The Trailing Spouse

by Jo Furniss

  “Josie wasn’t wearing a life jacket.”

  The sharp nose of the boat beached, and too many people clamored to help. Amanda stayed put, ankle-deep in sand and sinking. Josie was on the swim team. She went to the pool every day, diving, freestyle. How could she drown? How was that possible in a few minutes? In calm water, alongside her father.

  Her father. Surely he hadn’t hurt her? Surely not. Right under our noses. The phrase rang around her head like a birdcall from the rain forest.

  The crowd parted. A flash of yellow flippers. Held in Josie’s hands as she waded to shore.

  “Josie!” Amanda wrenched her feet from the sand.

  Through the crowd came an ungainly procession: the two rescuers, struggling under the dead weight of a man. As they carried him up the beach, Ed’s limp hand brushed Amanda’s. He disappeared beneath a cairn of bodies that bent to attend to him. Josie folded under her own weight and plopped down in the shallows. Amanda kneeled and took her shoulders.

  “What happened?”

  “She saved his life, that’s what!” Gruff Australian accent from the boat. “He’d be a goner if she hadn’t spotted him.”

  Amanda tugged at Josie’s arm, and when she couldn’t get her to her feet, she left her bobbing in the water beside the boat. She ran to join the group around Ed. The receptionist tried to turn her away, but she pushed past and fell onto the hot sand beside a young Singaporean, a hotel guest, the one who’d first gone running to help. He glanced at her while pumping Ed’s chest.

  “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “I’m a doctor.” He gave a tight smile that may have been a grimace of effort. A man kneeling on the opposite side of Ed bent forward to breathe into his mouth. The doctor nodded at his mate and said, “He’s a vet.” He carried on pumping in a steady beat.

  “Will you save him?” Her voice came out as though she too were drowning. The doctor glanced up at the receptionist and said something in Malay. Amanda didn’t understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable. Get her out of here. The receptionist bent toward her, but she shrugged his fingers away and sat on her heels to give them space.

  The sky seemed to have been sliced down the middle, the blue side menaced by a mass of storm clouds. It was like this in the tropics: changes too rapid to predict.

  There was a crunch of sand, and Josie kneeled beside Amanda.

  “You shouldn’t watch this, Josie.”

  “I have to.”

  “Swap!” The vet picked up the beat while the doctor used his T-shirt to wipe sweat from his face. “How long was he under?”

  “Not long,” Josie said. “He pointed out a baby shark, and I dived. When I came up, he was floating facedown and his snorkel was gone.”

  “So you took a breath, dived down, and came straight back to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “One dive only?”

  “I couldn’t see the shark, so I came back to ask him where.”

  The news seemed to galvanize the doctor into action while Amanda closed her eyes. She heard the thump of fists on ribs—hurting Ed in order to save him—and then the melody of waves grinding shells to dust. People would think she was praying for her husband’s life. Instead, she thought of sand running through Josie’s fingers like an hourglass. Was time running out or was time running in?

  She opened her eyes to the divided sky. Thousands of feet overhead, an aircraft flew into the cauldron of clouds. She thought about Ed saying that we travel too fast, stepping through a door from one world to another. Amanda had stepped out of the place where she trusted him and believed their marriage was so sacred it should be immortalized with a baby into a new reality where he was a shadow, a dark force hanging over them like a malevolent cloud.

  His hand curled meekly in the sand. She should hold it, squeeze him back to life, call his name. But instead she thought about where those fingers had been. This hand touching the faces of the women on Amanda’s list, the ones whose demises coincided with Ed’s business trips. That hand squeezing her arms as he pressed her against the parapet. Those hands on Josie. Maybe the universe had chosen to intervene? Maybe the hourglass was giving time back to Amanda, to Josie, to the women Ed was destined to meet on future business trips. Tragedies that would never happen if he died now, in the sand.

  “Swap!” The doctor took over CPR.

  “What’s happening?” Amanda asked. If the universe wanted Ed out of the picture, why was it taking so long?

  The vet rubbed the heels of his hands in his eyes. He couldn’t look; he thought he had failed. The doctor continued pumping Ed’s chest, arms shuddering now. Amanda reached a hand toward his exhausted shoulder but instead clutched his battered cap that had fallen into the sand. What would the doctor do if she told him to stop?

  Would the universe really make Amanda choose?

  A splash of warm sand across her thighs. A grunt and a wet retch.

  “That’s it, man, breathe!”

  People cheered.

  Amanda closed her eyes again.

  Chapter 33

  Amanda dodged the motorbikes that crisscrossed the petrol station. Why did Malaysia build everything out of concrete that sharpened the sunlight into arrows? Their driver had the hood up, refilling the screen wash at her insistence after driving blinded by a filthy windscreen. She felt his male resentment like a hot blade and gave him a wide berth as she went to look for her sunglasses in the open trunk.

  Ed lay on the back seat, Josie trapped by his legs. They were an hour from the border to Singapore. Adventure was all very well, but not when you’re having a heart attack or allergic reaction or whatever Ed denied was happening. Maybe it was a reaction to thinking him dead, but now she urgently wanted to get him to the hospital.

  “I’m going to tell her if you don’t.” Josie’s voice, a sharp hiss, carried over the seat. The driver turned on a tap of sizzling water, and Amanda missed whatever was said next. Tap off, and she could hear Ed. “I’d get no second chances.” A motorbike screamed past. Then Ed again: “If we tell anyone, I’ll have to stop and I don’t intend to stop.”

  Amanda’s hands went to her face, and her thumbs felt something behind her ears. The sunglasses were on her head. The driver got in and started the engine. Josie sat up straight and rubbernecked when she noticed Amanda standing at the open boot. “Oh, hey. Is there any water?” Amanda ripped a bottle out of the plastic wrapper and passed it over the seat. Josie snapped the seal and gave it to her father.

  “Do you want to take a turn in the front?” Amanda asked. “Stretch your legs.”

  Josie’s eyes flickered down to the seat where Ed lay out of sight. After a moment she said, “I’m okay.” Amanda got in the passenger seat with a glance into the back, where Josie was slumped against the door, the seat belt pressed like a gag across her face.

  They crawled across the causeway from Malaysia to Singapore, cars stretched in lines like forest ants. Amanda focused on the sea, a no-man’s land between two worlds: fish farms, sampans, and tankers. Singapore rose like Shangri-La. Amanda was a chosen one, she could enter. But for how long? Imagine if Ed had drowned . . . Would Amanda have a month to leave the country—like Molly’s friend, Melissa Something, whose husband died?

  If I’m forced out of the country, what happens to my embryos?

  What happens to Josie?

  She started searching on her phone for the regulations concerning frozen embryos. Could she take them with her? Was that even possible? How many Prada bags would it cost? She searched for answers until they jerked to a halt—at the Attica instead of a hospital. Thirty minutes later, she stood before Chairman Mao while Ed packed another bag.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Don’t start, Amanda.”

  “I thought you were going for a checkup?”

  “Bernardo called. Says his buyer defaulted on the payment. I don’t trust that little shit.”

  “Manila again?”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow night.” Ed
dumped one load of clothes from his case and replaced it with another. He went into his bathroom, and Amanda heard him rifling under the sink.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “A gun.” A can of shaving cream rolled out into the bedroom.

  “What?”

  Ed strode out. “Kidding. Ha ha. I’ve got a headache. Feels like someone’s stabbing my eyeballs with a pitchfork.”

  “And you’re not going to the doctor, why?”

  “Sarcasm is ugly, Amanda.” He spun around to face her. “I’m trying to rescue my fucking business. Can’t you read the writing on the wall? Or do you need it spelled out in pixelated fingernails?” He leaned over her shoulder and she flinched, but he only flicked part of Mao’s cheek across the room. “I need this sale. Or our adventures in business class are going to come crashing down.” He hauled the handle of the suitcase up with a definitive snap. “And I don’t need to go to the doctor because I got dehydrated, that’s all. Messing about on that bloody kayak. I’ll buy some pills at the airport and I’ll be fine.”

  “There’s coconut water in the fridge.”

  “Coconut water? Right. Thanks for the sage advice.”

  His lips struck her somewhere on the chin as he went out the door. Amanda unpacked her belongings onto the bed like flotsam washed ashore. She pulled out a tattered baseball cap. A confetti of white sand sank into the rug. Her fingernail plucked the frayed embroidery of a Harvard logo. She hoped the hat hadn’t been of sentimental value to the doctor whose intricate accent outlined a road map of an excellent education. As she scooped her hair into his cap, she pushed aside an image of him kicking around in the sand for a hat that must have disappeared while he was bringing a dead man back to life.

  Amanda lay in bed, watching a cruise ship blaze toward the harbor like the circus coming to town. Her mother would be moored in a grubby port. For some reason, she pictured Laura like a pirate captain, writing by the light of a candle. Ridiculous. It was a modern ship. Satellite Internet and GPS. If she’d ever been invited on board, she might be able to picture the reality. She rolled away from the sea view, wishing she could switch off her mind—or those perpetual lights—and get some rest. The sleeping pills on Ed’s nightstand were tempting . . . And that reminded her . . . She swung her legs from under the sheet and scrabbled in her bedside drawer for a folded piece of paper. In the hullabaloo that had followed the notification that Awmi had been underage, she had forgotten about the other letter—the one from the police about Ed’s withheld medication. What had he been taking? Could it explain his episode at Cuti?

  On the way to the kitchen, she listened at Josie’s door, but all was quiet. She took the letter from the police into the maid’s room and laid it aside while she searched systematically through the box, but there was nothing more than Awmi’s personal belongings. Amanda sat on the bed and opened an Internet browser on her phone: the police had listed the confiscated meds as “clonazepam.” Used to treat convulsive disorders and panic attacks and/or anxiety. She scanned the paragraphs about neurotransmitters and GABA receptors. May result in addiction. An addict might score pills from doctors in different countries, Amanda thought. Commonly used as a recreational drug. A sudden withdrawal might explain his collapse at the beach. Also documented as a date-rape drug.

  Ah. Date-rape drug. A sting rose on the back of her calf, and she slapped the spot where she’d been bitten. The mosquito was already gone. Stealth hunter. Sneaking up and administering anesthetic before taking what it wants. The phone buzzed in her hand. Unknown number. She hesitated a moment and took the call.

  “Is that Jacaranda?” The voice on the line was male but as high and tight as a flying bug. “Jacaranda Mitchell?”

  It took Amanda a second to catch up. “Yes, this is . . . she . . . Jacaranda.”

  “I’m calling on behalf of my wife. She bought your so-called designer bag last week.” The voice was slightly slurred, maybe drunk. “You’ve ignored our emails so this is a courtesy before reporting the matter to the police.”

  “What emails? I’m sorry, but I’ve no idea what this is about.” She walked rapidly into the living room and pulled her laptop open. “I’ve been away so I haven’t been online.”

  “Well, if you had, you’d see that your cottage industry has been exposed. My wife wants her money back, and so do your other victims.”

  The laptop came to life, icons popping up. As soon as Facebook appeared, she went to SOWs. A post pinned to the top of the page had hundreds of comments. It accused her, or at least Jacaranda Mitchell, of selling a fake Prada bag.

  “Don’t compound it by lying. Or playing dumb. Return the money and we’ll say no more. I don’t want to get involved in a court case, but I will call the police if I have to.”

  Amanda opened Gmail in another tab and went to the in-box for Jacaranda Mitchell. “Can you give me a moment to read your emails? I have them open now.”

  He huffed as though that were an imposition in itself but stayed quiet.

  Amanda opened the first email from her buyer. I met you recently to buy your Prada bag and handed over $2,000 in cash. The following day, I took the bag to the store to arrange a professional clean, which they carried out. However, I got an email today from their workshop to say the bag is not original. You can see attached photos of the poor workmanship that shows it is not a real Prada—the stitching has a number of faults. I don’t want to make accusations, but you claimed when you sold me the bag that you didn’t have a receipt/proof of purchase because it was a gift from your husband. Whether you believe it to be authentic or not, I want a refund right away.

  “I see,” Amanda said.

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “The bag is real. My husband bought it in Zurich.”

  “So he says—”

  “Why would he lie?” It was a rhetorical question, but a dozen reasons popped up like targets at a duck shoot. To shut me up. To keep me sweet. To relieve his guilt. Underpinning them all, a painful truth: because I’m easily bought.

  “Well, someone’s lying. I just want my money back. And the other women do too.”

  “What other women?”

  “The ones you’ve suckered on that Facebook page.”

  “I haven’t suckered anyone.”

  The man, whose name she didn’t even know, gave a nasty laugh. “True enough. You sucker yourselves with this designer bullshit.” He rang off.

  On Facebook, SOWs were revolting. Another of Jacaranda’s buyers had taken a Hermès bag she had bought a month earlier to the shop and been told that it too was a suspected fake. Naturally, everyone who’d ever bought from Jacaranda was demanding pay back, proof or no proof. The self-proclaimed victims were smothered in a virtual group hug from a gleeful #squad of rubbernecking strangers: “Oh babes, that’s awful,” “Don’t worry, doll, that bitch’ll get her comeuppance,” “So sorry, hon.”

  Babes. Doll. Hon.

  The lingo conjured up fake friends with fake nails and fake smiles, slurping down drama like cheap Chardonnay. Amanda shut the laptop and slumped sideways on the sofa. She’d raised $7,000 by selling that Hermès bag—her engagement present—and spent it at the fertility clinic. If she had to return that money, plus the $2,000 for the Prada and the various shoes . . . Twelve thousand dollars at least. A week ago, she would have defended herself to the hilt. Yes, she’d deceived people about her name—she didn’t want Singapore society knowing that Amanda Bonham flogged her husband’s guilt gifts for cash—but that was all. It was a white lie. Nobody died. She thought the bags were as authentic as her crow’s feet. But now she couldn’t be so sure.

  If she wasn’t the liar, then maybe—once again—Ed was.

  Chapter 34

  Camille suggested meeting Joshua on the neutral ground of a kopitiam. She knew he liked the local brew. Josh ordered a breakfast of kaya toast and eggs, which arrived translucent and sat between them in a cup, two additional eyeballs that Camille could do without.<
br />
  “I’m afraid the high commissioner hasn’t made a decision on your job,” he said. “Did you see the latest on Reuters?”

  Camille was up-to-date. A group of Singaporean lawmakers had signed an open letter protesting what they called the BHC’s neocolonial attitude. The row was escalating.

  “I’m not here to beg for my job,” Camille said. “I’m going to use the suspension time to get well.”

  “Are you sick?”

  “In a way. I don’t know what to call it. Maybe it’s a kind of addiction or compulsion. At least, that’s how I view it.”

  “Camille, I had no idea.”

  “Yes, you do. I get . . . obsessed with certain ideas.”

  Josh bobbed his head to one side.

  “It came to a head this week, and I feel like I’ve surfaced from the murk. I’m seeing clearer than I have for a long time. It’s all to do with my parents.”

  “It was a terrible thing to happen to a child,” he said.

  “It seems obvious now that I’m compelled to work for HELP—even to lose my job—because I feel guilty about our helper, who was sent away when my parents disappeared. I was never able to say goodbye to Lani or find out if she was okay. I didn’t even know her full name.”

  “Camille . . .” Josh put down his fork.

  She shrugged. “I’m only stating the facts. My point is, that’s a surface issue. Working on the HELP campaign feels like I’m making a difference—”

  “HELP does make a difference.”

  “But it’s not the endgame. It distracts me from the deeper issue, which is the question mark over my parents. It’s been fifteen years, and it consumes me now as much as it ever did. People might sneer at the idea of closure, but not knowing what happened . . . it’s like living in a house with an empty space where the front door should be. You can’t stop watching it, you can never settle, you can’t go away and leave. If I can only close that door, I’ll have . . . peace. So I think that’s what I need to focus on. This open door brought me to Singapore. And I think it brought me to Edward Bonham.”