Annabelle found rooms for them over a silk shop on Desker Road off Jalan Besar. It wasn’t much, but it would do. Two rooms: one for sleeping and the other for cooking and eating. The second room had a solid wooden table and chairs that Francis could use for writing. And there were two wood and rattan chairs for sitting and reading or thinking. Annabelle was happy because it was theirs, hers and Francis’s. Their first home.
Sutty helped them move the few things they had by rickshaw. Then Annabelle made tea and served cakes she had purchased from a little bakery two blocks over. She had discovered a shop that sold dry goods, and another that sold hardware items like brooms and buckets. In time she would find a morning market where she could get fresh vegetables and fruits in season and another where she could buy meat, although she made sure to get there early while it was at its freshest and before too many flies found it. As long as I cook it well, she thought, it will be fine. After all, the meat she got at the butcher’s in London wasn’t that much more appealing just because there was a roof on the shop and a door that was usually, but not always closed.
Francis had been perfectly happy living at the Raffles, but he knew Annabelle was right, that it was too expensive and they could live much more cheaply in rooms of their own. And once they had moved, he could see that she was much happier in her own little nest, even though it was shabby and less than attractive on first sight. But she had scrubbed and rubbed and wiped away other people’s dirt and the marks on the walls, and it suddenly had appeared a lot brighter. “It won’t even need a coat of paint,” she said, admiring the results of her hard work. “A saving right there.”
“You’re a gem,” said Francis, taking her in his arms. “I married the best wife a man could have.” He’d almost said “poor man” but caught himself in time. No point in shining a light on that. Annabelle was frugal enough for both of them, and if anybody could make their money last five years, she could. If she hadn’t come to Singapore and married him, Francis knew the money would have been gone much sooner. He would have stayed at the Raffles, eating and drinking there, no doubt, and squandering his savings on things a married man could do without.
Life soon settled into a comfortable routine with Annabelle doing the marketing in the morning then the washing and cooking, and Francis sitting at his kitchen desk, pen in hand, blank page waiting for his imprint. They ate a lot of boiled cabbage with onions and salt, and sometimes a bit of bacon or sausage and boiled eggs, which were always fresh because the shells still had bits of wet chicken dirt stuck to them. Annabelle had no idea how to cook some of the exotic vegetables she saw in the market. They were mostly green and leafy, but like nothing she’d ever seen before. There was also lots of garlic and ginger, and about a dozen different kinds of peppers that she dared not try because she was pretty sure they were all chili peppers of some sort or other. If the butcher had mutton bones or chicken backs and necks, she would make a pot of soup, splurging on a potato and a carrot to go with the cabbage and onions.
Every Sunday Sutty invited them to the hotel for dinner and they gladly accepted. He made it quite plain that he invited them for the company, and that since they were struggling and he was not, it was a good deal all round. He made sure they had plenty of roast beef with gravy, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes, and custard or trifle for dessert. And whatever was left over, he insisted the kitchen pack it up for them to take home. He would hear no protest from either of them. He insisted, saying that when Francis was a successful writer with an income to match, they would not only have to feed him every week, but let him come for tea whenever he wanted. It wasn’t charity he was offering them, but a helping hand from a friend while the road was bumpy.
“And you shall name your first-born after me,” he said, jokingly.
“What?” said Francis, feigning horror. “Edward Sutcliffe Stone? Sounds like something out of Wuthering Heights.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” said Sutty. “Well, all right, then. I’ll settle for Edward. He must be Edward something or something Edward. That’s fair.”
“Francis Edward,” said Annabelle. “Francis Edward Stone. It has a certain dignity, don’t you think?”
“Indeed,” said Sutty. “It does.”
“Done,” said Francis. “He shall be Francis Edward.”
And they all laughed.
In 1819, an official with the East India Company, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, bought the island of Singapore from the Sultan of Johor. It was almost two hundred and seventy square miles of swamp and forest but it provided a natural harbour in a strategic position for English merchants travelling to and from India, Australia, and China. At the time, it was nothing but a fishing village on the south end of the island on what would become the Singapore River, peopled by less than two hundred Orang Laut, ethnic Malay “sea gypsies” who plied the coastal waters of the Malay Archipelago and more often lived on boats than on land.
That had been more than a hundred years before Francis, Annabelle, and Sutty came to the island, and in that time, Singapore’s growth had been haphazard. Living conditions ranged from the basic shanties of the very poor to opulent homes of the wealthy, mostly Chinese and British. In between were the shophouses with their five-foot overhangs that allowed one to walk shaded from the scorching sun and protected from the monsoon rains. Sir Stamford Raffles had decreed that these buildings be made of brick to reduce the risk of fire. Raffles had also decreed that the plan of the town be divided along ethnic lines, which created a Chinatown, Kampong Glam for the Malays, and Kampong Chulia for Indian immigrants, of which there would be many. By the 1920s, the population of Singapore, in all its ethnicities, had grown in leaps and bounds through both immigration and rising birth rates. The colony that Francis, Annabelle, and Sutty inhabited was now a busy, congested place. Its English rulers occupied the area north of the Singapore River known as the Colonial District, which also included the neoclassical-styled Parliament House, Town Hall, and the Victoria Concert Hall. Adjoining these was the Padang, the grassy playing field where cricket had been played for a century by young men in the service of government and commerce.
For Annabelle and Francis, just walking through the colonial district on a Sunday morning after church and before they met Sutty for their once-a-week meal, was the most peaceful and serene part of their week. They would attend services at St. Andrew’s and then take a leisurely walk over to the Padang to see what games were up. Then they might walk down to the river, past the concert hall and Parliament House, and take a boat ride from the site where Sir Stamford Raffles had first landed in Singapore, appropriately known as Raffles Landing.
Sometimes they splurged on a rickshaw and rode out to Goodwood Hill where the well-heeled — colonial officials and important businessmen and their families — lived in stylish “black and whites,” Tudor-style bungalows on a quiet, tree-lined street that Annabelle loved to imagine herself in. “Elegant,” she would say to Francis. And she meant not only the stately homes, but also the people who inhabited them. She could only dream of such a life, and so she did. Dreams were free, after all.
Three months after she married Francis, Annabelle began to feel tired and ill, especially in the morning. Even the thought of a piece of bread or a cup of tea before nine o’clock made her nauseous. At first, she feared the worst, but there was no fever accompanying her other symptoms, so she began to think she might be pregnant. She kept her suspicion to herself, however, because she didn’t think Francis was ready to think about having a baby. She would have to wait a while before telling him, and she hoped she would know the right moment to do so. In the meantime, she blamed the heat when he asked if she was feeling ill, because she often looked quite pale. But, luckily, Francis was absorbed in his work and often didn’t notice if she didn’t eat in the morning or took a nap in the afternoon.
The prospect of having a baby in Singapore did not appeal to Annabelle. In fact, it terrified her. Was there a hospital nearby with a doctor who spoke English? Would they be able to afford to go to a proper hospital where the doctors not only spoke English but were English? Maybe she would ask the vicar’s wife when the time came. Plenty of time for that, she thought. At least seven months, she was pretty sure: Time for her to get used to the idea; time for her to figure out when and how to tell Francis.