The Trailing Spouse

by Jo Furniss

  “It’s one spliff. You don’t get hanged for one spliff.”

  He moved to top up her wine, but she laid a palm over her empty glass.

  “But you do get deported. Employment Pass revoked. No appeal. Out of the country within weeks. Josie yanked out of school. All this, gone.” She waved her hand around their apartment and the sea view and the swimming pool glowing from thirty stories below. “Where did you hide it, anyway? Not inside the Prada wallet, surely? That’s the first thing customs would have opened if they’d picked you out.”

  “I’m not stupid, Amanda.” Ed knocked back the dregs of the Bloody Mary. “It was up my bum.” He burst into a cough, either laughing or choking on pepper. She handed him the wine bottle, and he took a swig to clear his throat before slapping himself on the chest. “It wasn’t up my bum. Honest. Bernardo brought a couple back in his shoe.”

  “I’ve never trusted that guy.”

  “He’s too well connected for his own good. Thinks there are no consequences; for him there probably aren’t. But he also knows a lot of people with the cash to buy private jets.”

  “Please don’t come through the airport with him if he’s going to pull that kind of stunt.”

  “Shall we get rid of the evidence then?” Ed held out the joint and a plastic lighter, grinning. The full beam of her husband’s attention landed a spark in her kindling. Giggling and flirting—this is how they were once. Before infertility sucked the joy out of intimacy, turning each encounter into a test fraught with failure. If Ed had been seeking cheap thrills elsewhere, then Amanda could understand the need for escape, levity, a chance to act without thought of the consequences. Except—unlike that spoiled brat, Bernardo—there were consequences for the less privileged. Awmi, for example, left holding a baby.

  She took the joint out of his fingers and laid it on the counter. “I need to talk to you about Awmi.”

  Ed refilled his glass with wine. “What about?”

  “Did you give her money last month?”

  He sipped his drink, eyes locked on hers over the rim. Although she was watching for his reaction, she somehow felt that she was the one being sized up. “How did you know?”

  Amanda’s heart faltered. “Josie. And the payment on the bank statement. Was it for ah longs?”

  “What are ah longs?”

  Not moneylenders then. She gulped her wine. “Was it because she was pregnant?”

  Ed’s gaze dropped for the first time, and he turned the wheel of the lighter. “I didn’t want to upset you. You seem so brittle after the last miscarriage. And she was frightened of going home after her family scrimped and saved to send her here, so I paid for an abortion—”

  “Who was the father, Ed?”

  He picked up the joint, turning the delicate parcel in his fingers. “Not my place to ask.”

  “Why did she go to you and not me?”

  Ed flicked the lighter into flame. “She knew what you’d been through. She was young and naive, but not stupid. Women lose babies in Burma too. We agreed it was best you didn’t know.” He pulled Amanda close and kissed her forehead. She laid her hands flat on his chest. “We’ll get there one day. I can already see them running about, our kids. Reckon we’ll have twins. One little arsehole like me and a beauty called Edwina. Look, there they go now.” He held up her wrist and made her hand crazy wave so that their distorted reflections crazy waved back from the window. “It’ll happen, Amanda. We have to hold our nerve.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” She glanced again at the window, but the twins had turned away, dejected.

  “Then we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, and lead a full life of decadence and freedom and long lie-ins.”

  “But what if it doesn’t feel like a full life? What if I never get past it? What if I lead half a life? Because I’ve only lived half a life so far, and it’s not been very satisfying.” In response to a look that suggested he was about to mansplain her feelings, she pushed on. “It’s true, Ed. I’ve got no siblings, no career, no friends in Singapore, and my old schoolmates lost interest once my parents were too broke for me to keep up with them. I’m not a sister and hardly even a daughter. I’ll never be an aunt or a bridesmaid. I’m no one’s best friend, no one’s confidant, no one’s colleague or mentor. I’m never the go-to girl or someone who gets a phone call in the middle of the night when the shit hits the fan. I will never be any of these things. But I thought that one day I might be a mother. Because right now, I feel like a ghost. I need flesh and blood to bring me to life.”

  “But you are a mother, aren’t you? A stepmother to Josie. And you’re a wife. My wife.” Ed caught both her hands. “So I’m your flesh and blood.” Cordite from the lighter lingered in the air, reminding Amanda of the New Year’s Eve fireworks the night they met. She took the joint from his hand.

  “Switch on the extractor fan then.”

  Ed lit the spliff, holding it to her lips. She hesitated and took a nip, then when the warmth swaddled her, pressing the creases out of her thoughts, she inhaled again. After a few shared drags, the haze of smoke swirled into a galaxy of white wisps and floating black orbs. Amanda reached out a hand to touch her—“Eggs.” She said it out loud.

  Ed bent double into silent laughter: “What the hell does that mean?”

  She waited for him to stop laughing and when he didn’t, she took hold of the whorl of his hair and tipped his head back to look her in the face. “I don’t want to stop fertility treatment, not even for a rest. I want to transfer the last two embryos. Did you know I can hear them, sometimes, jostling together in the cold? You think I’m nuts, but it’s real. It’s instinct. They’re alive, or at least they’re . . . dormant. They need me.” There was a pause that may have been a beat or an entire drumroll. “And if I’m not pregnant soon, I want to file adoption papers.”

  Ed curved his head out of her grip and straightened, moving his body as though slotting bones back into place. He sucked the spliff down to his fingertips and offered a last drag to Amanda, but she shook her head and let him stub it out in a teacup. His last swirl of breath enchanted her for a few seconds before being sucked away into the fan.

  “No adoption.” His words were as light but as lingering as the smoke.

  She shook her head again, and its contents took a moment to catch up. “Can’t we at least discuss it?”

  “It’s not the same, loving another person’s child,” he said.

  “I love Josie, don’t I? Like you just said. And a new baby wouldn’t be another person’s. It would be ours.”

  “We’re not up to it.” Ed threw back the remains of the wine. “The pressure could break us.”

  “A child would bring us together.”

  “No adoption. And no treatment for a while, please? If we get pregnant naturally, then great, but take a break. You treat it like you’re in training for an Iron Man competition.”

  “But we don’t get pregnant naturally—”

  “We’re good at trying.” He put his wineglass to Amanda’s lips, holding her chin steady like the priest at her convent school mass. She drank up, her tongue scraping the caustic tannin that coated the back of her teeth, and let him take her hand and lead her out of the kitchen, leaving the extractor fan on full blast. In the chill of the bedroom, she sank into the mattress with her arm and her gaze flung toward the heaving boats, while the other palm rested on the nape of Ed’s neck, grazed by his velveteen hairline. His tongue etched her surface, and she closed her eyes, following his progress from beneath her skin as though she were trapped under a sheet of ice. It deadened the sound of his breathing, blurred the light, narrowed her focus to a sharp point of sensation until she herself was drowned out. Time ducked and dived and she became conscious of floating, alone now, and pulled the duvet over her chilled torso and sat up and focused on the offshore ships, wavering spots of light like deep-sea creatures. She unraveled her wrist from the bedsheet, got up, and found her bathrobe on the floor.

  Ed was flat ou
t, her neon panties crumpled beneath his long thigh. Time returned like a camera flash, and she recalled the noise they’d made. God, what if Josie had come home? Her hand pressed down on her mouth as she remembered that even Ed had laughed at one point and shushed into her ear. And had they left the spliff in a teacup in the kitchen?

  She opened the bedroom door and peeped down the hallway. Josie’s door was closed. The roar of the extractor fan blasted down the hallway. Her bare feet squeaked on the marble as she scuttled to the kitchen, pocketed the butt of the spliff, and clicked off the din. She washed the smell of cannabis off her fingers at the kitchen sink. In the living room, Ed’s music was still playing. “Chocolate Girl” by Deacon Blue, one of the old bands that made him maudlin. Amanda heard how his chocolate girl was sheathed in silver, snapped in two, and swallowed. She turned off the speaker.

  Her mobile phone was on the coffee table, next to the new leather wallet. A text blinked. Josie: Gone to a late movie. At least she hadn’t heard her stepmother squealing. Amanda sent a reply to say that Ed was home but they’d turned in for the night. She sat on the sofa and slipped the Prada into its dustcover. She would sell it on SOWs. In its original wrapping, it should fetch $2,000. The price of an embryo transfer.

  She clicked through to the Facebook page. Even late at night, SOWs were out in force. Someone had a cobra on their patio. Someone sought a piano tuner. Someone needed to seal her teenager’s bedroom window for fear of exam-time suicide.

  Her thumb was hovering over the “Logout” button when her eyes focused on a new post. It was a fuzzy photo taken in dim disco lights of a man with one arm raised over his head, dancing groin-first against a scantily clad girl.

  Is this your husband?! Ladies, I spotted this loser with a wedding ring and a stripper at Orchard Towers. Does this man belong to you? #PublicServiceAnnouncement

  Orchard Towers: a building full of bars offering ladyboys and cheap girls. In just a few minutes, the post had attracted a shitstorm of comments, from “poor wife” to “poor guy” to “this is like watching puritans with pitchforks pushing adulterers onto the scaffold in the town square.” The post was irresponsible, no question. But Amanda double-clicked the image.

  The guy was a tall Caucasian, with long limbs and dark hair. Jeans and a blue shirt. His face was partially hidden behind the raised arm. As she zoomed in closer, the picture grew as fuzzy as her mind, pixelated by the spliff. There was something about his posture . . . Her breathing shallowed as she saw the way he had the dancer’s long hair wrapped in one hand, exactly the way Ed had just held her down in their marital bed. But surely not. The joint had made her paranoid. Running around the flat worrying about a stepdaughter who wasn’t even there.

  But the man in the picture did look a lot like Ed. Holding that woman’s hair.

  Was it so unbelievable? You heard it all the time: the magnetism between beautiful Asian women and rich ang mohs. Why should Ed be any different? What made him so special that he wouldn’t stray? No, nagged a nasty voice in her head, what makes you so special that he wouldn’t stray? Amanda put her hand to her mouth and smelled a sharp tang of bleach. And what makes you so sure he’s telling the truth about Awmi?

  Chapter 10

  After a night disturbed by dreams of Ed with his hands twined in dark hair, Amanda was woken by his predawn alarm. She feigned sleep until he left for the airport. Feeling heavy and sluggish, she stayed in bed until a surprise phone call cleared her head. She barely had time to shower and dress before her mother arrived, striding into the apartment without preamble as though it was normal to turn up in Singapore on a whim.

  “Edward not here?” said Laura. “He certainly gets around.”

  A picture of Ed’s hands flashed into her mind again, and she wondered if the image came from her dream or the photo posted on SOWs. “He took the early flight to Tokyo.” Her mother could hardly criticize, considering her own nomadic lifestyle. “He’s traveling more than usual at the moment. Nature of his business, I suppose.”

  “It’s not good for a marriage. You start living separate lives.”

  “He only goes away for a night or two.”

  “It adds up.”

  Laura always blew in like a tropical storm, a tussle between hot and cold. Her ship, the MV Guanyin, had docked at neighboring Batam Island for repairs—an unexpected pit stop en route to Thailand—and Laura decided she had time to make the short ferry ride to pay her daughter a visit. And go to Marks and Spencer. She fished a compact out of her handbag and swiped powder across her forehead and down her nose. “Men are good at compartmentalizing,” she said and closed the compact with a click. Amanda plunged the cafetière and muttered that she didn’t know what her mother was getting at. “I mean, Amanda, they’re like babies; women grow sentimental about them, but the reality is, they’ll suck on any old tit.”

  Amanda placed a cup on the low table in front of Laura and turned the handle to make it easier for her to pick up. Both women watched the coffee steam.

  “Mother . . .”

  “I know. I’m bitter.”

  “Which is not surprising in the circumstances. But Ed is no baby.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  “You hardly know him. Maybe if you’d come to the wedding—”

  “What did you expect at such short notice?” Laura got up and went over to the ginger jars, toyed with a few lids, producing a short melody of porcelain chimes. A dud note sounded from the pot stuffed with condoms, but luckily she didn’t investigate further.

  “How is Dad?” Amanda asked.

  Laura came back to the sofa and picked up her cup. “He’s basing himself in Sri Lanka. For this women’s clinic project. Not a chance of getting the funding, but it’s become quite the obsession.”

  “How is he?”

  “Happy as a pig in muck. He’s in love. Thinks I don’t know. And she thinks there’s money. I should show her the state of my underwear. But it’s not my business anymore, is it?”

  “That’s not a healthy situation.”

  Laura eyed the sea. She might be the first person to enter the apartment without praising the view.

  “How long are you sailing this time?” Amanda asked.

  “I’ll give it a year to let her star fade. I can stay out of his way on the ship, cover as many ports as we can reach in Southeast Asia. So long as he doesn’t aggravate my donors.” Laura spoke to the horizon, replaying an argument she’d obviously had many times before. “The American church groups are too conservative to fund his clinic. I told him this. They support my library ship because of the Christian literature we carry. If we slip in a few women’s health pamphlets along the way, no one needs to know. But this clinic in Colombo—a family planning center by any other name—it’s too much. He’s promised not to target my donors again, but woe betide him if he brings down my ship.”

  It’s all I’ve got left, Amanda thought.

  “After all,” said her mother, “it’s all I’ve got left.”

  You’ve got me. I’m left.

  But instead she said, “Marks and Sparks? Shall we cheer ourselves up with some new knickers?” The first sip of coffee felt like it would sear a hole in her gut, so she took the cup through to the kitchen and poured it away. Breakfast dishes were still in the sink, and a line of ants formed a highway along the counter. Awmi would throw her hands up in despair at the state of her kitchen. Amanda’s mobile rang. The screen read “SCHOOL.”

  “This is Kelvin Milne. Josie’s head of year? I haven’t been able to reach your husband, so I wondered if you might be able to pop in for a chat today?”

  “My mother is visiting—”

  “It’s serious, I’m afraid. It’s about Josie’s online activities. She breached our code of conduct, and we have issued a suspension. But this conversation would be better in person . . .”

  Suspension? “Please just tell me what happened.”

  He paused, and Amanda heard running feet, shrill voices, the hubbub of school
life. “It came to our attention that Josie invited fellow students to a forum hosted on a website concealed inside the dark web.”

  “Oh,” Amanda said, relieved. “Is this her blog? A-scribble-of-a-girl? I looked it up on my phone, but I can’t read it—it needs a password to enter.”

  “If you looked it up on your phone, then no, it’s not the same website. The site I’m talking about is called Sexteen. I’ve been unable to visit it myself because our devices on campus are blocked from accessing that part of the Internet. Are you aware of the dark web, Mrs. Bonham?”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “It’s the Wild West of the cyber world. It’s accessible only with the appropriate software and know-how—or should I say inappropriate software and know-how. We’re talking hackers, drug dealers, criminals, plus of course pedophiles.”

  “What was Josie doing there?”

  “As I say, I haven’t been able to see for myself. The students who reported her activities—and there have been several—tell me it’s a discussion forum where they talk about exam stress, bullying, peer pressure. Innocent in itself, but the content isn’t the problem; it’s the fact that Josie has recruited students onto the dark web and exposed them to . . . well, goodness knows who or what she’s exposed them to. We requested she shut down the forum or move it to a safe location, and when she refused, we felt a one-week suspension, starting today, was the best course of action. We’ve already sent her home.”

  Amanda started to pace. “She’s got exams.”

  “She’s an exceptional student. She can study at home and contact her teachers by email if necessary. The intention is to minimize contact with other students—”

  That made her scoff. “How can you minimize contact if they’re chatting on the dark web?”

  “Cyber risk is a challenge, but . . . ,” he droned on.

  “She’s had a difficult time recently, Kelvin. We had a shock this week because our helper died—”