Death of a Perm Sec

by Wong Souk Yee

  She looks up from her rice. “Hey, if you were so in love with me when I left Singapore eight years ago, why didn’t you look for me here?”

  Matthew swallows his mouthful and takes a sip of water. He ponders the question for some time. “Your father asked me to give you space for a while. He told me your leaving Singapore was necessary for his sanity. I was sorry for him. Knowing you, I thought you could have that sort of effect on people.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence.”

  “Well, if you had kept in touch, I would have come to look for you. Everything conspired to keep you away.”

  “What else did Pa tell you?”

  “He was not exactly my mate, you know. I was taken aback when I heard his voice on the phone. It was so long ago but I still remember he sounded like he was really upset. When we met in a coffee house, he looked really terrible, like he didn’t care if he lived another day…sorry. He sort of pleaded with me to stay away, without explaining much. Then later, he said if I needed a job, he would see to it. But that wasn’t a condition. Not like you think, anyway.”

  The curry and gastric acid surge up Ling’s oesophagus. She sees in her mind’s eye the last days of her father’s life. Her father was swimming against the current, and the harder he tried, the further he was dragged away by a rip. She suddenly sees herself in an inconsolable search. All her life, she has to look for love, while for other people, love finds them. She is jealous of Hoong, who is devoted to their mother and Ming, and has two kids to give her heart to. She is even jealous of Yang, whose love for booze douses all his other needs. The only time when her person has been acknowledged, when she was seen as a subject in her own right, was paradoxically at the farcical match-making parties her father organised for her.

  She pushes away her plate. “What do you want to do this weekend?” she asks, in an attempt at gaiety.

  “We need to make new curtains and more shelves. Your things are all over the place.”

  She laughs. “Since when did you become so anal retentive? There are more fun things to do.”

  He begins clearing the table. “Then I’ll go wherever you take me.”

  “Let’s drive down to Kiama and see the blowhole. How about that?”

  “Fine by me as long as you’re paying.”

  “Yeah, I got to pay my maid a decent wage, don’t I?” She laughs.

  She watches him fill the sink with hot water, add dishwashing liquid and start with the glasses and mugs. Then he soaks all the dirty plates of the day in the soapy water, sponges them and sets them aside. Then the pots and pans. Defying her orders, he drains the sink and fills it up with hot water again, then rinses everything. He tells her he likes his tea with milk, not dishwashing liquid.

  She goes to the fridge and opens a bottle of white. Circling her finger on Matthew’s back, she lifts the wine glass gently to his lips. Then she sips from it, leaning her body against his. He tells her if she has nothing better to do, she can take the rubbish out. She looks at the empty bin and smiles. She rests her head on his back and tries to listen to what her heart is telling her to do.

  *

  The green undulating hills and blue skies are proof that the postcards don’t lie, right down to the dopey cows and woolly sheep. They snake along the coast from Stanwell Park, veering between sharp cliffs and precipices along the ocean. Matthew heaves a big sigh of relief when the road opens up again on both sides to quaint villages. They pass the house where D.H. Lawrence once lived. The coastal drive takes them to lunchtime, when they reach Kiama. They stop to get a seafood basket and picnic by a rock pool stormed by the swelling sea. Then they walk up to the lighthouse to see the blowhole. At the sea cliff cavern, waves shoot up through a hole in the cave roof to the sky, and a perpetual rainbow shimmers in the spray.

  From Sydney to Kiama, Matthew marvels at every blade of grass and every trickling creek. He might have travelled widely with the foreign affairs ministry, but he had been posted to desert towns. Australia’s endless coastline astounds him at every turn. That’s the true opiate of the masses, Ling tells herself as she looks at Matthew opening his mouth at every shoot-up of the waves through the blowhole. Who wants to be disagreeable and quarrelsome in the cradle of balminess? That night they book into a B&B honeymoon suite, against Matthew’s better judgement because it is way beyond their budget.

  “We should do up our room like this. Can almost hear the sea waves.”

  Ling looks out of the window and sees the valley at her feet and the lights from the cottages below. The romantic in her says those lights are gas lamps on cobblestone streets and the smoke from chimneys leading from fireplaces in the kitchens. Then she feels a sense of déjà vu. Not so many years ago, she had checked into a similar room with a similar-looking man on their holidays. Both men are portly if not downright fat. Because she is high-strung and dreamy, she is attracted to people who are relaxed and practical. Like a loose spring, her life spirals in distorted circles without a centre, bouncing forwards and back. After she’s travelled a thousand miles, now she feels she is back where she started.

  She opens the window a sliver and the scent of jasmine fills the room. When she is through with the uni, she will run a B&B just like this one, with Matthew as the cook and cleaner. With tenderness, she watches Matthew as he undresses, revealing the buoyant beer belly she loves to lay her head on. She would be the manager of the property, and there would be a border collie and a tabby, a couple of lorikeets and a few hens, so they could have fresh eggs every morning. She would have to quit her dirty smoking habit. The income from the business would not be huge, but enough to see them through their old age. If the sea air doesn’t keep them healthy, the physical work will. They could take up yoga, or tai chi or qigong, whatever. That would be her centre.

  “Life is beautiful, isn’t it?” she murmurs.

  “Yeah, life’s all right as long as we have food on the table and sex in bed.” He hurls his big hairy body on the fresh white linen of the fourposter bed.

  “Philistine.” She crawls under the sheet, and stretches herself out with a long grunt of satisfaction.

  *

  The next morning, in the wallpapered dining room, the manager greets them effusively and says he hopes they liked the room and they slept well. Matthew compliments him on the five-star service and room. Without a minute of delay, the manager serves them each a breakfast of two eggs, fried bacon and tomatoes and toast, with the newspaper.

  “Whoa, this is the life,” Matthew exclaims as he pricks the egg yolks with his fork and dips his toast into it.

  Ling transfers her bacon to Matthew’s plate. She places an egg and half a tomato on her toast. She reads the headlines in The Sydney Morning Herald and skims through the photos without reading the captions. She reads the comics, chuckling. She sips her tea and turns to the world news section. There is an article: “Singapore govt arrests man accused of being agent for foreign powers.” Her tea spills on the tablecloth. She puts the cup down and reads. Matthew slows his chewing as he watches her.

  She looks up. “They arrested the inspector under the ISA.”

  He snatches the paper. “What?” Matthew reads aloud, “‘He was conspiring with a woman in Hong Kong to… to recruit agitators to subvert the political system in Singapore’?”

  “They can trump up any charges they like.”

  “Do you know this Yvonne Law woman?”

  She looks out of the window and for a moment, the once blue sky blinds her. The lyric poetry of yesterday’s cottages in the valley transmutes to gloom. She smells only engine fumes instead of jasmine from the garden. “She was my father’s mistress.”

  “Oh Christ, how did she get involved in it?”

  She does not hear him. All of a sudden, the domestic calm she has found feels suffocating. But Matthew has been good to her and good for her. He has given her back her confidence. She can’t keep running, can she? Two marriages and one divorce older, she is no clearer about what she wants. She feel
s as if weight in her life can only be found in Singapore, not Sydney. But she is happy here and Matthew makes her happy. Yet her soul will not rest. Why now, just when she is learning to love another person and be loved back? When she thought she had found her centre? And why does she have to be the one to give it all up? She has three siblings after all. But she has her share of experience, her string of degrees, her frightened, exhilarating life in a different country. And it’s about her father, not just any fossil who died from a drug overdose. The arrest of the inspector has tipped the balance for her.

  For the rest of the day, Matthew notices she is distracted and almost quarrels with the manager over the slick bathroom tiles, saying they could kill anyone who slips and hits their head against the wall. Matthew apologises to the manager and pulls her out to the garden. He suggests they continue down to Jervis Bay the next morning but she insists they return to Sydney.

  On their return journey, the ocean is drained away and the hills folded up. Ling sees only the Pacific Highway stretching out into the distance like a tunnel. She feels that emerging from it, she will either meet with open space or an oncoming train. Matthew curses the newspaper that ran the article. If he had a choice, he would hide Ling in his pocket to shield her from the world.

  *

  To get her mind off whatever she’s brooding on, Matthew takes Ling to the mall to buy new curtains. While they are in a shop browsing through the fabrics, Ling sees a Flight Centre office across the atrium. Matthew is so engrossed with the selection of colour and texture for each room that only when Ling returns does he realise she has been away.

  “Hey, where did you go? What do you think of this for the bedroom?” Matthew holds up a roll of yellow cotton.

  “Matt, I’m sorry. I bought an air ticket to Singapore.”

  Matthew drops the fabric and walks out of the shop. Silence reigns between them on their way home and over dinner. She says she will wash the dishes but he just puts on the rubber gloves and washes up without a word. After he is done, he goes to the bedroom and sees an open suitcase on the bed. Ling is packing. He goes to take a shower, changes to his pyjamas and sits on his side of the bed. He watches Ling pack. It is as if they are playing an endurance game to see who can hold their breath longer. Eventually he cannot take it anymore.

  “How can you drop everything just like that? What about your job at the university?”

  “It’s only casual work.”

  “What about—I’m not objecting to your going back, but can’t you discuss it with me first? Don’t I count for anything?”

  She stops her packing and sits next to the suitcase. “You’re very important to me. It hasn’t been easy at all to make this decision.”

  “So what the hell is more important than us?”

  “I don’t want to get you involved. It’s—it may not be safe.”

  “So I should just let you face the danger alone.”

  “It won’t help if both of us get into trouble. It’s better you stay here and do something for me…if you still want to do something for me.”

  “And you still won’t let me know what you’re going to do? It’s something to do with that damned inspector, isn’t it?” He looks at the suitcase with intense hatred.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure what. I just have to go back and see what I can do.”

  “You’re not going to go on a hunger strike outside his jail cell, are you? I never thought you felt so strongly about him. You said he was a fraud.”

  “Things are more complex than that. I’m not sure I know everything myself. I have to talk to Yang.” She presses her thumb against the zip of the suitcase. It leaves a deep railway track impression on her skin. She looks at Matthew sitting on the bed, the suitcase between them.

  “You would endanger your brother but not your husband. You’re a fine sister.”

  “It’s to do with my father. His children owe it to him to do something.”

  “Why are you still flogging a dead horse?”

  “Look at this arrest of the inspector. He must have known too much.”

  “So everybody knows about it except me.”

  “Please be patient with me. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

  “That was what you said last time. Then you went away for eight years.”

  She forces a chortle. “It won’t be that long this time.”

  “Damn. So like how soon?”

  “Don’t know. Possibly a couple of months. Maybe.”

  Matthew switches off the bedside lamp, pushes the suitcase away from his side of the bed and pretends to go to sleep. Ling goes over to his side. “Will you wait for me?”

  He curses his bad luck and puts his arm around her. “I hope you got a two-way ticket.”

  She holds him tight, her heart overflowing with gratitude and premonition.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  LIKE THE PROUD owner of an installation art piece, Ming’s gaze lingers over the stainless steel kitchen, the granite bench top with the shiny pots and woks, the white porcelain bowls with blue fish designs, the matching spoons. It is marred only by the disposable chopsticks. Still, he is confident he is streets ahead of the other stalls in the food court, which use disposable everything. He gets his stall assistant to keep the floor spotless at all times. As food courts are spreading around the country, he has envisioned that a stall at Picnic Court in Scotts Shopping Centre will provide him with a stable income. After doing some market study, he has settled for beef noodles, a franchise he has bought from the original beef noodle stall next to the Odeon Cinema. It was one of his favourites during his days as a lawyer. No beef balls bounce like Lau Kee’s and no sliced beef is more tender. He didn’t mind driving down to Bras Basah Road, looking for a parking space in the heat and beating other cars to scrape through a back lane for an illegal spot, just to eat a bowl of noodles at Lau Kee. He didn’t realise it then, but he now sees something poetic in working and eating well, something that encapsulates the essence of being human. All the sound and fury in the office boils down to wanting to come home to shark’s fin, abalone, lobster and beer-fed beef. And he considers himself God’s very own to be given a stall to cook for himself and others a scrumptious, nutritious meal that’s also economical. He steels himself when his former colleagues, court registrars and judges come to eat his beef noodles. In the face of criticism, he would defend his noodles as robustly as he had defended his clients on death row. That rarely happens, though, as his business associates are always polite. They only pity him, he knows, but he doesn’t give a noodle. He is damned proud of his culinary enterprise and nobody can accuse him of not making an honest living.

  Ling stands at a side of the stall while a customer waits for her order. She has rung to say she will drop by. She watches her brother whack a serving of rice noodles and bean sprouts into a wire basket attached to a long bamboo handle, then plunge them into boiling water. After a few seconds, he pours them into a bowl, then adds the secret recipe of beef balls and sauce. The recipe which came with the 50,000 dollar franchise. Finally he garnishes the brown, gooey thing with fresh coriander. It’s early for the lunchtime crowd and he has time to chat up the customer to get feedback.

  He notices his sister only when he places the steaming bowl on a tray.

  “Hey, want to try the famous Odeon Cinema beef noodles?”

  Ling watches her brother make another bowl. Ming’s stall assistant returns with a heavy tin of vegetable oil and Ming leaves him to attend to the stall while he sits with Ling. She tucks into the noodles and declares them the tastiest in Southeast Asia and Sydney.

  In his blue apron, white T-shirt and jeans, he relaxes into the steel and granite chair in the food hall. “I now live a simple life. Renting an HDB flat like you did before. Don’t have to worry about the mortgage.”

  Ling tilts her head at the stall. “This looks good.”

  “You think it’s beneath us?”

  “Don’t be a snob. I would like to do something like that myself.” />
  “You’ve got enough degrees to be the chancellor of a university!” He gives a mirthless laugh.

  “My uni is so sterile compared to here. Look at all that yummy food.”

  “I reckon that since I eat so much hawker food, I might as well be a hawker myself.”

  Their smiles dim into wordless contact as both stare into the bowl of half-eaten noodles. Ming takes another stab at cheerfulness.

  “How are you and Matthew? How come he didn’t fly back with you?”

  “He likes it there. Didn’t want to spend on the air ticket.”

  “I can still remember Pa nearly had a stroke when he found out you had an Indian boyfriend.”

  They both laugh.

  Pause.

  “I’m glad you have someone now. No good to be alone for too long. I should know.” Pulling himself from the edge of self-pity, he teases, “You think it’s safe to leave Matthew there by himself? But then the women there have moustaches and hairy legs.” He guffaws above the din of the food court. “By the way, you’re settling in? I’m sure Australia is no longer foreign to you. Maybe Singapore is now?” He gives another laugh, his arms folded.

  “No, not really.” She eats the last of the noodles and drinks up the soup, which Ming says contains no MSG.

  After another pause, she says, “Ming, do you really believe Father took his own life?”

  He closes his eyes and releases a heavy breath. “Why do you still want to open old wounds?”

  She sees his face furrow into trenches of shadow. The veins on his neck bulge green. It was a mistake to have come home, she thinks. Ming is learning to pick himself up, why should she knock him down again? “Hey, just an idle thought. Let’s forget it.”

  Ming swings round to face his sister. “It’s easy for you to forget. You’re so far away whereas I’m stuck here and reminded of it every time I see someone remotely associated with Father. Who knows what they might be saying behind my back? Maybe they are saying ‘poor bastard’ or ‘serves him right’? Do you know how many people out there are partying to see me reduced to selling noodles? The kinder ones like my former secretary avoid eating here. But some arseholes bring their whole family to watch me sweat over a boiling pot. For three lousy dollars a bowl.”