‘Sh! Hush!’ I tried to calm her down.
‘It’s true! I’m not making this up. You Chinese are so bloody racist!’
I kissed her burning lips. Her back was stiff like a cat about to fight, and then suddenly she put her head on my shoulders and just cried. I kissed her again and again.
‘Not all Chinese are racists.’ She was smiling and crying at the same time but she let me kiss her again.
Her boys hungered for my attention. Every time I visited them they wanted to do things for me. Very eager to serve and please me. Too eager sometimes. Especially Seb, who polished my shoes and sharpened my pencils. The poor kid was starved of attention from a father. Ben clung to my hand. Just held my hand the whole time I was there. Never saying a word. The little fella just held my hand. He followed me everywhere. I told myself: never walk out on your wife and children if you marry. I knew what it was like to have your old man leave you. But, I told Alice, not all men are cads. Some of us are quite decent. I didn’t know if she believed me or what, but six months after her father’s death I was practically living in her flat. I took all my meals with her and the boys.
Her aunts and uncles didn’t approve. In their eyes I was another bloody Chinese man and a non-Christian. A heathen with no faith, no God. Why was she making the same mistake again? her aunts and uncles asked her. Their large extended family—the Georges, the Jacobs and the Solomons—were staunch Tamil Christians in the Methodist Church. Their great grandparents were from Kerala in South India. Alice’s cousins were teachers, professors and civil servants.
‘My uncles don’t think much of housing agents, insurance agents and car salesmen. They look down on my family. So I don’t go near them.’
I knew exactly what she meant. These professional types with their fancy titles and university degrees. I only completed secondary school myself, but I could speak better English than some of them. I made sure I didn’t speak Singlish with my clients. No hor, lor, walau and sibeh hor like the other housing agents. During my national service days I listened to the BBC on my radio and I learned.
‘The world’s my university,’ I told Seb and Ben.
Their big dark eyes looked up. ‘Dad!’
Wah! The first time they said it my heart felt like it wanted to burst. It sounded strange—Dad. Like something I’d heard long ago and forgotten. That was what Kit and I had called our father. I wondered where my old man had gone. He’d dropped out of our lives. Which hole did he fall into? Was he dead in some foreign country? But I didn’t waste too much time thinking of the past. I had a future now and a headache—Ma.
‘So you approve?’ I had asked her before I married Alice.
‘What’s there to approve or disapprove? Son’s grown up. It’s the son’s world, as the saying goes. Not my world.’ Her Hokkien speech was tart and sharp.
‘Ma, you don’t mind that Alice is not Chinese?’
‘You think I’m so narrow-minded, is it? Chinese or not Chinese, the same to me!’
‘And she has two sons like you, Ma.’
‘She is not like me!’
‘I didn’t mean like you exactly. She has two boys. And I … er … I thought we could live together. That is if you don’t mind.’ I held my breath.
‘This is your home. Your flat. You can do what you like. If necessary, I can move out with Kit and they can move in.’
‘Ma, it’s not necessary. Alice and I will apply to buy a bigger flat for all of us. Kit included. But she’s got to sell off her father’s flat first to settle his medical bills before she can apply with me. Housing Board regulations. I can’t explain everything to you. It’s very complicated.’
‘She’s divorced, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘As long as you don’t mind …’
‘No, Ma, I don’t mind. But I’m asking you if you’ll let her and the two boys move in here first while we wait for our flat to be ready.’
‘Why ask me? This is your apartment. As long as you people don’t mind my altar and my gods. Did you tell her? I chant when I pray. I’m your ma. I can change everything for your sake, but my gods, I cannot change.’
The next day Ma surprised me. Actually she shocked me. She moved out of the master bedroom and moved into Kit’s bedroom.
‘What happened? Why are you sharing Kit’s room?’
‘I used my head. If I don’t move out of the master bedroom, where are you and Alice going to sleep? You’re going to marry her, right or not? You will need the master bedroom. There are only three bedrooms here. The two boys and the maid will sleep in one room. Kit has the other bedroom. Where am I going to sleep? In the kitchen, ah?’
‘Ma, we’ve changed plans. We can live in Alice’s three-room flat until she sells it. The flat is also her brother’s flat so we must sell.’
‘But I’ve already moved out of the master bedroom for you. Isn’t this enough? You still want to move out?’
What could I do? Move out and break Ma’s heart?
Luckily Alice didn’t make a fuss. We didn’t have the traditional rowdy costly Chinese wedding dinner. ‘Better to save the money to buy a bigger flat,’ I said. An executive flat with three bedrooms and a utility room that could be converted into another bedroom. All of us under one roof. That was my dream.
Six months later Alice and I went to the lawyer’s office. Her ex-husband had agreed to sign the papers to give up his rights to the boys. He already had two children with his new wife. So the boys became Sebastian Lim and Benedict Lim. They called me Dad and called Ma, Nai-nai, the Mandarin term for granny.
‘Nai-nai, eat.’ Seb had learnt to speak a little Hokkien by then.
‘Nai-nai, eat,’ Ben followed.
Then the little won ton meatball jumped onto my lap.
‘Oi! Let your father eat in peace!’ Ma yelled at him.
Ben made a face but he slipped off my lap and sat on the chair next to me.
‘Eat up, Ben. Eat, Seb. Eat as much as you want both of you so you won’t act like hungry wolves afterwards,’ Ma said.
She scooped two large pieces of stewed pork into the boys’ bowls. Using her chopsticks, she picked up two large fried prawns and put them on a side plate for each boy.
‘Eat now. Eat all you want so you don’t have to dig into my biscuit tins looking for something to eat later. They’re always so hungry. Don’t know why!’
‘Boys, say thank you to Nai-nai.’ Alice’s frown had come on. A bad sign.
‘Thank you, Nai-nai!’
‘Now say sorry to Nai-nai. How many times have I told you not to be greedy little pigs? Say sorry! Why didn’t you eat the biscuits in our room? How many times do I have to tell you not to touch Nai-nai’s things in the kitchen? How dare you disobey me!’
‘I didn’t, Mummy! Seb did it!’
Alice slapped Ben who was nearer to her than Seb. The boy bawled holding his cheek. She slapped him again.
‘Stop it! Stop crying!’
‘For god’s sake, it’s Christmas Eve, Alice!’ I yelled.
‘Why don’t you tell that to your mother? She hates my boys!’
‘No, Alice, Mother was trying to teach them manners.’
‘Oi! You two. Mother, mother! I might not understand English but I know you people are talking about me! What’s that woman of yours saying?’ Ma asked in her crisp sharp Hokkien voice. Of course that made it worse.
I don’t know what else went wrong after that. One thing after the other. Small, small things. Just doing the laundry could lead to a big argument. Why are women like this? Alice said I was blind. Said that Ma was coming between us.
‘How?’
‘Use your eyes! Look! See for yourself.’
I did look, but I didn’t see anything terrible. Maybe Ma was a little too strict. Like she wouldn’t let Ben sit on my lap.
‘Big boy already! Sit on your own chair!’
‘It’s just her way. She was like this with Kit and me too.’ I tried to tell Alice.
&n
bsp; But she took it hard. And sometimes Ma complained a little too much.
‘Like monkeys, those two! Jump here. Jump there. No stop! Whatever they like, they eee-eat! Then at dinnertime, full already. Can’t eat. Then their mother gets angry. Scolds the maid for letting them eat too much. She dares not scold me! So she scolds the maid. Scolding the maid is for my ears.’
‘What did Alice say?’ I was exasperated.
‘How do I know? I don’t know what she says to the maid! All this fee-lee-fee-leh in English! One Indian, one Filipina! How do I know what they say in this house? This house is not my home any more. These days the maid doesn’t listen to me any more! Her boys have no respect for me! They call me Nai-nai. What for? They’ve no respect for me. They eat what they want! I can’t do anything. Cane them? Not my own grandchildren. I dare not touch them in case people say I abuse their children, then how?’ Ma looked at me.
I walked away. I was tired.
‘The older one tells lies. That Seb is a snake. Can tell a lie without blinking his eyes. And the younger one just eats like a dustbin with no bottom. He gobbled up a whole tin of my biscuits in two days! Didn’t ask me. Didn’t say a word to me. I opened the tin. Aiyoh! Not one biscuit left. It’s not that I begrudge them the biscuits. But ask me. If you say I’m their granny, ask them to show me some respect! Ask permission.’
‘Ma, the boys don’t speak Hokkien that well. They’re scared of you.’
‘Scared of me? Where are your eyes? You turn your back and the boys are rude to me. They behave in front of you. Every afternoon they watch tv. Never do their school work. What do you and your wife know? You’re both at work. And the maid doesn’t tell you the truth!’
I checked Seb’s schoolbag and books. There was a letter from his teacher. He hadn’t handed in his homework for a week. I whacked him hard and proper.
‘Good! Whack him harder! Harder! Show your mother you know how to discipline them!’ Alice shouted from our bedroom. She had a soft spot for her elder boy; some sort of guilt like she’d let him down, blaming herself for what had happened to Seb in his father’s house. ‘Kill him! Why don’t you kill him? After all he’s only half Chinese!’
I felt guilty like hell. Maybe I would’ve acted differently if they were my flesh and blood, Alice said. That shook me up. Seb was just eight and in Primary Two, but already he’d learnt to hide things from us. I talked to him and explained why he must not lie. I promised myself that I wouldn’t whack the boy again.
But when Ben was six he stole a classmate’s pen. He’d lost his own pen in a betting game. I hit the roof. Betting at his age! I whacked him hard and proper too. Alice wailed. She wanted to move out that very night. I handed her the cane, left the flat, got into the car and went for a long drive. Had I become an abusive father? Then I wondered if the boys had inherited bad genes. Their genes were not mine. Maybe I’d made a mistake. Their grandmother was a gambler. Poor buggers. Their own father had given them up. They needed a father but they only had me. I wished I’d done better.
Two years had passed, and we were still stuck in the same apartment with Kit, Ma and the maid. Trouble every day. The maid and Ma. The maid and Alice. Alice and Ma. One chicken one duck. Hokkien and English. Neither could understand the other. I fired the Filipina maid and got a Sri Lankan maid. Even worse. Spoilt the washing machine. Then the fridge. Even cleaning the windows led to problems! Every day Alice screamed and yelled at the maid and the boys when she came home. Most days my head wanted to break and explode when I got home after work. Every day kenna listen to your mother and wife complain, complain, complain could drive a man to murder. I didn’t know marriage could be like this.
It wasn’t just language. There was Ma’s altar and her pantheon of Chinese gods. Alice wanted the boys to go to church. When Ma took them to the temple to meet the priest, Alice screamed, ‘I don’t want my sons to worship idols!’
On some days I thought maybe Alice and I shouldn’t have married. So many things came between Ma and her. In two years we sacked so many maids: Filipina, then Indonesian, then Sri Lankan. All didn’t work out. Wah-piah-ah! English has no word for my kind of frustration. I didn’t know whom to believe when they quarrelled: mother, wife or maid. ‘Best thing, I don’t listen to anybody,’ I told Alice. She said I didn’t love her. She refused to talk to me for days. Weeks sometimes. My nerves were frayed. Koyak! How do you say it in proper English? My heart aches?
I drove for hours that night after whacking Ben. When I reached home past midnight, Ben was asleep, slumped in the armchair that he must have placed near the doorway. I locked the front door. The soft click woke him.
‘Ben, are you waiting for me?’
Without a word, he hugged me before padding off to bed.
Alice and I quarrelled every day. Sometimes it was over office matters. We got into each other’s hair working in the same tiny office. At home she slammed doors and broke bowls. Three or four times in the past year Ma had threatened to jump out of the window so that Alice and I could see what we were doing to her. I stopped taking her threats seriously. Luckily Kit had a job which kept him out late. Sometimes he slept in his office. Who could blame him? I would’ve slept in the office too if I’d had to share a room with Ma. I’d enough problems already trying to keep the housing agency going. The economy had hit a slump. Business slowed down. Prices fell. But there were no buyers. Money was tight. Every day Alice wanted a divorce. Every morning and night Ma knelt before her gods and chanted prayers in a loud voice to pray for my business and prosperity. Her chanting drove me up the wall but I couldn’t tell her not to pray.
Then one day Alice and the boys moved out. She had rented a flat in Serangoon.
‘Her husband meets with hardship, and she leaves him,’ I overheard Ma telling someone on the phone. I started to pack a few things. Kit, man of few words, said to me, ‘If you don’t join Alice and the boys, you’ll lose them.’
I moved in with the boys in the new flat. Alice didn’t say a word. I knew she felt I’d let her down because I hadn’t moved out with her, at the same time. I hadn’t put her and the boys first. I’d put my mother first.
I sighed. What else could I do? I had to focus on my business. Times were bad. Singapore was trapped in a recession. But life went on. We continued to work long hours. Alice and I. Housing agents in a recession. What to do? Recession or no recession, people only viewed flats after work or after dinner.
I could not spend much time with the boys.
Whenever I could I took them out during the school holidays. We went swimming. Sometimes we went to the community centre to watch Kit play badminton. The boys cheered him on, jumping up and down. ‘Uncle Kit! Uncle Kit! Champion! Champion!’ They loved to embarrass Kit. Sometimes the four of us went out for dinner. Nothing expensive. The boys, they didn’t have expensive tastes. Burgers and fries. They were very happy already. I didn’t have to spend much. Not that I had much. I had debts to clear. The closing of my company was a great blow. I’d let everybody down. Let myself down. Failed to give Alice and the boys a good life. Failed to make the grade, you know what I mean? Last year I had a business, was my own boss, drove a big car. This year I drive a small car and work for other people. And Alice still doesn’t talk to me. I’m still sleeping in the boys’ room.
And Christmas was here again. Yesterday. My first Christmas without Ma and Kit. He sent me an email: So how, bro? How are things?
I wrote back at once. The longest bit of writing I’ve done since school days:
The best present I received this year was from Ben. I don’t know why but he always touches the softest spot in my heart. He acts as if he owes me, and his love for me is unconditional. I’ve been asking the two boys since January this year to think about what they want for Christmas. Seb, as usual, always knows what he wants. It’s good ’cos I know he will have a direction in life, and his immediate request was for an MP3 player. When I ask Ben if he wants one too, he says no. I ask him why? since he also likes to listen t
o music. He says he can always listen to the radio or use the home PC, no point buying something just to put there and own just because everyone has one.
Since that day on every time we were free, we would discuss what he wants, and every time he would end up a bit frustrated. Then on the twenty-third night, while I was resting, he came to me, lay down on my tummy as usual and said, ‘It’s very hard for me to make a decision ’cos I already have everything that I need.’
All this while I was thinking that he is indecisive and slow in making decisions, that he will grow up as a worker and can never be a thinker, planner or decision maker. I was wrong—he is just an easily contented and practical type of person. He does not need the frills and fringes in life. He is happy with what he has now, and that means I have not failed him. Gratitude—the best present in life.
From Seb I learn persistence.
From Ben I learn simplicity.
My boys.
Shall I send it to Kit? Not the sort of thing you send your brother. But hey, what the heck? It’s just a day after Christmas. It’s still Christmas.
13
Christmas at Singapore Casket
Marley was dead—to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon the Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail …’
‘But mind you! He vowed that he would rise up from his coffin if anything were to happen to his company.’
‘Imagine! To vow such a thing on his deathbed!’
‘Aye, he was more Chinese than he thought he was. All his life the bugger claimed he was Irish.’
The Man Who Wore His Wife's Sarong Page 20