by S. P. Hozy
“Not so far,” he said. “Maybe two block over, near hotel Ah Chiu.” And he pointed over his shoulder to indicate the street behind the bar.
We found the hotel Ah Chiu and strategically positioned ourselves in a café across the street. It was not even midnight, barely eleven o’clock in fact, so we discussed whether we should stay and wait, not knowing what the barman had meant by “very late,” or come back another evening after we had had a nap. Edith was game to stay. She was excited that we had come so close and had actually found an eyewitness who confirmed that the phantom existed. I, on the other hand, being an early riser, knew I wouldn’t last much past midnight, and suggested we come back the following night. Edith, being the agreeable sort, immediately acquiesced and agreed it would be better if we were well-rested when we confronted the woman. Besides, I was not keen to sit in a café in this part of town for the next two or three hours. There were a few unsavoury-looking types who might start to get interested in us. Edith was wearing her gold wedding ring and I had a pocket watch and a few dollars in my pocket that I preferred to hang on to.
We returned to the café the next evening around midnight, rested and divested of our valuables. We still stood out because there was not another English couple to be seen anywhere around us. But there were a few solitary, sad-looking foreign men, possibly English, possibly Dutch or German; it was hard to tell. They sat quietly consuming one beer after another, more than likely seeking oblivion not company.
“I say,” said Edith, “this is the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been in Singapore, and we’ve been here for ten years.” She giggled (if a woman such as Edith could actually utter such a sound) and took another sip of her Guinness Stout. I noticed that several rather thin, elderly looking Chinese men were drinking Guinness, and it reminded me that the Chinese believed it promoted virility or male “potency.” My tastes tended more toward German beer, and so I drank Tsingtao from a brewery founded in China by German settlers a couple of decades earlier. Expatriates, I reflected, not for the first time, are a resourceful lot.
We waited until nearly two in the morning, but our phantom did not appear. Disappointed but not daunted, we vowed to return, but other commitments kept us away for a week, and it was eight days before we returned to Chinatown and the Ah Chiu vigil. And, miracle of miracles, the phantom appeared just after one in the morning, on the arm of a somewhat inebriated Scotsman — we determined that he was a Scot because he spoke loudly, if incoherently, and he had a head of thick red hair and a moustache to match. They entered the hotel and twenty minutes later the Scotsman emerged and lurched down the street, calling for a taxi. The phantom lady stepped out of the hotel about ten minutes after that.
Edith and I looked at each other, each of us with the same question in our eyes. Now what? We hadn’t actually worked out what we would do when we found the woman and now, suddenly, the moment had arrived.
Then Edith got up and walked toward the woman, saying in a loud, clear voice, “Good evening, my dear. Would you care to join us for a drink?” She turned and indicated the table where I was sitting, and so I put on my friendliest, middle-of-the-night smile. The woman looked from Edith to me and back to Edith, and tilted her head to one side, which Edith took to mean yes. She put her hand gently on the phantom’s back and walked her over to our table.
I stood and extended my hand. “Good evening,” I said. “It’s nice to see another English face” — thinking this might make her relax and think we were tourists — “uh, I say, you are English, aren’t you?”
She sat in the chair that I pulled out for her and nodded her head. “Yes,” she said. “I’m English.”
“I’m Edward and this is Edith. Can we buy you a drink?”
“I’ll have a gin,” she said. “Straight up.”
I signalled to the waiter and ordered a gin. “And do you have a name?” I asked, rather a little too coyly, I thought, but too late. She must have been too tired to care, for she told us her name without reacting. “Isabel,” she said.
“It’s nice to meet you, Isabel,” said Edith. “Have you been staying in Singapore long?”
“Yes. Quite some time, in fact.”
“Ah, we’ve only just arrived, you see,” Edith lied, “and have had trouble sleeping, so we’ve sort of taken to wandering about at night. That’s why we were so pleased to run into someone who speaks English.”
I was impressed with Edith’s ability to extemporaneously ad lib a performance we hadn’t previously formulated. I took my cue from her.
“Yes,” I said, “I hope we didn’t seem too forward.” I was tempted to say, “Do you come here often?” but caught myself in time. It was almost two in the morning and we were sitting in a Chinese café with a few derelict old men who had nowhere to go.
“Well,” she said, perhaps warming up from the gin, “you did surprise me. It’s not too safe for foreigners to be walking about here so late at night.”
“But you’re here,” Edith pointed out, “and you’re alone.”
“Yes,” she said, “but I live around here. They know me and they leave me alone.”
We weren’t sure what to say to that. After a moment, I raised my glass and said, “Well, here’s to keeping safe.”
She laughed, a little cynically I thought, and said, “No one’s safe in this world. You can be struck down in the middle of the day the same as the middle of the night. Maybe just for different reasons or by different means.”
I pointed to her glass and she nodded. I waved to the waiter and circled my hand around the table to indicate another round.
When our drinks came, Edith said, “Would you like to join us for dinner tomorrow evening?” She stopped for a moment and laughed. “I guess I mean this evening, don’t I.”
Isabel lowered her eyes and thought for a moment. “I don’t see why not,” she said.
“Fine,” said Edith. “Shall we say eight o’clock at the Raffles Hotel?”
Isabel hesitated for a moment, and I wondered if she might be uncomfortable with the idea of dining at the Raffles.
“I say,” I jumped in, “I’m rather tired of the Raffles. How about we try that place by the river? The one with the big lobster over the door. I’ve heard they have very good food. And it’s not far from here.”
Isabel seemed to relax at this suggestion. “I know the one,” she said, and agreed to meet us there at eight.
We ended up having a rather pleasant meal, although Isabel was late and we weren’t sure she would be coming. She arrived at about twenty past, without apology, wearing a pretty but slightly shabby flowered dress in shades of blue silk. She wore white gloves and carried a worn handbag of black leather. The Singapore climate is not kind to leather, and it showed signs of incipient mildew, a constant problem in such a damp place. However, her hair had been freshly marcelled and she wore lipstick and rouge. Clearly she had wanted to make a good impression.
She ate heartily, which surprised us both, but I supposed she didn’t often have the opportunity of a good meal, so she wasn’t about to pass up the chance. We were happy to oblige, and the food was quite good, as promised. We ordered gin all around to start with, then an assortment of seafood, including cuttlefish, prawns, and grouper, and some noodles and some sort of greens, all done in the Cantonese style. I ate the least, not because I wasn’t hungry, but because my two female companions had the heartier appetites. Edith’s love of food didn’t surprise me — I’d seen her tuck in many evenings during the sea voyage — but the slender, in fact, waiflike, Isabel must have had what my mother used to call a “hollow leg,” because I have no idea where all that food went. Anyway, we did not begrudge her a mouthful, and it helped shave the edges off our guilt at deceiving her. I’m sure she thought we were a well-to-do husband and wife on holiday, for truthfully, only the well-to-do took a holiday in the Far East.
She was not much more forthcoming on that second meeting than she had been on the first. She told us she had been in Singapore for five
years, that she had come out to be married, and that her husband had died not long after their marriage. When I asked why she’d chosen to remain, she just looked sad and didn’t answer.
“Do you have any family left in England?” asked Edith.
“Not really,” she said. “My father died a few years ago, but I do have an aunt and some cousins near Dorset.”
“Ah, Dorset,” said Edith. “I used to know someone from Dorset. Archie Fellowes. He’s been dead for nearly a decade. Perhaps you knew him, or your aunt might have known him.”
“I didn’t spend much time there,” she said. “We weren’t very close.”
“And your husband?” I ventured. “Any family on that side?”
“No. He was an orphan, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, I’m sorry,” I said, as if condolences were called for. It was clear to me that the woman bore a deep burden of sorrow, and that this unhappiness had become a part of her personality. She was a very pretty girl, with a heart-shaped face and blue eyes, but she seldom smiled or laughed. I imagined her as a young woman in love, engaged to be married. It was probably the happiest time of her life. And, seemingly, it had all gone wrong. And here she was, barely thirty, and a prostitute in Singapore. It seemed a long way to fall.
Once we finished eating, Isabel lingered for another half-hour listening to our chatter and then said she had an appointment — that’s the word she used — and really had to get going. Edith and I expressed polite dismay and said we must do it again sometime. Where could we get hold of her?
“Just leave a message at the café,” she said, “and I’ll meet you somewhere. That’s the easiest way.”
“All right,” said Edith. “We’ll have tea or perhaps dinner again.”
We watched her walk away, her body so thin you could see her shoulder blades jutting through the fine silk fabric of her frock. I felt sad for her, and knew she must be going off to some distasteful assignation for a few dollars, probably just enough to pay her rent and buy some cigarettes.
“What can we do?” Edith said in a tone that implied she did not expect an answer. For really, was there an answer? Was there anything we could do for Isabel?
We met a few more times after that, and on one of these occasions, after a few gins and some gentle prodding about why she had chosen to stay on in Singapore, she confided that she had had a child, a boy, and that he had died before his first birthday. His father, she said, had not lived to see him born.
“It’s why I can’t leave, you see. They’re both here, buried in the ground, and I can’t leave them. I’ve nothing else left in the world.”
“Oh, my dear,” said Edith, on the verge of tears, “that’s not true. You’re young, and very pretty, and you could find love again. You’ve known great tragedy in your life, but you can’t give up.”
“But what can I do?” she said. “I have no money, no skills. You’ve seen what my life is. I know I haven’t fooled you.”
“What would you like to do?” I asked. “Perhaps we can help you.”
“I’d like a job,” she said, “a proper job that pays my rent and buys me food and clothes, and maybe a ticket to the cinema once and a while. That’s not a lot to ask, is it?”
“No, my dear, it’s not,” I said. “But you’re unlikely to find that here. Why don’t you consider returning to England, starting again?”
She laughed. “How could I get back to England? I have no money.”
“I could take you back,” I offered. “I travel back and forth frequently, and I would happily buy your passage, if you’d let me. I have many friends in London and I’m confident we could find you a job. I assure you, it’s not impossible.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Edith saw the virtue in remaining silent and said nothing. Then I watched as large tears began to fall from Isabel’s eyes. Her chest heaved and her shoulders began to shake. Great sobs came from her throat. I couldn’t remember ever having seen someone cry like that, as if she had taken the sorrows of the whole world inside her.
“Yes,” she whispered between sobs. “Yes.”
I booked passage the very next day and we returned to England on the first ship. During the course of the voyage, Isabel showed me her drawings and paintings, mostly small, eloquent portraits she had done of the Chinese prostitutes she had befriended. They were, I thought, quite accomplished and I offered to buy them from her. She was astonished that I would consider them worth anything. I told her I thought they were very good — not a lie, for they were — and that it had given me an idea. When we got to London I told her I would contact a friend of mine who had a commercial advertising firm. I was pretty sure he would be willing to take on someone in his art department who had a talent for painting.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Annabelle usually slept until midday and when she woke her first thoughts were of her darling little boy, Frankie. Francis Edward Stone would be almost three now, she thought. She hadn’t seen him in a year since Sutty had taken him back to England to be raised by his own mother, Maud. Dear little Frankie. How she missed him. The only photograph she had of him, showing his beautiful silky blond curls, was already tattered and stained with tears. In her last letter to Sutty she had asked him to send her a recent picture of the boy so she could see how happy and healthy he was.
The decision to give him up had been the hardest of her life. Sutty had tried so many times to get her to come back to England and give herself and Frankie a chance at a new life. He had offered her the world, and she had turned him down. A part of her knew it didn’t make sense, but another part of her realized that she couldn’t raise her own child. She had tried for two years, and for two years had been tortured by the fact that every time she looked at Frankie, she felt the loss of his father even more. The boy was so much like Francis that she should have been comforted, but she wasn’t. She wished it could be otherwise. In some strange way, she felt it was more important to take care of Francis, who was no longer living, than to take care of Frankie, who was so vital and full of promise.
If truth be told, Annabelle wanted to be dead. She wanted to be in the ground with Francis, and she knew this fact made her unfit to be a mother. After a lot of thought, much of it illogical and driven by grief, she begged Sutty to take the child back to England with him and give him the life and education he deserved. In her heart, Annabelle believed these things would replace a mother’s love, especially a mother whose love was buried with her dead husband.
May God forgive me, she thought as she watched the departure of the ship that would take young Frankie and Sutty far away from her. She knew she might never see her son again, but she didn’t dwell on that thought. She would watch him grow up through letters and pictures, and maybe, someday, he would come back to her as a young man, a successful lawyer or doctor or teacher — whatever he wanted to be. She knew Sutty would give him that.
Sutty had spoken often of his mother, Maud, for whom he had the highest regard. If Maud had raised a son who admired his mother so much, then she would be a good mother to Frankie, even at her advanced age (Sutty wasn’t exactly sure, but he estimated her age to be about seventy). Besides, she was wealthy and there would be servants to help out, most likely a nanny or nurse, maids, a cook. Frankie would be loved and well cared for.
The birth had been difficult. Annabelle had been thin and undernourished, even though Sutty constantly brought her food and fresh milk. “Please try to eat, Annabelle,” he would say. “This baby needs you to be strong and healthy. Please give him a chance.” Her arms had been like twigs, but she had tried her best, even though she woke up every morning in tears, and fell asleep every night the same way. She seemed to love Francis even more in death, if that was possible. What haunted her was that all of his hopes and dreams and enthusiasm were gone as well, and those things, she realized, had sustained her in the difficult life she endured in Singapore just to be with him. It was so unfair that he should have been wiped from the earth so horribly by a feve
r so voracious it had eaten him alive in a matter of days. What kind of world was this? What kind of world to bring a child into? Did Annabelle want her baby to die rather than be born into such a world? It was unthinkable, she told herself. But while she didn’t want him to die, she didn’t seem able to give him a life. There was nothing left in her to give. At least, that’s what she believed.
But Francis Edward Stone had been born, in spite of her misgivings and her thinness. He had come into the world, kicking and screaming after a labour that seemed to last for days. She had been in agony for five hours before Sutty came and found her. The shop owner downstairs had heard her cries, and had finally sent for Sutty, who he knew was staying at the Raffles. The pain had started well before dawn, and the shop had not opened until nearly ten in the morning, so there was no one to hear her during those early hours.
They got her to hospital and a bed had been found. She was two weeks earlier than expected. Sutty had persuaded her to see Dr. Ashford and he had estimated the date of birth. There were eighteen more hours of agony before little Frankie arrived. She would never forget it. She had nearly drowned in her own sweat. Let me die now, she kept thinking. Please, let me die now. Cut me in half if you have to and take the child, but let me die now.
When it was over, they placed the baby in her arms and she wept because it was Francis she saw, and she remembered again how she had lost him.
But Frankie was safe now, in England with Sutty and Maud. And today there was another letter from Sutty telling her he was coming to Singapore in three months time.
January 12, 1928
Dearest Annabelle,
It has been many months since I’ve seen you, but I look forward to seeing you again on my next visit to Singapore. I am booked to arrive March 10 on the P&O and will look you up as soon as I’m settled. I will be staying, as usual, at the Raffles should you wish to leave me a message.
