My mind flits back to that lunch with Ma’am and Rory in the hotel. So many pictures of Singapore life right there. I remember seeing the western man with his three girls, and Ma’am and I laughing about the beautiful baklaboy with the Adam’s apple, and the man too drunk with lust to care. But as I picture again the girl nearest the man, her face is anxious and feverish. Her hand is clasped possessively to his leg which is stretched out before him. She keeps one eye and one ear on the man making sure she laughs loud and hard at his jokes while looking as sexy as possible and the other eye and ear on the other ‘girls’. Making sure they don’t advance too far towards the man and oust her from the position she has probably worked all today, and last night, to achieve. There is a visible aura of fatigue about her. The same feverish cast that affects victims of a terrible event. The man shifts and dislodges her hand from his leg, leans over the table and laps up the dirty flirts that float towards him from the bakla. Snow spoiled by oil. The girl slumps in her chair and surrenders. She sips on her drink and scowls. The man remains unmoved, or is just unaware of her. I try to smile at her and she scowls even harder. I shrug.
Sisterhood is not what it was or perhaps what it has never been. In a world like this, unchanged through centuries of cultural and political upheaval, where sex still reigns supreme and lithe lust is able to bring down governments and powerful men, women will always be competitive with each other. And shame travels with us like a heavy, unlikeable relative. Quietly leaching our strength and reinforcing our weaknesses, unlikely to change.
My boyfriend would like a beer tonight so we have arranged to meet at Orchard MRT. He lives up in the north and hates walking. The Singaporean influence has rubbed off on him and he would drive three minutes to the corner shop if possible. The Chinese don’t understand walking for the sake of it. Why walk like a peasant when you can ride like an important man? A car is a symbol of wealth and prestige in all countries I think but particularly in poor ones where even the most battered and rust-punched wrecks are celebrated and praised. Any form of private transport raises status because it is still unaffordable to most. Transport being a deliberate route to freedom and a way to get away from your mundane life and embrace the novelty and excitement of elsewhere.
We eat at a little restaurant called Bare Foot Dining on Upper Dickson Street. It is modest and cheap but the food is so tasty. We sit downstairs at wooden tables surrounded by graffiti from travellers who have found themselves in this place. Hearts and lyrics from Inga, Berlin and Rachel, Australia. Cheeky words from Connor, Ireland, and some enchanting Japanese script surrounded by smiley faces from Kio. I am amazed at the travelling the western children can do by working very small jobs for so much money. I long to see the world and the women who look like me in South America. I wonder if I would feel a connection to them. Would it be like glimpsing family with their full lips and Aztec noses and poker-straight black hair? And for my heart would there be much in common apart from a distant bloodline to an abandoned race?
I don’t like too much heat so I have the butter chicken accompanied by rice so fragrant with spices that I have an urge to capture it and keep it under my pillow. The mango lassi is delicious. Frothy with spun yoghurt and dizzy juice. My boyfriend has a hotter dish, his Malay taste buds immune to the hot-coal pain of chilli. We eat and we sip our drinks and we touch hands and smile. This is a place for intimacy. The owners wander through making random comments and asking questions as if you are well known to them and they have no airs about whom they serve. All are welcome at Bare Foot.
My boyfriend talks about his day and I half-listen, studying his ripe lips and the bones that grace his shoulders. He does not have the bravado other Chinese Malay men do. He is more delicate and sensitive, his body thin and brittle from the long hours of navigating the highways and expressways of Singapore. He has no swagger and no testosterone-fuelled activities. He makes for a good companion now that the jealousy has subsided. And the incident with my Sir that my Ma’am is still cross about.
A year or so ago my relationship was going through scrubland, stones and other obstacles fighting in a harsh landscape. I confided in my Ma’am who let me have time off to cry with friends and soothe myself with food from home. My Ma’am told Sir that I was sad and my boyfriend was being a bit difficult. One night, Sir comes out to the car where I am sitting quietly with him and we are fine and chatting nonsense and enjoying the peace. Sir is a bit drunk, his hair is damp with sweat, and he is holding a bottle of spirits.
Sir raps on the window hard and my boyfriend makes to open it and I warn him no, no, Sir has bad temper. You stay, I will get out. And Sir is shouting and swearing and I get out and say, Sir what is it? and he takes me by the hand and is trying to tell me how much the family care and that he won’t stand for this man hurting me. And as I stand there, the fumes of his evening blowing gently past me on the wind and his wild eyes darting from night sky to black road and back again, I keep my head down and my distance. This Sir is frightening to me. And then my Ma’am appears and draws me behind her and tells Sir quietly that it is not his business and that I am a grown woman and he is never to do this again. And she takes me inside and leans her forehead on the cool wall and apologises for long time. Next day she doesn’t speak to Sir until the evening. And this withdrawal of her warmth and love, of her spirit and life spark, is enough to drive Sir to penitence. He becomes withdrawn and pale but has the courage to apologise to me too. He says that his actions, however wrong, came from a good place. Came from his heart, and he felt that he had to protect me as a member of the family. I am truly embarrassed and stutter that it is fine and not to worry, that I understand and I do. But my Ma’am has never forgotten and still mentions it from time to time. She never laughs about it or minimises it for her own piece of mind. She takes it seriously like a judge’s verdict.
Some people have clarity of conscience. A very definite idea of what is right and wrong. And they practise their lives accordingly. As I walk through the colour and thrum that is Little India I find myself soothed by the humanity here. The throngs, the families who are replicas of each other in different sizes. The gaudy cloth and the gold bright trim. The truth of stale sweat and clothes imbued with food stains and smells. This happy natural soiling is a signpost to nirvana.
MA’AM LESLEY
35 Sabre Green
Still no sign of Ralph. Jocelyn and I have been living side by side in the first tiny bubbles of harmony. She relies on me for everything. The pregnancy has sapped her energy and she already appears consumed by it. I make soups and bake bread from scratch. Using nourishing seeds and wholemeal flours. She sits sullenly staring into space taking tiny bite after tiny bite like an absent squirrel.
I read to her for hours. Dipping into volumes trying to find things she might like. Jocelyn has regressed back to a childlike dependency. Grasping my sturdy English marrow and sucking at it like a greedy infant. It is an odd reversal of roles albeit a strangely comforting one. I have found to my delight that she loves Pride and Prejudice. Although the language is difficult the universal fairy story is not.
Curiously, Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers is also a hit. I have racked my brains trying to work out why a Filipina like Jocelyn would feel an affinity with the girls of the jolly hockey sticks variety, and it struck me that it just doesn’t matter what Jocelyn likes as long as it keeps her quiet and calm during the scant month left of her confinement.
Without the toxic influence of Ralph we are settling quietly into each other. I have contacted the family lawyer and asked him to draw up adoption papers. An expatriate lawyer working in the tropics doesn’t bat an eyelid at my request. Asking only for passport numbers and independently witnessed statements of intent.
It is the first time I have seen any light in Jocelyn’s eyes for months. She signs all the papers with a flourish, desperate to end her purgatory. What had she been thinking, I wonder, when she set out to seduce Ralph? Because it had been a deliberate and calculated move. I believe
she is the type of woman who doesn’t think much beyond the excitement stage. The planning and execution are independent of each other. The pregnancy a ghastly mistake. I wasn’t sure what the current rate for surrogacy was but I knew I’d overcompensate. Both for the guilt and the happiness.
Where will I be in a year? A mother surely, but still a wife? I am sure now that Ralph is either dead or on the run. Appallingly, I would rather he was found to be a traitor than a child pornographer. It’s not the shame factor, more the idea that I once shared space with a man capable of such duplicity and filth.
Norfolk and Suffolk have not returned, but I received an interesting parcel three days after their visit. DHL delivered an iPhone, courtesy of H M Government, from Norfolk. Dear Mrs B, he wrote, just to keep in touch. Sincerely, David. I enjoyed that touch of intimacy and rolled his name around my tongue like a schoolgirl practising her married name. I have never called him but often wonder about him and his daily life. The usual mundane life-stuff questions have crossed my mind, but the librarian’s instinct for history and knowledge is stronger, and even though Norfolk is probably not his name at all I am fascinated to learn more about this line of strong, historically corrupt and ambitious men.
Traditionally, a Norfolk is the king’s man second and his own man first. I suspect that when the stakes were so high (beheading and loss of lands) the ambition would be bloody. What is the point of risking everything for little? My favourite Norfolk is the fourth duke. Aristocratic and terminally ambitious while he was alive, he refused to play Elizabeth’s divisive court games and eventually paid for it in blood. I admire a man who can resist a woman’s charms; Elizabeth recognised this as a personal affront. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
I will miss Jocelyn, I think, when she leaves. It won’t be a difficult parting for her, more the end of a nine-month sabbatical from her normal life. She is young enough to have many more children if she wants and I envy her that luxury. I suspect I have been tolerated during this time only because she has felt feeble and the hormones have been playing havoc with her natural brusqueness. I have little doubt that Jocelyn will leave us both behind without a second glance or thought when the time comes. And we will resume our lives in very different ways. But for now she needs me and I even receive the odd thank you and I catch her smiling during the telling of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth’s story.
While we wait in the humidity for her due date I read extensively about pregnancy on the internet and even conduct a few antenatal classes in the bedroom. I now sleep beside her at night in the big bed. Ostensibly to help her get to the bathroom if she needs it or to wipe her face if she is sweaty and uncomfortable. But in my heart it is to live vicariously, every moment that’s possible, through another woman’s pregnancy. I place my hand on her stomach during the dark hours and the dawn hours and feel my baby kick and press towards me and if I listen intently I can hear a whisper: I’m coming, Mummy, I’m coming. I continue to cook and clean and wash but with a sense of purpose and a clarity that has previously been withheld from me.
I don’t think any woman can live with the supremest cruelty day in and day out without coming adrift in some way. Isolated from reason and physically vulnerable, we start to petrify under the steady flow of abuse and eventually shatter. Afterwards, we carry on as a fragment of our former selves. It takes a long time for the body and mind to heal; sometimes it’s impossible. But the heart’s edges may start to feel less ragged. The eye begins to look up more and the brain starts to process information from different viewpoints. Is this healing? I suppose it is, but I’m not an expert. The violence I experienced, the casual SS brutality, the random acts of humiliation are still tight inside me. My skin remembers it all even if the bruises and cuts have faded almost out of sight. And my psyche reminds me each time a thunderclap makes me stagger with fear.
Then one day I receive a text message from Norfolk. I am surprised and, irritatingly, excited.
Mrs B. I’ve been asked to search Ralph’s private papers. This may or may not be distressing for you, but if you wish to be present then you are most welcome. I will also need access to his home computer. Shall I bring cake? Norfolk.
Cake? How extraordinary this man is. I text back slowly, handicapped by lack of experience.
When? Not really. OK. No – I will bake something.
His reply beeped back swiftly.
Tomorrow @ 3.30. I am a fiend for Madeira cake.
And I smile properly, enjoying this stunted flirtation for what it is. Safe. After checking on Jocelyn and finding her much the same, morose, whiney, fed up like a teenager with the measles, I go downstairs to bake a Madeira cake that, in tropical heat, is a feat of resolve. I have hardly started mixing when the sweat begins to trickle down my back and the insides of my legs. I use my sarong as a towel as I cream and fold and beat, taking huge gulps of icy water every few minutes. I add plump, rum-addled sultanas, and a sugar crust, and feel it is a job well done.
Afterwards, I wander into the atrium and stand in the doorway of Ralph’s study. This is his territory and I wouldn’t have dared go anywhere near it before. But he isn’t here now and even though I lock the front door as a precaution, I walk in and stand there for a whole ten seconds before leaving quickly. Maybe it will feel different with Norfolk there taking command. I suppose I should have been through those papers but Ralph’s wages are still being paid into the joint account.
Although really, my financial needs are basic, and Jocelyn’s easy. She has absolutely refused to go to the midwife all along, or to leave the house at all, so I summoned our family doctor saying that a family friend was pregnant and possibly suffering from some sort of pre-baby blues. He dutifully came. Tutted a few times, measured, palpated and took some blood quite heroically from the shrieking and swooning patient. His opinion was that she was in good health and the baby had a strong heartbeat. He urged us to get a scan and I nodded and promised, knowing it would never happen.
Jocelyn is biding her time and every extra day she carries the baby she feels more chained by her pregnancy. Angry red stretch marks have appeared across her stomach and I feel both sad and irritated for her because the one aspect of her pregnancy she has become really involved with is all about vanity. She oils and smoothes and creams and nourishes and still her genetics are too strong. She is marked, as her mother and grandmother and great grandmother have been.
Our views are so different. She sees parasite, and I see new beginning. I sit downstairs and contemplate my future. Hugging the possibilities to myself like the precious things they are. A hint of hibiscus is in the air thick with other perfumes. They open up so rarely that to catch them blooming and showing off like a Mardi Gras parade is a secret pleasure for me.
I close my eyes and carry on with my plans.
SHAMMI
112 Sabre Green
I don’t find a present in my secret place every day but I always look. Sometimes, my Ebony Ma’am puts sweet things or vitamins or a pretty hair slide. I don’t care what they are, it’s what they represent that is so important. Each time I find something I start to heal and I have hope. I feel better physically and my hair begins to half-shine. She has even given me an Indo–English phrasebook which I study nightly. Trying to memorise words and sentences.
For the first time in months I feel as if there is an answer and God has not forsaken me. I feel less weary and start to sing again while I work. This seems to irritate my Madam and she becomes extra harsh. I think she prefers it when I am dog weary and colourless. She doesn’t trust this new girl. This emergent woman. What tricks might I be getting up to if I have too much energy or too much time to think? And so she cracks the whip and invents more jobs, more chores that I fail at. But even as I apologise in the force of her displeasure I am glowing and feel a wriggle of pleasure at the new blush in my cheeks and the softer angles of my face.
I watch the Ebony Ma’am and her family leaving for a holiday. The maid is going with them. I don’t know where they are go
ing because strictly speaking I’m forbidden to talk to them. It has only happened once in a while and in secret. But they see me peeking through the fence slats and wave and smile. The Ebony Ma’am approaches me and holds my hand. She whispers to me in low, soothing tones. I understand the tone of her voice if not the words. I stammer a thank you in English and pull her hand to my forehead.
It doesn’t reach entirely but I’m trying to tell her how much she means to me. This woman whom I have never hugged, laughed or eaten with and I don’t even know her given name or her favourite book or if she likes crumpets. But I know she sees me and, for that, I worship her. Ebony Ma’am’s husband comes over and smiles at me. His teeth gleam in his smooth umber face. He doesn’t touch me but performs a short, respectful bow. I have never been shown such consideration in this country. I bring the knuckle of my hand to my mouth and breathe heavily into it. They look so beautiful. Such organised beauty. Happy, smiling and confident. What sort of goodness have their ancestors had to make this life so good for them? And that goodness exists like the bee, the rainbow, and the tropical storm. Fleeting but recurrent. A sliver of light in my small life.
Tonight, the children stay with their grandparents and I am to remain at the house because my Madam and Sir will be back much later as they have been delayed on a day trip to Malaysia. The children go straight from school and so I find myself alone in my gilded prison and no one has locked the patio doors.
I open them and step carefully, slowly, silent as a sea snake, onto the crisp grass. It is dew-damp and comforting to my feet. I plant them firmly on the ground and scrunch my toes up around the soft, fat blades. The smell of hibiscus and frangipani is heady and the moon shines high above the city, buttery and luminous like a clear light in a fog-bound sea. I would not dare to step out this way if it were day except to clean car, but in this soft darkness the sense of excitement is too much for me. I creep carefully around the garden touching the leaves and buds and trailing my fingers over scrubby branches and lush foliage. I feel freedom here camouflaged by the dark and hidden by the night. This is the first time I have been properly alone for what feels like a long time. I know that my employers will not be back for hours and an idea occurs to me. I think back to the day of the haze. Then that small escape felt desperate and the fear choking and not just because of the poisoned air. Now the forbidden idea is, oh! so sweet like a stolen fruit. I move silently round the side of the house, stepping over the garden tools, and turn over rusty buckets, placed in line with a government directive to help to keep dengue fever at bay.
Bitter Leaves Page 18