The Cult of Following, Book One

  Percy felt immediately irritated with Sal, imagining her divulging all sorts of personal information about him to anyone she happened to be standing next to. He also felt a little embarrassed.

  ‘What sort of club do you wish to be part of, Percy?’

  Percy stumbled and stuttered a little, trying to find a way to explain to Joyann that it was not exactly a club he wanted, but some other, less definable thing.

  ‘I am sorry if I have embarrassed you, Percy.’

  ‘You haven’t. I’m just not sure what it is that I want. What precisely I am looking for.’

  ‘And we are all searching for something, right?’

  ‘Not like that.’ He winced. Joyann was lovely, and he didn’t want her to think he was the soul-searching type.

  She laughed. ‘I am teasing, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Tell me Percy. Are you willing to give anything a try?

  He frowned. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Let me explain something to you. Once upon a time, a long time ago, a young girl used to sit and listen to her mother and friends talk and talk and talk about anything and everything. Within reason, of course.’

  Percy nodded.

  ‘They did this for many years. Eventually the group grew smaller and smaller, as one by one, the now elderly mother’s friends passed away. So the mother instead talked with just her daughter, and her daughter’s daughter, until one day the mother passed away too. The talking stopped. The group was no more.’

  Percy again nodded, though just as he had nodded to his annoying neighbour, he had no idea what was happening. One moment they were talking about him finding something to do, and the next he was listening to a monologue about old ladies dying. But still he thought Joyann was pleasant company. 

  His line of sight wandered, and he noticed a vitriolic gaze upon him, cast from the tight bitter face of his now-moved enemy. Expressionless himself, Percy returned his attention to Joyann.

  ‘Ignore her,’ she said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So, Percy. The mother I speak of is my own grandmother, and the discussion group she started. It was a wonderful meeting of minds that became something three generations were able to share in. I have fond memories of it.’ She laughed. ‘Of course, I had no idea what my grandmother and mother were talking about most of the time, but it felt warm, a comforting thing to do. I have always wanted to start one myself.’

  ‘Do it then.’

   ‘I have. But it’s quite small…’

  ‘How many?’

  Joyann grinned coyly. 

  ‘What?’

  She laughed behind her hand.

  ‘Come on. How many?’ Percy couldn’t help smiling. Joyann’s laughter was infectious.

  ‘One. Me. But I was thinking you might join? And we could find other members. Your wife said you like to discuss things at length; that you had a friend called Art who used to be your talking companion.’

  He stopped smiling. ‘My wife again.’ The only thing worse than people intruding in his life, Percy decided, was intrusion through someone else’s presumptuous invitation. His face betrayed his thoughts.

  ‘Percy. Mine is a very private sort of culture. But I know it is possible to be too private.’

  He offered no reply, and took a good mouthful of Champagne, freshly topped up. Though not his favourite wine and he hadn’t asked for it, Champagne was a drink Percy was happy to tackle without moaning. He was the sort of person who, when left without choice, would drink anything he was given provided it contained alcohol. He was British. His now drifting attention moved to consider the cold lager he’d also been drinking that night. It wasn’t too bad, though not like good beer, and it too was certainly better than nothing. Maybe there were specialist beer outlets here, he suddenly wondered. Singapore appeared to have everything.

  ‘So?’ said Joyann, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you like the idea? Of a discussion group.’

  ‘I’d like to know why you would suggest something like that to a total stranger.’

  ‘I am a good judge of character.’ She smiled, sweetly and broadly. ‘Usually. So you’ll join?’

  Percy looked into the dark eyes of this hopeful, bright, woman, and found himself unable to say no.

  Chapter 5

  A NICE DAY OUT

  ‘This is an industrial estate, Sal. It won’t be here.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Sal stopped her car at the kerb. A brand new white BMW, it was Percy’s first outing in it. She reached round and pulled a large street directory from the pocket on the back of her seat.

  ‘Leave that,’ he said, trying to take it. ‘Just put the name in the sat nav again.’

  ‘I have. Three times already.’ Sal kept a tight hold of the directory.

  ‘Then check the postcode again.’

  ‘You.’

  Percy took out his phone and began tapping the touch screen; tapping and waiting, tapping and waiting, tapping; tapping. Tapping harder. After a moment, he slammed the device down onto his thigh. ‘It’s still not coming up. Are you sure it’s here?’ He folded his arms irritably. ‘Wouldn’t it be obvious? Wouldn’t there be a sign?’

  Silently, Sal was thumbing through pages of road maps.

  ‘Maybe it’s closed down, Sal.’

  ‘Well that would suit you, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘What kind of statement is that?’

  ‘A true one.’ She banged the book shut. ‘I can’t find it. Maybe you’re right, maybe it has closed down.’

  ‘What to do instead?’ questioned Percy, barely disguising his relief at having been saved from what was likely to be a dull experience.

  It had come to Percy’s notice that he and his wife were still spending very little time together, and so, in an effort to be proactive and seem cheerier about things, he had suggested a day out. He’d told her to choose, mentally preparing for a spa day, or shopping the length of Orchard Road. There would certainly be a good lunch, of course, so whatever she selected there would be that one saving grace. What Sal chose to do was visit a little known local pottery, recommended by an acquaintance too long ago for Sal to remember any pertinent details. Percy loathed pottery, but he loathed searching for half-remembered addresses even more. The mindless, repetitive action of driving the same roads over and over again, as if the mislaid building might suddenly leap from the bushes, reminded him of picking scabs from partially healed wounds.

  ‘I’m sorry we can’t find it,’ he said, lying, and happily setting aside his frustration. ‘I know you wanted to go there. I know you like that sort of stuff.’

  ‘I do. But you don’t,’ she said, pressing her head of golden hair against the headrest, brown eyes turned to him.

  Her soft expression forced Percy into confession. ‘I suppose that sort of daytrip reminds me of all those crap galleries and potteries I got dragged to by my parents, when we were on holiday.’ He grimaced. ‘Every bloody summer, we had to trawl acres of thick, ugly vases dripping with that foul brown glaze. I’m sure your pottery would have been much nicer, though.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Sal’s phone registered a message coming in. She ignored it.

  ‘Check it, if you want too,’ he offered. 

  ‘No. It’ll be work. It’s Saturday. And we’re having a day away from all that.’

  ‘Yes. Good isn’t it?’

  His wife smiled, and a small chuckle released.

  Percy beamed back. ‘Shall we get the cable car to Sentosa?’

  She straightened and stared. ‘What? Sentosa? You? Are you determined to torture yourself for me today? You know that island is full of kids and families and rides and games and… fun, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, I am not saying that I want to do any of that. But I know there are beaches and bars there too. We could dump the car back home and taxi it to the cable station.’ He hesitated briefly, before adding, ‘Or we could visit Changi Prison Museum.’ 

  H
e knew Sal wanted to go there, but she had already turned it down as an option. They both needed cheering up, she had remarked, not a dose of other people’s sad reality. Something about this statement had left Percy feeling vaguely uncomfortable, so he’d decided to offer it again just to see what happened.

  Her gazed moved to the empty road for a moment, as if thinking. ‘Another time. Today we need something light. Sentosa it is. But let’s skip the cable car. I’ll drive.’

  ‘You won’t want a glass or two or three of wine?’

  ‘No. Not today.’ She patted the smart leather steering wheel and grinned.

  *

  Percy felt that on the whole the day out with Sal had improved since abandoning the search for the pottery, and was now going rather well. Not everything on Sentosa was quite as he’d expected, however. The ship’s lights, studding the blackness so beautifully when viewed from above on the night they’d first flown in, were just that; ship’s lights. So, by default, there were ships. Hundreds and hundreds of them, moored just off shore and easily in sight of the beach. As they strolled barefoot on the hot yellow sand, Percy declared that he thought the scene ugly.

  Sal disagreed, and taking on her regular role as all-knowing wife, chose to repeat information she shared that first time they had seen them. ‘Not so long ago, the straits between Singapore and Malaysia were amongst the most pirated in the world. The lights allowed the captain and crew to spot anyone trying to board.’

  Percy made appreciative sounds, though he now recalled her telling him before.

  ‘It was the old fashioned sort of pirating,’ she added.

  ‘What? Like with parrots and wooden legs and stuff?’

  Sal laughed at this, an encouraging sound, because she was just as likely to huff at his flippancy. ‘No, Percy. No pieces of eight or Jolly Roger, but not the sort of pirate to slaughter everyone on board, either. Those pirates were thieves, not murderers or kidnappers. I say were, but they still operate.’

  ‘I thought new-age pirates were nothing more than disgruntled fishermen,’ Percy said, encouraging expansion. ‘You know, struggling family men helping themselves because no one else wants to.’

  ‘Fishermen turned murderers,’ Sal stated, before talking further on the subject, expanding it as he’d hoped. 

  For a while, he listened to what she had to say. So here we are at last, Percy thought to himself, finally chatting like we used to, making conversation about a topic and not just throwing the occasional word back and forth. With the exception of Art and the odd passing acquaintance, Sal was the only person Percy truly enjoyed talking with in-depth. 

  But as he thought about this so he listened less, his drifting attention unhitching focus. It often happened once she had been talking for some time, though Percy’s interpretation of some time and Sal’s were very different and a source of friction. As they walked and Sal talked, so her smooth voice gradually became little more than a backdrop for Percy’s ponderings.

  He knew it was unfair to suggest that she no longer talked to him, something he had claimed in the heat of yet another disagreement, started because he’d forgotten to post her mother’s birthday present. Sal did talk, regularly lecturing Percy on all sorts of Singapore related issues. His main concern, more than her growing inability to converse rather than inform, was that so often she sounded odd. She might be saying something she’d said a thousand times before, but something in her voice was different, as if she were going through the motions rather than actually interested. And it grated with Percy, this undertone of indifference. Sometimes, when most pronounced, it was as if another person were speaking through her, that his beautiful interesting wife had become a spout for some pompous old fart. He’d said it once, in a burst of rebellion, but he’d been drunk, tripped over his words and called her a sprout. Once upon a time she would have laughed. As it was, she stomped off to bed.

  But the conversation today felt more like old times. Percy gazed at the ships. There were so many it was astonishing. 

  ‘Well that’s what I think, anyway,’ said Sal. ‘Percy?’

  ‘Huh? Yes. No. I agree. It gives pause for thought.’

  ‘What does?’

  ‘Piracy.’

  A small look a dissatisfaction narrowed Sal’s eyes, but she said nothing.

  The couple moved down the beach, to paddle along the water’s edge. Seemingly empty of life, the tepid sea lapped gently. He slipped an arm across Sal’s shoulders, the feel of her cotton shirt hot beneath his arm. 

  She walked a little way before dropping slightly to release herself. ‘Too warm.’

  She was right, Percy thought. It was sweltering, even with wet feet. ‘How do they do it?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This lot.’ He nodded back up the beach to a group of teenage boys, seemingly a mix of locals and expats. ‘Look at them, charging about all over the place. What game are they playing? Volleyball?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘They must be roasting. Just walking I feel like I am being boiled alive. Shall we find that drink now?’

  Sal nodded and made her way from the water to join Percy as he strolled back up. 

  ‘Let’s stay on the sand, though,’ he said, ‘not go right up to the path. Those segway things and that bloody train drive me crazy.’

  ‘It’s all shipped in, you know,’ she said.

  ‘What is, Oracles?’

  ‘All this.’ Sal scratched at the sand with her toes.

  Percy resisted likening her to a chicken.

  ‘The sand is imported,’ she continued. ‘It’s reclaimed land. Anywhere there is a beach is the same.’ She looked up. ‘They put in all these coconut palms, too. I saw one on the back of an articulated lorry the other day. Right in the middle of the city. It was huge. Heading for some new condo, I suppose.’

  ‘Do you mean reclaimed land, or just claimed?’

  ‘Good point. Maybe claimed, I guess, for some of it. It was all swampy mangrove, originally. You know, way-back-when.’

  Art. Percy suddenly thought of him. Hadn’t he said something about swamps? ‘I might email Art later.’

  ‘Art? That’s a good idea. He’ll be missing you, I am sure. Do you miss him?’

  Percy shrugged. There was nothing he could say to Sal about Art that she would consider worthwhile, since she had never found him as endearing as Percy did; as other people did. It was baffling to him, since Art often featured quite significantly in Percy’s day-to-day life.

  She slipped an arm through his, and stopped him walking. ‘Look, this place seems okay. Shall we try it?’

  Percy assessed a wide seating area served by a long bar, all sectioned off from the beach with low advertising banners. It was filled with families, and children running about noisily. ‘Maybe there is somewhere quieter further along? There are some hotels at the end, I think.’

  ‘Percy. It’s a family island. We can keep looking, if you insist, but I for one need a drink so would rather just try here. Hey! Look over there. Is that our neighbour? That boy?’

  ‘Dunno. Do we have a boy neighbour?’ he questioned, as they joined a short queue of people waiting to be seated. 

  ‘Of course we do. I’d guessed you were ignoring the neighbours again, just as you did back home. You need to stop avoiding people simply because you don’t know them, Percy. You might surprise yourself and actually like them, if you tried. And you really need to start thinking again. You’re brain’s going soft if you can’t recognise a little boy you probably walk past every single day, he’s sitting by the path so often. Even I see him, and I don’t hang around the house all the time. Do something, Percy.’

  ‘Actually, Sal, I have found something to do.’ The decision announced itself before Percy could think, a gut reaction to her remarks.

  ‘And what is that? Don’t tell me you’ve found your club?’

  Percy chose to ignore the word, while suppressing a more general irritation. He was feeling cornered enough by the w
hole discussion group thing as it was, without Sal first lecturing him and then belittling him.

  He took a breath and buried the resentment her patronising tones were arousing. The day was going too well to risk spoiling it. ‘I have found something, yes,’ he continued, ‘Joyann Tan has started a discussion group, and she’s invited me to join.’

  ‘Joyann Tan?’

  ‘Yes, Joyann Tan. She’s the woman I was talking with when we went out with your company that time.’

  ‘Joyann Tan.’ Sal said it wistfully, as if the name carried her thoughts.

  ‘Joyann Tan.’ Percy repeated, ‘Why?’

  ‘Nothing. I work with her husband, that’s all.’

  ‘I know. I just said as much.’

  The queue moved forward a few steps.

  ‘Ah. Of course. That meal.’

  ‘What do you mean, that meal?’

  ‘I mean you didn’t behave yourself, Percy. That was the CO’s wife you offended.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. I just thought you should know you attacked the wife of someone quite important.’

  ‘Well, important to the company, anyway.’ Percy didn’t know what else he could say that wouldn’t sound defensive and risk disagreement. Making an effort to be nice was harder than he remembered, he’d grown so used to being himself.

  ‘So. Joyann Tan. Am I to gather that you and she are buddies, then?’

  The business of being nice suddenly became even more difficult, because Percy detected a new shift in tone. It was like the faint whiff of something going off in the fridge. Again, he was itching to tell Sal to stop patronising him, and once more resisted. 

  Preparing to add a comment that he wasn’t sure about the whole thing, Percy stopped himself. Such a statement might prompt enquiry, and he wasn’t prepared to admit that he’d felt tricked into it.

  Sal studied him for a moment. ‘Actually, Percy Field, I think it might suit you better than either of us can imagine,’ she said, saying the opposite of what he’d expected.

  At that moment, a young woman in a black uniform asked them to follow her. She took them to a table for two and offered them each a menu. 

  Percy refused his and announced they only wanted a drink.

  Sal took the proffered second menu and pushed it into his hands, smiling hopefully as she began to read her own. ‘We might as well eat,’ she said. ‘I’m starving,’