But I do need to discuss these feelings of disquiet with someone, and I’m running out of options. Little Ping and Joyce have disgraced themselves and I have heard nothing from them since my victorious coup at the charity dinner. There are very few women I trust in my circle because, truthfully, I am not enamoured of them. They tend to be gossipy, flighty, incredibly bored individuals whose ambitions have been eroded to the point of insignificance. Values and personal beliefs have faded into a void so large and so vacuous that they may never resurface. These are my social peers and, privately, I am disgusted by them. Publicly I never lose face, welcoming each and every one into a holding pen in my mind that I have created specifically for them. Once here, they are allowed to see exactly what I am willing to share of myself, and I present a pretty fierce public face.
Boredom creates a careless viciousness in some people. An intended slip of the tongue airing another’s trusted secret, the destruction of character behind closed doors, and the mob mentality that women can display when given enough freedom and few boundaries. The tricoteurs of the French Revolution proved this as they knitted their way through countless beheadings, crowing from the front row and erupting with laughter at the sight of twitching limbs and the rusty sawdust clumped with blood mocking the stained and fallen wigs. I have no illusions about women and their capabilities both good and bad. I’ve seen and read enough conflicting stories and examples of each side of the female spectrum. The mother rage that kicks in in all animals when their young are threatened. The adrenaline that flicks the fear off and gives rise to incandescent fury leaving the imprint of a goddess. All-powerful, and possessing a terrible beauty that will haunt a man for the rest of his days. I often wonder if the myth of female deities stems from this powerful state a woman can ascend to. Eye-witnesses as far back as the Roman Empire have written about women moving pillars to free their trapped children underneath. And millennia before that, was not the mother goddess in charge?
And then the flip side. The spurned woman, the scorned woman. When love turns to hate and the imbalance created sets off a chaos in a woman’s mind. Inventing pregnancies and sending anonymous texts to other wives and leaving hateful messages on an answerphone. Threats, bluffs, shadowy figures with deep pockets and the chilling possibility of long knives and sharp-edged tools.
Tomorrow I am taking the children to China to visit their grandparents. Old they may be but still almost perfect replicas of the parents whom I remember from my youth. The boys need to know them. They will be worshipped and spoiled and shown off and it will take a month to talk them off their twinned pedestals. But it will be worth it just to see the glimmer of pride my father has in them and, I fervently hope, in me. The little girl never falls from the black lotus and my need for approval is still as raw and salty as a sea urchin.
There is a secondary motive. I am hopeful that if I leave the city the figure will stay behind, rooted by its own history and ghostly labour. If it doesn’t, then I will need to visit a specialist in this subject when I return, to lay this demon to rest.
LUCILLA
19 Sabre Green
Today my Ma’am and Sir fly back home for the summer. It is always a sad time for me because the house seems so empty and forlorn like a bird without song. They stay for two months and then return in August missing the coolness, but happy.
Good to be back, Lulubell, Ma’am will whisper into my ear as we hug, long and hard. Ma’am never packs early, usually the day before travel, always throwing too many clothes and shoes in because she forgets what she has at the other house in Scotland. She explains that it is little more than a flat and very small. It was their first home before they had Rory and Ma’am can’t bear to part with it. She says the memories are etched into the walls and the woodwork, erratic but timeless like atoms and house martins.
The Scottish street where they live was named after the market that used to take place up the road, and Ma’am says her neighbourhood borders a very troubled one that has crime and high unemployment. I have visions of gangs of feral children with knives coming through the windows at night and poking until you give them your money, and then they flee cackling like miniature monsters against a sky of plum and tar.
Ma’am has showed me photographs of her wedding. Ach! It was beautiful; like a fairytale, like every wedding in every film I have ever seen. And the love that shines between them is evident in every picture – eyes never leaving each other for a second, each aware of the other’s physical presence at all times, and this radiance that spans the room and beyond. This is the wedding that I want. To a loving ang moh who will give me my fairy tale and not expect too much in return. Singapore reeks of sex from its gutters and from behind closed doors and from the desperate men roaming for it. The more that Singapore tries to lock the sex up in a tidy and secure place the more it agitates and seeps into the republic’s consciousness, oily and slick. Coating the streets and tongues of men with desire and shame.
When I was younger I would attend the tea dances in the Towers. It is very different on the tenth floor, and the tea dances start in mid-afternoon and carry on until the evening. Although there are unspoken rules that the women who attend are all maids on their day off and not ladies of the night, most who are single would like a western man and so the place jumps with hopes and giggles, sweat and pheromones. And now when I walk past if I am heading for Lucky Plaza I watch the men who cast a hopeful eye on Orchard Towers. Some are disdainful with guilt, others are bright eyed, innocent and sheepish, others still are fatigued with the depravity of craving something more realistic than the life they have spent years creating. Letting hedonism drip endlessly onto a now mundane and exhausting existence. These are the older men you see propping up Harry’s Bar in the week and in groups outside at the weekend. Sometimes older Chinese women will be hanging around them laughing a little too hard and drinking a little too quick as if aware that their currency is almost redundant.
And I cringe at the hypocrisy of these men who get fatter and older and there is no consequence for them, only a constant supply of nymphs to worship them, and the women have to hold on to their figures and faces of twenty years ago with a feverish intensity, calling themselves Ginger or Bette when their native names are so much more beautiful. But this part of Singapore, this restless, ugly swirl of humanity, recognises and rewards artifice and deception. The natural order has no place here.
My friends scold me because they say happiness is a luxury and gives you too much time to think. If you were sad you wouldn’t think so much about this shit, lah. Too much time. You should swop employers with me. I want to be happy and think too much! Always my friends ask me if my Ma’am needs another maid or nanny. I think they suspect that I’m lying about my employer because nothing can be that good. In a time where false hope and expectations harm you far more than acceptance and stoicism I can understand their annoyance and envy. And my position is unique. Almost unheard of – one of those myths and legends that continue to convince girls and women that they should come to Singapore and be slaves.
I’ve seen the sad-eyed lady boys in the bars, dressed to kill and impossibly beautiful, being dismissed and derided by men who are definitely not their equals, and every time they are dismissed a little piece of them falls onto the floor like a discarded handkerchief and they visibly have to pull themselves together like corset ties, tighter and tighter, to stop their courage and self-esteem from leaking out. And every time a piece falls to the floor it is ground into the dirt and detritus and becomes absorbed by it, staining the soul in minute increments like skin as it ages.
I wonder why they do it. Why hold yourself up for ridicule and rudeness every night from fat pigs with no dignity themselves? And they would reply that they love it! The drama, the mystery, the friendships and the quixotic search for love. And while some of this is true the sadness weeps from their pores and expressions and the lacquered hair and kohled eyes scream for some peace, some comfort. The endless giving of themselves takes its tol
l on their looks and their futures. Most of these men have already isolated themselves from their families by being gay. To take that further, to subject the family to ridicule and God’s fury is indefensible to most Muslim fathers. In Leyte, we are more accepting.
Maybe our Catholicism has given us a history rich in sin and blood. I know that if my brothers were gay my parents would love them no less. They would pray for them more but could never cast them aside because of such a tiny thing as the wrong love. Divorce is forbidden, so falling out of love is difficult. Filipinos stay married but might move on from each other. And the maternity wards in Manila are so full that there are often two or three mothers with babies to a single bed. The care is good but the great lack of basics in the wards is a testament to the loyalty we have to our God and his laws even if this modern world does not understand or make room for them. My Ma’am says she is a Catholic in her heart. She says she was never born to be a Protestant with its muted colours and simplistic texts and insipid teachings. Catholicism is a real religion, she sighs, dramatic and decorous, always fighting its own history and sin. Much more suited to the trials and tribulations of humans, Lulubell. And I nod and smile because sometimes I just like to listen to Ma’am talking.
She is passionate like a Filipina and full of colour and taste. Like her cakes. Sometimes she will bake Blue Sky cupcakes for Rory. She just adds a little indigo colouring to the icing and Rory says they taste beautiful like blue would. And he nibbles away at the fondant on the top and leaves the golden cakes naked and bold and Ma’am chuckles and says it’s because he is so sweet, that he only likes the icing. Sir like all parts of the cake and grabs several to take into work. He says it reminds him of home when he is away sad with the short loss of his family. At work Sir misses his wife and child even after a few hours. That is a man of love and honour and I am proud for him to be my Sir.
MA’AM LESLEY
35 Sabre Green
Ralph has gone away on an extended business trip to South Korea. I know this because his itinerary was bunched up in the pocket of his blue linen suit. I have no idea what he is doing there but it’s clear he had meant to destroy this bit of paper and for some reason had forgotten it.
Jocelyn became quite hysterical when he told her. Perhaps her inability to keep the real Jocelyn from beating her way into their lives, now, is taking its toll on Ralph. I see his hooded eyes often resting on the horizon as he waits for answers. Now she has given in to him and they’ve had sex, Jocelyn’s image is forever tarnished in Ralph’s eyes. Had she stayed quiet, submissive and demure her future would have been assured, but like another of Henry’s star-crossed wives, the naive and earthy Katharine Howard, she is so egocentric that it is impossible for her to play the political games needed to keep her out of danger.
For some reason, now she is pregnant, Jocelyn can only be herself. And the very worst of it. Petulant, angry, wheedling, hysterical, hypersexual; in different degrees her hormones have unbalanced her. Ralph has begun to stay out later and often he doesn’t return home. His once supple Aspinal briefcase is stained and dog-eared as if the owner has stopped caring about it. Sometimes, when I wake at six to get started on my new duties, he is asleep on the sofa, sweating and snoring, dishevelled by some pain that he keeps close and will not discuss.
The monsoon season is bashing the island to bits. The rain is spiteful and seems to relish breaking up the barbeques and parties by the many swimming pools. Weather can be malicious and I am reminded of the mistral that drives men insane as it screams its way down the Rhône valley banging on the shuttered houses incessantly, crying to be let in. It nips the heads of the sunflowers and suffocates the lavender, birds are boxed to death by gusts of wind so strong they are slammed to the ground in groups, feathered corpses littering the mud beneath the native trees. This squall feels similar, as if it brings death and pestilence. Riotous fungi will grow quickly on the rain tree’s fissured bark and lime-green moss will start to grow and creep along the footways like zesty trimmings.
There is a stench in the air that is unavoidable. I think it is olfactory misery.
I do what I can for Jocelyn but I’m not at all sure what is going to happen to the three of us. Subtle changes in the dynamic have left me dry mouthed and sometimes breathless. I’m more curious than frightened because I am still Ralph’s wife in legal terms. The subject of our divorce has not been mentioned since the night I arrived back from the clinic and Ralph is probably treading water in panic trying to work out what to do. There is something else that is uncertain about him. He is losing his patina, his gloss. The slicked-haired, Beau Brummel that I married and moved to Singapore with has almost entirely disappeared. Perhaps the demise of his lotus fantasy has taken its toll.
The reality of a pregnant Jocelyn – a seething, uncontrollable Jocelyn – has shattered any romantic notions that he might once have had. This reality is messy and unattractive, fibrous and bitter. It is unfair to expect any person to be able to live up to the illusory courtly love that a hard-lacquered romantic might bestow upon them. Women tend to fall flat on their faces when they have been assigned the role of a Pre-Raphaelite heroine. The well-dressed fallen woman rising with fragility, but radiant with a new-found purity, just doesn’t exist now and it was probably never a feasible option. Men and woman are gloriously messy and our encounters together even more so. Love is a kitchen after a family has finished their breakfast. Littered, gobbled, spent. But whatever the details, we can be drawn together in such a primal way that it is impossible for us to avoid it. Infatuations along with hope are the most dangerous notions to have. The power of lust can define a country, decimate reputations and lay waste to those promised lavish obituaries. The hysteria that accompanies lust and its greedy explosion is condensed by its prologue – a torpedo trail of wretchedness.
Today, in this present moment, I am thankful for the soft sound of my sweeping, the cool and restful marble beneath my feet and the calm that has begun to enter my heart. I’m not sure when I stopped being quite so frightened. The fear just started to drift away the less Ralph noticed me. This reversal of roles has benefited me greatly. I have time to reflect and make considered choices and I love to keep a house in order. I shop and make plans and make wholesome meals and fresh fruit drinks for Jocelyn. I hand-make chocolate truffles without the alcohol and Jocelyn continues to listlessly pass them from her hand to her mouth – an efficient conveyor belt. I hear her talking on her mobile phone – sometimes panicky and loud, often whispered and tense.
Her family situation is a mystery to me – even at the beginning, before she became openly hostile, we never talked about friends or what she did on her day off. Jocelyn kept herself at arm’s length from the first day of her employment. I think I was to blame in many ways. Having staff was anathema to me. It felt odd and wrong and bamboozled my socialist sensibilities. I was never comfortable with having her live in and in the beginning would almost fight her for the washing up. At first, after considering me for a few seconds, she would point her finger to her temple and move it in a circular motion before retiring to the park for the rest of the afternoon. And I would finish the washing up, smugly thinking I had won the battle without understanding that Jocelyn’s plan did not include me and I was irrelevant from the off. Ralph was hooked very early on, particularly after witnessing her scrubbing the hall floor on her hands and knees in obscenely small denim cut-offs. Poor Ralph. He really didn’t stand a chance and Jocelyn knew that he was obsessed with having an heir and worked that angle with as much accomplishment and guile as a souk trader. And began her project of pushing me further and further out of the kitchen and further and further from the heart of my own home.
And now some of the cards have fallen and I watch where they lie, trying to interpret how the fates will intercede or intervene or just let the blood flow for kicks. As Ralph loses his substance and Jocelyn is panicked into silence I continue to sweep, revelling in the smooth, long strokes, a ritual practised and ancient; whether on
the dirt floor of a slum in Mumbai or a floor of limestone slabs in Hampshire, women have moved and removed dirt from their living quarters for centuries. It is the most domestic of duties and doesn’t involve expensive electricity or patented vacuums. Just women brushing and clearing spaces for their families to grow and sleep, eat and weep. A continuum of the feminine calling.
My thoughts do touch on my future. I have not worked for years now, and would be useless in an interview, and my experience would be rubbed out by the arrival of new qualifications and youth. Even though I don’t fear Ralph so much any more, there is still a residue of general fear that clings to the inside of my skull and cleaves to my heart. I was never confident around people and my marriage to Ralph has perfected my insecurity. Do certain things ever come back once they have been beaten out of you? A broken jaw is easier to mend than a broken mind or heart. The knots and scars of a damaged psyche are impossible to see with the naked eye, which is so odd considering how deeply they are felt.
It suited Ralph for me to be isolated, and he worked on that studiously, like a trail of ants determined to bring a large crumb back to the colony. I wonder what people think has become of me. Perhaps he has told them I’ve gone back home or we are divorced already. Perhaps I am dead from a terrible illness or freak snakebite in the Bukit Timah Reserve. The last time a friend called was over a year ago, I should think.
Bitter Leaves Page 12