By this stage I had moved in and out of Austin’s home. I had lived there for eighteen months and had never unpacked my suitcase. I wasn’t allowed to as his deceased wife’s clothes still hung in the wardrobe for Amanda to grow into. It took me eighteen months to figure out that he wanted intimacy and a homemaker but was not ready to replace his wife. I had moved out but had not moved on. We both still loved each other, and just because we had no future together didn’t mean the present ceased to exist. I still saw him far too regularly. But I needed a clean break.
I had heard about girls going to work in Singapore where white women were in high demand. Many of my regular clients were from Singapore and had told me about an agency they frequented in Orchard Road, where the girls earned serious amounts of money. I had handed one of these Singaporean clients one of my best photographs and asked him to forward it to the manager of this agency. He never got back to me. I tried again with two other Singaporean clients, also to no avail. The only response I got was: ‘Just go over there and give Mr Peters a call.’ I had no idea of the name of his agency, nor a phone number.
Poppy was in the best private girl’s school Perth had to offer so to go overseas was going to be nearly impossible. I spoke to my brother about my financial woes, my emotional stress and my need for a break. Without thinking twice, he offered to fly straight over and relieve me of my parental duties for a few weeks. I hated the thought of abandoning Poppy but had little choice—I needed to be more than driving distance away from Austin. I was so close to another nervous breakdown, as well as complete financial ruin, that I made a practical decision to go and ignored my conscience.
Soon I was unpacking my suitcase at the Randang Hotel in Little India. I had no work lined up so before I had even removed my jacket I started pounding the Singapore Yellow Pages. Within an hour I had three interviews lined up. Everyone I spoke to took my full name and hotel name and room number. I only had $300 on me so it was imperative that I land some work straight away. I was instructed to go and buy a pager as without that they wouldn’t even talk to me. So still in my Perth autumn fashions I trekked off to buy a pager. In order to have a connected pager I had to be a resident of Singapore. The sales assistant assumed that I was an expatriate so connected my new pager immediately. Thank god!
My first interview went really well. She was a nice old lady who seemed kind and told me to call her Mrs Chen. She didn’t ask me any questions, she really just wanted to see what I looked like and explain how she worked and what her cut was. She went on to explain that she would receive the booking then page me with the client’s hotel and room number. I’d then collect the money, call her to confirm that I had the money and everything was fine and we’d arrange a place to meet where she could collect her cut. It was all very straight forward. We shook hands and separated, and I was confident that she would contact me again.
The second interview was not as comfortable. I had to go to a shopping mall to meet John. He ran his escort business from a store in the mall. I knocked on the glass door then entered. I encountered two of the seediest men I had ever met. Both were Asian and one of them was smoking a bong while the other snoozed on a dirty lounge that fifteen years ago would have been a cheap piece of furniture.
‘You must be the Australian girl who call, hey?’
I wanted to say no and run out, but I was too desperate to refuse any sort of work.
‘Yes.’
John went on to give me the same spiel as Mrs Chen, but the difference was the prices he quoted were a joke. I had no intention of selling myself so short, but how could I tell him that without insulting and offending him? He did not strike me as a man who took kindly to women turning him down.
‘All right that all sounds fine, so I suppose you are going to need my pager number then? Have you got a pen?’ After an intensive search he managed to find a biro under the lounge suit cushion. I quoted my pager number, fudging a few of the numbers.
‘OK then, I’ll let you get back to work, it was nice meeting you both and I look forward to hearing from you.’ I turned on my heel and made my way to the door. The moment I heard the door close behind my back I practically ran to the elevator.
Later that afternoon I had a message on my pager to call yet another agency. The madam I spoke to was named Vivian, and she asked me to meet her out the front of the Hard Rock Café at midnight. I was to call her from the phone box there, then she would come by in a blue car within two minutes. It all sounded very cloak and dagger to me. But the thing that really made my ears prick was that she expected me to bring $300 deposit. She told me that she was sick of foreign girls doing six or seven jobs a day then doing runners. So from now on before she sent you on a job she insisted on a security deposit.