The Trailing Spouse

by Jo Furniss

  “They’ll be trying to contact you soon.”

  “But I’m not there. I can’t go back, can I?” she said. “They’re going to find out I was here. I’ve got no alibi. And the fact that I came on a false passport makes it look worse. They’ll say I killed them both.”

  “What else can you do?”

  Amanda didn’t answer. She stirred her coffee with a spoon so slender it seemed like it ought to melt.

  “We only came here to find my parents,” Camille said. “Ed was helping me.”

  “Did you find them?”

  “They’re long gone.” Camille hesitated. “I didn’t sleep with your husband. To be honest, I would have if he’d tried, I felt so lost. But he said he didn’t cheat.”

  Amanda held up one palm to make her stop. The queue moved forward, and Camille stepped into a space at the counter. “Two one-way tickets to Singapore.” And then to Amanda: “I’ll need your passport.”

  “I’m not going to Singapore. I just need to make a call.” She dug into her pocket and came out with a few soft notes. “I won’t need a passport. My mother knows who I am.”

  Camille gathered all the kyat from her purse and pressed it into Amanda’s hands. “Take this. I’m sorry it’s not more, but I can only get so much out of the ATM.”

  Amanda took one of the larger notes and handed the rest back. “This is all I need.” She walked away to a phone kiosk.

  Camille faced the counter. “One ticket to Singapore. Just one.”

  When Camille got to the gate, she watched figures moving inside the cockpit of the aircraft. The scene was lit by yellow floodlights that hit her tired eyes like handfuls of flung sand. The row of seats rocked slightly as someone sat next to her. She resisted the urge to tut; even with all the available space in the lounge, some guy had to crowd her. She hoped he wouldn’t try to strike up a conversation—

  “Good evening, Camille.”

  She turned to see Josh.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for my press team.”

  “But we just spoke—”

  “There’s this newfangled device called a mobile phone. When I couldn’t reach you today, I tried your emergency contact—your brother—and he told me you’d come to Yangon. Thought I’d better see if you’re okay. I’d just landed when I got the call about Bonham.”

  Camille pushed herself back into the cup of the seat and watched the activity on the tarmac for a few seconds before she spoke again. “Thank you for coming here for me, but I’m going to resign from the British High Commission. I’m sorry. I’ve been offered a job with Sharmila Menon as a paralegal working on human rights cases. I’m going to accept when I get back.”

  “You can take some time to think it over.”

  She shook her head. “I need to do something good with my life.”

  Josh’s brow rose. “It seems to me that you have a lot of good in your life. A brother who cares for you, friends and colleagues who want you home safe. So much career potential. And at least one person who would like to make sure he has enough cash in his pocket next time to buy you a drink. Especially if you’re no longer his employee.” He tapped one finger on his chin, and the row of chairs stirred beneath Camille. “Plus, I’ve got something for you.” He held out a Post-it note.

  She read his elegant scrawl. Leilani Nullas. An address in Quezon City, near Manila.

  “What is this?”

  “I put in a request at the Ministry of Manpower. Via a contact. The last known address for a maid called Lani—I assume Lani is short for Leilani—who lived at Tanglin Green until 1999. It was a long time ago, but it might be worth a visit.”

  Camille pressed the Post-it note to her heart. She’d always kept a place in there for Lani. “Would you come with me, Josh?”

  “Well, my son is coming to visit soon. Thought it was time we laid down some memories in Singapore. But after that, I’d be happy to offer consular assistance.”

  “Would you come as you?”

  “Even happier to offer personal assistance.”

  She watched the pilots run through their final checks. “I met my father today. Or do you know that already?”

  “He’s alive?”

  “And kicking. He’s been here for fifteen years. In prison. How could that have happened? Without anyone at the BHC knowing?”

  He shrugged. “We didn’t have diplomatic relations with Burma fifteen years ago. But we would have known if one of our own was imprisoned. I can only assume he never traveled here on a British passport. And chose to keep himself under the radar. Didn’t want to be found.”

  She thought back to her father saying that he wouldn’t leave her mother here. Was he punishing himself, exiling himself out of guilt?

  “Will you see your father again?”

  “He’s a drug dealer; he was setting Edward Bonham up with a shipment. Ed needs money to bail out his business. Or he did.” The past tense stuck in her throat. “I don’t think I’ll see Magnus Kemble again, no. He’s not my father, not the one I remember. We both had unrealistic expectations and found someone who didn’t measure up.”

  “You could build a new relationship, perhaps?”

  “The thing is, Josh, I loved my father. My real father. But I didn’t like this man. And I don’t want the reality to kill off my memory. For such a long time, the memory of my parents is all I’ve had.”

  “Maybe in time?”

  “Never say never.”

  Josh nodded for a moment, and then said, “They say you have to stop blaming your parents when you reach thirty.”

  “Collin told me that too. So I’ve got a few years to go. But the fact is, the man I met today didn’t value the bond between father and daughter. Even Edward Bonham understood that, for all his flaws. He was a good man, beneath all the bluster.”

  “I think you were a little in love with him, Camille.”

  “Father figure, maybe.” She laughed, then flushed, realizing too late that Ed wasn’t so much older than Josh. “He was a link to my parents. Simple as that. I know you hated Ed—”

  “I saw nothing simple in Edward Bonham. He was damaged.”

  “We had that in common. But it seems to me you can be damaged and come out stronger, like Ed—he raised a child alone. Or you can be damaged and broken. Like Josie.” A burst of crackle on the loudspeaker signaled an announcement that their flight was ready. Camille gathered her bag, ripping the zipper through metal teeth. “And whatever you say about him, at the end Ed was a gentleman.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Josh shift back in his seat. He stood up and folded his jacket with care.

  “Camille, I’ve never in my life jumped on a plane because I was afraid for someone’s safety. I’m glad I was wrong and you didn’t need rescuing, but even so . . . I’m sorry you had to go to a man like Edward Bonham to feel respected.”

  “Not as sorry as he is.”

  Camille walked away to join the queue of passengers with boarding passes in hand. Josh stood in line behind her but had the grace to leave her to her thoughts. She wondered what her father would do now. If he might try to contact her again. If maybe, one day, he might stop blaming himself and come in from the cold.

  Outside, the lights of Yangon burned behind black hills like a sacked city. Camille stepped forward to hand over her ticket, and Josh mirrored the movement. She watched their reflections stand together in the plate glass window, a whispered suggestion in the darkness. Shadows cast by tomorrow’s sunrise.

  Chapter 52

  No phone, no ticket, no money. Even Amanda’s stomach was empty. She showed a taxi driver the destination her mother had spelled out. Soon, wavering lights told her they had reached water. It would be a long drive downriver to a secluded port. She watched headlights from oncoming cars slide off her hot skin like cheap lotion.

  In Singapore, there would be police lights sliding over the facade of the condo. Raja would be aghast. He would lead the police into the Bonhams’
apartment, lingering in the doorway of the elevator, unsure where to stand while officers found Amanda in pieces: a passport here, a credit card there, a Dependant’s Pass on the bedside table. What kind of picture would they construct from these scraps? And when they were done investigating and the flat was empty but for the dull chime of the retreating lift, would the Bonham ghosts creep out from the shadows? What had Ed once said? He always left a piece of himself behind. Tonight, he would put on one of his old bands and they would dance to “Chocolate Girl.” He would strip off her silver wrapping while their reflections bled together in the glass.

  Amanda let her fingers hang out the car window—open to the cool night air in lieu of air-conditioning—watching the world slide past as she had done while trapped behind the facade of the Attica. Josie’s ghost must be there too; all along, she had been the heat on the other side of the pane making their vision waver. And she must be laughing—that girl’s voice must be echoing around the void space of their rooms. Because she got what she wanted in the end; she got Ed, Teddy, all to herself.

  A roadside pagoda in the shape of an urn made Amanda avert her eyes. Thoughts of Ed were too much. Her mind had been numbed by the blow. Right now, she sensed only his absence, but he was so often absent that the feeling was familiar. She thought of Ed on his travels, stepping from one reality into another too quickly to adjust. That was her now, lagging behind the truth. Sooner or later all the pieces would come together—the anger, the guilt, the sorrow—but right now the pain was a dim whisper, like the wind through the hole that he’d punched in the kitchen window, which would one day shatter and make the whole place howl.

  The taxi arrived at the port, and Amanda walked into a sleepily lit building, past a man pushing a machine to buff already-gleaming tiles, and out to the water’s edge. She crept along the dock until she found a dark corner where she could sit between tires tied to the concrete quay. She opened a bag of samosas she’d bought from a street vendor and gobbled them up. A stray dog with hanging nipples sidled up, and she threw her crumbs. Amanda tore the paper bag and made two origami shapes. They could be boats, she thought, or little cribs. Holding herself steady on a rope, she placed the cradles one by one into the water. They eddied for a while and moved out into the flow. Once they were out of reach, she sat back onto her haunches and then settled against the tire with the tide dropping away from her toes.

  At some point, she slept, waking to a wispy sky the color of dry ice and the jingling harness of a horse and cart. The sound reminded her of the tiny vials of medication rattling in the fridge door and that took her to the frozen embryos, so far away but still calling to her. She looked for her cribs in the water, but they were long gone. Along the quay, the shouts of dockers preceded the birds to a morning chorus. A white ship had berthed, and she recognized the Guanyin, radiant against the gray water despite a century of service. On deck, Laura braced herself against the railing with arms as taut as sails while her crew juggled ropes around her. Amanda dragged her numb limbs beneath her body and summoned the strength to move along the dock, into the lee of the ship.

  The gangplank buffeted concrete as her mother descended. The two women stopped a foot shy of each other. “So this is your boat,” Amanda said. “Guanyin.”

  “Beautiful, isn’t she? She’s saved a lot of people.”

  A surge rose inside Amanda, a pressure that would only be relieved with tears. “I’m lucky you were nearby.”

  “Silly girl.” Laura pulled Amanda to her shoulder. “Don’t you realize I’ve always been nearby? Circling you at a distance. Like the moon.” Arms closed around her shoulders, and she let herself turn to liquid.

  “Ed died and it was my fault. I killed him.”

  “Goodness, I wish I’d been that brave with your father.”

  “Mother . . .”

  “Well, don’t be melodramatic. You didn’t kill him. It was the girl. I knew there was something wrong with her.”

  “I knew it too. But I didn’t listen to myself.”

  “It’s hard to stand up for yourself when you’re being undermined on all sides. Even I didn’t help, talking about your father the way I did. That’s what you get for being overemotional. Better to stay practical.”

  “I don’t think I can—”

  “You’re suffering bereavement—and that will occur to its own unpredictable timetable—but we need to be practical and set a new course.”

  “I can’t be practical. I can’t even think straight. I keep seeing Ed with Josie touching his face. And I did nothing to protect him. I should have called the police—”

  “Stop . . .”

  “Would a jury convict me for what I did? The sedatives in the water?”

  “The rat poison surely killed him.”

  “What if the sedatives made it worse. Is that conspiracy to murder?”

  “Did you set out to kill him? Were you in collusion with her?”

  “No. I wanted to catch him in the act and stop him from hurting any more women.”

  “Well, then.”

  “But there weren’t any women!” Amanda pushed away from her mother and turned to the squalid water. “And I imagined him dead. Before. I thought the worst of him, and I decided that if it was true, we’d be better off with him dead. What sort of wife thinks that about her husband?”

  “Oh, God, Amanda. Find me a woman who hasn’t thought of killing her husband—but thoughts are not the same as actions. And you had more than enough provocation. You’re not a perpetrator of this crime, you’re a victim, a survivor. Josie would have killed you too.”

  “If we hadn’t come to Burma, I think she might have done.”

  “So forgive yourself. Leave the guilt on this quayside with the rats and the trash. The grief will be coming with us, and that’s quite enough to deal with. So now we do have to be practical. Are we going to Singapore?”

  “That’s the last place I should go. They might arrest me.”

  “Go in on the fake passport. I think you have something to collect?”

  “I don’t care about my things. They can clear the apartment. Dump it all. Even the things I kept in a safety-deposit box—all junk. Apart from this.” Amanda rooted in her pocket and held out a ring, an antique emerald with a halo of diamonds. “I brought it in case I needed to sell it. But you should have it back. I’m sorry I stole from you.”

  Laura slid the engagement ring onto her finger, which Amanda saw was thinner, frailer than before. Old woman’s hands. “So gaudy,” Laura said. “Your father gave it to me to please his grandmother. We both disliked the ring—and the grandmother—but he did it out of filial piety. She wrote him out of her will anyway. So much for doing the right thing. Shall we give it to someone? A random act of kindness?”

  Amanda felt a tremor of a smile inside her, so slight it didn’t show on the surface, but seismic nonetheless. It felt like hope.

  “I do have something in Singapore I need to pick up,” Amanda said.

  Laura nodded, pleased. “Can you remove the embryos from the country?”

  “I could make arrangements for that. Or, if I go when the time is right, I could transfer them and hope they stick.”

  “Let’s do that then.” Her mother clattered up the gangplank. “I think I’d make an excellent grandmother. I’ve grown up a lot since I had you.”

  Amanda lingered by the river. Little fish swam between plastic bags in the mushroom-colored murk. The air was warm and moist—nurturing conditions. She thought of the paper cribs she’d sent off, wondering if they’d made it yet to the insatiable ocean, how long it would take to cross the Andaman Sea and negotiate the Straits of Singapore. Tell our babies I’m coming, she begged the river. Her promises sprinkled into the water that would flow back to her embryos waiting in Singapore, frozen like spring flowers under the snow.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Heartfelt thanks go to:

  My inspiring agent, Danielle Egan-Miller, and her Browne & Miller colleagues, Clancey D’Isa and M
ariana Fisher. My editors, Jodi Warshaw and Caitlin Alexander, for bringing order to chaos. In addition, Nicole Pomeroy and everyone at Lake Union Publishing who turned raw material into a novel, and Rachel Fudge and Erica Avedikian in the editorial team, and David Drummond for the gorgeous cover design. Also my fellow Lake Union authors for their wisdom, laughs, and virtual hugs.

  Colleagues at the Singapore Writers Group, who enlightened early chapters during our critique meetings, and to Helle Sidelmann Norup, Paula Treick DeBoard, Emily Carpenter, and Alice Clark-Platts, who braved a messy first draft. Also to Stephanie Suga Chen, Jen Wei Ting, Justin Wan, and Damyanti Biswas for cultural orientation.

  Susy Marriott and Tom Bromley at the Professional Writing Academy, whose short crime writing course spawned Camille Kemble.

  Fellow author Captain Fatty Goodlander and his wife, Carolyn, who fed me lunch and sea gypsy anecdotes aboard their forty-three-foot ketch, Ganesh, while moored in Singapore.

  The UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office for their “British Nationals Overseas” online guidance, and for the many times our diplomatic service in various countries has helped this particular Brit abroad. My depiction of the British High Commission of Singapore is vigorously (and no doubt hopelessly) fictionalized.

  Robert and Linda Baigrie—parents of Arina Skye—donated a generous sum to have their daughter’s name included in this novel during a charity auction at the 2017 Africa Society Ball in Singapore. Their donation went to the children’s charity World Vision.

  The people of Singapore: I’m sorry for relocating places and implying there are cobras lurking on every corner. I spent seven years living in your marvelous country, and I’m grateful for your hospitality. Especially the food. Roll a popiah for me. Also, the expat wives who shared advice and way too many personal details on rival Facebook forums.

  All the Furnisses and Fosters who cheer me on. Especially Mark, who is an expat, a onetime pilot, and a frequent business traveler, but a less troublesome husband than Ed. And Lydia and Frank for handing out my books to strangers in shops.

  Mae Nullas, whose professional and cheery running of our Singapore household gifted me time to write and enjoy my children. Also Karien van Ditzhuijzen from the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME), the NGO that inspired a pressure group I called HELP. I should make it clear that HELP and its methods are my creation, and any mistakes my own. A final nod goes to the “silent army” of migrant women who work in homes in Singapore and other countries; may they be treated with dignity and respect.