Amanda has lived in Singapore, the United Kingdom, China and Taiwan. She has a BA (Hons) in Chinese and Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, and an MFA in Art and Design. She has taught English and creative writing for over ten years. She is also a Chinese-English translator, as well as chief storyteller to her son. She was a winner of the 2022 Writing the City Showcase Competition.
Yearning
Raquel shook the sheets, once, twice, three times. Each time pink nylon wafted and floated, suspended in the air for a still second, then like a parachute, made a crumpled landing on the King Koil mattress. Thank God for fitted sheets, she thought, as she tucked the edges in neatly, smoothing out the creases with her forearm. She fluffed up the pillows and looked at the clock: 9.25am. Tucking a loose ebony strand behind her ear, she stretched her arms wide. The morning sun was seducing her to hang out the laundry.
With a mountain of Tide fragranced washing in her arms, she hummed a tune she had heard on Class 95 FM the other day, some trending K-Pop remix. Deftly hanging out bulky work jeans, black lacy underwear, dinosaur pyjamas, she lifted her head back exposing her tanned neck, soaking in the morning sun. She felt lucky that she worked for a household with a balcony, one that afforded her views of the canopies of the rain trees. They also had these trees in her hometown in the Philippines, though the mynah birds that made their home here were not to be found there.
The rain trees made her homesick, but looking after the family’s adorable four-year-old son, Danny, brought enough joy to ease the heartache a little. He had a cheeky smile, that boy. His eyes exposed a gentle soul and a strong-willed heart. She was looking after him with an unconditional sort of care she would one day hope to place on her own fantasy children, one with no expectations that Danny had to mould himself into. The way he clung onto her was unlike how he was with his parents, hiding behind her legs when they chastised, “Aiyo, why you cannot even tie your shoelaces yet? Next door Ethan already did it so well!” “You come back from school and cannot even remember your two times tables. So shocking!” Danny would withdraw and Raquel instinctively wanted to shield his ears. He was in nursery school now. Most likely having his morning snack, she mused. From the kitchen wafted the smell of his favourite lunch of rice, minced pork in soya sauce, and sweet potato leaves. She had also prepared multicoloured agar agar jelly for dessert. Today, she was going to pick him up at noon rather than at 4pm as he had a doctor’s check-up later.
Gazing absent-mindedly ahead of her, she saw a woman in the block opposite, seemingly also making use of the morning sun to hang out her laundry. She had seen this woman airing laundry at this time of day before, and she wondered those fleeting thoughts you have about people you walk past in the street. Who was this woman, where did she come from, where was she going, was she happy?
—
The woman spied across the block was Madeleine Wang. She was 35, with many boxes ticked. Well-bred, well-spoken, largely liked, with a husband and a young daughter named Amelia. Life was comfortable in the way that most Singaporeans liked their comforts—an efficient and convenient kind. Blessed with a high forehead, Bambi eyes and a wide smile, as well as intelligence and a charm that she had passed down to her daughter, there was nothing more she felt was allowed to want. Her husband was making just about enough so she could spend more time with their daughter, despite friends chiding her, “Just hire a maid!” With a stubborn sense of self-sufficiency adopted from ten years working in England, she didn’t feel comfortable hiring a live-in helper. In England, helpers were reserved for the mega-rich or royalty, whereas in Singapore, many working and middle-class families hoarded one in their HDB flats.
This was not the first time she had noticed the beautiful maid hanging out laundry in the block opposite her, but today, she really observed her. Her eyes lingered over her long black hair, tanned skin, lithe movements, her seemingly light ease with the world.
Madeleine felt a sudden jolt of yearning. It surprised her. She had not expected that.
This faint lurch in her stomach happened again, followed by a hollow pit. She touched her wrists and decided to ignore it. Strange mood she was in. She preoccupied herself by resuming airing her laundry, then looked at her watch briefly. A couple of hours until picking her daughter up from nursery. The morning felt empty without her.
—
As Madeleine walked out of the condo compound, she saw the maid from across the block walking out too. She gave a warm smile of acknowledgement but realised that no one could see the raised corners of her lips under her surgical mask. She hoped instead that her eyes betrayed warmth.
They walked in the same direction, turning left out of the compound and ambling along the busy main road, until they reached a traffic light and both paused at the crossing, waiting for the man to turn green. Raquel walked with purposeful steps, slightly ahead of Madeleine, who faltered behind, fearing an awkwardly shy companionship while counting down the seconds until the red man disappeared.
Raquel strode fast because life had never permissed her to slow down before, so it was as if she did not know how. Born in the resort town of El Nido in Palawan twenty-eight years ago, her family owned a small hotel business. As a young child, she was enlisted as a helping hand, and remembered making beds for guests. When the Covid pandemic hit, she gamely told her family, “I’ll go and find work in Singapore,” knowing that their family business would be greatly affected. With her expertise in helping to run a hotel, she knew she could surely run a household. One year in and she hadn’t expected to love life in Singapore so much.
—
“Hi” was almost on the verge of running out of Madeleine’s tongue but it seemed almost rude to disturb a woman on a mission. Domestic helpers and the local population enjoyed a different status in Singapore, the former often treated like second-class humans with a low double digit IQ. This sat uneasy with Madeleine. She saw helpers out with families on the weekends, lugging bags and babies, being overly enunciated to in slow motion. She heard tai tais barking, “Stoooopid ah you, forgot to pack Jeremy’s toy!” The irony was that a fair number of these helpers were more educated than their employers, in more ways than one. Yet, whenever she tried to strike up conversation with a maid, she was met with eyes lowered. She would be crossing the invisible line by speaking to Raquel, but she couldn’t help it, she was inexplicably drawn to her. She couldn’t shake the yearning that had crept up again, lingering on her skin. She satisfied herself temporarily by gazing at Raquel’s form again.
—
Waiting for the man to turn green, Madeleine thoughts drifted to her own childhood. The image of Raquel’s back, her long sleek black hair, morphed into that of Eva’s, the maid who had been hired to look after Madeleine as a child. They had been inseparable. Madeleine had adored her. The French plait that was now holding together her flyaway hair had been taught to her by Eva, “See put your fingers like this and separate the hair into three parts. Well done, you got it!” Madeleine had often liked to run her hands through Eva’s shiny waist-length ebony hair. Eva appeared in all Madeleine’s earliest childhood memories, Eva bouncing her on the freshly made beds, Eva teaching her how to tie her shoelaces, Eva embracing her when her own strict mother did not. She had loved Eva with a simplicity that was reserved for those who love you unconditionally. And Eva had been proof that water was not necessarily thinner than blood, that someone who was not related to you could love you more than your own mother.
Then one day she was gone.
Madeleine remembers that day well, she had just come home from school, excited to share details of her day with Eva. But there was no Eva there. Six-year-old Madeleine searched tentatively in the uncharacteristically quiet kitchen. She looked in the living room, nothing but the red dot of light on the television. She raced up the carpeted stairs more frantically now but there was no sound of Eva’s humming. Where was she? She looked to her mother and father, who muttered something dismissively about Eva going home. To visit her family? Then when will she come back?
No Madaleine, she’s not coming back.
Her parents then said no more and tried to distract her with a toy, a board game or something, it was all a blur. She asked a few times but was silenced with her mother’s indignant anger, “Madeleine, stop asking about grown-up matters!” So she sat there silent, cuddling with desperation the red soft toy rabbit that Eva had bought her over a year ago. It smelt safe. From then on, Madeleine internalised the hurt she felt, the hurt with no explanation. No goodbye, no closure. Had she been naughty? Is that why Eva had left?
Only many years later did she overhear the truth from an aunty who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Eva had been dismissed swiftly because Madeleine’s uncle had fallen in love with her. And she in return. She had been twenty-two then, and he twenty-six. It would not have been the first time social status was defied and people married out of love. Madeleine’s Chinese family had liked her well enough, however they had liked her as a maid, not as an equal. “Mama, I love her,” her uncle had pleaded, but Madeleine’s grandma could not accept Eva as the wife of her first-born son. And so Eva lost her love, Madeleine and her livelihood in one day. She was sent back to the Philippines without a second thought for love or for the innocent child who ran from room to room searching for Eva’s smile, crying herself to sleep every night for three months.
—
The red man finally turned green after an age. Traffic came to a pause. Madeleine snapped out of her reverie. Both her and Raquel crossed the road to the nursery. Unbeknownst to them, Danny and Amelia were playing together at a toy kitchen inside. When they saw their caregivers waiting for them by the door, they rushed out excitedly. Both children leapt into welcoming arms and were embraced as if parted for three months. Around them, stood detached mothers staring at their smartphones, oblivious to their children’s pleas for connection and attention. Whilst hugging Amelia, out of the corner of her eye, Madeleine saw Danny embrace Raquel in the same trustful way she herself had embraced Eva all those years ago when Eva showed up unfailingly at nursery each day.
She touched her wrists and now understood the yearning she had felt when she saw Raquel. It was for the memory and experience of the simple love she had felt years ago, the love that had been snatched from her with no closure.
Invisible threads bound her to Amelia; they bound Danny to Raquel. The frayed threads that bound her to Eva would always be there, waiting to be resown into the fabric of her heart.
—
As the four of them walked home, Amelia nattering away happily with Danny, they all fell into a comfortable step side-by-side. At the traffic lights while waiting for the red man to turn green, Raquel turned to face Madeleine with a warm smile in her eyes.