The Trailing Spouse

by Jo Furniss

  “I didn’t spot you up here,” he says.

  My mother tells him, “That much was obvious.” Teddy pushes his fists into his hair and says he was only asking Chloe’s mum about Chloe’s treatment. She flicks cold water off her hands and the drops spatter his shirt. He says, “Are you hungry, Jo-Jo Sparrow?” So we go to our blanket.

  On her side of the rubbish bin, Chloe’s mummy is packing their bag. Chloe comes over with my boat in her hand. She stands on our blanket with her dirty shoes and says: “S’your boat.”

  My mother tuts and says, “No manners. We’re in the middle of lunch.”

  Chloe hands the boat to Teddy. “S’her boat.”

  Now I’m getting up. Chloe has no manners—

  Chloe says, “Here you are, Teddy.”

  —and there is blood on her lip.

  Teddy grabs my arms, squashing my shoulders so hard his fingernails plough my skin. “Josie! You knocked the boat right into Chloe’s face!”

  Chloe cries out—“Teddy!”—and he lets go of me and picks her up. Chloe’s mummy walks onto our blanket and takes Chloe from Teddy and for a few seconds they’re both holding her. “Sorry,” Teddy says to Chloe’s mummy, “we’re overtired.”

  We’re not overtired. We’re wide awake. And we’re angry because his name is Edward.

  Not Teddy.

  He’s not hers, he’s ours.

  Only we call him Teddy.

  Chapter 16

  The door to the balcony was cracked open again; Amanda felt it as soon as she stepped into the kitchen to make her morning tea. Perhaps her brief proximity to death had triggered primal instincts that never troubled her before, because the fine hairs of her arm had started rising and falling like a barometer of her alarm. An animal adapting to its environment. She’d had the same feeling the previous evening at the restaurant, as she came back from the restroom to see Ed and Erin nestled together at the table. Erin’s hand flitted between her hair and the neckline of her dress. Ed was laughing, even though he’d been ready to throttle her.

  Ed. Edward. Teddy.

  If he wasn’t consistent for the duration of a meal, how could Amanda judge his presence across the years of Josie’s life? Her mind slipped to the Bian Lian dancer, how his sleight of hand revealed, for a split second, a handsome face behind the silk mask.

  A lasso of wind swung the balcony door inward and sucked it shut with a bang that lifted the skin off her bones. Outside, Ed stepped into the frame. Amanda felt the hairs on her arms ripple. He waved at her to let him in.

  “What were you doing out there?” she asked as she opened the door.

  Positioning himself directly under the air-conditioning vent, he peeled his shirt off his back. “I was looking for my passport, the second one.” He picked up a tea towel and mopped a trickle of sweat from his cheekbones.

  “Why would it be on the balcony?”

  Ed sniffed the towel and threw it onto the counter. “That’s filthy. When are we going to get another maid?” He went to the sink and drank straight from the tap, sucking in water while glaring out the window at the sun. When he was done, he bunched up his shirt and used that to wipe his armpits. “I thought it might be in the rubbish.”

  “I threw the bags down the chute.”

  Ed swore. “It’s the one with my Philippines visa.”

  “I could phone the British High Commission? They could rush through a replacement.”

  Ed stopped in the doorway. “They let you have a duplicate if you’re traveling a lot, but they don’t hand them out like flyers.”

  You’re not the first klutz to lose his passport. She heard the sarcastic retort in her head, but didn’t let it out. Normally, she would pull him up, put a stop to such self-importance. But she recalled his fingernail dents in her skin the night before. Since when do I tiptoe around my own husband?

  “Get another helper.” He waved his arms as he walked away, drawing two circles that took in ants—back already—smears on the massive windows, coffee-cup rings on the white counter. “Domestic goddess martyrdom doesn’t suit you.”

  Amanda picked up a dishcloth from the sink, and more ants streamed out from the folds. She opened the cupboard to get bleach, then remembered why there wasn’t any.

  “What’s eating him?” Josie slid into the kitchen and went to the fridge.

  “Lost his passport.”

  “It’ll be in his office downtown.” She went out with a carton of milk.

  Amanda found detergent and sprayed the surfaces. The white floor was streaked with stains as though creatures were burrowing beneath their feet. She passed a wad of paper towel between her palms like a bowler limbering up. Why had Ed been outside on the balcony? How had he known there were bin bags out there?

  She dropped the paper towel and went outside. First she pulled open the chute, wrinkling her nose against the smell. There was nothing out here worth searching. The door to the helper’s room was ajar. She pushed it open. She’d taken Awmi to IKEA once and, when the girl was too shy to state any kind of preference, Amanda had picked out a bed, a lamp, a blind. Compared to the opulence of her own living space, it felt like handing out spare change. She opened the closet door, found it empty. Even the clothes rail had gone. Had the police taken that? The metal bed frame held an uncovered mattress. She pressed it down with both hands. Under the bed, the bare tiles were peppered with white-tipped gecko droppings. Nothing that Ed could have been looking for.

  Amanda took hold of the stiff mattress, but it slipped from her grip and dropped, making the headboard clatter against the wall. She tensed, her attention snatched to the kitchen, but there was no response from the apartment. Then she heard a slap, a single handclap. A silver rectangle the size of her palm lay under the bed.

  She had to lie amid the gecko muck to reach it. It was a smartphone, fatter than her current one, an older model. It must have slipped from a hiding place between the mattress and the bed frame. Was it Awmi’s? The police paperwork, Amanda seemed to remember, listed a phone among the items removed. And if they’d been thorough enough to remove a wardrobe rail, would they have missed this? She pressed the button and it came to life, showing a screen saver of a sunrise with a blurred propeller in the foreground. She knew this picture: Ed had taken it from the cockpit on his first-ever solo flight. He had a copy in his office downtown.

  Ed’s taut voice called her name through the apartment.

  She slipped the phone into her pocket and darted to the kitchen, pulling the glass door closed behind her, dropping to the floor to scrub the stains. Ed came in, groaning when he saw her on the tiles.

  “Ah, come on. I didn’t mean it. About the domestic goddess. I was hot and pissed off.”

  “Did you find your passport?”

  “Must be in the office. I’m going to nip downtown to check.” He came over and lifted Amanda to her feet. “You are a goddess, honestly. Just not a domestic one. Can we please get another helper? The apartment is starting to look like people live here.”

  He wants to live in a showroom. What else is just for show? She took a deep breath. “I don’t want another helper, Ed. I don’t want to feel responsible for someone’s entire life.”

  He rolled his head on his shoulders. “One minute you’re desperate for kids, the next you don’t want responsibility . . .”

  She frowned at that. “It’s a totally different issue. I don’t want a stranger in the house. I don’t want to deal with another adult’s emotional baggage, feeling guilty that she sleeps in a room smaller than our bed, worrying that she’s going to get pregnant or mixed up with loan sharks or suicidal. It’s like being a boss, mother, coworker, and prison guard all rolled into one.”

  “It’s also a privilege that frees you from the shackles. Isn’t that what women want?” He waved a hand at their domestic realm. “You talk about independence, Amanda, but you don’t want the responsibility that comes with it.”

  Feminism mansplained as one woman profiting from another. Ed put her in
her place, which was, at the precise moment the line was delivered, a blood-red kitchen. “I’m going to stage an intervention,” he said, “and phone the maid agency. And I’m going out for a drink tonight.”

  “On a Sunday? Must be someone nice.”

  “No rest for the wicked. It’s only Bernardo, so you’re not missing much.” He leaned in to kiss her goodbye, and she turned one cheek to receive it. When the lift chimed and she heard Ed slide into the void, she pulled the phone from her pocket. It opened to a number pad superimposed on the sunrise. She punched in the code they used for Apple TV, but the screen shuddered. She tapped in Josie’s date of birth. No. She tapped in Ed’s date of birth. The screen cleared to icons. Inside Messages, no conversations were listed. The music folder was empty. She tapped on Photos as she slid herself onto a high stool.

  The first image on the camera roll was blurred, but it appeared to be a woman’s leg from the knee down. The next was a focused version of the same: a high-heeled shoe hooked on a barstool. Peep toe. She scrolled on. Full lips around the rim of a cocktail glass. A manuka-colored clavicle. Cleavage.

  The phone contained no mail, no apps, no contacts. Only photographs: images of women or—more specifically—parts of women. Mouths, feet, breasts, legs, hands. Never a face. Never a full body. Mostly blurred in the dark of a bar or nightclub. They must have been shot without the women’s knowledge. Voyeuristically. Like a boy rolling on the floor to look up women’s skirts. A digital Peeping Tom.

  Was that what Ed did with dodgy Bernardo? Or did he use his business partner as a cover story and sneak off alone to nasty bars? She’d only met Bernardo once, back when they first arrived in Singapore. The company of an overt man’s man didn’t appeal, but now she wondered if Ed kept them apart so Bernardo didn’t blow his cover.

  She let the phone rest in her lap, her fingers twitching as though she’d gripped an electric wire and couldn’t let go. She put one hand to her head and pressed, trying to push back the high whine that carried one word like a live current: pervert. She selected an image at random and clicked on “Details” to check the location: Orchard Towers, Singapore.

  Does this man belong to you?

  Turned out Josie wasn’t the only Bonham hiding in dark places.

  Amanda went to put the phone back in the maid’s room—otherwise Ed would know she was onto him. But before she slid it under the mattress, she opened the web browser and the last page visited loaded. It wasn’t what she was expecting: a personnel page for the British High Commission. She scrolled down and another image of a woman appeared. Amanda recognized the crisp gaze from the consular visit after Awmi died. Alongside his perverse collection of photos, Ed had saved a picture of the young woman she’d invited into her home. Camille Kemble.

  Chapter 17

  Camille took a Sunday-morning run down memory lane. No rose-tinted path, no nostalgic stroll. Instead, she was slip-sliding over mulch on a boardwalk alongside a mangrove swamp. In the gray mud, crabs shoveled dirt from their holes. Out in the straits, a schooner scudded by on its motor, sails wrapped up tight.

  She had often heard her father joke to customers inquiring about a yacht charter: The best time to visit Singapore? Well, we have four seasons—hot and hotter, wet and wetter. Josh was right: she remembered his sayings. There would be laughter; the caller would book. Looking back with adult eyes, Camille recognized it was an act. She remembered him saying that foreign clients expected an Englishman to be half Hugh Grant, half James Bond so he played the part. Half charmer, half secret agent. The former came naturally and, if Camille’s theory was correct, the latter was no act either.

  Her trainers slapped the boardwalk to the beat of her heart. She ran without headphones, no distractions, her rhythm making meditative music that drowned out the inner monologue. Today, though, one image nagged her: London, on the silver-frosted morning her parents delivered her to boarding school, her breath forming visible gasps as they waved goodbye with incongruously tanned hands before heading back to the airport.

  Rounding a curve on the boardwalk, she saw a forest of white masts inside a small harbor. The squat lighthouse looked familiar. She picked up her pace to sprint off the end of the boardwalk onto land, but a sinuous motion below a broken slat made her jump just as a black snake twisted from where it had been basking in the morning sun. She landed heavily and spun around to see its tail slip between mangrove roots. A nervous laugh escaped along with a deep shudder as she turned to face the marina.

  The schooner had found its berth. Her bicep buzzed as a call came in on her mobile phone. She wrestled it out of the running holster and noted the blocked number before answering. Her greeting came out breathy.

  “Have I called at a bad time?”

  She didn’t recognize the voice. “Who’s calling, please?”

  “This is Ed Bonham. I’m looking at your profile picture on the High Commission website.”

  Camille spun away from the boats, her gaze seeing but not registering the gray waters of the strait.

  “Mr. Bonham.”

  “Just Ed. Otherwise you sound like a police officer.” His voice was low, as though he were accustomed to people making the effort to hear him.

  Her thoughts rushed in like the small waves that made up an incoming tide. “My parents . . .” she said. But now that she had him on the line, her questions sunk out of sight.

  “Your parents. I don’t know if I’ll be a help or a hindrance.”

  “That’s okay.” She wondered why she was reassuring him.

  “I’m free tonight. A drink might lubricate my memory.”

  “I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

  “To be honest”—the line was quiet enough to hear the breath catch on his tongue—“I’m intrigued.” Edward Bonham was not afraid of letting the silence gape. It felt like a passive engagement; en garde, thought Camille. She suggested meeting in a coffee shop, a hipster place downtown.

  “I know a bar. Not far from there. I’ll email you the address.” He rang off.

  Inside the marina, the yachts nodded in their moorings. Camille followed the perimeter fence to the main entrance. Staff wearing matching polo shirts were laying tables in the restaurant, setting up for brunch. She walked onto a wide balcony overlooking the water, feeling at home among sea gypsies and charterers. This had been her playground once.

  “Do you need a launch, ma’am?” A guy wearing a yacht club shirt leaned out of the management office, hanging on to the doorframe.

  “No need.”

  He didn’t flex his pecs, but he might as well have. Camille wandered over, wishing she wasn’t meeting him for the first time when she was sweaty. She picked off strands of hair that were stuck to her cheekbones while he told her about the year he’d spent training with a crew on the south coast of England. Camille pretended to know Southampton better than she did. She told him she’d lived in Singapore until the age of ten and her parents had been yacht charterers.

  “So you know this place?” he said.

  “I remember the lighthouse. Not so much the clubhouse.”

  “It was rebuilt in the last few years. After a fire.” He laughed. “Actually, they shifted the lighthouse too. Extended the marina and rebuilt the breakwater.”

  “Huh! I was sure I could remember running along it with my brother.”

  “There are a few in Singapore. Same style.”

  She stared at the lighthouse as though it might move again right in front of her eyes. “So if there was a fire, does that mean the records are gone? I was wondering if the yacht club might have some paperwork about my parents. Or photos.”

  “We have old photos framed around the place; you can take a look. Paperwork, I’m not too sure.”

  “I’m interested in records of their trips in the last few months of their business.”

  “Float plans and outward clearances?”

  “That’s it!” She smiled at the familiar phrase.

  “How long ago? Ten years?”


  “Fifteen, actually.”

  “No, then, sorry. Even before the fire, we don’t keep documents that long.”

  “Never mind.” She watched a family arrive from the car park, a young couple with two toddlers who made a break for the water and had to be steered to safety. An old familiar feeling surfaced, making her feel like one of the overexcited kids, chasing every whim and half-baked idea. For years, she had wasted time and emotion and money trying to uncover her parents’ movements on the day they disappeared. Like the toddlers, running headlong toward the sea, she didn’t know what she was looking for; she only knew she was compelled to keep going. She even wondered if she wanted it so badly because everyone told her to stop. Her friends, her brother, even a private detective who she funded by working an entire summer vacation while at law school. He found nothing and concluded that the original police investigation was sound. Some cases are simply never solved, he said.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said. “I’m going to finish my run.”

  “You should come sailing sometime.” He gave an exaggerated stretch that involved his biceps. Camille saluted him goodbye. It was tempting to invite herself for coffee, but she needed to get back to dry land. She ran into the heat of the car park and stopped when she heard a shout. The guy stood on the steps, framed in the yacht club entrance. “You could try the port authority. For the float plans? They digitized a lot of historical records. It could be there, what you’re looking for?”

  It could be there. Indeed, the truth must be somewhere. Whether she liked it or not, the past had cracked open, awakened by the smells and sounds of a childhood that wasn’t entirely lost even though it had been forgotten. First Edward Bonham, then the photo in the kopitiam, and now the float plans. As if on cue, her phone shuddered: an email with the address of a waterfront bar. She set off alongside the choppy straits. Information was coming up like sediment in a bottle that had been tossed overboard and finally drifted to shore. All she had to do was seize the day, and give it a good shake.