by Carissa Foo
But then he stood in front of her, bowed slightly and extended his hand, saying in a strong, masculine voice: “Hello, I’m Daniel Chang. It’s lovely to meet you.”
Cheryl was taken aback; Lulu and the other women were as well. He had a commanding presence when he spoke. Though they did not understand most of what he was saying, the women found him very suave and gentlemanly. Fair-skinned and tall, endowed with slit eyes and pinkish lips, Daniel was a pretty boy who seemed to have stepped out of a Korean drama. Judy Chua went on to comment that he looked like Lee-something-something. Most residents and staff agreed. Although Cheryl Dada did not catch the reference, she, too, was of the opinion that he was good-looking. She tried but could not place his accent. It was not British; he sounded nothing like John Pitts. His voice was a rich baritone that was warm and mellow. It was intense and affirming, speaking to the heart more than the ears. It made up for the years that he had lacked in appearance, masking well the uncertainties of a fresh graduate.
No wonder he’s a social worker, said Cheryl. She ambled through the last few tables and reached the raised platform that was going to be the stage for tonight’s party. It made sense; the boy had a gift. Not everyone can reach the soul, she thought, especially when the soul was hardened like hers. Why, with that voice of his, he should be tonight’s emcee. With a suit and tie, and some mousse on his hair, of course.
Mrs Dada was happy that Daniel had earned the respect of the residents and staff, of Yu Yu especially. The nurse manager was intimidating, very experienced in her field. She was hailed as the bona fide pioneer generation worker cum long service award winner in the home; the only one out of 156 staff who was on an E Pass. The rest of the nurses saw her as a model example and envied her PPR status, i.e. POTENTIAL PR. All these years working in the home had earned her not only a covetable status but also a lot, a lot of money. So much money—“She is a millionaire if she go home. And ah, she got no children also,” said Lulu—that she could buy a taxi company and some land in Myanmar, and retire.
Yu Yu had been working in the home for 16 years and recently renewed her contract for another two. She had built a life here with friends as family, found her favourite places to hang out and food to eat. The nurse manager always said to the residents, “Madam, time to makan”; and “Let’s go makan!” to her friends. She knew that block 630 sold vegetarian kway chap; block 108 had the best butter abalone mushroom; Teck Ghee food centre had the thickest and chewiest mee chiang kueh (which Leow Mei Ling often pestered her to buy); and block 628 had recently made headlines for one sumo big prawn noodle—prawns that were mistaken for baby lobsters! Singapore was Yu Yu’s home. In fact, it might be better than back home.
This question of home, Cheryl Dada mulled over, leaving the unfinished stage and turning left to the open walkway that led to the bottom of the slope. This feeling of belonging kept her mind occupied as she walked along. Living in this home all these years, people coming and going… Was this place, after all, home?
She was used to the blue and white colours; the long corridors; the terracotta roof. The place wasn’t like one of those gated homes with railings and ramps everywhere. With all that healthcare equipment and aids, even the healthy and kicking would think they needed help. This place was different; the home was open and green.
I am happy here, thought Cheryl Dada; I’m more happy than I’ve ever remembered being. “This feels right,” she said, as she started up the slope, heading towards the therapy centre. It was the only thing in a long time that actually felt right. This being here, alone. She was sick of thinking—all that thinking, thinking. No more racing thoughts, no more overactive mind. A woman can only do so much thinking before her thoughts become treacly sentiments. Cheryl Dada was going to try to go with her heart now. To listen to the still small voice—was that what they called it? From now on she would answer only to her heart. Too long had she left it yearning, unrequited. If it kept beating, even when she refused it, then it must want something. What was it—life? Death? Love? Which one did the heart want? Cheryl had no answer. But she was going to try feeling now.
“Feeling, feeling, feeling,” Cheryl Dada chanted, setting the pace for the rest of the climb. She had her eyes on the near horizon dividing the road and the building ahead. One was the colour of asphalt; the other was cloudy grey. Both were some kind of grey. What happened to colours? Modern aesthetics bored her. She hated the monochrome: black, white, grey. Didn’t they decide to do away with black-and-white and sepia and all the vintage tints when they invented colour televisions? Why was multicolour good for the television but tacky for buildings and clothes? This world needs to be more consistent, she thought, stopping to catch her breath. All the grey around Cheryl Dada did not make the climb any easier. Apart from the blue sky, everything was gloomy. “Oh God! I cannot keep up,” she lamented, trudging up the slope.
The city used to fascinate her—the old city with its colours and cacophony: the red brick National Library; the Van Kleef Aquarium; Hock Hiap Leong, where her mother used to bring her for lunch almost every Sunday when she was in primary school after church service in the morning. Thank God St Andrew’s is still there, she thought. It could very well be up for demolition, or “urban planning”, as they call it these days. But then again, secular as the country is, it surely would not risk offending anybody’s god. Religious riots are as possible as racial riots. Maybe more catastrophic, for the weapons of the gods are fires and floods. One must not underestimate the divine and its emmets; the power of religious organisations. Cheryl remembered reading an article a few months earlier about churches getting together to wear white in solidarity against the…what was the word Judy Chua used? She was shouting in the dining hall: “Aiya God don’t like those—” What was it? Cheryl thought, and shut her eyes to remember better. But Judy Chua was no Christian. The shrill voice belonged to someone else. She who said something about a thrice-holy God who did not like ah kuas. Anyway, better not to touch the people of God and their holy grounds.
Her stomach growled as she thought about char kuay teow and ice Horlicks. That was her must-order on Sundays. Hock Hiap Leong was almost always packed and smelled of grease and smoke. When they did get a table, Cheryl would guard it with her arms spread over the sticky marble top while her mother made the orders. Her mother told the uncle, “Mai hum”; Cheryl would follow suit and shout, “Mai hiam!” The uncle had a white towel wrapped around his neck like it was a scarf. The ceiling fan was way too high up.
Cheryl Dada continued up the slope more slowly. Lunch was after church and after MPH. While most kids her age went to the community library, she went to the MPH in town. She still remembered the big doors—half wood, half glass—that she did not have the strength to push open. Her mother would go before her and then disappear into the magazine section. Left alone for a couple of hours, Cheryl would find a space on the second floor near the Enid Blyton bookshelf, hidden away from the store people, so she could eat her jelly without being chased away. There she read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Her favourite book was James and The Giant Peach; she looked up to Miss Spider but did not like Mr Centipede as much. Her reading interest expanded from The Adventures of Rupert to The Famous Five; her last book was Bridge to Terabithia. But she never got to the end. She never found out what happened to Jesse because they stopped going to MPH when Times Bookshop first opened in Specialists’ Centre; it stocked a more international magazine collection but no Bridge to Terabithia. Her mother refused to buy the book for her; she did not believe in buying books unless they were textbooks. But it was just as well, since Cheryl could not imagine the story without Leslie, Jesse without her.
These buildings… The buildings nowadays are awful, Cheryl Dada thought, stepping onto the walkway of the therapy centre. Looking at the gloomy walls in front of her, at the fake potted flowers (maybe Juwel could come over and plant some daisies or hibiscuses here), she sighed in despair, thinking instead of the old
police station on Hill Street. That was Singapore—diverse and vibrant. Back in the day to be colourful was to be multi-racial: Malay; Indian; Chinese; and Eurasian. We’re beige and brown and yellow and white. These days the buzzword is cosmopolitanism. So many shades of yellow and brown; so many degrees of fairness. Different kinds of Chinese people, different kinds of Malays, different kinds of Indians. Also different types of Asians: maids; foreign workers; construction workers; “tiongs”; Malaysians. White people are easier to categorise; they are simply Expats, even if they cannot speak proper English. A Lithuanian gets as big a smile as an American in the stores.
Diversity was getting too complicated for Cheryl Dada. She did not know what race she was any more. She was Chinese, also one quarter Peranakan; but as a Dada, was she still Chinese? Was she considered a cosmopolitan person? All the colours and categories left her confused.
Colourful means something else these days, she contemplated, as she reached the entrance. The grey building with the gaudy signboard that said ELDERFLOWER THERAPY CENTRE was an eyesore.
Cheryl Dada had in mind the Peranakan shophouses. They were very colourful. She adored the animal reliefs and floral motifs, the ceramic tiles and wooden window shutters. For a very short while she had lived in a similar terraced house, one with timber window frames and peony tiles. Cheryl remembered a couple of things: the super-hard chairs that hurt her backside, the spacious and well-aired hall. That was when her great-grandmother was still around. The house looked nothing like that blue house on Neil Road she saw on the heritage excursion. Maybe Lao Ma’s house wasn’t Peranakan enough, she thought; maybe they were not rich enough. And what about herself? Was she Peranakan enough? Cheryl Dada pondered, pausing at the entrance of the building; the air conditioner vent was blowing cold air on her.
Peranakan meant little these days. Not much to Cheryl Dada anyway. She could not speak Malay and she hated buah keluak. She also did not like Nonya dumplings, preferring the sweet kee zhang. Being Peranakan did not affect her. But actually nothing was affective enough, nothing was important enough to pique her interest. She had been feeling especially dull lately, listless, no drive—or hope. Cheryl Dada seemed to lack the lust for life. For too long she had been schooled in the field of moderation that the lust for anything did not come easy to her. She attributed this purity trait to church and being in a single-sex school. Of course her mother and all that flower talk about women being jasmines and baby’s breaths—in short, little white flowers—played a big part too. Perhaps this was also a blessing in disguise. For if she seldom felt lust, she also was seldom ashamed. Therein was the strength of the little white flower: she was unfazed, standing erect and bright, carefree and comfortable in the shadows. Her mother might not have foreseen the brazenness that Cheryl had adopted in her adulthood, and most certainly would have regretted her moral teachings had she known that her daughter did not shy away from the covert. For Cheryl was, for example, unashamed of sex in her later years. She did not understand the taboo, the appeal, nor the shame associated with it. Assuredly, she was no libertine; there were no men or sane women around even if she had impulses. Cheryl Dada would have been a hippie outside the home. But here she was ungratified, with little hope for action.
Walking into the therapy centre, Cheryl thought about the difference between hope, expectation and wishful thought. Which of them has feathers? What paralyses but still beats death? God forbid there be no difference.
Hope, she heard someone say, is a confident expectation of the future. Her mother, in old age, used to quote Isaiah: “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” Like how the hope of finding some lilies gave Cheryl the strength to climb up the treacherous slope to the therapy centre. Her mother had a different idea of hope. She told her that a baby could be the hope for a marriage going downhill. That Cheryl was the saving grace of her parents’ relationship. Her mother said she was going to leave Cheryl’s father but had abandoned the thought when she found out she was pregnant again. Things got better after that; husband and wife were talking more. They even took a family photo that still hung in her mother’s room. She said it was like falling in love once more, the honeymoon phase repeated.
Cheryl was too young to remember what it had been like when her father died. She did not remember seeing her mother weep. She probably did not even see much of her since her grandmother was her main caregiver. All they had left of her father was the black leather sofa he was wont to sleep on. It was sunken in from the weight of his body and took the vague shape of his pudgy frame. It reeked of tobacco. Her mother got rid of the sofa when they moved out.
Block 316 was stuck with the en bloc redevelopment notice in 1995. That was hope for her mother, financially at least. Cheryl, too, was relieved, for she was also servicing the housing loan. It was all very timely. Her mother had been retrenched the year before and taking more allowance from Cheryl. She needed money and the government showed up: the compensation was more than the subsidised cost of the new flat. Her mother was happy that she got to keep the rest of the sales money for her retirement but was upset that the house was small. She also complained that living on the 25th floor was hazardous (What if a fire broke out? Was she supposed to climb all the way down on her own?) and that the lift made her ears uncomfortable. Cheryl hardly stayed over so she did not mind the height or downgrade. She only wished they had kept the sofa.
Cheryl Dada had turned into a long corridor that connected the lobby to the courtyard. She walked hurriedly but carefully, sticking close to the wall to give way to the oncoming traffic.
“Gosh, careful,” she cried, shunning a woman in her wheelchair who yelled back, “You then careful lah!”
“This place is too tight!” she said, exasperatedly.
A nurse pushing a trolley of blood pressure monitors passed by and smiled in agreement.
“Hazardous!” said Cheryl Dada under her breath. They should expand this space the next time they renovate the whole area, she thought, trying to count the number of renovations in the past year.
“Careful!” Cheryl Dada backed up against the wall of the corridor to make way for a speeding stretcher. “Look where you’re going,” she said to the men in masks, her words accompanied by the creaking sound of unoiled wheels.
“Careful, careful!” Cheryl cried out to another nurse passing her by, nearly knocking over her tray of tubes and bottles.
“Aiyo, careful lah, Madam!”
Excuse me—Cheryl wanted to shout out, but was distracted by the wheelchair that was swerving in her direction. Its wheel rammed against one of her toes.
“Fuck! For God’s sake!” she shrieked, instantly withdrawing her foot and kicking the silver rim. “Ouch!” she cried, bending down to check her toe. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
The cursing continued, but her voice was drowned by the tumult of voices, of shoes stamping on the ground and wheels squeaking.
“What the hell!” she yelled, pulling herself up and for the first time looking away from her throbbing toe to meet the adversary, eye to eye.
“What is wrong—”
Cheryl Dada stood still for a couple of seconds until the sight fully registered in her mind: the slightly trembling hands, the drooping head, the runny nose. The lips were twitching; the woman wanted to say something:
“Sh…shh…shorr—”
“No, no,” Cheryl interjected.
“Shorr…orr…eee…”
“No, I’m sorry,” Cheryl reached down and said into her ear.
She knew right away. Most telling was the blank stare. The same emotionless stare had convinced her that her mother was gone years before her body finally caught up and shut down. The woman’s eyes reflected a similar vacant look of hope frozen. Not the new beginning, clean slate type of blankness. These were fish eyes; dead eyes.
Must be someone from block D, thought Cheryl Dada impulsively, seized by the fear that one day it could be her turn. “Ten per cent of the forty thousand people suffe
ring from dementia in this country are below the age of sixty.” She had memorised this fact from a newspaper article and copied it on her wall to ward off complacency. While the odds were not really against her, and she did not yet display substantial symptoms, Cheryl’s trepidation was justified, for there was indeed a history of early deaths in her family. Her great-grandmothers had passed away in their late fifties; her grandmother too. Her mother had lived longer and made it to her sixties, but Cheryl had regarded her dead when she received the doctor’s final report. It was easier that way.
“D for Dementia,” the women would joke in the dining hall. They laughed heartily because laughter was not a sign of degeneration. They pettifogged and rolled about in their wheelchairs, reluctantly went for OT and PT because a quick mind and fine motor skills were not signs either. Whatever the women’s ages, there were bound to be some memory lapses. Some residents pretended to remember while others made up the past. Cheryl too, though she thought herself to be more selective in remembering than forgetful. The point was nobody wanted to be moved to block D. But this woman in the wheelchair—she probably did not have a choice. The signs were too obvious.
Cheryl could not help but profile the woman, as if evincing her condition would relight her blank, distant eyes. She dug from her memory the scraps of medical facts and snippets of what she had seen in her years in the home. The woman could be suffering from vascular or frontotemporal dementia; she could be plagued by a mixed type. It was hard to say, for dementia is merely a general term for brain-draining disorders like Alzheimer’s, Lewy Body Disease and Parkinson’s. Cheryl knew none of that information would mitigate the symptoms of the woman’s affliction, delay the inevitable and already lingering end, but Cheryl Dada trusted in individual experience and the woman’s life had to be told.
Cheryl thought to herself: now she’s experiencing muscle rigidity—that means no more writing. Her head’s inclining to the left, unblinkingly choosing sides, as though the world on the right were dismal. Whichever side it was, Cheryl hoped that it was the one facing the window so there would be more sunshine in her life. Back in her room, the woman would not be able to wash herself so the room would stink. But it wasn’t just dirt and sweat; the room would stink of poop. She would have to endure long periods of constipation and disturbed bowel movements. At least two nurses would change her panties a few times a day, and in due time when the incontinence finally got out of hand they’d give her diapers, maybe hook her up to a urine bag. But one bag would not be enough. Soon she would have difficulty breathing; her mucous would be too thick and get stuck inside her lungs. Another drainage bag for that. In the advanced stage, she would not recognise that there was food in her mouth and thus be unable to decide to swallow. A feeding tube would be inserted into her stomach. She might cough up the blenderised food or saliva. The healthcare staff would tie a towel around her neck to manage the mess. It would be the full works: diapers and bibs. The victim of dementia would live long enough to be like a baby again, for it could take years from the onset of the disease to the belated end. First, rigid muscles; then, rigor mortis. And reincarnation, unless she was a believer in heaven and the streets of gold.