idea, because it attracts predators to the bay. But it doesn’t hurt the sharks, and it would be great research for you. And aren’t you a qualified scuba diver?”

  “Yeah. Well, I can’t really swim properly — like lengths and such — but I can mosey around under the water. I had to learn it for the underwater scenes,” he says, and adds significantly, “I’m talking about the scenes in tanks with green screens and mechanical models. Not the ones with real live predators sniffing at my flesh.”

  “I think it’s an excellent idea,” Cilla says unexpectedly.

  “You do?” Logan says in disbelief. “You won’t even let me do my own jump-and-roll stunts, and now it’s okay to go shark diving?”

  “What are you, scared?” I challenge.

  “And you wouldn’t be?” he counters.

  “Me? Scared of a six-metre-long predator with several rows of serrated teeth? I’m made of stronger stuff.”

  “Good, then you can go down with me.”

  I swallow. This is more than I bargained for, but on the other hand …

  “Sure,” I say, grinning.

  “Really?”

  “Hey, Africa’s not for sissies.”

  “Make it happen, Romy!” Cilla says. “What day is it today?”

  “Monday,” Polyp answers.

  “Do it on Friday,” Cilla orders. “Photography are doing aerial shots of the coast and beaches on Friday, and Logan will be free. Philip, contact publicity — tell them to liaise with Romy, here.”

  “Aw, Cilla, you’re not going to turn this into a whole publicity stunt, are you?” Logan says. “I thought this was about method.”

  “Method, schmethod. This is about the movie. But it’ll just be a few photos, Logan, no need to get uptight. You should be happy about it — you didn’t get into acting to stay invisible. Now” — she claps her hands twice — “everybody back to work. Britney, your scene is up after this one. We’ll be done in about thirty minutes, make sure you’re ready and waiting.”

  Cilla stalks off back to the cameras with Polyp close behind her. Logan gives us — me? — a lazy salute and strolls off after them across the sand.

  “We’ll be done in about thirty minutes, make sure you’re ready and waiting,” Britney mimics Cilla’s words, though only once the director is well out of earshot. She captures the flat, nasal tones perfectly.

  I make to start clearing the table, but Britney stops me. “Catering will get it. You sit tight, I want to chat with you a bit.”

  Chapter 20

  Beauties and other sharks

  I sit back down at the table opposite Britney, tensed for what she might want to discuss.

  “Becka, go ask wardrobe if that glue will even work,” Britney says. She takes a long sip from her glass of diet soda and says to me, “Now, you appear to know an awful lot about sharks and such.”

  “I guess so. They’re such amazing creatures!”

  “Such amazing creatures,” she repeats, nodding. “Tell me about them, the ones down here in the Cape.”

  I’m surprised by her interest, but also relieved. For a moment there, I thought she intended to grill me about Logan. I’m in safer waters talking about sharks.

  “Well, in False Bay we mostly see great whites, and thresher sharks, the odd hammerhead or hound shark, and raggies — ragged-tooth sharks.”

  She watches me intently, ignoring the catering staff who clear the table around us. “Tell me about the great whites — they look like beauties!”

  “They are beautiful,” I say, pleased by her enthusiasm. Maybe I’ve misjudged her — she seems genuinely interested in hearing more. “Too many people misunderstand and fear them — Jaws and all that — but they’re the most perfectly designed predators on the planet.”

  “The most perfectly designed predators?”

  “Yes! For example, they’re grey on the top half of their bodies so that when they swim below their prey, they fade into the darker water and seabed. But they’re white underneath, so that if a seal swims under them and looks up, the shark fades to pale against the sun coming through the water.”

  “Amazeballs! And they eat people?”

  “Well, no. They eat Cape fur seals mostly. But from underneath, a surfer on a board looks a lot like a seal with flippers, so sometimes people get attacked. Honestly, humans are more of a danger to sharks than they are to us.”

  “We’re more of a danger to them than they are to us.” She tuts and takes another sip of her drink. “And they’re an endangered species?”

  “Not officially, but shark populations everywhere are under threat because of the practice of shark finning.”

  She motions for me to explain, her eyes drinking in my every word.

  “Finning is when fishermen catch sharks and slice off their dorsal fins.” I see Britney silently mouth the words dorsal fins. “And then they toss the sharks back into the water, where they can’t swim properly, and so they die from suffocation, or are eaten by other predators. The fins get dried and sent to the Far East, where they’re used a little in traditional medicine, but mostly to make shark fin soup.”

  “What’s so special about that?”

  “It’s obscenely expensive, so people order it at banquets to demonstrate how rich and successful they are. Shark populations are being decimated just so some fat cat in China can show how prosperous he is. It’s outrageous that a species which has been around for millions of years should now be threatened because of mere vanity!”

  “Outrageous — because of mere vanity.”

  “And the irony is that the fins have been found to have such high levels of toxic mercury, that it can’t be doing the people who eat it any good.”

  “Serves them right!”

  “And sharks are such slow growers, too. The males only reach maturity at about ten years, the females even later, so we don’t yet even know the full impact of killing off immature sharks. It makes me so mad!” I thump a fist on the table, nearly overturning Britney’s soda. “I’m sorry, I’m probably boring you. I know I get a little crazy about this, but I’m just passionate, you know,” I add, with an embarrassed laugh. “Not enough people ge
t it.”

  “I get it,” Britney says, patting the back of my hand reassuringly with one of hers and giving me a bright, super-white smile. “I’ve got you exactly. Oops, looks like they’re calling me, I’d better go. Thank you for telling me all about sharks, I just know that information is going to come in handy.”

  “Sure, my pleasure,” I say to her departing form. I’m pleased — I might just have made another convert to shark conservation.

  By the time the shoot wraps for the day, it’s almost eight in the evening and the light is dimming. The cast and crew piling into the vans and buses are tired, hungry and grumpy.

  Logan slides the door of the VIP bus closed on Britney’s surprised face, saying, “I think I need to hear more about those sharks before I go swimming with them on Friday.”

  Then he ambles slowly over to where Becka and I wait at the crew bus, climbs inside, and stretches out across the seats at the very back. Logan’s bodyguard, who’s scrambled out of the VIP transport, trots over to our bus, but when he boards, Logan gestures to him to sit up front. I stand in the aisle, uncertain.

  “Romy,” Logan calls. “You’re still on company time. Come and confess — what’s the likelihood I’ll become human sushi for a shark?”

  I laugh and pause to ask a favour of the driver before walking down to sit beside him, all the while studiously ignoring Becka’s raised eyebrows and just-what-is-going-on-here-girl? expression.

  “Right, what would you like to know?” I ask him.

  “What I’d really like to know, Romy, what I urgently need to know is, have you got anything tasty for me?” A smile stretches slowly across his face.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I am so hungry, Romy, haven’t you got a protein bar or some of that jerky stuff you guys have here?”

  “You mean, biltong?”

  “You have some?” he asks eagerly.

  “I do not.”

  “You’re a cruel woman, Romy. Pitiless.” He gives a deep, regretful sigh then pins me with his cobalt gaze and asks softly, “Do you have anything tasty to satisfy my appetite?”