by David Nesbit
Just calmness and a realisation that the life I was leading in Indonesia really wasn’t normal. This new life in England defined normality. This was the sort of life most people lead. They get up, go to work, come home, relax and then go to bed. That’s it. No fuss, no drama.
Simplicity is genius, as someone much smarter than me once said.
I was very lonely that winter, but also was very happy. I missed Tess so much it was physically painful, but on the other hand I was able to see things clearly and after such a long time away from England, I was enjoying everyday life again.
For example, I was enjoying simple things like walking down the street and not being stared at (way back Yossy had warned me that that would get old quickly — I hadn’t taken much notice at the time, but she had been right) and I enjoyed simple things I had taken for granted before but had missed in the time I’d been away. Things such as the long summer evenings, for instance, contrasted with Indonesia as well as the changing of the seasons. With Indonesia being very near the equator I was used to almost exactly twelve hours of sunshine and twelve hours of darkness every single day three hundred and sixty five days of the year and totally constant (hot) weather.
I was constantly working, and so always tired, but it was all coming together, or so it seemed. I got back into the habit of watching English TV shows again, got up to speed on local and national news, got back in touch with old friends, started reading my old favourite newspapers and magazines again, and generally began to settle down.
The only real blot on the landscape was how much I missed my darling Tess. I knew it was going to be hard living without her but I didn’t realise just how hard. I truly think if it wasn’t for her I would never have returned to Indonesia and I would definitely have ended the thing known as my marriage then and there.
I would speak with Tess a couple of times a week and tell her all about what was happening in England and what her aunts, uncles and cousins were up to. She always sounded so cheerful and happy on the phone, and I thank God that throughout everything that’s happened in her life she seems so well adjusted. On the phone there was never any crying or asking me to come home or why I had to work away right now. I am blessed to have her, and I love her so much.
As for Yoss, though, well, I can’t really say I missed her at all. Sometimes back then, and even now if I’m totally honest, I used to think of how things were in the early years and I missed them. I missed the way we were and the love we had, or appeared to have, for each other back then. Then just as I would get all misty eyed and start convincing myself there was something there worth fighting for and trying to save, I’d focus on the way things really were. I remembered the unpleasantness, the fighting and, worst of all, the indifference, and I’d wonder, ‘Is it all worth it?’
I came to England in June ostensibly to work on a summer school for foreign students wanting to learn English while experiencing the country and its people, with the supposed aim of evaluating the state of the work market in order to be able to make an informed decision on whether or not the three of us should settle there.
I was under no illusions of Yossy actually wanting to be with me, rather it was probably a case of her having burnt all her other boats back in Indoland and so she now saw Blighty as a last-chance-escape-valve. Maybe I’m being a bit cynical here, but I know she had many creditors chasing her, and probably many other people besides.
I had no choice but to go back to living at home with my mum while trying to save some money for a deposit on a place of my (our?) own. I found it a bit embarrassing being back at home at my age even if it was just in the short term, but needs must, eh?
2am Sunday morning
I’d just finished an extra shift and was on my way home. Yoss sent me a text requesting I call her urgently. I replied telling her I would do so in a few minutes when I got home and that when I did she should get to the point, whatever it was, quickly and not indulge in ten minutes of waffle as was her wont.
I got home, sorted myself out and sat down with the phone. As usual I had the stopwatch going with the intention not to exceed five minutes. Pretty expensive, these transcontinental phone calls, and this, added to the fact I just wanted my bed, meant I was not really in the mood for a long talk about nonsense.
Me: Hi, Yoss. What’s up?
Her: Hi. What time is it there?
Me: Late. What’s the matter?
Her: Errrr …
Me: Just tell me.
Her: I’m not well.
Me: What’s wrong?
Her: Something wrong with my stomach.
Me: What?
Her: I don’t know.
Me: Have you been to the doctor?
Her: Yes.
Me: What did he say?
Her: He said it’s either a tumour or …
Me: Yes?
Her: I’m pregnant.
Me: Huh?
Her: It’s either a …
Me: Yes, I heard. Which is it?
Her: What?
Me: Which is it? Are you pregnant or is it a tumour?
Her: The doctor says I’m pregnant. That’s what he thinks.
Me: Is that possible?
Her: No!
Me: So, you have a tumour?
Her: Yes … Or I’m pregnant.
Me: You said that’s not possible.
Her: It isn’t. But the doctor says I am.
Me: Have you had sex with anybody else?
Her: No.
Me: But the doctor says you’re pregnant?
Her: Yes.
Me: Have you had a test?
Her: Yes.
Me: And?
Her: It’s positive.
Me: So, you’re pregnant.
Her: No. It’s impossible.
Me: It’s late. I’m going to bed. Goodnight.
Click
So, there I was in England, living with my mum, in love with one woman thousands of miles away (Jolie) while unable to escape the clutches of misery another one (Yossy), also thousands of miles away, was causing me, and on top of all that I was missing little Tess so much it was physically hurting.
What a mess.
In the words of the late, great Dusty, I just didn’t know what to do with myself. Every which way I looked I couldn’t see a way out of my troubles. If I did what I believed 99.99% of other men would do, then I would walk away from the marriage with Yoss and never look back, and I knew that was what anyone I asked would advise me to do. Perhaps it was for that reason, that of not wanting to hear the truth, that I never did ask anyone for advice. I never once let on to my family or friends, whether in Indonesia or England, exactly what was happening back in Indonesia. Nobody was any the wiser about how bad things had become between Yossy and I, or of her medical condition or even the very existence of either Arin or Jolie.
Thinking about the three women in my life: Jolie, Yossy and Tess, brought about a whole range of emotions. I loved Jolie and wanted to be with her, but I didn’t know if that was practical or even if that was what she wanted anymore. When we’d been together in Surabaya we’d loved each other. Really properly loved each other, I mean, not just uttered the platitudes. Back then she’d listened to me, held me, advised me, loved me and then loved me some more. Now though, we were half a world apart and had been for some time, and time and distance can do things to the strongest of relationships in the best of circumstances.
Jolie was sweet and innocent in a way that took me back years to the way Yossy had been when we first met but she was also different to Yoss in many ways. She had more of an easy-going personality for a start, and seemed to be someone who could quite possibly go through her entire life without ever once really getting angry or saying anything mean to anyone. At 23 she was still young and hopeful for what the future might hold in store, whilst I was already feeling my age and in danger of becoming jaded and an old man before my time. Despite my rather jaundiced outlook on life, however, Jolie did love me. She’d told me that often when I was
living in Surabaya, and again now over the phone while I was in England. She was a candle of hope for me in what was becoming a rather bleak winter of discontent.
Tess was breaking my heart. Breaking it in a way neither Yossy nor Jolie, or any other woman come to that, could ever do. She’d always been a ‘daddy’s girl’ and the miles and months apart couldn’t change that. I carried her pictures around with me everywhere I went and I never passed up an opportunity to show them to anyone and everyone I came into contact with at the flimsiest of an excuse. Many was the bemused taxi passenger or English-language student who, upon making the most innocuous of remarks, found themselves practically being forced to wade through a collection of snapshots of my five-year-old princess while being regaled with anecdotes of her amazing talents, skills and abilities.
Yes, I guess I was kind of boring at times.
Yossy, though, that was different. I felt so many conflicting emotions regarding her. I worried about how she was looking after Tess, I worried that people were taking advantage of her naivety and bad business sense. I was also disappointed in her, in what and who she had become, and how she, I felt, used people up. I often remembered our very first conversation a dozen years earlier on Kuta Beach when she blithely informed me that she subscribed to the viewpoint that some people were just out for themselves and to see what they could get from others before moving on to someone else, and it pained me. I knew that there was a part of me that still did, and always would, love her, but did I miss her? No, not at all. I really didn’t, and that was what was saddest of all.
I guess I had been hoping that going to England would somehow make things clearer and lift the fog a bit, and in a way it did. The phone call from Yossy certainly had the effect of bringing things to a head, if nothing else, and I realized I couldn’t let things go on the way they were: I would have to go back to Indonesia, even if temporarily, and sort things out once and for all.
So I booked the cheapest flight I could and headed back to Indonesia. On the plane I went over my plan again: I would fly into Jakarta and then on to Surabaya where I would accompany Yoss to the doctor, get a proper scan and find out just what the heck was going on. Then, depending on what the scan showed up, I would make my decisions and take back my life. I had it all worked out. I really truly loved two girls and I wanted them both. I was, I decided, going to do anything necessary to get them both.
Needless to say, it all went tits up. Again
First, I stopped off in Jakarta on the way to Surabaya to see if we could sort out what was up with Tess. I was due to arrive in Jakarta in the early hours of the morning and leave for Surabaya the following afternoon, but first I had a sort of job interview. When I knew I was going to come back and try and sort out this mess, I had a bit of a hunt around on the internet and managed to line up a couple of interviews, one in Jakarta and another in Surabaya.
After thinking things through, although I knew I didn’t want to come back here to stay, I had to concede it might be for the best. So the following lunchtime I had my ‘sort of’ interview with a guy I used to know vaguely years back in Surabaya. He had opened an English school in Jakarta in the mid 90s and had tried to persuade me to move with him then, but stupidly at the time I thought Yoss and I were happy where we were and so I turned him down.
Anyhooo … we met up and had a nice lunch and chat together and he offered me a job teaching with him and talked vaguely about also needing a manager for a new school he was opening. I told him I was very interested in the teaching position, but didn’t push myself forward too much regarding the management job. An hour or two later and I was on the plane heading to Surabaya to see Yoss and Tess for the first time in eight months.
Finally I arrived, got my bags and made it out of the terminal. I was feeling hot, tired, none too happy to be back and generally a bit miserable.
That all changed the moment I saw Tess.
She’s sitting on a steel barrier as I come out the terminal and immediately she starts yelling my name and tries to jump down.
‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ with her little hands waving twenty to the dozen.
She jumps down and runs to me. I sweep her up in my arms and just hold her.
She’s mine. I love her. She’s my girl and I need her, love her, and can’t be without her.
No matter what.
So, with a weariness and a sense of dread we made an appointment and went to the doctor. The same one we’d visited six years previously almost to the day under much happier circumstances and, as I expected but hoped against hope, got the news confirmed. There it was on the little telly. Look, the doctor pointed out to us, there’s the little dot that is to be sprog number two chez Neil.
Oh dear, oh dear.
I arched an eyebrow at Yoss. It was about all I was capable of right then. She looked devoid of any emotion whatsoever, while I couldn’t wait to see how she was going to tap-dance her way out of this one and lay this particular conundrum at my feet.
That’s the magic of the girl: you just really never knew what she was going to come up with next.
After a day’s silence, she had the answer. A good night’s sleep was all she needed to come up with a thorough explanation for the growth inside of her. Panic over, everyone, all has been explained.
A miracle conception.
She had, she explained with the straightest of straight faces, no idea how she had managed to reach her current state of having a six-week-old foetus growing inside of her, and so, she informed me, it is clear that the Almighty chose her to deliver a, presumably, pure and heavenly child into the world for some divine, if as yet unspecified, purpose.
Hey-ho.
I went to sleep. I had nothing to say to Yossy, so I simply went to the spare bedroom, the one I had spent most of the last two years I’d been in Indonesia sleeping in, and curled up and went to sleep.
The next day I woke up and played with Tess and helped her with her breakfast, and then without saying a word to Yossy, we left for her school. On the journey to school Tess chattered away incessantly about this, that, and the other. She asked me a million questions about England, her cousins there, the weather, when I would be going back, did I have any presents for her, her school, her friends, and … Mummy’s new friends.
Tess told me innocently how her mum was very busy now and in fact often so busy that she didn’t have time to even come home at night. ‘But it was ok, Daddy, because Mummy’s new friends always look after her and take her everywhere she wants to go.’ I just listened without interrupting and let little Tess babble on. She babbled all right. She babbled about the man who let Mummy come with him to Singapore and to Bali a few weeks ago. She babbled about the phone calls Mummy often got late at night and the she babbled about the people who came to the house looking for Mummy when she was not there. Mummy was very lucky to have so many friends, Tess told me gravely, because she, Tess, only had a few friends at her school. I just listened.
After I dropped Tess off at her school I went to see Jolie.
I tell Jolie I’m leaving Yoss. I lay it out there, convinced she is going to fall into my arms, kiss me, and start planning our life together.
She doesn’t.
‘Things have changed,’ she mumbles.
‘How? What’s changed?’ I ask.
‘Well … I can’t do this anymore. I feel so guilty.’ Dead eyes stare at the floor.
‘Guilty to who? To my wife? Why? She doesn’t love me. She will be glad to see the back of me.’ I’m gushing now, near to pleading.
‘No. Not to her. To you, to Tess, to me … ah, it’s difficult to explain.’
So she doesn’t, and I go.
Heartbroken.
Again.
I just didn’t know what to think anymore. I mean, I know it must sound ridiculous, but I actually got to thinking maybe it was true; that it really was some kind of unexplainable miracle conception. Living with her I thought I had become immune to her lies and her performances, but this was somet
hing else again. Here she was, caught red-handed in adultery and yet still displaying the uncanny ability to twist things around so I actually found myself beginning to apologise for doubting her. I started to think she was either telling the truth or else she should be on the stage, her performance was that good.
She swore over and over again that she had not had sex with anyone else, not once, not ever since we were married, and do you know what? I felt myself wavering.
Yeah, yeah, I know what I’m saying. I know how absurd and unbelievable, in fact downright impossible the very notion of this miracle conception is, but in the light of her adamant stand and determination of denial, in my addled brain I felt confused as to what choice I had other than to accept her at her word.
She stood there and swore to God, to her dead father’s soul, to me, that she had not been unfaithful. Her eyes shining brightly, she looked directly into mine and promised with all her heart that she still loved me, wanted me, and needed me. I can feel her now as she held me and told me how much I meant to her, how she had never stopped loving me and how this child could be a new start for us.
I so wanted to believe her. I really did, because I knew that if I didn’t then I had nothing, and I couldn’t bear that.
Oh, I was not completely deluded. I knew something must have happened, but I also knew I was very unlikely to ever find out what exactly. I gave her every chance to tell me and I told her that if something had happened when I was away in England, whether it was one-off thing, a regular ‘sex-buddy’ thing, or a full-blown affair, then she should tell me and we could sort it out together. She vehemently denied any of these took place and she just stated she had no idea how she came to fall pregnant and that it must have been a gift from God.
Although neither of us mentioned it, there was one other avenue potentially open to us. It was not really a real option, however, and that is why it was never mentioned.
