Travails of a Trailing Spouse

by Stephanie Suga Chen

  The movers came and packed up their belongings in a single day, leaving them with one final night in their empty loft. Jason, Sarah and Ruby lay in sleeping bags and the baby in a portable crib, all borrowed from their neighbours across the hall, which they would return in the morning before heading to the airport for the long journey to the other side of the world.

  chapter 2

  PLAYGROUP

  SARAH QUICKLY GOT into the swing of things, as Singapore was a remarkably easy place for an expat to adapt to. There was a mall right across the street from their condo that had an assortment of restaurants, including a food court, and a grocery store in the basement, although it wasn’t long before she realised it was the “expat” grocery store, carrying the foods and brands she recognised but at jaw-dropping prices – a box of Cheerios for $10, $15 for a 450g bag of shredded mozzarella.

  After exploring the neighbourhood, she discovered the local outdoor wet market located just a few hundred metres from the condo, amid the tall HDB blocks in which most local Singaporeans lived. Next to the wet market, there was also an outdoor hawker centre, and the “local” grocery store, which was actually owned by the same company as the expat grocery store, selling local brands, although Sarah did discover that it often sold the same products as the grocery store in the mall at slightly lower prices.

  They had found a kindergarten within walking distance for Ruby and enrolled her the week after they arrived; Ruby had been in daycare, and then preschool, since she was six months old and Sarah was anxious to get her back to the order of a classroom. She was a lovely girl, small for her age and full of sweetness, happy to sit on the couch with a big pile of picture books, carefully paging through each one and stacking them behind her – she was that kind of child. She had adapted quickly to the new environment, as they expected she would, even coming home with the sing-song Singapore-English (“Singlish”, as it was both derogatorily and endearingly known) accent and lax grammar only days after starting at her new school.

  As for baby Eric, he was not even two years old when they arrived and Sarah decided she would try her hand at keeping him at home with her; one of the reasons, after all, that she had quit her job was to spend more time with the kids. He was a darling, happy, “plumpkin” of a child, as a friend had once lovingly called him, with round cheeks and a heart-shaped mouth, and eyebrows that carried so much expression that a tiny movement of just one could tell her if he was about to cry, laugh or ask a question.

  She hired a helper, like many expats did, a Filipina named Patricia who was just a few years younger than her, with an athletic build and an attractive appearance. Later, her friends would ask why she had chosen such a “good-looking” helper (one of the more uncouth husbands would even go as far as to refer to her as the “hot maid”). Sarah didn’t really have a reason; she had interviewed about a dozen candidates, taking the bus on the first couple of Sundays down to the agencies on Orchard Road, where helpers who were seeking new employers gathered on their days off. Sarah liked that Patricia had a kind smile and ranked “Cooking” as #1 on her skill sets – Sarah was hopeless in the kitchen and made no excuses for it. As for her face, well, Sarah would be at home with her all day so she might as well be pleasant to look at, she had rationalised.

  They fell into an easy rhythm, Patricia handling all the household cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and cooking, while Sarah planned the weekly menus and watched Eric, and tried generally not to get in Patricia’s way. It was an adjustment, at first, to have a third adult living with them, but the condos were designed with a helper room, albeit a pretty small one, off the kitchen of every unit, with its own bathroom and shower, where Patricia would retreat to after she was done with her daily chores. She was conscientious and deferential, lowering her head when she had to walk past Sarah or Jason, and always calling them “Ma’am” and “Sir”.

  It felt decadent, a little obscene even, to have a full-time, live-in helper when Sarah wasn’t even working herself, but it was so commonplace in Singapore – truthfully a key selling point of moving there – that Sarah didn’t even really consider the possibility of not hiring one.

  Sarah had been invited to a weekly morning playgroup by a welcoming British woman named Eliza who had been one of the early occupants of the condo, moving in six months prior; it was a group of 10 or 12 “mums”, she had said, with children varying in age from newborn to preschool, that rotated around each other’s homes, with most participants living in the area and several in The Manchester. Sarah and Eric took the lift up and walked down the hall where the pile of shoes outside the open door indicated the playgroup was well under way.

  The unit, of a similar layout to her own, had a large open living/dining area surrounded by an expansive patio. At this time of the morning, sunlight was streaming into the smartly-decorated living room. A series of metallic-painted stretched canvases hung on one wall, and a chic, dark-grey sectional framed the living room, flanked by two lively patterned side chairs. A tiered tray of finger sandwiches, scones and fruit was set on the counter, and a stack of small plates and tiny tasting forks were laid out beside the food.

  A handful of women, one or two looking like they might be pregnant, were seated around the living room, watching an equal number of toddlers and babies playing in the centre area; they were all English-speaking – Americans, Brits and Aussies. Sarah went through the normal introductions as quickly as she could; she had been in Singapore for only two months and actually had not met that many people, but nevertheless was already tired of the pleasantries.

  She was having trouble adjusting to being this kind of mother, one who traded baby food recipes or potty training tips. All her girlfriends back home had been working mothers or had not had children; on the few lunches or drinks she managed to squeeze into her hectic schedule with them, the conversation usually revolved around how much they hated their jobs (problem: now solved!) or their husbands’ lack of doing household chores (also solved!).

  She didn’t look down on these women here, she just didn’t know how to engage herself, to unearth the maternal self within her that cared about these things. Actually, no, she realised, it wasn’t that she didn’t care about the topics being discussed; certainly she had faced similar challenges, but she dealt with them in a matter-of-fact way, searching online for solutions, or asking a friend with older children, or, as a last resort, consulting their paediatrician.

  When one mother cornered her in a conversation about choosing nursery schools, Sarah stopped listening almost before the question was even asked, although the truth was, yes, she too had researched and created a spreadsheet before they arrived with all the kindergartens within a 1km radius of their condo, but it was a task that needed to get done, and she got it done; she didn’t feel the need to talk to others about it ad nauseam.

  About half an hour into the playgroup, Eric had already been involved in a scuffle with another little girl over a toy spaceship, requiring Sarah to apologise for his outlandish behaviour – he was used to being home all day alone with just her, and previously, a nanny, and was not accustomed to sharing. Sarah began to look at the clock, wondering when an appropriate time to excuse herself would be, when a new woman appeared at the propped-open front door, holding a little, dark-haired boy. She was thin, not impossibly so, but thin enough that she was wearing a pencil skirt and ballet flats and still looked thin; she had curly, dark brown hair, the same colour as the boy’s, reaching past her chin, and a long face marked by startling green eyes.

  Sarah overheard Eliza, the event’s host, ask, “You all right?” (which she would later realise just meant “How are you?”) as they exchanged air kisses.

  “Just gone for orientation – new school, but same old shit,” the thin woman responded wryly, putting down the boy, who started tottering over to the pile of toys in the centre of the living room.

  Sarah perked up at the sound of the swear word and mocking tone; she was tired of the niceties, needed a bit of grouchiness
to spice up her day. She looked up, made eye contact with the woman, saying, “Hi, sounds like you have the pleasure of being a teacher, then, yes?”

  The woman turned to her and said, “Hi, yes, excuse my language there,” laughing. “I’m Carys, it’s nice to meet you.”

  “Sarah,” Sarah responded, smiling. “What school, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Not at all – Singapore International School,” Carys said. “It’s a ‘waiting’ school, as opposed to a ‘wanted’ school, as in students enrol there, but they are really waiting for spots at other, better schools. The teachers all know it, so everyone’s pretty much shit.”

  Sarah nodded, “Oh, I get it. Well, it sounds like you picked a good one,” she said, the irony obvious.

  The other woman laughed again and they quickly fell into an easy conversation, exchanging background stories. Carys and her husband, Ian, had just arrived from Dubai last month; she was Welsh but born in France, and taught high school French and Spanish. Her husband was in the hotel business, taking on the Group Sales Director role for a new hotel that his company had just opened in Singapore. They had met in Dubai, where she had been teaching at another international school, got married after dating six months, and had their son, Noah, who was now almost one.

  Carys said that while she appreciated that being a teacher was highly mobile, and allowed her to move with her husband’s job and be able to work part-time so she could be with Noah, the whole onboarding process at a new school – orientation, syllabus, lesson plans – was all tedious and exasperating. “Just show me to my classroom and I’ll do the rest,” she said. “I don’t need all the rubbish about the school’s mission statement and values.”

  Sarah filled Carys in on her own background – quitting her job, wanting to take this opportunity to look for something new, perhaps study Chinese, which she was very insecure about not being able to speak, particularly now that she was living in Asia. Sarah had also often thought she might want to go into teaching, later on in life, when she had the luxury of not needing to make money, she had thought, a bit cynically. They chatted for the rest of the playgroup, happy that their sons were playing side by side quite nicely, until most of the mothers started making moves to the door as lunch and naptimes approached. They thanked their gracious host, Eliza, and left together; Carys lived in the building as well, on the sixth floor.

  After Jason got home that evening, following a day of ordering lab equipment and interviewing technicians, the Lees sat down for dinner, Eric strapped into his high chair and Ruby sitting in her green, squishy booster seat. Jason asked Sarah what she had been up to that day and she described the playdate and meeting Carys, finishing with, “I think I made a new friend,” and feeling like a third-grader but smiling anyway.

  “Oh, really?” Jason said, eyes widening and smiling too. “What’s she like?”

  “Well, her husband’s name is Ian,” which made them both laugh, because Jason had a cousin who had named her son Ian and try as she might, Jason’s aunt, the boy’s grandmother, could not pronounce his name without making it sound Chinese. She always said it as “Yi-An”, stressing the final syllable in a high tone. At the beginning, Jason’s cousin, and really everyone around her, had tried to correct her mother, but eventually everyone just started calling him Yi-An too, and suggested to Jason’s cousin that she should consider changing his Chinese name to match what everyone was already calling him.

  “So, Carys and Yi-An, huh?” Jason said.

  Sarah smiled. “Yes, and apparently Ian – sorry, Yi-An – works at a boutique hotel with some sort of fusion restaurant serving,” she frowned, hoping she was remembering the unfamiliar term correctly, “mod-Sin cuisine. Modern Singapore.”

  “Mod-Sin? Sounds intriguing…” Jason continued, eyebrows going up and down.

  “What’s ‘intriguing’ mean?” asked Ruby, who always listening.

  “It means interesting, in a mysterious way. Like we want to know more,” Sarah answered.

  “No more! There’s no more!” Eric shouted, a burgeoning linguist in the making, holding up his empty dinner plate in triumph.

  chapter 3

  UNREAL

  WHEN SARAH WAS growing up, she and her brother used to get up in the morning, pour themselves each a bowl of cereal, add milk directly into the bowl, grab a spoon, and sit down at the kitchen table, staring at the cereal box while eating, like millions of American kids probably did. She used to wonder who on earth ate breakfast like the photo on the box: A bowl of cereal with a service plate underneath it, with fresh cut strawberries or peaches, not one, but two glasses set next to the bowl – one milk and one orange juice – and a plate of buttered toast in the background, the pat of butter glistening in mid-melt.

  She and her brother would finish eating, fold over the inner bag a few times, close the cereal box by inserting the tab into its slot, put it back in the cupboard, and place the two bowls and two spoons in the sink. Sometimes, there might be a banana eaten with breakfast and therefore a peel to discard.

  Then she moved to Singapore and hired a helper and realised how grand a meal breakfast could be. At the beginning, Sarah planned simple breakfasts: toast or oatmeal with a side of fruit, served with milk for the kids and coffee for Jason. Then she thought it would be nice to add some eggs – scrambled, if they were having toast, or fried, if they were having oatmeal.

  Soon, breakfast evolved into more elaborate affairs: A simple granola and yogurt mixture turned into a choice between granola or muesli, mango or plain yogurt, served with a side of hard-boiled eggs, carefully peeled and cut in quarters. Fruit progressed from a simple banana bunch served on a plate in the centre of the table (the plate already a luxury!) to halved cherries or de-seeded pomegranates, served in a bowl with a spoon, sparkling like jewels.

  Ruby ate like a bird, so the more substance Sarah could get into her at breakfast, the less worried she was about her not eating whatever food they served at school. The menu soon included hot steamed buns, fluffy roti prata, noodle soup with shredded pork, breakfast burritos or chocolate pancakes; Patricia was a whiz in the kitchen and knew how to time it perfectly such that when Sarah and Jason opened their bedroom door in the morning, the food would be brought to the table, which would have already been set in anticipation.

  It was an unbelievable luxury that could not be fully appreciated until one experienced it for oneself. Their first visitor in Singapore, Sarah’s cousin, who was a physicist in town for a conference, got to witness the lavishness firsthand; seeing the breakfast table on the morning after arriving, he asked in disbelief, “Is this your life? I mean, seriously?”

  Sarah’s life did, indeed, seem unreal. In the mornings after breakfast, she would drop Ruby off at school, then take Eric to Eliza’s or Carys’s, if she wasn’t teaching that morning, or to the homes of other mothers in the building whom she had met through Eliza. They had formed their own condo playgroup, which was much more convenient than traipsing around town looking for other condos or houses, some of which were hidden down back roads or one-way lanes. Eric was a little bit older than the other children, but he still enjoyed playing with toys that weren’t his own and generally allowed Sarah at least 45 minutes when she could chat with her new friends. If she had an appointment or needed to run errands, she would ask Patricia to take Eric to the playground located within the HDB blocks (“ABC playground”, Eric called it, until Sarah corrected him), which was much larger than their small condo setup.

  For lunch, she and Eric would have something easy at home (that Sarah would make; she felt silly asking Patricia to make something as simple as a ham and cheese sandwich, but she would get over that eventually), or she would take him to the food court or the outdoor hawker centre to try the local cuisine. His favourite was the yong tau foo stall, where you chose six items from an array of options (vegetables, tofu, fishballs, or dumplings) then a type of noodle (yellow, wide or thin rice noodles), then the man or woman behind the counter would throw eve
rything in together, boil it for a minute, transfer the whole mixture into a bowl, and, lastly, pour a steaming soup over it. Eric loved to call out the items he wanted, usually leaving only one item for Sarah to choose. After lunch, they would walk back to their condo, Sarah forcing Eric to stay awake so he could have a nice, long nap when he got home.

  One day, Eric was woken up from his slumber by loud, violent jackhammering that seemed to be coming from directly above them. Sarah went upstairs to the sixth floor, but her knocking on the front door of the unit was to no avail as the hammering continued and no one answered. Finally, she went down to the management office, which was located off the back of the lift lobby, and found a stick-straight blonde-haired woman looking similarly annoyed talking to a fake eye-lashed woman behind a desk.

  “Can you hear the jackhammering, too?” Sarah asked the woman.

  “Yes, oh my lord,” the blonde answered, in a southern drawl. “I was trying to get my baby to nap and there is no way in hell that’s happening with this racket!” she continued.

  “Yes, me too.” Sarah turned to the woman at the desk. “What unit is the noise coming from? Can we ask them to stop?”

  The woman blinked, her long eyelashes hovering in mid-air. She grabbed a three-hole binder from the shelf behind her and started leafing through the pages. “Unit 08-08. They have a permit for 30 days during working hours, 10am ’til 5pm.”

  “Ugh,” Sarah and the blonde woman groaned at the same time.

  “What in God’s name are they doing?” the other woman asked. “I mean, the building’s brand-new, for Christ’s sake!”