by Jo Furniss
Camille knew, because she’d related the Bonham family schedule to the cleaners earlier, that Josie attended an after-school class in advanced coding. She asked a boy for directions, and he pointed to where “Geek Club,” as he called it, met in the senior library. She took the stairs and came to a room that resembled a groovy bookstore, with librarians’ suggestions laid out in piles on tables and a coffee bar at one end. A group of students occupied a work space in the center, attended by a teacher. After a few minutes, they packed up and exited in a gaggle, and Camille stepped into their path and asked for Josie. One girl jabbed a thumb backward over her shoulder without breaking stride. Camille wondered how much of a misfit you had to be to get rejected by the geeks.
Inside the library, a girl remained at the central work space, hammering at her laptop, a textbook open by her side. A long sweep of dark hair obscured her face. Camille watched her brush it over a shoulder and noticed that her face was pale, her skin sallow in a country where people literally glowed with sunshine. The teacher held the door open as he called out, “Home time, Josie.” The girl said something Camille couldn’t hear, and the teacher’s reply was brusque: “Security will chuck you out.” When she carried on typing, he let the door drop and jogged down the stairs.
Camille went inside just as Josie stood, carefully placing her belongings inside a backpack and fixing it shut with a neat bow.
“Josie Bonham?”
The girl’s head snapped up, revealing extreme cat-eye makeup. She swung the bag defensively onto one shoulder, which she kept turned to the newcomer. She carried melancholy like the placard of a lone protester, but Camille pressed on, introducing herself as a volunteer for HELP, an organization that protected the rights of foreign domestic workers.
“Our helper died,” Josie said, pulling lush hair off her face into a band. “She was only eighteen. Is that why you’re here?”
Camille explained that Awmi was the latest in a spate of suicides. “At HELP, we campaign to highlight the mental health challenges faced by helpers.”
Josie turned to face Camille. “It’s important what you’re doing because some of them have a rough time.”
“They do. Did you say your helper was eighteen?” Camille asked.
“She liked to call herself Auntie, but it was a joke because we’re basically the same age. We made the same joke over and over because her English wasn’t very good, but she found it really funny. I’m sure she said she was eighteen. Is that okay?”
“The minimum age for helpers in Singapore is twenty-three. But a lot of girls from Burma get false passports and lie about their age.”
“Will Amanda get in trouble? It’s not fair if she does because she paid an agency to do the paperwork, so it’s not her fault if they got the age wrong. Maybe Awmi didn’t know her real age because in some countries they don’t have proper documents or even know their date of birth. Awmi said a woman came to her village to recruit girls and took her away the next day, and they came straight to Singapore. She hadn’t even seen a washing machine before she got to our apartment.” Josie stopped and licked the corners of her lips. “She was quite bad at laundry, actually, so I started handwashing my stuff in the bathroom sink.” She glanced up from under her thick fringe, and Camille saw that her wide-set eyes were swimming. “Not that that’s important now.”
Camille touched her lightly on the arm. “It sounds as though you listened to her.”
Josie ground the toe of her Converse against a crack in the wooden flooring, working off a sliver of oak. She wore socks and full-length leggings; even her sleeves were long, layered under a school shirt. Apart from being inappropriate for the climate, her dress was a contrast to the usual expat-brat uniform of as much bare skin as possible.
“So is this your job?” Josie asked.
“I work at the British High Commission as a press officer. But I studied human rights law. Some people don’t have a voice, so I donate my skills to let them be heard.”
“Why didn’t you become a lawyer?”
“So many questions!” Camille glanced around as though someone might rescue her, but Josie didn’t flinch. “Too impatient, I suppose. I wanted to get a job. Get to Singapore.”
“Is it bad to have a helper? Is it like modern slavery?”
“No, I don’t think that at all. But it’s wrong that helpers are dependent on the goodwill of their employers. All workers—including migrants—should be protected by law.”
“But why do you care?” Josie bent down to pick up the splinter and turned it in her thin fingers. “The world is full of refugees. Child soldiers. Prisoners on death row. Why helpers?”
“I’ve been thinking about that recently. I grew up in Singapore with a helper. My parents took me to boarding school in the UK, and I thought I would see her when I came back, but . . .” Camille wanted to reach out and take the shard of wood from Josie’s hands before she cut herself on the sharp edge. “But I didn’t get to come back. So I don’t know what happened to her.”
“You never saw her again?”
“She was too old to apply for another job in Singapore, so she was sent home. And I didn’t know her surname—I just called her Lani—so I could never find her.”
“Didn’t your parents know her name?”
Camille gave a tight shake of her head. Josie turned the splinter one last time and flicked it with a deadeye shot into the wastepaper bin. “Awmi asked my dad for help.”
“Oh?” Camille’s pulse picked up.
“She needed an advance on her salary.”
“Did he give her the money?”
“Said he would transfer it to her account.” Josie’s eyes sought hers, eager for approval. “Do you think the reason she needed money had something to do with it?”
“Do you know how much?”
“You’d have to ask him.” The girl’s eyes darted away now, worried she had said too much.
Camille smiled reassuringly and explained that maids often requested advances for perfectly legitimate reasons, such as sending presents for a child’s birthday.
“Awmi didn’t have children; she was only eighteen.”
“Well, I suppose it can be a sign of trouble,” Camille went on. “Moneylenders—they call them ah longs in Singapore—take advantage of helpers. They give the women contracts in a language they don’t understand. But the helpers do it because agencies deduct their salary for months to recoup the cost of bringing them to Singapore, leaving them with nothing.”
“Amanda paid Awmi direct. We didn’t treat her like a slave.”
“Of course not.” Camille’s mouth was moving, forming words, telling Josie about the problems that helpers face when they first arrive and don’t have anyone to turn to, but her brain was spinning counterclockwise, scrolling back through the conversation. Why had Awmi gone to Edward Bonham for an advance when Amanda paid the girl’s salary? “But”—she had to be careful now—“it sounds as though your helper did have someone to turn to?”
“My dad speaks Burmese. Only ten words or so, but Awmi found it a-maze-ing.” Josie flicked her fringe aside to give her eyes more room to roll. “I think she was a little bit in love with him. She did this giggle . . .” Josie placed the back of her hand over her lips and kicked one heel out behind. “Dad found it embarrassing. Who knows, maybe her crush had something to do with what happened? Unrequited love? It’s not like he would be interested in a girl like her, is it?” She swung her backpack onto her shoulder, her arms ending in a defensive knot across her breasts. Camille was considering Josie’s last comment as a janitor clattered a bucket and mop into the library.
“Time to go home sweet home,” Josie sighed. Camille watched the girl leave, wondering which one of them Josie’s statement about her father’s innocence was designed to convince.
Chapter 7
Cash made Amanda nervous. Especially the plasticized Singapore dollars that slid around in her hand like toy money. She lifted the lid of a ginger jar and dropped in a w
ad: $600 from selling her Louboutins at Starbucks to a woman with fingers still greasy from a muffin. The roll of notes hit the bottom, and she heard it unfurl with a shrug. If only she could shrug off the sense that she too was unraveling. Ed and his furtive activities, Awmi and her secret life. The apartment was so bright and so quiet, you wouldn’t think so much could remain in the dark and hush-hush.
She lifted a small jar and assessed its weight. Maybe there was an innocent reason why Ed had condoms. His leather travel bag predated Amanda; he’d had it for years. The condoms hadn’t expired, but she had no clue when he might have purchased them. She would ask him straight out, get it off her mind . . . once he came home . . . once she came up with an excuse for why she had been snooping in the first place.
The lift gave a dull chime, and Amanda put the lid on the ginger jar just as the mirrored doors slid aside and Josie stepped into the hallway.
“Oh, hey.”
As Josie shed her rucksack, Amanda stretched her hand toward her stepdaughter’s arm, hovering an inch above the sleeve. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Well, a woman died in our kitchen, but apart from that . . .” Josie picked up the bag again, as though realizing that no one was going to clean up after her now.
Amanda forced a calm expression onto her face. “Are you hungry? You’ve had a long day.”
Josie walked a few steps toward the now-inappropriately red kitchen. Her giraffe legs crossed as she stopped and hugged herself, pulling her school shirt tight, the logo of a dragon stretching across her shoulder blades. “I don’t feel like eating.”
Amanda took the rucksack out of her hand. “Freshen up and I’ll bring you a snack. Maybe we’ll go for a swim before dinner?”
“How can you act normal when we don’t know what happened?” said Josie.
“We know what happened. The police said it was suicide. It’s horrible; I feel sick thinking about it.” Amanda busied herself by dragging out a water bottle strangled by a damp swimming kit. She handed back the empty bag. Josie waited, eyeing the kitchen. The silence seemed to squeeze Amanda until more words were forced out. “We bought her an iPad and you set up Skype so she could speak to her sisters. Do you remember?”
Josie shook her head, her wide eyes scrunched under messy brows. “Something must have pushed her. No one gets that homesick.” She shifted the bag onto her other shoulder. “I’m leaving home soon.”
“Next year. And it’s different—you’re going to university, you’ll make friends, start a career.” Amanda gestured toward the huge windows, as though Josie’s bright future was out there, ready to come flooding in.
“Wasn’t this Awmi’s career? Just because I’m destined for a profession and she cleaned floors doesn’t make her life any less valid.”
“I wasn’t saying that—”
“Do you think it had something to do with the ah longs?” Josie said.
“What are ah longs?”
“Moneylenders.”
“Awmi was involved with moneylenders?” Amanda moved around to face Josie, and the gesture seemed to trigger a switch that shut off the conversation. The girl pressed her lips together and then licked the corners of her mouth like a cat. “Josie?”
“She asked dad for money.”
“Why?”
Josie wiped her mouth with a fist. “I thought he told you. He gave her an advance. That’s all I know.”
“When was this?”
“A couple of weeks ago.”
“Why would she borrow from moneylenders?” Amanda didn’t ask the other question that leaped to mind: Why didn’t he tell me?
“We should have told the police,” Josie said.
“We don’t even know it was moneylenders.”
“Well, there must be something that pushed her over the edge, because she was totally fine, full of beans, and then—boom—she’s dead on the floor. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think suicide makes sense to anyone except the person doing it.”
“Don’t lecture me about suicide.” Josie wheeled off toward her room. She stopped with her fingertips on the door handle and spoke without turning back. “Sometimes, Amanda, you could just . . .”
“What?”
“Stop talking a bit sooner. While it’s going well.” She slammed into the bedroom, leaving Amanda alone in the hallway. The elevator doors trembled as the lift navigated its empty void. She lifted one foot off the cold tile as though she were literally going to kick herself. If I had any maternal skills, I would know when to stop talking. She turned toward the kitchen. If I had any maternal skills, every fetus wouldn’t bail out of my womb.
She bustled through the motions of pouring a glass of water, went to the cupboard, and forgot why she’d come to that side of the room. Josie’s revelation echoed back to her. She grabbed her phone from its charger, navigated to online banking, and logged in. The balance of their joint account had miraculously topped itself up, as it did every month, its rise and fall like a tide, out of her control. Scrolling back through transactions, she spotted a payment of $2,500 into an unidentified account. Almost two weeks ago. Ed’s loan to Awmi? With only an account number listed, there was no way to tell. She called the bank and verified that she was the account holder.
“Are you on an Employment Pass, ma’am?”
“I have a Dependant’s Pass. My husband holds the Employment Pass. But the account is registered in both our names.”
“Mr. Bonham is the account holder; only he can request more information about this transaction.”
“I just want to know the name of the account that received this $2,500 payment.”
“Mr. Bonham is welcome to request that information.”
“But the account is in both our names.” Amanda said this last part very slowly.
“Yes, ma’am. But he has the Employment Pass.”
There was a long silence. In the background, she could hear the hubbub of a call center, the soundtrack of working life.
“Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mrs. Bonham?”
Amanda drew in a long breath. “I understand that in your eyes a Dependant’s Pass means I am a second-class citizen and must be treated like a child.” Her lips trembled with the effort not to spit. “But I am a joint holder of this account, it is my money, and I have a right to know where the payment has gone.”
“The Employment Pass holder can make a request for additional information. If Mr. Bonham could instruct us—”
“Mr. Bonham is out of the country. Aren’t you concerned that money is being fraudulently removed from our account?”
“We are very concerned about fraud, ma’am. And Mr. Bonham is welcome to contact our twenty-four-hour customer service at any time to request further assistance.” The voice was triumphant, beatific, with the air of a cult member. Amanda paused to settle her flailing mind. No doubt this corporate automaton would think her rich. Rich and angry, like all the female ang mohs, these high-maintenance Western women.
“Can you see the balance of this account?” Amanda asked in a low tone.
“Yes, ma’am. You have more than a million dollars.” She gave a two-syllable laugh.
“Where do you think that money came from?”
“I can’t say.”
“Do you assume that Mr. Bonham earns the money and Mrs. Bonham spends it?”
“Ma’am, I—”
“I may be a dependent in Singapore, but back in England I had a life. I owned property. A house. Half the balance of this account is the profit I made when I sold my house. Mine, bought and paid for by me long before Mr. Bonham came along. And now you’re telling me I don’t have the right to inquire about payments made with my own money because I only have a Dependant’s Pass?”
“The Employment Pass holder can make a request for additional information. If Mr. Bonham could instruct us—”
Amanda jabbed her finger on the red button, longing for an old-fashioned phone that she could rip out of the wall and fli
ng across the room, where it would curl up in a corner like a vanquished snake. Instead, she flung open a cupboard door and clattered out Josie’s favorite bowl—kid’s melamine so faded she could barely make out the shadow of Eeyore.
She’d behaved like a typical ang moh on the phone: arrogant, angry, aggressive. But the rules are so unfair; why do women accept it? She slashed a banana into slices while her breathing slowed. Because in so many areas of life—fertility, aging, love—choice is an illusion.
She turned to the fridge to get yogurt. That moth was back, flattened on the balcony door, its ugly face leering. She strode over and flicked the glass. The moth shuddered. Why had Ed given money to Awmi? Why keep it secret? Did he simply forget? But $2,500—such a substantial amount. Why did Awmi need—?
Ah. Pregnant Awmi. Facing deportation or abortion. But if she’d wanted money for a termination, why not ask Amanda—woman to woman?
She tried to halt her mind. Tried not to think the next thought, one that connected an unwanted pregnancy to the condoms in Ed’s travel bag. Unless Awmi couldn’t tell me. Because I would ask after the father.
Her heart stumbled in her chest. This was even worse than the anonymous encounters on far-flung continents that she’d imagined. Her husband taking advantage of a vulnerable woman—in their own home. The implications made her light-headed. She slopped yogurt into Josie’s bowl and steadied herself before snatching up the tray. The living area was still scented from the jasmine Awmi had picked the night she died, but now Amanda wished she could open a window and air the place. At Josie’s room, she kicked the base of the door and it swung open. “Can I come in?” At her desk under the window, Josie snapped her laptop shut like a clam.
Amanda looked around for somewhere to deposit the tray, but every surface was covered with Josie’s childhood ephemera. A museum of herself. The only space was on the bedside table, so she set the tray atop a journal, beside a framed photo of Josie, still a plump-faced toddler, holding a rainbow lollipop the size of her own head. Next to it, a teenage Josie and her mother, ruddy-cheeked on an English cliff. Ed must have taken this photo; it was so intimate. Josie looked as though she’d just plunged a foot into an icy puddle, but the woman was all white teeth and sparkling eyes despite the winter wind. Despite knowing—as she must have done even while smiling into the camera—that at the top of these several hundred feet of shale and sheep shit she would take her own life. Amanda winced, remembering the lecture she’d doled out to Josie about suicide.