I Have Something to Tell You

by Ya Lan Chang

I was meant to be a simple job, wasn’t I? It’s been a little more than a month since I’d contacted you to restring my tennis racquet. ‘We’ll come to you, anywhere in central London,’ your website said, and so we met outside Leicester Square Station. I must have gawked, for I was instantly attracted: those Bambi eyes, those lashes, those plush lips, that long, compact body, snug in jeans and an olive-green jumper. When we met again two days later, you dragged out a straightforward ‘here’s your racquet’, ‘here’s your ten pounds’ affair to a stroll through Selfridges. I bet you didn’t think about why you’d accompanied me to shop for a dress for my end-of-term dinner. Didn’t you have places to go, clients to meet? You could have said ‘cheers’ and left me, and I would have forgotten about you. Eventually.

But we walked through the store as though on a first date. We discovered things about each other: you played badminton semi-competitively; you’re half-Chinese, and you guessed from my accent I’m Chinese-Malaysian; you were born and bred in London, I’m doing a philosophy Masters at KCL. Eyes wide, you’d gone, ‘Big brain, huh?’

‘More like I’m escaping the real world, as my parents say.’

You chuckled. ‘Yeah. That’s exactly what my dad would say.’

‘Is he your Chinese half?’

‘Good guess.’ You winked.

‘Which uni did you go to, then?’

Beaming, you said, ‘The University of Life.’

‘Wow.’

You narrowed your eyes. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘No! It’s just – I don’t know anyone who’s not been to uni. Except my parents.’

‘See? Big brain.’ You flashed a half-grin.

I thought I’d tell you, next time, about their middle-class dream. How they uprooted us from our village in Sabah to move to Singapore, how they’d spent my childhood scrimping and saving from their textile business to afford it. I needed a degree to have a good life, they said. Malaysia was hopeless, the government gave all the university places to the Malays, so we had to migrate.

We ambled past racks of designer dresses I barely glanced at.

‘What’s it like growing up in London?’

You shrugged. ‘Nothing special. Probably like anywhere else.’

‘Really? I’d have loved to grow up here.’

‘You say that now, newbie. Wait till you’ve been here longer.’

‘What’s there not to like?’

‘The pollution, innit. The racism.’ You stopped in front of a black mini-dress with a sheer fabric, sparkling with stars, and held it up to me. ‘You’ll look good in this.’

‘Oh, but it’s too, I don’t know, not appropriate for, you know, the dinner.’

‘Not appropriate? Is this dinner in a convent?’ You put it back, checked the time. ‘I gotta bounce. I’m picking up some badminton racquets in Holborn.’ You handed me your card. ‘Spread the word, yeah? Lovely chatting.’

When I got back to my hall, I pinned your card – two crossed tennis racquets, Wimbledon-style, under your business name – to my noticeboard, alongside an array of photos. One with my parents, Taipei 101 in the background. Another with my best friend at her twenty-first in Singapore’s Fullerton Hotel. And snapshots I took when I arrived in London: people crossing Westminster Bridge, graffiti in Brick Lane, the Strand Campus, glaring white – my first time seeing snow.  

Then I googled you. I saw something that should have been a red flag, if I’d stopped to think with my ‘big brain’. The problem was, you reminded me of a half-Chinese, half-white Alexander Skarsgård. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Whenever my phone vibrated, I hoped it was you.

But it was always someone else.

The next day, slumped in the library trying to understand Kant’s conception of freedom, my phone brightened with your name. Seeing those letters sent a thrill through my body. You had no reason to text me; I had just the one racquet. Still, there it was, your name, your message: Hey, how are you?

            Hello! Fine. Just doing some reading. You?

            Your doing intellectual stuff, huh? Lol. I’m just hanging

            I didn’t know what to say, but I replied anyway.

            Hanging, how?

            Nothing. Just chilling, watching the telly

            What’s on TV?

            Just some crap lol

            Turn it off then!

            Lol. What you reading?

            A German philosopher called Immanuel Kant. I don’t know what he’s on about!

            Kant. Cunt. LOL!

            How rude! ;)

;) How’s the racket?

            I haven’t used it yet. It’s only been a day!

            Lol true. Maybe we can play someday…

            Don’t you play badminton?

Exactly, so you better kick my arse :)

I’ll do my best :)

:) Anyway, gotta bounce. Nice chatting

The winter moon had risen by the time I put my phone away. I packed up and joined the stream of people hustling along The Strand. Giddy from our conversation, I ambled back to my hall in Clerkenwell, thinking about you. I pictured you all dapper in a black suit and an irreverent neon-pink bowtie. You’d be with me among my MA friends and professors in the Great Hall of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. You’d entertain us with your London stories, your inappropriate jokes. You’d make the correct sounds while we talked philosophy, just enough to disguise your radical otherness.  

How crazy, to imagine such things when I barely knew you – when I knew enough to guess you weren’t the type of man to put on a suit for a dinner where you were expected to know the correct cutlery order. You’d wilt with boredom. You wouldn’t know how to act. You’d disrupt it by simply being there – like you’d done with my life.

Before London, before meeting you, I’d hunched under my schoolbag sagging with textbooks and folders crammed with worksheets. My father lectured me about sacrifices, hard work, and filial piety when I complained about too much homework. At the bus stop after school, boys from the neighbouring school tried to talk to me, but I ignored them, my mother’s words replaying in my mind: ‘Cannot have boyfriend, get pregnant how?’

I know ‘how’: it’d blow up their calculated path for me. I’d drop out of school, become a single mother. I’d work a low-paying job, lay to waste their sacrifices and hard work. I’d ruin my life.

They were ecstatic when the National University of Singapore’s law faculty made me an offer. You should have seen their faces when I rejected it for philosophy. You would have laughed at what they said: ‘You study philosophy for what? You want to teach ah? You can study law and make a lot of money, but don’t want.’ And then, in Chinese: you’re going to anger me to death.

They’ve been saying that a lot lately.

I’d reached my hall. I rummaged for my fob, and my phone rang. It’d been ringing and vibrating almost non-stop for two weeks now. I held my breath as I checked the caller – but it wasn’t you. It was my parents’ dream son-in-law, whom I met as a two-week-old NUS philosophy major when I spilled kopi-c kosong on his backpack in the Engineering canteen. His eyes had twinkled behind his glasses as I apologised and slapped flimsy tissues on the coffee. He waved a hand, said it was no big deal, and asked me to eat with him.

I would have told you about him one day. I would have said he was nice, that my parents’ faces had lit up when he told them he studied Computer Engineering, that he asked me about Confucian role-bearing ethics and filial piety, and didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t ask about his subject. Eventually, I would have revealed he’d proposed when I returned to Singapore for Christmas break. If you asked me why I stayed with him for so long…he was routine, he was safe, he adored me.

What about you?

The night it all happened, I was deciphering Nietzsche’s master-slave morality when my phone buzzed. I stopped breathing, waited for it to still, but it kept going. I flipped it over – and it was you.

            ‘What are you doing?’

            ‘Studying.’

            ‘Boring. It’s Saturday night!’

            ‘But I’ve got an assignment due.’

            ‘Fuck it. Do it tomorrow. Come out and play.’

            I was torn. On the one hand, I was behind on my reading. On the other hand…you.

            ‘We’re going to Egg,’ you said. ‘In King’s Cross.’

            ‘Oh.’

            ‘I’m in a taxi. I can pick you up. You in or out?’

I ditched Nietzsche. I put on skin-tight jeans, a low-cut top, sprayed some DKNY. You’re tall, much taller, so I wore my heeled ankle boots. I hurried down, and there you were, waiting by the taxi.

‘I’m a bit merry,’ you said, opening the door.

I scrambled inside, said ‘hello’ in a too-loud voice to the guy in the back and the one in the front. Sandwiched between you and your friend whose name didn’t register, my leg touched yours through the fabric of our jeans. Our shoulders bumped. The whole trip, you jabbered on about nothing, as if compensating for how I stuck out like a diseased appendix.

You paid my entry fee – ‘twenty fucking quid!’ – and we plunged into a smoky underworld of jostling bodies, dizzying strobe lights, and a deep, rumbling bass that reverberated from my toes to the top of my head. You got me a drink, and another, and we all four of us yelled words at each other.

At some point, perhaps after the fourth rum and coke, I realised your friends had disappeared and it was just us, in a private little space. You were leaning against a pillar, eyes closed, and we hadn’t touched since we entered the club. Not a brushing of fingers as you handed me my drinks. Not a tap on the shoulder as you led me from the crowd.

I drank in the sight of you. You in that black jumper, your body stretched taut against it, your stomach flat as an airplane runway. Swaying your hips to the electronic beats. We hadn’t touched, and now your fingertips circled the exposed flesh between the waistband of my jeans and the hem of my top. I gazed at you, every cell alert to your fingers, the tip of them, the skin on them, on my skin. I traced a finger down your chest, I ran it along your bicep, your jawline.

The music got heavier. The bass thumped hard. People cheered as the DJ cranked the volume. I moved your hands to my bum. For a few seconds, they rested there, as if undecided. Then you inhaled, pulled me towards you, and kissed me.

‘Wanna get out of here?’ you murmured.

I nodded. ‘Your place?’

‘No, it’s too far away.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Elephant and Castle.’

‘That’s not far.’

You pulled away. I couldn’t decipher your expression. ‘You’re nearer. Let’s go to yours.’

We neither spoke nor touched the entire taxi trip. In my room, you pushed me onto my bed, pulled off my top, struggled with the zipper before yanking off my jeans, and sunk your lips into my neck. I buried my hands in your hair and searched for your mouth, those pillowy lips. You shoved a hand into my panties – and you were all too real.

‘What are we doing?’

‘Having fun, innit.’

Fun. I could have fun. I could be like the British girls I overheard gossiping about their fuck buddies, be like the women in movies who stumble into a stranger’s bed and leave the next morning with rumpled hair and a wide smile. I could forget everything I’d known, ignore the calls and messages, because your dexterous fingers commanded my moaning, the arching of my back. I tightened my arms around you, put my mouth next to your ear: ‘Fuck me.’

You groaned. ‘I don’t have a condom.’

‘Just pull out,’ I said, reaching between your legs.

You were in, I gasped at how different you felt, and nothing mattered except the fact of you fucking me. It was slippery and quick. You wiped your cum off my stomach, held my gaze, as if I needed proof. You curled up on your side, your back to me, and fell asleep. I remained wide awake: your body so substantial, so hot, there was no space in my bed.

The next morning, you kissed my cheek and said, ‘See you around!’ Fifteen minutes later, you messaged me.

Hey, last night was fun. But look, your a cool girl, so I want to clear the air. Truth is, I’m involved . with someone…

So the woman with the sunflower in her hair and bronze-tanned skin on your Instagram was your girlfriend. The photos were three months old, and you weren’t in them. Had I known, deep down? Did I not care? Or perhaps I made a wish on a phantom shooting star.

Quivering as if over-caffeinated, I replied, That’s fine. I understand. I guess I won’t see you again

Let’s see where life takes us :)

Meaning…?

Meaning I had fun. Maybe we could have a casual arrangement… ;)

You fool.

I composed and deleted my reply, then tossed my phone across my desk. I ripped off the sheets you’d fucked me on and glimpsed my tear-stained face in the mirror.

The ring. How it’d shimmered in the dark. How I’d shivered in the heat, the humidity. He slipped it on before I could respond. Later that night, I thought of Simone De Beauvoir, her writings on marriage, her open relationship. I thought about how I wore the ring of a boy who’d been my first and only. I thought about the future I’d have with him: a government flat, a job in a secondary school, weekend trips to Johor Bahru to gorge on seafood and half-price petrol. We’d honeymoon in Santorini like other middle-class Singaporeans and never leave Asia again. We’d have two kids who’d practically live in tuition centres, and we’d hover over them as they did their homework, reminding them to get good grades, go to university, find someone who studied a respectable subject.

Should I not have mailed the ring back to him, two weeks after he’d proposed, two weeks before meeting you? He’d blown up my phone. Hours before you were naked in my bed, I answered his call.

‘You’re kidding, right? It’s some fucked up joke. Tell me it’s a joke.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘I have my whole life ahead of me.’

‘You mean our lives ahead of us.’

‘No, my life.’

‘But – what happened?’

‘London happened.’

‘You’re only there for a year!’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Is there someone else?’

I exhaled. ‘No. See? You don’t get it.’

‘What would you do in London?’

‘I don’t know. That’s the point.’

Now, I stared at my bare mattress, my red eyes. Why the tears? I had fun. So did you. That was freedom. Wasn’t it? But there were all these things I thought I’d tell you.

Maybe you sought me out because you felt trapped. Or maybe it was simpler: you did it because you could. But I’m in no position to judge. I am, after all, sitting on this sticky vinyl seat, in this pub, four weeks later, waiting to tell you something. You were cagey on the phone: you’d promised your girlfriend you’d stay in. Perhaps you heard the crack in my voice, because you relented and said you could spare half an hour.

You’re in a Yonex tracksuit, jiggling a leg. You don’t offer me a drink.  

‘So what’s up? What’s so important?’

I’d rehearsed my speech on the Tube. No expectations; not trying to trap you; just thought I’d let you know. Why? So that someone bears witness to this, what’s happened, what I’ve done. I shouldn’t have insisted, that night. It’s all my fault. Don’t feel guilty.

‘It’s…’ I take a deep breath, but the words are scrambled, falling off my tongue like the scales from your eyes.

You’re staring, mouth open, body stock still. ‘What? What is it?’

Do you have an inkling of what I have to tell you? Maybe if you thought hard about it, did the maths. You’d lose your composure. Your world would implode. But now I’m not sure why I’m here, what I want from you. I don’t want anything from you – but maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I’ve been reverse-conditioned to believe I’m not interested in behaving like the girls from back home, the histrionics, the pointed finger, parents demanding commitment. But what sort of life would we have? You’d be the first to say we’re chalk and cheese.

Yet, something in me withers at the way you’re drumming your fingers, shifting your body. You’re thinking of her, how she’s expecting you, how fucked you’d be if she walked in on us. You want me to spit it out, get it over with, confirm it’s not your worst fear. And I – I want a moment of vulnerability. I want to throw myself into your arms. I want you to hug me and say you’ll be there whatever I decide. I want to let my casualness crumble and succumb to the girl who’s distressed and distraught. I want to admit I don’t know at all what it means to be a liberated woman when I’m trapped by my womb.

‘I, um…’ The words are nearly out. But her name lights up your phone. You glance at it, and frown.  

‘Actually,’ I say, standing, ‘it’s nothing.’

‘Huh?’

‘I thought – never mind. I made a mistake.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah.’ I pull on my coat. ‘Look, it’s maybe best if we don’t see each other again.’

You look at me, long and hard. ‘Yeah, okay.’

I button up my coat. I should say something in parting, but I don’t. I emerge into the fresh air, the city roaring all around me, leaving you to wonder what misfortune, what calamity, I have chosen to spare you.

BIO: Originally from Singapore, Ya Lan Chang (Yalan) lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom with her husband and son. Her work has been published in SoFloPoJo, Northern Gravy, Every Day Fiction, Litro Magazine, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. She works as a law lecturer and is a writer at heart. Twitter: @YaLanChang14.