Another less successful innovation by the city’s governor was the introduction of a 3-in-1 traffic system. This was a system in which certain designated areas of the city were no-go-zones at certain times of the day to private vehicles with less than three occupants. The idea was to try and encourage car-pooling, and so policemen were stationed along these routes checking that each private car did indeed contain the minimum number of people. However, this ‘solution’ proved to be unworkable and thus short-lived due to the almost immediate appearance of ‘street jockeys’ – a name given to the number of intrepid people who quickly figured that standing along the routes leading into the 3-in-1 areas offering themselves up as extra ‘passengers’ was as good a way as any of earning a few rupiah.
Although I was a bit disappointed that my return to England hadn’t quite turned out the way I hoped, and also that Jolie had knocked me back, I still felt I had been lucky and come up trumps with this deal and the way things had worked out in general. The school was, of course, sponsoring me with regards to my work permit and visa, and also agreed to sponsor Tess, who under Indonesian law was automatically deemed British and so needed relevant immigration documents, never mind the fact she had an Indonesian mother, and was born and had spent her entire life here. The school also provided me with a partially furnished house and transport to and from the school, so things were finally beginning to look up.
Initially, Yossy was staying in Surabaya while Tess finished kindergarten and the plan was for them to join me at the end of the school year.
And yet, Yossy continued to insist she had not been unfaithful. I knew that it was lies, of course, and my moment of wavering and actually beginning to believe her had passed, but I did now think she had a point when she said that all of this could be a blessing in disguise and we could at least try and start again away from everyone and everything else back in Surabaya.
As the pregnancy progressed, I preferred not to think about it too much and I just concentrated on establishing myself in my job and preparing for their imminent arrival.
As I said, I was living in a school house not far from my job and relished the experience of living completely alone for the first time in my life. I lived a simple but enjoyable life then, and it was great to just kick back and relax after all the stresses and strains of the last few years. I managed the art of rudimentary cooking and so knocked myself up something simple like egg, sausage and chip sandwiches most evenings. I hardly ever went out anywhere, and I just stayed home enjoying my culinary delights in front of a 20p knock-off DVD most evenings.
I was beginning to get my mojo back and, as much as I had enjoyed my time in England, was actually quite happy to be back in Indonesia.
The one frustration I was consistently feeling then, though, and it really was quite a big niggle at times, believe me, was my almost constant inability to be able to contact Yoss. She had at least three mobile phones which were seemingly permanently switched off, the house phone at our place just rang and rang, which indicated it’d been unplugged, and whenever I called one of the schools in Sidoarjo looking for her, her staff informed me she was not there and they had no idea where she was.
Frustrating, as I say.
She arrived at my house out of the blue. It threw me off kilter a bit, to be honest, this just turning up. I wasn’t expecting her and I thought she would at least give me a bit of notice.
However, that’s not what flummoxed me the most. Nope, somewhat more perplexing was the fact that she was quite obviously around six or seven months gone and in addition to Tess and the servant, she had someone else in tow. A male someone at that and, so she informed me, he would be staying with us.
With that she went to what she described as ‘her’ bedroom to unpack, followed by Tess, the servant and this guy. I was left alone in the living room and, with nothing better to do, I went off to what was obviously now ‘my’ room and went to sleep.
It seemed that this chap was one of her workers from the schools in Sidoarjo. His name was Ritchie and he had, in Yossy’s words, ‘helped’ her a lot.
It was a bit of a brow-frowner as to what exactly Ritchie intended doing now he was in Jakarta or, indeed, why Yoss would think we should be putting him up, presumably free of charge.
The cause of even more scalp-scratching was why exactly the four of them set up in ‘her’ room while I continued to sleep alone.
Very perplexing.
So, anyway, the next few months progressed and events unfurled. The child, a boy, was born in September that year and a DNA test to determine the little lad’s paternity wasn’t exactly a nailed on requirement as anyone giving the fella and Ritchie the most cursory of glances could be in no doubt whatsoever.
Yossy, upon realising the ‘miracle conception’ story was out of legs, came up with another, equally
