by Elaine Chong
I slumped into the chair opposite her. “Why are you being so mean? Why did you even tell me if you don’t care how I feel?”
“Now you’re just being a jerk,” she said.
I reached across the desk for her hand. “Don’t judge me, Nancy, please. You and Bill, you have something special, but my relationship with Colin has died a slow and painful death over many years and I can’t go on pretending that we’re going to walk off into the sunset together. Especially if it’s on the east coast of England,” I added with a tearful, conciliatory smile.
She gave my fingers a brief squeeze in acknowledgement. “I know you’re unhappy with Colin, but trust me, there are no beautiful sunsets where you’re heading if it’s with Jian. He won’t leave his wife for you: his parents would never allow it.” It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and I tried to withdraw my hand, but she clung to it. “Listen to me, Julia! You’ve lived in Singapore long enough to know and understand that filial piety is the guiding principle of every family relationship here: respect for and obedience to your elders. The Tan family have Confucian values running through their veins. They’re not going to let an ang moh break up their son’s marriage.”
Ang Moh. I’d heard that term a thousand times before. Jian once tried to convince me that it was almost a term of affection for expats in Singapore, but I already knew that ang moh gui meant something like ‘red-haired devil’ and was used exclusively for white foreigners.
I discovered, soon after we began our relationship, that his extended family – his grandfather, his parents, and his wife – all lived together on the north side of the island in one of Singapore’s increasingly rare heritage properties: a spacious, colonial, black and white, two-storey bungalow. But Jian kept his own, private apartment in a prestigious condominium complex near the city centre, which is where we would meet. What I hadn’t known at that point (although I should have guessed) was that his family also owned a penthouse apartment in one of the most exclusive condominiums in the very heart of the city.
One evening Jian arranged to meet me there in the lobby. Just as we were walking out, his parents surprised both of us by walking in. Jian looked embarrassed, but quickly introduced me as a business associate. I could see that his mother wasn’t fooled for a single second. She told him – in front of me – that he should conduct his ‘so-called business meetings’ elsewhere, and she didn’t want to see his ‘ang moh ji nü’ anywhere near their family home ever again.
As we walked away, I asked him what she’d meant. He said, “She thinks I’m paying you for your time.”
I was stunned. “Is that what she actually said? She called me a prostitute?”
He answered, quite casually, “Don’t worry about it. She didn’t mean it. She’s just not keen on foreigners.” And whenever I questioned him about his family after that, he always reassured me that things would change, and I wanted to believe him.
Occasionally, I even asked him about his wife, but he always dismissed my questions with an extravagant wave of the hand, once telling me, “The marriage was arranged by our parents in the old way. Lì Húa understands how it is. She has her life, and I have mine.”
Eight years down the line we’re still meeting in secret and it’s probably stupidly naïve for a woman in her fifties to go on believing that her young lover will keep faith with her, but I simply can’t imagine my life without him, so when Nancy finally left, telling me that I should go straight home and sort myself out before I even thought about calling Jian, I grudgingly agreed that it was the most sensible thing to do. Thirty minutes later, after repairing my make-up and hair, I’d changed my mind and decided instead to go straight to Jian’s apartment and confront him.
When I let myself in, I could hear him singing loudly in the shower. I recognised the song at once: it was an old Cantonese pop ballad from the 1990s. It brought tears to my eyes because it was a time when Jian was still dancing the night away in smoke-filled discos, but I was accompanying Colin to formal, black tie dinner events at the LingLang Club.
I checked my reflection in the bedroom mirror. I was fifty-four years old, and the face looking back at me clearly showed the strain of living two lives, both of them played out on a knife-edge, never knowing when fate would intervene and I would be exposed for what I really was: a mistress and an adulterous wife.
The singing stopped and Jian sauntered into the room. At forty-six years old, his body was still lean and strong. He wears his hair significantly longer than most of his contemporaries and he’d slicked it back from his forehead; it was as black as a raven’s wing and shiny clean from the shower. Droplets of water trickled down his chest. I wanted to reach out and check their path as they moved over his smooth, tanned skin. He looked surprised to see me.
“Julia? What are you doing here?” He took a step towards me, stopped and then gaped at my face. “Have you been crying? What’s happened?”
I stepped away from him. “That’s what I came here to ask you.”
“Nothing’s happened to me,” he replied.
“Really? Are you sure you haven’t got any news to share with me?”
The expression of caring concern on his face began to dissolve. It started in his eyes and ended in the set of his mouth. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter?” I shrieked back at him. “What the hell is going on?”
“I can explain,” he said. “Let me get dressed first.”
“No!”
“Go and sit down out there,” he insisted, and he pointed through the bedroom doorway to the open-plan sitting room.
I wanted to throw myself at him and beat my fists on his chest, but knowing his disdain for histrionics I left him, tight-lipped and tearful, and threw myself onto the sofa instead. What was there to explain? I thought angrily. He was having sex with his wife and not just with me. I felt ... betrayed.
When he came out of the bedroom, his hair was still dripping, but he’d pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He immediately went to the drinks cabinet and poured out two large glasses of brandy. He carried them carefully to the sofa where I had curled myself into a foetal position around a huge cushion. I saw him hesitate, and I knew at once that he didn’t want to sit next to me. He put the glasses on the coffee table then seated himself in the armchair opposite me. He pushed the glass towards me. “Drink this.”
I scowled at him over the top of the cushion. “I don’t need to be sedated. I just need you to tell me it isn’t true.”
He sipped at the brandy slowly, almost leisurely, and I could see him measuring his thoughts – how to tell her so that she doesn’t make this even more difficult for me than it is already, he was thinking. Eventually he said, “I was going to tell you, in fact as soon as I saw Bill and Nancy walk into the restaurant, I realised they might see us together. But Lì Húa is my wife, Julia. We do occasionally socialize with friends.”
I couldn’t decide if he was being deliberately evasive, or if, perhaps, Nancy had been mistaken and I was making a complete fool of myself. This other woman in his life was his wife and he was required to go through the motions of playing her dutiful husband in public places where they might be seen by family, or more importantly by friends of the Tan family – in a society where ‘face’ or appearance is everything, I understood that Jian had obligations to fulfil.
I found myself watching him steadily over the edge of the now slightly soggy cushion cover and I remembered the phrase that Nancy had used: filial piety. It described perfectly the sum total of Jian’s relationship with his parents: with the extended Tan clan, it was family first. I took a deep breath and plunged in. “I’ve always understood that you have to honour and respect your parents’ wishes, Jian, but I didn’t understand exactly how far that extended until now. So ... when were you going to tell me that Lì Húa is expecting your baby?”
He slowly placed the glass on the table in front of him and the two glasses sat side by side dividing us, one still half full of brandy and the other no
w nearly drained.
It’s strange how small details can distract you in moments of drama and despair – I suddenly recognised the glasses as the whiskey tumblers I’d given him as a gift to celebrate our first Christmas together. Jian had spotted them in the window of the gallery one day and ventured inside to ask their price and provenance – that was how we met. I remembered how I’d explained that they were Victorian Wrythen glassware, over a century old. He’d considered them to be as special and beautiful as I had so the irony of the present situation wasn’t lost on me: they were the very things, which had brought us together, but now they sat between us like an unbreachable barrier.
I threw the cushion onto the floor and sat myself up so that I was facing him squarely across the coffee table. I felt strangely calm. I said, “I feel like everything you’ve ever told me about her, about your marriage, it was all a lie.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t a lie, but perhaps it wasn’t the complete truth either.” He leaned forward and spread his hands out on the table in front of him as if to say, ‘Now I will be open with you. Now I will give you the truth you’ve asked for’. He looked me straight in the eye. “I hoped you’d understand, Julia. You know, Lì Húa has been ... forgiving. She knows how I feel about you; she knew before she accepted the proposal of marriage that you were a part of my life and that I wasn’t going to give you up. But … this is what my family expects of me, and I couldn’t put it off any longer.”
“Well, obviously I appreciate your wife’s patient forbearance,” I said with mock sincerity. “But to have a baby with you? Seriously?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t she?” I repeated after him. “Why would she? That’s what I can’t understand, Jian, because you’re going to be with me! We had plans. Remember? No more creeping around, no more hiding out in this apartment. You said we could be together.”
“We still can. Nothing has to change.”
We locked eyes across the table, and I could see that he was completely serious. “You really think that nothing’s going to change?” I asked him.
He responded by shifting back in his seat and crossing his arms in front of his chest. He said quietly, “I never told you I would leave my wife, Julia. I honestly thought you understood that wasn’t possible. We can still be together, but I’m not going to divorce Lì Húa. I love you, I really do, but this is a line that can never be crossed. I would bring shame on my family: they would never forgive me.”
I stood up and, for a moment, the room shifted in and out of focus, but I willed myself to stand straight and not give in to the torrent of emotion, which threatened to overwhelm me once again. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I said quietly, “but I think we’re done.”
Jian jumped to his feet. “Don’t say that. Don’t leave like this, Julia. Think about what we have together.”
It was all I could think about in that moment, which is why I knew I had to leave. “I have to fly to London in a few days’ time to be with my mother, and I will think about it. I just don’t know if I can go on living like this,” I said, and I opened up my arms to indicate the space we were standing in. “I know I can’t stay with Colin, but if I lived here with you, what would I be?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have an answer.
I dragged myself to the door and I didn’t look back.
Richard
Silvio blows me a kiss. The shock of long, dark, unruly hair is swept across his smiling face by a sudden gust of wind. It’s peppered with grey now, but he retains the same, boyish good looks, which attracted me to him across a crowded bar many years ago. He pulls an elastic hairband from his pocket and draws the hair back into an untidy ponytail.
When he gets to work, his mother will loudly demand that he get a haircut and, after a bit of lively banter, he’ll respond by drawing her into his arms and planting a kiss on the top of her head. It’s become a kind of ritual: Silvio’s diminutive mamma admonishing him with a wagging finger and Silvio pretending to be first offended then crestfallen and apologetic, even though they both know that the hair will remain uncut until it touches his shoulders.
This is what I love most about the Mazzi family: the parry and riposte of angry exchanges, which always end with a loving embrace – so different from my own family relationships.
He makes a dash across the street to where his car is parked on the other side. Before he climbs into the car, he points at me then points at his phone. “Do it now, Ricardo!” he shouts. “Non aspettare fino a domani!”
“I won’t wait until tomorrow, I promise,” I shout back.
The last time I saw my mother was three days ago, and every day I’ve told myself I must phone the hospital for an update, but every day an email or a text message or a phone call has interrupted this train of thought and I’ve got side-tracked into doing something else.
Silvio is appalled at my inertia, but I’ve reassured myself with the thought that at least she’s in a safe environment being cared for by people who know what they’re doing. Silvio thinks this isn’t enough, hence the demand to put it off no longer.
After several frustrating attempts, I get through to the ward and am then asked to wait for the nurse responsible for my mother’s care today. Minutes later, a woman with a warm, friendly voice asks me to confirm who I am then she tells me that her name is Kelly and that she’s just spoken to my mother. She says, “You really need to speak to her doctor, Mr Oakley.”
“Is she okay?”
“Well, she’s developed a UTI, so we’re giving her antibiotics. That’s a urinary tract…”
“I know what a UTI is,” I interrupt her. “How did that happen?”
“Oh, it’s not uncommon for elderly patients to get problems with their waterworks when they’re in hospital. They don’t drink enough, that’s the usual reason.”
“Isn’t that something you should be monitoring?” I say. “Getting an infection – that doesn’t sound good to me. I thought she was being moved to another bed for rehabilitation?”
Nurse Kelly’s cheery tone holds a hint of strained impatience when she replies. “That’s what will happen, yes, but Mrs Oakley isn’t ready to be moved on yet. We’ll be keeping her where she is on Sparrow Ward for a couple of days while she’s receiving medication. If you have any further questions, then you need to speak to her doctor.”
I realise that I don’t know who her doctor is, but I don’t want to sound like the uncaring son who not only can’t be bothered to visit but hasn’t even taken note of the person in whose care he’s left her, so I ask if I can speak to my mother directly.
“It might be better if you come in, Mr Oakley,” she says. “Your mother’s not quite herself this morning, she’s a bit confused.”
“Confused?”
“It’s not uncommon in these situations.”
“What situation?”
“Speak to the doctor, Mr Oakley. I’ll tell your mother you called. Okay?”
I’m not okay, but Nurse Kelly has already rung off, so I’m left to ruminate. What does that even mean, ‘confused’? I’ve read that infections in elderly people can cause them to become disorientated, sometimes agitated, aggressive even, but is that what she was saying? Or was she referring to some other as yet undisclosed ‘situation’?
I clearly have no choice but to go back to the hospital as soon as I can and speak to someone who can answer my questions clearly and authoritatively because the decision over whether my mother can continue to live on her own is going to become even more complicated if there are other health issues to consider.
I leave a message on Silvio’s voicemail telling him that I won’t be home till later this evening then plan the rest of my day around returning to the hospital even though work is piling up with each passing minute.
Hotel Albatross – as everyone associated with the project now refers to it – is still waiting to transform into Hotel Phoenix and rise from the ashes of each
set of architect’s drawings, which are consigned to the rubbish bin as our client changes her mind for the umpteenth time. The foundations of the building were completed nearly two weeks ago, but the whole project has been put on hold while we negotiate the changes, which she demands on what feels like a daily basis. I know that the whole morning will have to be spent making phone calls to placate one contractor or supplier after another, and the costs are mounting daily, but just as I’m about to make the first of those many phone calls, my own phone rings. It’s Julia.
“I thought I’d better check with you what’s happening before I book my flight,” she says. She sounds breathless, anxious even.
“Well, Mum’s still in hospital,” I tell her. “She’s got a UTI and possibly some other complication – I spoke to a nurse on the ward, but they won’t ever tell you very much, so I have to go in and speak to her doctor.”
“What kind of complication?”
“I don’t know!”
“I thought it was routine, hip replacement surgery?”
“I don’t think it’s anything to do with the surgery.”
There’s a small, pregnant pause, and I assume that Julia is rethinking her decision to fly home, but she says, “I’m going to try to get on a flight in the morning.”
“So soon?”
“You told me you need me there.”
“I do, but probably not quite yet. I know you’re busy with the gallery and I don’t want to inconvenience you more than is necessary.” Even to my own ears, this sounds dangerously like sarcasm, but she doesn’t respond in the way that I’m anticipating.
“It’s fine. I’ve got everything organised now. Colin isn’t very happy about me leaving with an open-ended ticket. Although I don’t know why,” she adds, almost as an aside. “It’s not like I’m planning to stay.”
I’m completely taken aback, and I hurry to tell her how much I appreciate her giving up her time and how happy our mother will be to see her.
“Well, let’s hope this complication isn’t something serious,” she says, “because I’m not leaving Singapore to look after her, Richard.”