by Tracy Going
The last photograph of my brother David
Wilhemina and my son
Bob and me fooling around in the Radio Metro studio
Reading the news on Radio Metro
One of the photographs that featured in the Fair Lady magazine article
My son, me and Garp, also from the Fair Lady magazine article
The destruction to my garage
The destruction to my lounge
A few days after I was beaten up
Newspaper clippings
Demonstrators and activists outside the Magistrate’s Court
Outside the courthouse speaking to demonstrators and supporters
Me today
Fifteen
I am huddled between my brother and sister, together in the light of ordinariness, when my future comes to me. We are squatting on the coarse, green carpet in the TV room. The square Telefunken is pushed up flat against the stone wall. My mother has drawn the curtains on the day to block out reflections from a sun that is poking its shiny head through the window behind us so the picture that flickers in black and white before us is untainted. The volume is up loud, which means the sound is a little muffled.
We’ve been sitting there for a while, waiting for the test pattern to disappear and to join in on the countdown as the analogue clock ticks into the hour. Dorianne Berry, one of South Africa’s very first TV presenters, finally flickers to life before us. As she smiles her greeting, I turn to my mother and announce, “One day I’m going to be on TV.”
It is a realisation that is both simple and absolute.
Over the years I had taken that black-and-white picture and stretched and sculpted and sharpened it into my very own personal, full-colour mental image until it became vivid and vibrant and real. All those years, I visualised myself sitting straightbacked in a studio, groomed, my hair flicked flat and face flawless. I felt the heat as the lights flooded me brightly from above. I saw myself confident and composed, behind a desk, right there in the front line, gazing into the lens, seamlessly cutting between cameras strategically placed across the studio floor trailing their thick, heavy cables. I heard the opening logo as it rolled and crashed through the playback monitors. I imagined it and dreamt it until it ultimately threaded through my being and became a part of me.
And all that positive visualisation, caught in the grander moments of planning my life and setting my goals, had more than paid off.
I had been living my dream, and more.
I had been working behind the scenes on a TV music programme when the presenter, a popular Radio Metro DJ, invited me to read the news on his afternoon drive radio show. He complained that his newsreader had been flirting heavily with the bottle and often didn’t make it to the studio on time or even at all. It was the break I hadn’t known I was waiting for. Without a word to anyone in the office, I had rushed from the Television building and burrowed my way through the underground tunnel all the way to the Radio block, up past reception and then back deep down, underground to the studio on the far side. I’d made it with minutes to spare. It was the first time I’d ever seen a bulletin. I speed-read through it and then suddenly my name was being announced and I was ‘live’ on air.
“Good afternoon,” I articulated.
“Top stories making the news today …” I said, ending with the same upward inflection of newsreaders I’d heard all my life.
As I read the reams of pages before me I tried to ignore my shaking, querulous voice. I focused instead on the content rather than the delivery, but I almost lost both my nerve and my words when half way through my reading Koos Radebe, the station manager, barrelled in. I hadn’t known who he was, but it was apparent, by his suit, that he was management. I continued reading and pretended I couldn’t see him.
He, in turn, had heard an unknown voice on his station and had hurtled down eight floors to investigate.
At the end of my bulletin, Koos stuck out his big, warm hand and said, “Welcome.”
The start of my radio career spanning fifteen years.
I had then rushed back the way I had come. Through the tunnel, up through TV reception, past the large sports studios and back into the office, but as I surreptitiously slipped in through the door I heard the sounds of Radio Metro stippling my workplace air.
My boss had, unbelievably, tuned in to listen to the news.
On that day. At that time. To that station.
“You choose,” he said.
So I chose.
From there had come the voice work, then the TV work and in between I had freelanced as a crewing agent – when I first fleetingly encountered him. By the time I met up with him to discuss that ill-fated marketing plan, I had been presenting my weekday breakfast show on radio for six years and was also presenting three television programmes.
Lebone – Women on the Move was my primary programme and it kept me busy as I travelled the country meeting and interviewing successful women. It was an inspiring show featuring women who had very often overcome enormous challenges in their determination to succeed. They were all so eloquent and engaging and I was privileged to be sharing in their story.
I was also presenting One Step Beyond, an award-winning show about the compelling and fascinating world of technology. Initially, I have to confess, I knew little about IT trends and their breakthrough advancements, but it was innovative and exciting and the best-produced show I would ever work on.
And I was producing and presenting a light-hearted weekly insert on the magazine show Private & Confidential. The director, Pieter, who would soon lose his fight against HIV/Aids, had loved random topics and was not afraid to challenge stereotypical thinking. He would select unexplored themes and then provide me with a camera crew. I’d be given carte blanche to interpret it, film it, and edit it in any way I chose. On the surface it was fun and frivolous, but infinitely rewarding to be challenging set thinking.
But my ultimate dream of sitting behind a desk with bright lights beating down on me was coming true with the late-night TV news bulletins on SABC 3.
I had auditioned with the famed Riaan Cruywagen many months earlier. He’d taken me into the news studio, put me on camera and given me a list of seemingly unpronounceable names – all of which I had the advantage of being able to pronounce thanks to my many years of radio newsreading.
As I finished, I turned the sheaf of paper face down and looked at him.
“One day I’m going to be a newsreader on TV.”
And I was.
I had been reading the late-night news for a few months already. And to add stardust to the gold at the end of the career rainbow, I was in conversation with the SABC to be signed up as one of the main anchors for the flagship evening news bulletin at 8 pm.
But if presenting all those shows had been an affirmation to the power of positive visualisation, I knew that even if I tried to harness the endless power of the subconscious, there was no way to undo the damage to my face. No diligent effort, focused thought or positive introspection could possibly change the way I looked now. It had been two weeks already and my face was still a mess.
“You need your fucking face,” he had screamed.
And, yes, he was right. I needed my face.
Monday morning broke early and uneasily. I had been unable to fall asleep after his threatening call. I was terrified of him and even more terrified of what he could still do. I had got up at the crack of dawn to ready myself for work, but I was exhausted. Drained. I was also afraid, mortified, to be appearing in public with my face a swollen mass of livid bruises and scratches.
I had been out and about in Kenton, but only to the beach – just my son and I – and well away from any other public interaction. I wasn’t in a presentable state to appear before anyone.
I wasn’t even in a respectable state to come before a radio microphone and it would certainly be a while before I could present myself before a camera. But I had already lost half a month’s income and I had to work. I was a freelancer
, and every day I didn’t work meant another day I didn’t earn. And the bills were already streaming in. There were doctors’ and lawyers’ fees, the structural repairs to my home, the household damages and the additional security. It was endless.
So it was that I noiselessly made my way through the Radio reception, hiding my face and my shame. I scurried past security with my hand held high, trying to shade that deep stain that seeped from my eye to my jawline. I was relieved to be the only one in the lift as I made my way up to the newsroom. But what was I going to say when I saw everyone? How would I even begin to explain? When I reached the newsroom, it took only moments to realise there was no need for me to say anything. Everyone knew. Clearly, they had all read the sensational story splashed across the pages of Sunday Times.
I quickly took my bulletin and made my way to the studio, past all their warm, sympathetic glances. I knew everyone was trying hard not to stare. I, in turn, smiled and greeted and pretended. But I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be exposing the bruises on my skin, the shadows in my heart. I didn’t want anyone seeing my sadness and my heaviness and my pain.
When I got to the studio I lifted my head and slipped in as though there was nothing unusual about wearing big, black sunglasses underground before the darkness had completely surrendered to the light and before the morning clock had even struck six. I took my place in my chair and, once the news jingle had played, I opened my mouth and read the news slowly and clearly. I enunciated carefully so that the listeners wouldn’t know there were swollen storm clouds in my mouth.
And somehow I managed. I was back on radio.
But it was impossible to go on camera. That I couldn’t manage.
My co-presenter on One Step Beyond stepped in to present all my inserts for the following six weeks. Private & Confidential rearranged the show format to exclude me until I could return. But my primary show, Lebone – Women on the Move, would need me back, and soon too. So it was that after only four weeks I was left with no option but to appear on camera. They had a few inserts that had been prepackaged and another presenter had stepped in to fill the gap, but they would need me in the studio to record the main links. I was, after all, the face to the show.
Lloyd, the producer, felt we could do it. My bruises could be camouflaged with thick coatings of Kryolan stage makeup. But it was the eye that was the real problem. The black-and-green marbling on my face could be covered, but after four weeks my eye was still a haemorrhaging web of ruptured vessels bleeding its rawness across the sclera. My eye looked like a sad, lonely, dying coal, a fiery red as it burnt its despair. It was also leaking a watery wetness that I was constantly dabbing at with a limp tissue. We all agreed that no viewer would want to look at that.
But what could we do?
Lloyd found a solution.
“We’ll film you in profile,” he said. “We’ll take your hair and coil it over your face, like this,” he went on, gently twirling a curl between his fingers.
Lloyd had started his career as a hairdresser.
So I went into the makeup room to have thick foundation lathered on in layers and my eye cleverly covered in colour. My hair was styled and set in swirls across my cheek. Cameras were positioned far back across the studio floor and I was filmed at a great distance, on very wide shots, with my head tilted in profile. We filmed the studio links for a few episodes, which bought some reprieve until the next recording.
I was so grateful to those producers and directors who stood by me, who propped me up until I could rely on my own strength and determination. But the truth of it is that, for the most part, work dried up and my income was slashed dramatically. The reasons, it appeared, were twofold. Firstly, I was simply unable to work, and then there were those who preferred not to work with me at all. It seemed there were many who were afraid to be tainted by the horror and filth of my domestic violence matter and it would be many, many months before any new contracts came in.
I would also never get that call to sign the evening news contract.
It would be a full year before the news editor passed me in the corridor and had the courtesy to mumble, “Sorry I didn’t return your calls,” he said, not looking me in the eyes. “But we couldn’t touch you.”
Sixteen
Everywhere I looked I saw scrubbed faces crowded together as they lined the walls, jostling for position in an uncoordinated dance of rubbing shoulders and moving legs. Cheap, unpolished shoes scuffed nervously at the dark floors. We were acknowledged with slight smiles and imperceptible nods, but still no one moved to open a gap, to allow us in. So we stood to one side: my mother, my lawyer, Sheryl and I.
It was the first time my mother and Sheryl had met and they spoke softly over hushed whispers and scraping heels. I tried hard to listen and even harder to distract myself from my gnawing fear. It seemed the yellowed walls were closing in.
The steel doors to the courtyard were open but still a stuffy desperation circulated between the dust and the dying barbs of Lifebuoy soap. Perhaps it was just me who struggled to breathe.
It was Monday, 8 December 1997, but I was impervious to its summery promise. This was my first court appearance. And the first time I’d see him since he’d pummelled my life apart. It wasn’t the first time I heard from him, however. I’d heard his voice when he’d called, long after midnight, his message clear:
“Drop the fucking charges or I’ll destroy you publicly.”
By then he’d already left me no choice.
And now we were here.
My mother had left Brits in the dark. Although it was unnecessary, it was impossible to dissuade her and she would continue to arrive an hour or two early. She insisted that she was reluctant to negotiate rush-hour traffic on her own, but I knew that she didn’t want me to arrive at the court alone.
It was to become our court morning ritual.
Before leaving for court I had read the 08:30 bulletin in a rush, my words strangled and inconsequential as I thought of the day ahead and my mother waiting outside in the parking lot. The morning air was clear and warm by the time I stepped out of the Radio Park building to meet her and soon we eased our way through the busy streets of the city centre and the morning traffic, to the court dominating the city’s lower end.
We had arrived at the Johannesburg magistrate’s court to find my lawyer, Sheryl, standing in the shadow beneath the columns. Her black gown hung sober over her arm, her smile ready. She had no official capacity in the criminal trial. Her brief was simply to collect as much relevant information as possible for the civil case to follow, when her role would be more defined.
But she was to become far more than just a detached legal observer. She was my constant companion and there were many times I clung to her as though afraid of getting lost. Even in the middle of the night, she was never more than a phone call away.
That first morning, I was grateful to be following her into the maze of the court.
Our footsteps echoed as we made our way through dimmed, convoluted passageways in search of the prosecutor. We eventually tracked him down to his office, where he was locking his door, and after hurried introductions and a quick summary of the procedures scheduled for the morning, he directed us to the allocated court and rushed off, clutching armfuls of other people’s case files. He was Prosecutor No. 2.
Prosecutor No. 1 had already passed through my life.
When we met at the very first briefing, I had immediately taken to her, drawn to her narrowed features, expressionless face and thin, pursed lips. I could envisage her puckering them tightly as she sucked the accused’s words in, then swirling them around like vinegar before spitting them back out. But it hadn’t only been her bony shoulders, her terse manner and the sharp shape of her mouth that I had found so reassuring. It was also her unhesitating confidence in the merits of my case. The bruises on my face told my story.
Then she had phoned and announced that she was pregnant. She was withdrawing from the case entirely. Her maternity
leave would coincide with the trial, which meant that the case could be compromised. She said it was the only option, that there really was no other way, but I’d be more than satisfied with Prosecutor No. 2.
The change was unsettling. I had sat before her in her office, my face battered, my eye still swollen and mottled, and I had told her everything. I’d shared all the shameful details and, in the process, given her much of the little I had left. Now I wanted her as my prosecutor. I wanted her fighting in my corner, even if I thought motherhood would soften her edges. Besides, surely nine months was too long. Wouldn’t we be done before then?
But that was not for me to decide.
It hadn’t bothered me that her first language was not English – somehow, the precision of words hadn’t seemed essential for clear interrogations. This, however, was not a confidence that I transferred to Prosecutor No. 2. Although he seemed pleasant enough, I feared he’d be mangled as he stumbled and searched for argument and meaning. And it was on his brisk instruction that we stood outside the courtroom waiting for our matter to be called.
We hadn’t been there long when the moment I’d been dreading for weeks finally arrived. The man who’d chosen to hurt me was advancing down the corridor, his attorney at his side. Huddled together, their faces drawn tight in whispered deliberations.
I’d thought endlessly about how I wanted to respond to this initial encounter. I wanted to stand tall, to appear composed and unafraid. I didn’t want my bruises to be visible. I’d hid the last of them under make-up before I’d left for the studio. It was a shallow covering to what lay inside, where deep down I was black and blue. But I didn’t want him to know how broken I really was. I wanted him to think I was brave, not thwarted.