* * *
I’m one of those who respond slowly to surprise. I don’t think myself amazingly cool-headed, dim-witted or hard-hearted. It just takes a few minutes, hours or days before I burst into tears or yell yippee. I’m not expecting to find Uncle Bernard dead; I know we talked about suicide last night but had I supposed Bernard to be in any danger, I’d have done something about it, at least I hope I would, although I did nothing, so maybe I wouldn’t. Truth is, I’m more wait-and-see than do-or-die. Even this afternoon, when witnessing Bernard and Li Fang divide up the diamonds, I didn’t ask what they were doing; I just witnessed what they wanted me to witness: the two tiny pyramids looked equal. It might have been two small boys cutting a chocolate bar in half; I was just there to witness fair play, not to ask questions. Anyway, had I asked a question, neither would have answered me. I’m an academic; I ask questions; it’s my job. But I’m a Singaporean academic, I know when to ask questions and what to ask; I ask one now: ‘Have you called the police?’ All pragmatic Singaporean.
‘I am the f-f-fucking police.’
‘Yes, of course you are, Madhu. I mean the murder squad and ambulance and so on.’
‘Li Fang te-li-pon,’ says Li Fang beside me. He seems unfazed; still playing pidgin. Maybe after what he lived through under the Japanese, when hangings, he says, were daily events, and after surviving the Emergency, when whole villages were razed and commies like him buried themselves so deep in society they couldn’t climb out, he takes the death of just one ang mo in his stride. But it’s not that; I know how close Li Fang was to Bernard. Maybe, like mine, his emotions take a bit of time to kick in. Or maybe it’s the diamonds.
I dont’ want to look, now I can’t tear my eyes away from Bernard’s slow-motion revolution. Mesmerising. Like a cobra’s dance. I am only vaguely conscious of a large shape untying itself from the dark knot of birthday guests and entering my space. ‘This must be a terrible shock to you. I know you were the very best of friends. Like father and son. You must be devastated. Such a terrible thing …’ It’s Tambiah, the solicitor and Madhu’s closest friend and drinking partner. I cut him short. The reality before me is coming through in bits and bursts. I hit Tambiah with a burst. ‘Too much to hope you and Madhu found the killer as well as the body?’
‘Steady on old man,’ says the solicitor. ‘Nobody can establish the cause of death at this point.’
‘Well, it doesn’t look like an accident.’
Tambiah lets the sarcasm pass. ‘I can see you’re upset,’ he says. ‘But suicide seems the likeliest explanation … empirically speaking. Murder by hanging’s just not practical. Thing is, until Madhu can get to the body, nobody can even establish that Bernard is legally dead – although it is obvious, I’m afraid.’
Legally dead? Can anyone be illegally dead? Are the illegally dead arrested and charged? And if Bernard hanged himself, how did he manage to turn on the fan?
2
Meanwhile in Limbo
IT’S A GAME I play alone when feeling myself in limbo between the known and the unknown; solitaire playing people not cards. I imagine where other people fit in at any critical point in my personal history. It’s a coping mechanism, a way of getting out of myself and into them without surgery, putting myself in their shoes, so to speak, walking their walk. It helps me fill in the blanks between known pieces, fits the bits together to form a bigger picture and put myself in that picture. I’d rather be part of a big picture than have the big picture gobble me up. I know I’m trying to escape the inescapable and I know the picture is fuzzy-logic. It might be precise or it might be completely wrong, or it might be a bit right and a bit wrong, but it always makes sense at the time. It’s subjective, of course, and all a bit academic. But on a university campus, there’s nothing wrong with being academic. And there’s nothing wrong with avoiding the unavoidable, if that’s possible, which it’s not, at least not for long. And so, as I watch Bernard turning circles, as my world rotates in limbo and as the roulette wheel of my life slows to click-click a new direction, I imagine …
* * *
K drops his evening’s transvestite, his anonymous accomplice, on Tanglin Road to get a taxi into her alternative night and drives home fast, all windows open, glad to be rid of her. The smell of her irritates his nostrils; a souvenir of his own making but one he’d happily do without, a reminder of how much he hates what he can’t resist, indeed goes in search of.
As he drives, he takes an air freshener from the glove compartment, sprays all around him and soaks his crotch. He hates the smell of canned fresh air – nothing fresh about it, almost as bad as the tranny. But his wife put the can in the car – so he sprays, he tells himself, to protect her from the ugly truth; to spray away what never happened. Not that Dija would ever sniff too hard for signs of her husband’s duplicity; she’s not like that. She’ll be fast asleep by now.
He pulls quietly into his driveway. The light’s on. She’s waited up. She won’t make a fuss. She knows making a fuss would be bad for the baby, although she’d never make a fuss anyway. After all, it’s only 11 o’clock, 17 minutes and 10 seconds – Dija checks the clock as K comes in the front door, pecks her on the cheek and strokes her stretched tummy.
‘Still awake? You should get your sleep. Soon be time for the little chap to keep you awake at night.’ No need to worry, she can’t smell the tranny, nor the air freshener, not over the pong of stale beer.
‘Long rehearsal at the thespians?’ she asks, as if concerned the star of amateur-dramatics might be tired.
‘Yes, you know how it is. Time flies by.’
‘Doesn’t it. By the way, you left your play-script thing behind at the club. David phoned to say he’s taken it with him and will give it to you tomorrow.’
‘Good old David. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t nailed on. Must be tired. These rehearsals do drag on.’
‘Don’t they. David said he was on his way home for an early night as the rehearsal had finished at 8.00 – 8.30 he called.’
* * *
Ra’mad is feeding his rats. He feeds them at night. That way, they get a good sleep for whatever trials they face the next day. ‘Now you all get a good night’s sleep,’ he says in English, as if tucking in the children he never had. ‘And never mind that noise. That damn dog again and those noisy Tamils. Don’t worry, you’re quite safe with your Uncle Ra’mad.’
His rats look through the bars at him with the fear of God in their eyes as they gnaw their pellets. Only Snow, the one Ra’mad trusts enough to let out for some exercise within the flat, who always comes when called, the one with him for two years now, only Snow comes close to the door of his cage and smiles. Ra’mad opens the door and takes him out for a bedtime stroke. ‘There, Snow. The world’s now a better place.’ Stroking completed, Ra’mad places Snow back inside with a square inch of cheddar cheese to sweeten his night. Snow is Ra’mad’s favourite.
‘That noise is too much,’ he says to Snow. ‘All those drunken Tamils. And that dog yapping. That’s no way to behave on a university campus. I suppose I’ll have to go along and see to it.’ Snow chews his cheese.
* * *
Harry Chin lies awake. He wakes his wife and complains that with all this noise, he can’t get to sleep. ‘Take a Valium,’ says Agnes in Mandarin. They always speak Mandarin together. Agnes, Malaysian from Ipoh, is from an English-speaking Chinese family. Harry’s weighty legacy from his China-nationalist father required he be raised and educated only in Mandarin. Harry’s father thought the world should speak Mandarin. Harry wishes it did, life would be a lot simpler.
Harry is pleased with the new Speak Mandarin campaign, although it took a long time coming and only comes now because China is an enemy no more; father would approve of the campaign but would not be happy about snuggling up to Communist China. Not that chatting to China bothers Harry, as long as the chat’s in Mandarin. Language apart, he neither shares his father’s political views nor opposes them. Harry has no political views. H
e’s Singaporean.
‘I’ve already taken two,’ says Harry.
‘That’s twenty mgs you’ve taken already,’ says Agnes.
‘Yes, I know, but it doesn’t matter. Give me another.’
Agnes pushes another pill from its pod and gives it to Harry with a glass of water, thinking in English, Yes, Harry, please take them all.
* * *
Norsiah, too, can’t sleep. She’s wondering why she is where she is.
* * *
David’s resolve to get an early night hasn’t worked; after half an hour trying to sleep, he’s tried so hard he’s wide awake. So out comes the weed and up comes David to sit on the top-floor veranda of Wolverton Mess in his pyjamas, puffing what he shouldn’t. He looks out over the top of the girls’ dorm, across the trees and cricket pitch to Tom’s place and a bit further on to Guild House, where earlier he’d phoned K and K’s wife had answered, as always. He hears a growing racket coming from Guild House. ‘Oh Christ,’ he tells himself. ‘It’s the birthdays of Tom and Madhu, and I clean forgot.’
David never misses free beer and knows that by now everybody will be so drunk it doesn’t matter how he’s dressed. He puts his magic dragon back in its matchbox and, pyjama-clad, skips down the stairs and across the grass to the Guild.
* * *
Venus is thinking thoughts befitting the most beautiful woman in the world.
I bet he’s waiting for me right now. He always does. I wonder if he’d wait forever. That time we went to an afternoon movie, he waited outside the cinema for half an hour. I thought we’d arranged to meet there to go somewhere else, so for me it was an accidental movie. I don’t like cinemas in the afternoon; sad to lock myself away from the daylight like a vampire, and I don’t normally sit in the dark with a man: Richard definitely wouldn’t like that. But when I got there, Tom had two tickets in his hand already so I wimpishly followed him inside, not holding hands or anything ridiculous. We missed the beginning and I never knew what I was watching until we came out and I saw the title was Lord Jim with Peter O’Toole. First time I’d seen him – Peter that is, not Tom. I could see why Tom loves the story: young white man in Malaya goes native to save the natives, becomes a sort of hero, gets the beautiful girl who calls him Tuan and all that. Pity he has to die in the end, paying with his life for the sins of others – same old story. The movie was an old one – the kind they show in the afternoon.
We sat there, side by side in an empty theatre, me on an aisle seat in case I needed to escape the dark. Tom never tried to touch me or anything. I wondered if I was too rigid for him – I can’t relax in a cold, dark place – but maybe he was just mesmerised by Lord Jim’s story which even I could see was about some sort of moral dilemma, although I was a bit too occupied inside my own dilemma to pay much attention to the message. I don’t know what I’d have done had Tom stroked my thigh, but he didn’t; it wasn’t a thigh-stroking film. I was glad when it was over and the lights came on. We sat in the foyer and had ice cream and talked about the film – I enjoyed talking about it more than watching it.
He’s quite a romantic, Tom, just like Tuan Jim in the film, and I like talking to him, and I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. Then I had to get off to work; I’d only just wheedled myself into the evening slot – us newsreaders love it, it’s about the only time anybody under sixty watches TV. I dropped him at the university entrance then; I didn’t want to drive in past all the students.
‘Siggy. I told Tom I’d try to drop by his place after the 10 o’clock news. Should I go?’
‘Tom Haddock? The sort-of Englishman born in Malacca? The one I met when you interviewed the orang utan at the zoo?’
‘Yes, that’s him. The man Professor Fox introduced me to at the amateur dramatics play. Nice person and never tries anything on. Well, he did once hand me a fruit juice and our fingers touched and he kept his there – but I flexed my ring finger and told him about Richard and he took his hand away and sat on it as if punishing it; that made me laugh. He keeps asking me out, which is nice in a way, but having landed the evening news, I don’t have time except in the mornings and late at night. Do you think I should go now? It’s well after 11.00.’
‘If you fancy him, Vee, why not? You won’t find many men who sit on their hands to keep them under control. And you can’t use the Richard excuse forever. You’ve done the 10 o’clock and nobody’s watching now, so why not? Where’s the harm?’
‘Because, you know, going to his flat at this time, you know.’
‘Not really. Don’t see how I could know; I’ve never been to his place at any time – will though if he invites me; nice looker. You think going to his flat is going too far?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit creepy at night. It’s nice in the daytime. But last time it was late and the campus was deserted; I just picked him up and we went for supper at Newton Circus.’
‘No harm in that, whatever the time. If his place feels a bit spooky that’s one thing, it’s one of those old buildings and now staff’s moving out to be near the new campus I hear it’s empty apart from him and the mad chemist upstairs. But does Tom also make you feel creepy?’
‘Oh no, he’s nice; quite the gentleman. Always behaves. But the way he looks at me, I know what he’s thinking.’
‘Probably thinking what most men in Singapore think when they look at you, Vee. Let’s face it, you’re a sexy girl. I’d be over the moon if boys looked at me the way they look at you.’
‘I bet you would, Siggy! But you’re a man, sort of. Perhaps I should take you to Newton Circus for supper.’
‘Well, you’ll be safe enough! I do fancy some porridge. Let me wrap up here and then we can go. But won’t Doc Tom be disappointed if you said you’re going to see him?’
‘I didn’t promise or anything. Just said I’d try to drop by.’
‘It doesn’t look, Vee, as if you’re trying all that hard.’
‘You know me, Sig. Maybe It’s not fair on Tom. Not fair on me either. You know, not fair …’
‘On Richard?’
‘Sorry, Sig. You know me too well. Okay, I’ll do my face then let’s go for supper. Nobody’s going to think anything’s up if they see me with you in the middle of the night.’
‘Well! Thanks very much! Compliment accepted. But hadn’t you better call Tom, lah. He might be waiting for you.’
‘He’s got no phone. I could call Li Fang – you know, that nice old bag of bones who runs the Guild – and ask him to take a message. You’re right, I should let Tom know I’m not coming. It’s actually easier to send a message through Li Fang, no need to make excuses. I’ll call him.’
And she does. But when she asks if he’d mind taking a message to Doctor Tom, Li Fang cuts her short and says something’s just happened and he’s about to call the police. Then he tells her what it is and she promises – a real promise – to be there in 10 minutes and then tells Siggy to get his stuff super quick.
3
Death in the Living Room
‘G-G-GET THAT d-dog out of there or I s-s-shoot it.’ Madhu is nervous. He wasn’t expecting to find a body, not in Singapore, not on Bukit Timah Campus and certainly not on his birthday. His threat brings me back to face my world as it is now.
‘You don’t have any tranquilliser darts, I suppose?’ I’d heard Singapore’s police are prepared for just about everything.
‘F-f-fuck that.’ Madhu only says fuck that when he sees the bar bill. I forgive the language but can’t let him compound the death of the master by killing the master’s dog. I like that dog. ‘The super will be here any m-m-minute and we can’t g-g-get into the h-h-house b-b-b-because of that d-dog.’
Madhu doesn’t care much for dogs – a flaw in an otherwise decent bloke. Since there’s little chance of Bernard’s dog coming out with its paws up, something has to be done and it seems I’m the one expected to do it.
I look around for help or inspiration. I see the crowd of onlookers includes my neighbour from the flat ab
ove, Ra’mad bin Ra’mad bin Ra’mad. What’s he doing here? I didn’t invite him to my birthday party. He’s grinning. Probably waiting for the gun blast to silence the dog. David’s here, too. David in his horizontal broad-stripe pyjamas; he looks like an escapee from a Vietnamese prison. David, the night rover from the Wolverton Mess. He never misses a show. He, too, is grinning. But David loves dogs, particularly Bernard’s dog, so his grin must be from substance abuse. There will be no help for Bernard’s dog coming from the onlookers; it’s a dog’s life and it’s in my hands.
‘Okay, Madhu, I’ll do what I can. But don’t shoot the dog. It might be your only witness and one that can’t be a suspect.’ My inner mind flashes my outer mind an image of the defendant-suspect: an overweight brown mongrel bitch called Barnaby, forepaws over the edge of the witness box, trying desperately to sway the judge with a whimpering defence. I didn’t save Bernard, but I have to save his dog.
‘Madhu, can you turn the headlights off? Any dog will protect its home if it’s under attack.’ Madhu nods and Bernard disappears at the flick of a switch. I move into the darkness, trying to look Joe Cool-Calm-and-Collected and ignore the sweat trickling down my spine. The crowd hushes, the cicadas take a rest, I approach the snapping jaws of a tormented bitch.
‘Come on, Barns. Good girl. You don’t want to bite me, lah.’
Barns lunges at me, teeth bared. The audience oohs like aficionados at a bull fight and a high-pitched scream escapes David’s pursed lips.
I wait at the door until Barnaby puts her fangs away. I ease myself across the threshold of her tolerance. I keep talking, using that silly little voice we hold in reserve for dogs, babies, the terminally ill and dangerous drunks. ‘There, there, Barns, everything’s all right. Good doggie. There’s a good girl.’ I inch across the floor and Barnaby’s growls turn to whines. As I reach out to her, she throws herself at me and I catch her. A very nervous dog, desperate for a friend in a hostile world. I hold her tight. Her struggles nudge me off-balance in the dark. An arm brushes against me as it passes in orbit and I sit down hard on Bernard’s favourite armchair, Barns in my arms and nervously licking my face. It’s not at all the love scene I’d been waiting for.
Waiting for Venus - A Novel Page 2