by Susan Lewis
Ruby was in a small dingy room at the back of a house in down-town New Orleans. The room was an oum’phor, a voodoo temple. She was seated at a rickety wooden table beside the peristyle, the rainbow-coloured post that supported the centre of the corrugated roof, and over the table was a large paper napkin. The chair she was sitting on was about as uncomfortable as the method of telling her future through a goddamned coconut was ludicrous.
The voodoo priestess who looked what she was, a scrap of a girl from the streets of Paris, was sitting at the other side of the table, her stringy blonde hair lit by the flickering flame of a candle, her sultry lips slightly parted as she concentrated on the patterns of coconut juice that had dripped onto the paper between them and the milky white flesh of the fruit which was now exposed. Ruby had broken the coconut herself, it was a part of putting her identity – on to a goddamned coconut!
Ruby was supposed to have been here a week ago for this reading, but the priestess had asked her to delay her visit. Ruby hadn’t asked why, in fact she’d all but lost interest by now, but the kid had called her up this morning while the others were taking off for the airport, and since Ruby didn’t have anything better to do before her own flight she’d come along.
This past week had proved a rewarding one, not that she’d managed to get to any spooky midnight rituals, in fact everyone insisted they didn’t happen, but the stories she’d got out of the police, self-professed voodoo victims, street-entertainers and bar room punters had been enough to make the Kirstie Doll’s hair curl. Well, it was pretty potent stuff even if she, Ruby, didn’t believe half of it, and cutesy Kirstie had nearly peed her pants with excitement. Ruby grinned to herself. She kind of liked Kirsten, admired her in a way. Putting up with the surly, snobbish treatment she was getting from the high and mighty feature crew couldn’t be easy, but she seemed to be handling it OK. Still, if Ruby was any judge of things they were going to get their come-uppance once they saw rushes, ’cos if Kirsten managed to pull off the approach she was taking they were going to end up with one hell of a movie on their hands. And that was why she admired Kirsten, instead of pulling rank on everyone now, she was going to let her work speak for her. Pretty neat that, Ruby thought. Yeah, the Kirstie Doll was OK, she had Ruby’s vote and just so long as she stayed away from Laurence’s heart they would continue to get along fine.
Ruby’s heavily-ringed fingers moved to her mouth to stifle a yawn. This here voodoo girl was taking an inordinate amount of time to absorb one little old coconut and Ruby was getting bored. In fact she was feeling a bit peckish, but decided it might not be a good idea to take a chunk out of her own destiny. Her eyes started to roam the walls taking in the grisly masks of staring red eyes, protruding tongues and wolfish teeth. The sickly aroma of a sweet incense thickened the air and the strains of monotonously hypnotic pipe music drifted dreamily over the totem poles, mystical paintings and weird collection of whammy dolls. In the corner was an old iron gate with grinning skulls impaled on its spikes. More candles burned on the altar where statuettes of saints and voodoo gods stood between bunches of garlic, gris-gris bags and an ashtray. Ruby wasn’t a religious woman by anyone’s standards, but the open copy of the Bible resting incongruously on some kind of clothes horse in front of the altar wasn’t something that sat too well with her. And she didn’t much like the python slithering indolently about a glass tank over there either.
Her painted lips opened wide as she allowed herself a luxurious yawn. ‘Oh, sorry, dear,’ she said when the waif-like priestess looked up at her. ‘Kind of warm in here, don’t you think?’
The girl looked at her with cold, translucent eyes. Ruby stared back curiously. The girl hadn’t looked that way when she’d come in here, in fact she’d looked a happy sort of soul . . . Shit, what kind of story was she reading in that darned coconut?
‘You have many troubles in your life,’ the priestess said in her throaty French accent.
‘Tell me about it,’ Ruby sighed.
‘Chango, the warrior god, he speaks to me of you. Your battle is a hard one, he understands, but he does not approve of what you do.’
‘Is that so?’ Ruby said. ‘Well how about you tell old Chango that if –’ she stopped as the priestess held up her hand.
‘Deceit is not good,’ she purred. ‘You deceive and you will be deceived.’
Ruby didn’t have much to say about that. Seemed a pretty obvious sort of statement to her, anyhow, she didn’t need no spear-toting voodoo god to tell her that. And sure, she’d deceived a few people in her time, show her someone who hadn’t!
‘Your deception will cause you much grief. It will bring misunderstanding . . . It will hurt someone you love.’ Her head came up. ‘Erzulie, our goddess of love, speaks. She tells me you seek solace for your heart. The source of your love comes from your womb. I see the baby,’ she said. ‘Legba, our chief god, he is showing me the baby.’
Ruby’s puffy cheeks paled slightly. ‘Yeah?’ she said. ‘And which baby would that be?’
‘The baby you hold in your arms.’
‘I don’t see no baby.’
‘It is there, in your arms. Legba is showing me. It is with your memories. You nurture them, but you must let them go. Legba, he says, you must let them go.’
‘I don’t have no baby,’ Ruby insisted.
The priestess blinked at her, a vaccuous look in her eyes that told Ruby she wasn’t listening.
‘You are surrounded by many words and many people,’ the girl chanted. ‘There is much creativity. You are a woman of great talent, but you are in danger from that talent. It will bring harm to those around you. There is another baby. It is very still. I see a child with that baby. I see more memories . . . They are captured in a book.’
Ruby was thinking of the photograph album that contained all the joy of her young life. She said nothing.
‘There is a wish to be a mother, yet it cannot be. You are dominated by this desire, are surrounded by women who are ruled by the same desire. You have all made mistakes, done things you deeply regret, but a child is there for you all . . . I see the child and the baby . . .’
‘You’re not making a whole lot of sense here,’ Ruby interrupted.
‘I see death,’ the girl continued as if Ruby hadn’t spoken. ‘It has already occurred, but there are three yet to come. The innocent have died and will die . . .’ The girl’s voice suddenly crescendoed. ‘You must stop this film! You must not do it! Legba is begging you . . .’ Then as though she was being possessed from within she choked, ‘The first deaths will be from smoke without fire. The third is the child. The child will die.’ Her eyes blazed beseechingly into Ruby’s. ‘Please stop this film,’ she cried. ‘Don’t let the child die. Don’t kill the child . . .’
‘I’m not going to kill no child,’ Ruby protested.
‘But it is there. The child will die if you do this film. They will all die. You must stop protecting those who do not need it and look to those who do or you will be blamed.’
‘I don’t much like the way this coconut’s going,’ Ruby objected. ‘Do you figure we could try a banana?’
The girl was by now so steeped in her prophecies it seemed she couldn’t stop. ‘You must try to understand what the spirits are telling you,’ she demanded, seeming to speak from somewhere behind her eyes. ‘There are three women, one who is very beautiful, one who is our own vodoo queen and there is you . . . Your lives are linked by this film . . . And there is a man with a child . . .’
Ruby’s heart seemed to freeze over. Was she talking about Tom? Was Tom the child she reckoned was going to . . .?
‘You must curb your jealousy,’ the girl continued on. ‘It will do you no good . . . The child needs you, she needs you all . . .’
‘She?’ Ruby queried with some relief.
‘There is a child with a child. She lives within you . . . Look to the very heart of you and you will see the child with a child.’
Ruby’s uneasiness was cracking her resolve badl
y. She didn’t like the sound of any of this, not that she had any idea what it was about, but there were just a few too many bells ringing . . . ‘Do you reckon your fella Legba there could speak plain English?’ she asked.
‘Memories must come from our past,’ the priestess warned.
‘What?’
‘Do not allow her to create the memories that do not exist. You must stop her.’
‘Who?’
‘The child. She is a part of you.’
‘I need a gin,’ Ruby declared.
‘The strands are so knotted it is hard to find your way through. It has all begun with one woman’s desire for revenge. She is to blame, not you, but you are a part of it now. The woman no longer has control, it is slipping away from her and the path is clearing. But do not let it clear for it will open the way to death. Stop this film and turn away from it.’
‘Make that a large one,’ Ruby grumbled.
‘If you do not heed my advice you will see a castle fall. You will see the death of a woman. You will see the death of a man. Then the memories will take on reality and the baby will break into a thousand pieces . . .’
‘That’s it, I’m out of here,’ Ruby cried, springing to her feet and almost knocking the table over.
‘Then will come the death of the child . . .’ the priestess’s haunted voice came after her.
18
‘And you’re telling me he hasn’t mentioned a word about it since!’ Helena cried.
‘Not one,’ Kirsten answered, making a note next to a paragraph of stage direction.
‘But you’ve been back here two weeks, you’ve got to have seen him . . .’
‘Of course I’ve seen him. I saw him plenty of times when we were in New Orleans too. But like I said, he always makes sure someone else is around.’
‘Well isn’t that just typical of a man!’ Helena declared. ‘Always hiding behind someone’s skirts when they can’t face up to what they’ve done.’
‘As a matter of fact I haven’t gone out of my way to speak to him either,’ Kirsten said, tucking her hair behind her ear as she flicked over a page.
‘Why ever not? You can’t let him get away with this, Kirstie.’
Kirsten lifted her head and rested her chin on a bunched fist. ‘The way I see it he has got away with it. But it takes two, I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to. In fact, I reckon he’s having a far harder time over this than I am. I mean I know how I feel, but my guess is he just can’t work out how he feels.’
‘Shit, listen to you, Miss Cool.’
Kirsten laughed and turned back to what she was doing. ‘To be honest, Helena, I’ve hardly had time to think about it much.’
‘But aren’t you just dying to know what’s really going on in his head? I know I would be.’
‘Well, I suppose we will have to clear the air sooner or later, so we will have it out and then we will continue on my terms.’
‘Well, I like the sound of that,’ Helena grinned. ‘Going to tell me what you’re planning?’
‘No. But I’ll let you know once I’ve spoken to him. Now, can we get back to this? I want to be sure you know about the visual effects that are going into the voodoo ceremony because it’s going to effect your performance. Have you met up with the effects team yet?’
‘Yes, last week. Can’t say I really understand all those computer graphics though.’
‘All right, I’ll come with you next time. For now, let’s go over the ritual as Ruby’s written it. By the way, have you seen the designs for your costume?’
‘Sure. They’re terrific. I’ve got a first fitting next week.’
‘Good. I’ll check with Vicky that she’s put that into my schedule, I’d like to see it before Janet goes ahead and has it made. So, tell me about your meeting with Ruby yesterday. Was she any help with the ritual?’
‘Yeah, a bit. She’s kind of getting herself worked up over it though. It’s like . . . Well, it’s like she doesn’t want me to do it. She keeps saying she’s going to change it, but never does. If you ask me she’s having some kind of confidence crisis.’
‘Mmm, you could be right,’ Kirsten said thoughtfully. She didn’t add that Laurence had called the night before to say he was at Ruby’s trying to sober her up and attempting yet again to persuade her not to pull out. ‘Did she say anything to you about some coconut reading?’ Kirsten asked.
‘Some what!’ Helena laughed.
Kirsten shook her head. ‘It’s just that she went to see some kind of fortune teller or something after the rest of us left New Orleans and it seems to have shaken her up a bit. Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, I’ve got a copy of a props list here so that you can see what you’ll be handling during the ceremony. Try to remember that none of it’s real because it’s pretty revolting.’
‘The goddamned python’s real!’ Helena reminded her.
‘Yes, but you’ll be trained.’
‘It’s not me I’m worried about,’ Helena declared.
‘The snake’ll be trained too,’ Kirsten laughed flicking through her diary which was sitting at her elbow. ‘Your lessons begin while we’re in Ireland,’ she said. ‘A Mr Peterson over in Ongar will be doing the coaching. Which reminds me, have you met the choreographer yet?’
‘Yes,’ Helena said. ‘I’ve met them all, even Mr Peterslime.’
‘Well I’m pleased to hear that,’ Kirsten commented. ‘Seems the production managers are on the ball. I’ve got a meeting with the stunt arrangers tomorrow otherwise I’d have come to dance rehearsals with you.’
‘And who’s choreographing all the Walk Ons?’ Helena wanted to know.
‘Someone over in New Orleans. You and your choreographer will get together with them just before we shoot. Now, at the risk of asking a silly question, how au fait are you with the background on voodoo? Do you want any more coaching in that than what Ruby’s given you?’
Helena pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t reckon so. Growing up with it’s all the background I need.’
Kirsten looked up. ‘Are you going to visit your mother when we’re in New Orleans?’ she asked.
Helena shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She’s been in and out of that jail for a mighty long time, over twelve years now . . . I don’t know what we’d have to say to each other. Well, what do you say to a person who’s two toads short of a hex?’
‘Does it bother you, playing this role?’ Kirsten smiled. ‘What with all that’s happened?’
Helena shook her head. ‘Nothing did happen, really. Sure she went around the place telling everyone she was putting curses and the like on them, but folks in New Orleans get used to that sort of thing. Well, some of them do. I guess the Garden District’s not too clever a place to choose to go and upset people, but she seems to like it up around that way. Gets a real kick out of scaring the rich.’ Her eyes were fixed on Kirsten’s and after a moment her face relaxed into a smile. ‘Truth is, I am a bit antsy about going back. Someone’s sure to latch on to the fact that I’m Camilla Johnson’s daughter playing the part of Marie Laveau.’
‘The publicists are already preparing to talk to you about it,’ Kirsten said getting up to answer the phone. ‘They’ll handle the press, but they’ll need some help from you.’
Helena nodded. ‘OK,’ and she turned back to her script with the heavily underscored lines that were hers. She knew them all by now, she’d learned them parrot fashion so that when Kirsten came to discuss the level of performance she, Helena, wouldn’t have to return to the book. Kirsten, of course, could recite virtually the entire dialogue by now so when she read in during individual coaching she could keep her whole attention on the actor. It was pretty cool that, Helena reflected, knowing the whole script inside out. Of course she’d known other directors who’d worked that way, but being directed by Kirsten was a whole new experience. To begin with this was the first time Helena had ever been directed by a woman. She wasn’t too sure she liked it, but it was something she was
working on, just like the resentment she always seemed to feel when she was around Kirsten lately. She knew that it was to do with guilt. Going behind Kirsten’s back with Dermott wasn’t something she was proud of, but it wasn’t something she was going to stop either. The thing was, it was easier to harden her heart against Kirsten when she wasn’t with her, but when she was with her . . . Well, Kirsten was just about the only real friend she’d ever had, and that was what was making all this so damned difficult. However, were Laurence to get his act together and really get things going between him and Kirsten then she, Helena, might not feel quite so bad. It would be a whole lot easier to defend herself over Dermott, were Kirsten ever to find out, if Kirsten was happy with Laurence. She couldn’t begrudge Helena the same sort of happiness then, if happiness was what Helena was feeling with Dermott. But yeah, she guessed it was. OK, he was a bit of an asshole, but show her a man who wasn’t. And she really did think the two of them might make a go of it. She just hoped that she never got to the position where she’d have to choose between Kirsten and Dermott . . . But that would be a lot less likely to happen if Laurence stopped pissing around the way he was.
‘That was Vicky doing overtime,’ Kirsten said, glancing at her watch as she came back into the study. ‘The production managers are having some problem with the schedule so they want me back over there. I guess I’d better go, we can continue this at the weekend.’
‘Sure,’ Helena said, closing up her script.
‘Do you reckon you can come at me from inside Marie Laveau’s skin by then?’ Kirsten smiled.
‘I can give it a shot,’ Helena answered. ‘But yeah, I reckon I’ve got her pretty well sussed now. Don’t like her much, do you?’
‘She gives me the creeps,’ Kirsten laughed. ‘And that’s exactly what we want.’ She picked up her holdall and started stuffing things into it as Helena went to get her coat.