For months, she applied for every job that was advertised, with no success. This might have been because she hadn’t finished secondary school, or just that whenever anyone asked if she could explain the odd gap in her CV, she told them frankly. It was her comrades who helped in the end—Lay Kuan found her a position at SATU, the new association of trade unions. Nothing too exciting, just processing papers, but it made her feel valued again. It was good to have somewhere to go, some reason to put on proper clothes and see the same people every day. Lina was working there too, having had similar trouble finding employment.
Jason had finished National Service and started at the university. He’d decided on Economics, because the country would need a lot of help finding its feet, and he was convinced this was the best way for him to make a contribution. When he explained their lectures to her, all Veblen curves and Public Sector Borrowing Requirements, it was like something from a different planet, but still she felt proud of him. She felt very grown up, seeing her clever boyfriend in the evening, being in the office during the day, looking over contracts and discussing the best way to exert pressure on bosses. Strike action felt riskier, under this Chief Minister, and while some of them spoke proudly of their time in detention, there was a quiet awareness in the group that it was best to tread with care. They were still finding their feet, and for the leadership to disappear again might be catastrophic.
Lina gave her a hard time for dating Jason, but then Lina wasn’t dating anyone, and didn’t seem to have time for anything but the unions. How to explain to her that the ideologically correct men were off-putting outside of work, with their strangled voices and tendency to lecture Siew Li earnestly whether she was in the mood or not? Jason was solid and unthinking, and that was a relief. She knew she was doing vital work, and someone needed to stand up to the exploiters, but she also took guilty pleasure in the world Jason showed her, the easy humour and comfort, the living rooms full of books for pleasure, not improvement.
She was nervous the first time she met his parents, bracing herself for disapproval, but there was none. “Young people have so much passion,” said his father. “Look at those Fajar chaps, always making so much noise. Glad to hear you have a steady job. I approve of women working. It’s a different era now.”
His little sister Mollie was quiet that first dinner. When Siew Li asked Jason afterwards if she’d said something wrong, he blinked. “Oh, no. She’s just shy.” Mollie was a year younger than Jason, Siew Li’s age, yet felt to her like a small child. She found Mollie’s clothes (mostly pastels) and breathy voice infantile, though she’d never say so. But then what must Mollie think of her? Coarse, uneducated, not good enough for her brother. Mollie was even better-spoken than Jason—her vowels rounder, her vocabulary more extensive.