The all-knowing wife, or Oracles as Percy liked to call her in deference to her developed figure, declared the woman to be a newcomer, a reluctant expat also resisting employing domestic help. Sal seemed to have many friends, too many considering she worked all the time. Percy couldn’t imagine how she found the time to talk, if she was indeed as busy as she claimed. But whoever these people were, they were a useful source of information and fed Sal’s appetite for local knowledge. Lots of expats initially resist domestic help, she claimed, especially Brits, because the days of feeling comfortable with servitude ended generations ago. Give her time, Sal declared, and she’ll look just like the two Aussies and the two brats will be nowhere to be seen.
Sometimes, if he could find nothing better to do, Percy returned to the café in the afternoon, when the tables of The Bean filled with school children, huge groups pouring in and ignoring the little notices requesting No Studying. When first he saw these small gold and black signs propped up in every café, he couldn’t help but smile at the irony of it. Around the table, and therefore around the sign, a sea of students gathered, laptops open, books strewn, papers everywhere, heads bowed, discussion focussed. The one rule these inherently obedient children ignored was broken only so they could study, and do so in comfort. Percy had never seen anyone ask them to stop. He imagined putting the same sign on tables in British cafés. People would be unsure of the meaning, he decided. No Studying? What does this mean, No Studying? No Studying the sign itself? Or would they think it a statement, perhaps the beginnings of a revolt, a middle class flyer advertising coming change: a riot of literary proportions.
Percy was a man who liked to think, and he pondered whether it was, in fact, these local children who might cause a riot. Were they indicating, however subtly, that the safe autocracy of Singapore was housing not compliance but rebellion? He wished he had Art to talk it over with. Sal, of course, would chat, but in an increasingly dismissive way that left no room for exploration, always pushing forward an immediate answer as if that was all he wanted; he was the idiot, she the wise-woman. He watched her sometimes, when she was sitting with him in their new marble clad house, laptop fizzing with work, and wondered if she still loved him. He loved her, but they seemed to have passed the point of saying it. He supposed this happened to everyone.
Wherever Percy went, at whatever time of day, there were maids. He watched them as they squatted on the ground texting, sometimes playing with children in their charge, or eating, talking, laughing, occasionally just staring soulfully at some unseen thing; perhaps the memory of a place they would rather be. He and Sal could find no justification for having anyone live in, instead employing a Filipino cleaner on a part-time basis. Instantly, Percy found her terrifying. It was a sensation that unsettled him on two levels; firstly the fear itself, and secondly the idea of this fear, since he was not accustomed to feeling afraid. He soon realised he wasn’t alone. Mila was the big feather duster amongst domestic help, he discovered, which would account for why someone else was always cleaning the house while she barely moved from the comfort of the ironing board. He had been meaning to talk to her about this other woman, to ask how legitimate it was for there to be someone else working in the house. Mila herself, he knew, was an official part-timer, a person with Permanent Residency, and so free from the restrictions placed upon immigrant workers. He feared the extra helper was not. He was sure she was someone else’s maid earning cash on the side. It was illegal. He wanted to ask. But Mila had the biggest face and the scariest expression he had ever encountered in a woman, and so could never find the courage. He would have asked Sal to speak with her, but she was never there.
It was in The Bean, pondering an absent looking Filipino maid cradling a baby whilst her employer talked with friends, that Percy realised it was time to snap out of the dreary trance he’d been suffering from the start. Watching others live their lives was not enough, not by a long measure. The exact moment of revelation occurred after one of the Chinese-Singaporean breakfast trio spoke to him, startling him into an English-fop stutter. Maybe it was because he had not spoken for such a long time that his vocal chords were caught off guard, or perhaps he was simply habituated to invisibility; he hadn’t realised just how unnoticed he would be in Singapore. Either way, Percy’s responses were numbed.
‘Good morning,’ one of the men had said, as the other man and the woman passed him by, smiling and nodding sharply.
It was casual and quick, and since the owner of the nicety was in the process of leaving the café, it required nothing more than an echoing of the words. But by the time Percy’s pale plain face had folded into something close to a smile, and his voice had cranked back into life, they had gone. He felt ashamed. There had to be more to him than this.
*
When Sal heard Percy’s proposal at dinner that night, she laughed loudly. Whilst he was growing used to this increasingly superior attitude – a manner rooted in England and here sprouting freely – tonight for Percy it inferred something. It suggested that he shared her view, and this he didn’t like, because it implied that he had therefore spoken merely to encourage reaction for the sake of a little evening chatter. It made him feel small. When finally Sal realised he was serious, she put down her forkful of steamed rice and stared at him, bright eyes wide in disbelief, mouth gaping.
‘Not a good look,’ Percy remarked, ‘like a palsied fish.’ It was a risky comment, since her mouth was quite narrow and her lips very full.
‘You. You? Join a club!’ She frowned, nose wrinkling. ‘You?’ Sal shook her blonde hair away from her face in a way that irritated him, though he recalled he normally liked it. ‘I mean, by all means do it. You should get out there and meet people. But you?’
He stabbed several spicy fried prawns to make one huge mouthful. ‘Not a club,’ he said, words muffled, ‘just some kind of...’
‘…club,’ Sal finished. ‘Don’t eat like that, Percy.’
‘No, Sal. Not a club. Just… something. I’m not sure what yet.’ He again began gathering prawns.
Sal chuckled quietly to herself.
‘You may mock,’ said Percy. ‘But if you saw as many lone men wandering around Singapore as I do, either entirely alone or with one or two of those… things in tow… ’
‘Children?’
‘Exactly. One of those things in tow, then you’d understand. There must be something for me to join. I’ve seen one advert for a men’s cycling group already.’
Sal stared.
‘…And I am not joining it, though of course I do enjoy cycling.’
‘To the pub.’
‘But it makes me think there has to be other stuff going on here; you know, for men. I just don’t know what.’
‘There aren’t that many househusbands here, Percy.’
He threw a reproachful glance.
‘What else would you call yourself? Women have been housewives forever and a day.’ She smiled at him. ‘Househusband.’
‘Whatever.’
‘So how will you find this… this thing of yours?’
‘Not sure yet.’
‘There are notice boards in the supermarkets, have you tried any?’ Sal’s head jerked from side to side, as if each eye might get a better view of Percy if the angle changed.
‘Now you look like a demented sheep dog.’ The prawns went in.
‘Answer the question. How will you find out about these people, if they exist? What’s your plan? Tell me your strategy.’
He looked at her. Who was she becoming? ‘I’m not a project, Sal. I don’t know yet, I told you. But I want it to be exclusive, something made up of a small selection of men I approve of. The sort of people I might happen across in my wanderings. Men like Art.’
‘A more widely used description of this phenomenon is friends, Percy.’
With a frown, Percy returned focus to his plate.
After a short pause, Sal spoke. ‘Listen,’ she said, softly, ‘I want you to be happy here. Whatev
er you want to do is fine by me. Why not look for a job?’
Percy threw down his cutlery and stared. He had looked for work, albeit half-heartedly. But training to give museum tours for other expats didn’t appeal, and nothing else seemed immediately possible. He didn’t want to tell her he’d been looking, in case she joined the hunt. ‘I will start researching in earnest on Monday,’ he said. ‘It’s a good day. One of my favourites.’ Percy made a habit of finding satisfaction in those things others found depressing, such as Monday, January and sorting socks.
His wife gave no response. Instead her eyes followed the progress of a young gecko as it scurried across the wall in overly ambitious pursuit of a much larger moth. She sighed. ‘Well, do whatever you want. I’m glad you want to meet people. I don’t know how you bear being alone all the time. I know it’s you… who you are… but I couldn’t do it.’
‘It’s not the company, Sal. It’s only that I would like to hold a decent conversation every now and then.’ Like I did with Art, he added, mentally.
‘Thanks very much.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He smiled. ‘Dessert?’
‘Yes please. And however offensive your comment, I can see how you might need to talk to more people than just me, although of course I am amazing.’
Percy eyes flashed a glance. There she was. Old Sal. He smiled.
A thought drifted across her face. ‘Those students you talked about earlier. You know why those kids are the way they are, why they study so hard all the time, don’t you? Their parents drive them because seventy percent of jobs here are with the government, and to get one you need a degree, and the better the degree the better the department and pay.’
‘Oracles, I love you.’ Percy winked as he spoke, not rising from the table to get dessert, but sitting fast.
‘However much you are in need of it, I’m not trying to educate you. I was using it as an example of lunchtime chat at work, of my “decent conversation”, as you put it; everything from politics to chewing gum on the MRT to strokes of the cane for inadvertently stroking bums. All sorts of topics, and exactly what you need in your life.’
Percy leaned back in his chair, and rested his eyes.
‘On Friday,’ Sal continued, ‘a guy was moaning that he couldn’t sell his wife’s car because apparently you can’t sell new cars for six months after buying them. Can you believe he even wants to? Changed her mind about the colour and the finish of the interior, apparently. Something like that, anyway. Never mind the fact that cars cost so much; at least three times as much in Singapore as at home, and you have to pay tens of thousands of extra dollars just for the privilege of owning one. Certificate of ownership, it’s called. Shocking. I find out all sorts of things at lunchtime. They’re a good crowd, and maybe you’ll soon have some good friends too, with this idea of yours.’
‘Hmmm.’ Percy sounded disinterested because he was not really listening anymore, for Sal’s speech had been a little too long.
‘They are Percy, trust me, they’re really nice people.’
These few additional words drew Percy’s attention back with a start. He sensed something sinister afoot. He tested the water, ‘Thank God I won’t have to meet any of them.’
Sal hesitated before replying, ‘Actually, Percy, I wanted to talk to you about that…’ She stood up and began to clear the plates.
‘No.’
‘Come on, Percy, it won’t kill you.’
‘True, but I might kill them.’
His wife sighed, ‘One evening and not at someone’s house… we’re eating out.’
‘Well, that’s something I suppose.’
‘You said yourself you would like to meet people.’
‘Not what I said or what I meant, and you know it.’
‘They’ve booked a great restaurant. I need you to come and I need you on your best behaviour. No sarky remarks. Do it for me, Percy. They’re a good bunch, honestly. Everyone is bringing their other half. We’re sort of obliged to do these things, you know.’
‘When is it?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Sal! Sunday?’
‘At least it’s kind of a work night, so it won’t be a late one. You can still have your bedtime drink and story.’
Reluctantly, Percy agreed to do the single thing he most hated, which was to socialise with people Sal knew and that he didn’t, in a situation he couldn’t easily escape. Worse, Sal never seemed to be herself in these more formal circumstances. She wasn’t exactly fawning, but was certainly overly nice to people Percy considered nothing more than idiots.
Chapter 3
EXPOSURE
That night, the tropical air was thick and clinging. Percy wiped away the circles of damp ringing the sockets of his eyes since morning, thinking it remarkable that he should be expected to sleep in what was little better than a sauna. By the flick of a single switch, and maybe the slight fiddle of another, he could transform the atmosphere from suffocating invisible blanket to one of cool luxury. Was it realistic, he wondered, for his wife to expect him to follow her whimsical and suspiciously random efforts to wage a one-woman war against global warming? What would a solitary air-conditioning unit do, exactly, in terms of tipping the balance one way or another? Send the world into oblivion? Was it possible that this was the one thing experts had carelessly overlooked? Polar bears could blame their likely demise on the single electrical convenience that might help them lead a more comfortable life, once the world had finally melted into a warm bath.
Twenty-eight degrees and nearing one hundred percent humidity; even the worst of British summer could not touch it, and she expected him to sleep in it. He reflected that the day had been no better, a steady thirty-one, humid and still. Every single day, the radio announcer cheerily declared that it was to be thirty-one degrees, a beautiful day, get out there and enjoy it. But Percy knew from the temperature gauge propped up on the balcony that it was actually more like thirty-four degrees on many of those days, feeling like thirty-eight. He decided that no matter what the actual temperature, the official line would always be thirty-one. He knew nowhere could be the same temperature quite so consistently, not even this near the equator, so he assumed the occasional declaration of thirty-two degrees was not for variety but for the sake of authenticity. Naturally, it was never any hotter. That might provide people with something to moan about. And coming from a country obsessed with the weather, where pleasantries on the subject were ingrained, Percy decided the Singapore government were forward thinking. Also, visitors might choose not to come. He, for one, would not have agreed to come if so much wasn’t at stake.
Percy lay on the bed, sticky and irritable, until his wife came in and casually switched on the ceiling fan.
‘Aren’t you hot?’ She disappeared into the bathroom.
It was absurd, but he had forgotten the fan. Stretched out on the bed, Percy enjoyed the newly rippling air, although it was not as nice as the icy chill of air-conditioning. The few days they had spent in a hotel when first in Singapore had been bliss, like living in a luxury ice-box, for however many times Sal turned off the air conditioning the hotel staff switched it right back on again. If Heaven really existed, Percy felt sure it must be fully air-conditioned, and if it was so, then that afternoon he had seen God’s opposite number crossing Orchard Road, for only the Devil himself could cope with it. Dressed entirely in black, wrapped up in jeans, a jumper, quilted body warmer and thick trainers, a hat covering his horns, he looked unnaturally comfortable.
Percy gazed out into the darkness, at the crescent moon slung low and lopsided in a cartoon smile, wondering why even this solid constant should refuse to be as it was back home. The long soft curtains framing the window lifted and swelled in the breeze; night flying insects, Sal decreed, were not a problem, and indeed they were not for her. Percy, on the other hand, spent his nights swatting and scratching, his days covered in itchy red bumps.
He stared as the thin curtains lifted higher, conside
ring with sudden interest what he was seeing: a breeze. Yes, it was a breeze. Air appeared to be shifting in a country where his wife already felt settled simply because she could go out in the evening and retain the exact hairstyle she’d left the house with, or at least, a fuzzy version of it. He was sure not a breath of air had moved since they’d arrived. A person practically had to walk in a swerving motion to find enough unused oxygen to gasp in. But that sweeping statement of thought was not quite true, he suddenly remembered. Soon after moving into the house, he and Sal had marvelled at the dead leaves lifting high above the dense forest of trees opposite the house, sucked up into the sky, bright yellow confetti sharp against black cloud. Within moments, branches cracked and fell as the wind passed through like the blast of a giant hairdryer. Then clouds had begun to throw down warm raindrops, each seeming large enough to support life. Open mouthed, they had watched in awe, the sudden intensity of it astonishing them both. What they should have been doing was closing doors and windows, because propped up pictures fell over and paperwork scattered, tossed into a jumble on that brief flash of current.
‘Sal, storm’s coming!’ he called, leaping to his feet, ‘shall I shut some windows?’
At that moment, a bright burst of light and simultaneous crash of thunder descended. Calmly, Percy’s wife poked her head around the bathroom door. Grinning, her bronzed face accentuated her gleaming white teeth. ‘That was close. Maybe a good storm will cool things off.’
Yes, it might. For about three minutes, Percy thought, heart racing from the fright. Then they would be steamed alive as hot air reclaimed lost moisture, much of it from his body. Had Sal observed nothing about the climate here, he wondered.
Naked, he pottered off to batten down the hatches. Only in Singapore, only in a community surrounded by fencing, gates and a barrier, only seasoned with insects whilst being roasted alive, would anyone leave an entire house wide open to the night, he thought.