Fly Away Home (16 page)

“You bought them this afternoon?”

Zak nodded.

Monica felt tears come to her eyes. After all the vicious things she had said to him, he had gone out and bought her this gift.

“Thank you,” she said, kissing him lightly on the lips. Their eyes locked and a message of understanding passed between them. Their relationship needed mending, but it was built on solid ground and would survive.

Her gift to him seemed dull in comparison.

“Thanks,” he said, holding up the sweatshirt she'd bought at the theme park.

She hoped that when he wore it back in Lady Helen, he would remember only the good times they'd had on this trip.

 

After their late night, they all slept in the next morning. They found a pancake place that was open for breakfast, and then joined other tourists who were without their families for Christmas on the beach. A few eager children entered the cold water up to their waists, but everyone else was content to enjoy the bright winter sunshine on the warm sand. Before long, Mandla had collected a group of children and engaged them in a sand-castle building contest. Even Sipho, who would normally have stayed away from the action and read a book, joined in.

Monica wondered if her parents had enjoyed their Christmas meal at Abalone House. Kitty and Francina had fought over who would host them for Christmas with Monica away, and in the end, Mirinda and Paolo Brunetti had agreed to spend Christmas with Kitty, and the day after, Boxing Day, with Francina. Monica had called her parents the night before and caught them on their way to the early-morning church service. They missed the boys and were upset to learn that Monica would be staying on in the United States.

After Zak had judged the sand-castle contest—and declared a talented team of brothers from India the winners—he suggested to Mandla and Sipho that they join a soccer match some older boys had started. Sipho agreed reluctantly and Monica watched the three males in her life tearing after the ball, falling on the sand and sharing high fives with strangers they would never see again.

It was not a traditional Christmas, but Monica had a feeling it would be one she would remember for many years to come.

O
n the first day of filming, Monica, Zak and Sipho all accompanied Mandla to the studio. The night before, Zak had tried to talk to Monica alone, but she'd become angry when he kept saying that she was depressed and needed help.

“If you think that a bottle of pills is going to help me, then you're wrong,” she'd said.

“I meant you need to talk to someone,” said Zak. “You don't talk to me about it. It's not healthy.”

She could only shake her head at him; she knew that if she said anything she might start crying.

The director of the film, a young man with a meager goatee and artfully ripped jeans, allowed the family to stay on the set, as long as they turned off their cell phones and didn't utter a word.

They watched Mandla listen to the director's instructions, and then he must have cracked a joke because the director tipped his head back and howled with laughter. Monica knew Sipho was probably itching to comment about his brother's confidence, but they had all promised to be silent.

Mandla took one last look at the script he had been studying for three days, and threw it aside on a couch as though he'd never again need it. Sipho rolled his eyes. Mandla went to stand on a cross marked on the wooden floor with duct tape, and lifted his arms while the wardrobe lady fussed around him, untucking and then partially tucking his crisp white shirt into his gray flannel pants. Mandla was playing the part of the friend of the main character at a private boarding school. Of course, he wished he had the leading role, and Monica saw him sizing up Steven, the petite blond boy who had been given it.

The director shouted, “Action,” and Mandla underwent a transformation. His posture changed, his eyes showed the pain he was supposed to convey, and his voice dropped to a whisper. He
was
the boy who had been wrongfully accused of stealing the main character's watch.

“You don't belong here,” sneered the main boy.

A tear trickled down Mandla's cheek and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt. This was not in the script, Monica knew. A minute ago, Mandla had been joking with the director. Now he was crying real tears. She had known that he had talent, but she hadn't realized how much. The director, she noticed, couldn't take his eyes off Mandla, and the assistant director had to nudge him in the ribs to yell “Cut,” when Steven fluffed his lines. The director walked across to Mandla and put his hand on his shoulder. Monica watched Mandla smile coyly, presumably in response to words of praise. She noticed, too, Steven watching with a look of malice on his face. Life, as it so often did, was imitating art in this cavernous movie studio.

When the director gave the order to break for lunch, Mandla asked Monica if he might skip lunch with the family in order to eat with the director and his crew.

“Your dad's going home tomorrow,” she said.

“That's okay. Go ahead, Mandla,” said Zak. “We'll have dinner together tonight.”

“Um, actually, I've been invited to the opening party tonight.”

Out of habit, Monica looked at Zak for support. Even he appeared doubtful, and he was usually the more lenient parent.

“I don't think so,” said Monica. “It'll be an adult party. They'll be drinking.”

“But I want to meet everyone,” whined Mandla.

“You'll meet them over the course of the next two weeks. No, Mandla, you can't go.” She had given in to his wish to stay in the United States to make the film; she was not going to give in to this.

“Please, Mom.”

“No, Mandla. You're a child, not an adult. But you may go to lunch with the cast after I speak to the director.”

“Ah, Mom. It's just sandwiches in the next room.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“Well, okay, but I'm going to walk past and check up on you.”

True to her word, she did peer in the open door and was relieved to see all the child actors sitting at a long table together. At the next table, there were a few parents, caretakers and Steven's tutor. Steven would be filming for two months and would then go to Singapore to take part in an action film. Mandla was too caught up in telling a funny story to notice Steven glaring at him.

“Let's go in,” Monica said to Zak and Sipho. “The other parents are eating lunch here.”

Sipho groaned, but he followed dutifully. Monica sat at the end of the trestle table next to a lady who was picking at her salad.

“Which one is yours?” asked the woman.

Monica pointed at Mandla, who again had tears rolling down his cheeks, this time from laughing. The other children, except Steven, were screeching with laughter, too.

“I see,” said the lady, but it was clear from her tone she was confused.

Monica noticed her looking at Sipho, then Zak, and then searching for a wedding ring on Zak's finger. Monica could have satisfied her curiosity by explaining that she had adopted the boys, but it really wasn't any of her business.

“Mine is playing the lead,” said the lady, responding to the question Monica should have asked but didn't.

“I see,” said Monica, borrowing her phrase.

“This is his third film. Did you see him in
A House of Angels?
”

Monica replied that the movie had not yet been released in South Africa.

“Is that where you're from?” asked the lady.

“Yes,” said Monica.

“What part of L.A. do you live in now?”

“We live in South Africa.”

Her attitude warmed a little after that, perhaps because she sensed that Mandla could not be a threat to her son's career if he lived so far away.

“My father-in-law and some friends went hunting in South Africa,” said the lady.

Monica wondered if Sipho had heard.

“The lion's head he brought back is in his den. Hideous thing. A photograph would have been enough.”

“What a brave man your father-in-law is,” said Sipho, shifting his chair closer. “The workers at the game farm probably killed a buck, hung it in a tree and then built a hide close by for the big game hunters from America.”

“I don't know how they did it,” said the lady. Her frown told Monica that she was not sure how to interpret Sipho's comment.

“That's how they all do it, but I bet that's not the way he'd tell the story. Oh, no, he'll tell you he stalked it for days on foot and took aim from two hundred meters away.”

Monica put her hand on Sipho's leg to try to get him to stop.

“And after the kill, I bet your father-in-law tipped the workers at the game farm five dollars each, because five dollars goes a long way in Africa, you know.”

By now the sarcasm in his voice was discernible not only to Monica.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” said the lady.

Monica caught Sipho's eye and glared hard at him.

“I'll be outside,” he said, pushing his sandwich away.

“He hates hunting,” Monica explained to the woman when Sipho had left. She knew she ought to apologize, but in a perverse way she felt as though Sipho were avenging Mandla for the treatment he was about to suffer at the hands of the young star of the movie.

“That's no excuse for his rudeness,” said Zak. “I'll make him apologize to you.”

Now it was Zak's turn to be the object of Monica's glare. How dare he undermine her in front of this lady? Let him try. The only way he would get Sipho back in here to apologize was if he threatened him in some way, and that was not Zak's style.

Zak left and, as Monica had predicted, returned alone to the table. “He's sorry,” Zak said rather lamely.

“Thanks,” said the lady.

The children were being ushered out of the lunchroom and back into the studio. Monica caught Mandla's eye. He winked at her.

“Is this his first movie?” asked the lady.

Monica nodded.

“He has talent. It's a shame you're going back to South Africa.” Monica could tell that she didn't mean a word of it.

Mandla had less chance to show the range of his emotions in the afternoon session, since he was part of a group scene and didn't have a line of his own. At three o'clock, the director called for a break so Steven could look over his lines again. He could not make it through a scene without a mistake. If this were a play, Monica knew that Mandla would happily prompt him from the wings. Mandla, of course, knew his own and everybody else's lines. Steven's mother looked mortified, so it was a good thing that Mandla did not have the opportunity to offer his help; his older brother had caused enough upset for one day.

Sipho had not returned to the studio after his outburst in the lunchroom, and Zak had found him sitting on an upturned crate reading a discarded detective novel. He'd refused to accompany Zak back to the studio.

At the end of the day, Mandla climbed into the car with a smile on his face. “I think I like this business,” he said. “And next time I'm going to go to the party.”

“There's not going to be a next time,” muttered Sipho. He was still reading the detective novel.

“Yes, there will be. The director told me at lunch.”

“You're going home to South Africa and these Hollywood people are going to forget all about you,” said his brother.

“Sipho!” scolded Monica. She had had enough of his hostile attitude. Even if he was correct in his assumption, he should not treat his brother this way. What was happening to him? What was happening to all of them?

Dinner that night was subdued. Mandla was still upset about Sipho's comment, and Sipho was disgusted that his brother even wanted to be a part of the business where people like that “morally vacuous woman” and her son were allowed to succeed. Monica was secretly relieved to see a glimpse of the old Sipho. The new one, who spoke of girls and rock bands, unnerved her far more. A couple of times Zak squeezed her knee under the table, but she pretended not to notice.

That night in bed, he put his arm around her. “I wish you would talk to me,” he whispered.

“Shh, the boys are not asleep yet,” she said.

A short while later, she heard Zak's breathing become regular and knew that she had lost her chance. Tomorrow he would fly off and return to his familiar world in Lady Helen. If she hadn't been feeling lonely for months already she might have feared being left alone.

 

Zak took a taxi to the airport the next day after giving Monica a lesson in driving the rental car on the right-hand side of the road. Ten years of driving in Johannesburg had prepared her for the impatient and unforgiving drivers of Los Angeles.

Two more days remained before Sipho had to return to Houston to start school, but, for him, the time couldn't pass quickly enough. While Monica watched Mandla in the film studio that afternoon, Sipho sat outside listening to music or talking to Connor and other friends on the cell phone Connor's mother had given him. Twice Monica did what she had told herself years ago that she would never do when her children were teenagers: she eavesdropped on Sipho's conversation. Afterward she regretted it, not because she thought it was morally wrong, but because what she had heard disturbed her. Sipho was another boy entirely when he spoke to Connor. In fact, he was not a boy at all but a young man, and what upset her the most was that he was a cynical young man.

The following morning, just before five, the telephone rang in the hotel room. Only Zak and Monica's mother knew the number, but neither would call at this time except in case of an emergency.

“Monica, it's Zak.” He sounded agitated.

Her heart started to pound in her chest.

“She's gone, Monica.”

“Who?”

“Yolanda. That woman took her to Australia while I was in the United States.”

Monica sat up in bed. “But Yolanda would never agree to go.”

“Well, she's not here.” His voice cracked. “She left me, Monica.”

“I'm sure she didn't do it willingly,” she said softly.

There was a sniff on the other end of the receiver. Was Zak crying?

“Did you contact her school?” she asked gently.

“There's nobody there now because it's still summer holidays. I called the principal at home and she said Yolanda's mother never said a word about taking Yolanda out of school.”

“Have you phoned Jacqueline's office?”

“I just got back from the airport.”

“I'm sorry, Zak. I wish I was there to help you. See if Jacqueline's colleagues or friends know anything.”

“Okay,” he said in a small voice. “I'll let you know what happens.”

“Call anytime. Zak?”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Good luck.”