Waiting for Venus - A Novel

by Robert Cooper

  ‘I heard mumbled apologies and excuses for entering my house and bedroom without permission “in hot pursuit of the outlaw dog”. I reached for my eyeglasses and saw one of the men was armed with a long stick with a noose at the end and the other with a rifle. They explained the rifle only held stun darts. “We don’t kill them, lah. Just take them back, lah. Nobody claim, gas, lah.”

  ‘I saw the big brown eyes appealing to me and heard a voice – I sometimes heard voices when the alcohol level dropped. “They will drag me away and gas me.” There was, I thought, already too much dragging away and gassing in twentieth century human history without extending it to the canine world. I ordered the men out of the house. They said they would go as soon as they had secured the dog, explaining they entered the house because all doors were open, which was how the dog got in, and that they were there to protect me, not harm me.

  ‘“It’s my dog,” I told them, lying in defence of decency. The men were checked. They couldn’t noose a professor’s dog in his own bedroom, at least not when the professor was lying in his bed. On the other hand, they didn’t really believe it was my dog. One asked to see the rabies vaccination certificate and reminded me that every dog in Singapore should wear a collar at all times. “What! Even in bed?!” I flung at them, knowing sarcasm rarely works in Singapore.

  ‘My defence clearly annoyed the dog-catchers. They listed the complaints against the dog made over several weeks, all by Chin, and described how they had tried several times to catch the dog without success. At no point during those weeks, they said, had I claimed ownership of the dog. The dog snuggled closer and appealed to my sense of justice and my dislike of Chin. I again ordered the men out of the house. They reluctantly turned to go but one of them dared to tell me that as there was a complaint against my dog, they had to file a police report and therefore needed the name of the dog. That’s not quite the way they put it. I remember something more like, “What dog name, huh?”

  ‘I was not used to thinking until after a few cups of morning tea and was getting annoyed at having dog-catchers in my bedroom. I muttered “barbarians”, referring to the men, not the dog. One of the catchers said, Barbara? I could have left it at that but I found Barbara a stupid name for a dog, so I corrected it to Barnaby. The other catcher pointed out that the dog was a bitch. I looked underneath and found that Barnaby was indeed a bitch. I decided I had been more than tolerant of an invasion of my bedroom and responded: “And what bloody business of yours is the sex of my dog?”

  ‘Thus, Barnaby found a name and I found myself a dog.’

  * * *

  Venus is oozing. ‘I love it. And the way you told it, I wasn’t sure if it was you or Professor Fox speaking.’ I, too, am not quite sure who was speaking. ‘So, Professor Fox and Barnaby were united against Chin from their first moments together. It’s almost as if Chin and those foreign long-tailed devil cats drove Barnaby into the professor’s arms. We might be able to play the long-tailed foreign devil bit on the box – subtly, of course. It’s something Singaporeans can respond to without feeling racist.’

  My own long-nosed foreign devil response does not leave my lips. It is stilled by a loud human scream coming from the back of the house.

  10

  Rats and Maids

  MADHU COCKS HIS head on its axis in his gesture of enquiry. Barnaby responds in exactly the same way.

  The scream screams again.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘Just the cleaner finding another rat in a cupboard – happens all the time.’

  Venus gives me a long sideways look. She is not yet mistress of my life, but she knows Norsiah discreetly cleans up my mess in the mornings not the evenings, and even in my flat cleaning is no cause for screaming. She also knows there is nobody in the kitchen since she just brought in two bottles of beer from the fridge.

  Luckily, at that moment Madhu remembers something he forgot to tell me and diverts his own attention. ‘Tambiah will be reading Professor Fox’s Will tomorrow at 10.45am and your presence is requested at his chambers on Shenton Way – know where that is?’

  ‘I do,’ says Venus.

  ‘Tambiah also requests the presence of Barnaby.’

  ‘Reading of the Will so soon after death?’ I am surprised. ‘I thought such things took ages.’

  ‘It can be done any time,’ says Madhu. ‘After death, that is. It doesn’t need to be done at all, but you know Tambiah, can’t resist a touch of Victorian drama. Superintendent Wong will be there to see who gets what; it might indicate a motive.’

  ‘I’ll be there with Barnaby.’ I say.

  ‘Then I must go too,’ Venus chirps. ‘You can’t expect Barnaby to ride on the crossbar of Tom’s old bike. And Tom would never find the place.’

  Venus knows me – Shenton Way’s skyscrapers, even in 1980, are a different world and one I don’t much care for. But how does she know about the bike? I haven’t taken it out of the store room for months. I know next to nothing about her and she knows about my invisible old bike.

  A series of moans of increasing intensity come to us from the back of the house, capped by another scream, followed by silence.

  ‘More beer, Madhu?’ I ask quietly.

  ‘What was that noise?’ Madhu questions, in a tone expecting a reply.

  ‘Probably just the TV.’

  ‘You don’t have a TV.’ Madhu demonstrates his powers of observation.

  ‘Oh. You mean that yelling out back?’ I play for time.

  ‘M-m-moaning and s-screaming more l-like it. I-I-I’d better take a look.’

  ‘Better not, Madhu. You’ll only frighten the maid. She doesn’t even realise she moans and if you walk in on her, she’ll really scream the house down. It’s all Ra’mad’s fault. He’s experimenting with different types of rat poison. Since his kitchen is directly above mine, my kitchen gets to be the final resting place of tortured rats. Whenever the maid opens a cupboard, a half-dead rat falls out. Can’t blame her for the occasional shriek.’

  ‘S-s-something m-must be d-d-done about it,’ Madhu suggests slowly but firmly.

  ‘Well, I can’t gag her, you know.’

  ‘I m-m-m-mean about R-r-ra’mad’s ex-x-p-periments.’

  ‘We could call the loony bin and have him put away.’

  ‘I-I-I …’ Madhu swallows. The stutter-gauge is flicking dangerously high. There is the silence of a stalled aircraft and then the sudden rush down an imaginary slope in the sky as the words fall over themselves. ‘… I should look in the kitchen.’

  Madhu stands up but before he takes two steps towards the kitchen, K walks in from the back of the flat. Venus rises to greet him. A mistake for any woman, doubly so for one as lovely as Venus. K kisses her on the lips as if they are old lovers. He tosses Madhu a hiya and pats Barns on the backside.

  ‘What about rats in the kitchen?’ Madhu asks K, with no trace of stammer.

  ‘Er … I’m not too fond of rats anywhere.’

  ‘How’s the maid?’ Madhu says, leaving K staring.

  ‘My maid, Madhu?’ K asks in confusion. ‘She’s well as far as I know.’

  ‘Tom’s maid. You came in through the back door and through the kitchen. Is she all right now? Rather disturbing this business. I shall have a word with Ra’mad.’

  K recovers his composure and tries a shot in the dark that is way off target but better than Madhu searching the kitchen for rats and maids. ‘You should have more than a word with him. Lecherous old git. We don’t like to complain about a colleague, but the girl could get seriously hurt. May already be psychologically damaged.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agrees Madhu. ‘Rats are no laughing matter.’

  ‘Rats?’ says K. ‘Aren’t we talking about maids?’

  Venus has the sense to interrupt and although I know she is curious about the screams from the back of the house, she says she must be going. ‘Not because you are here, Dr Woolf, but because I have to work tonight. If I don’t go to work, there will be no news. I’m sure
Madhu won’t mind me mentioning the coroner’s report and the new facts surrounding the death of Professor Fox. Perhaps I’ll pop in a mention of the plague of rats scaring the life out of campus maids.’ K rises as if to embrace Venus again but I beat him to it. ‘See you for supper?’ she says to me, knowing there is no need for a reply. I’ll be waiting. ‘And you, Doctor Woolf, could I drop in on you very early tomorrow morning with the cameraman and get your eulogy to Professor Fox? The expected theme is the great historian. No more than five minutes, 8 o’clock okay?’

  ‘My dear, nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ says K. ‘But the Ghurkhas are chopping the head off a bull at dawn. They do it every year … not the same bull, of course. Then the superintendent is coming by to see me at 8.30. So sorry, it seems I’m just too popular early in the morning. Later on, perhaps.’

  Venus leaves, Madhu says he must get back to the Guild and K and I are alone.

  * * *

  ‘K, if you must roger your students in my place when the police are here, you might try to keep the volume down.’

  ‘Students? That would be taking advantage of my professional position and the fact that some of these little cuties would do absolutely anything other than study to get passing grades.’

  ‘Well, if not a screaming student, who was in the back room with you?’

  ‘I’d rather not say, Haddock. Chivalry, you know. Start disclosing confidences and before you know it, there are no confidences to disclose.’

  Agnes is into her return run, jogging around the corner from the back of the flats and along the road in front of my window. Bouncy and sweaty, she never breaks the stride that will take her back to the anaemic world of Harold Chin and his demontailed cats.

  ‘Is whoever it is still there in my back room?’

  K looks past me to the retreating image of Agnes’ bouncing backside. ‘Obviously not,’ he says.

  No, it can’t be. Not the sweet little wife of K’s worst enemy. ‘Not …’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But I had ice cream with her earlier.’

  ‘You bounder!’

  ‘She’s nice. Not at all like Chin. Don’t tell me Agnes was screaming in my back room.’

  ‘All right, I won’t tell you.’

  I feel sort of deceived. Not by K, he beds anything that comes his way, but by Agnes. I had her pegged as somebody worthwhile. Or maybe I just fancy her.

  An awkward silence.

  ‘Oh, come on, Haddock. There’s enough of Agnes to go around. To each his own. I’ve never shared an ice cream with her. And my little affair might bear some useful fruit, apart from the obvious, ha ha. You’d be surprised what a woman lets slip just before she hits the heights. Depends on the wench – and the man of course, ha ha – but I would say there are twenty seconds preceding climax when a wench doesn’t know what she is saying and truth will out.’

  ‘So, I suppose we advise the super that anthropological research recommends interrogating wenches in the twenty seconds before orgasm?’ I am being sarcastic.

  ‘I’d need more empirical data before going that far. After all, some wenches fake orgasm all their lives just to please some fish of a husband or to get it over with. But not the screamers – and Agnes is a screamer.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed. Double orgasm, wasn’t it? About a minute between them and the second much deeper than the first?’

  ‘My God! You weren’t watching, were you? Have you made spy holes in the bedroom wall?’

  ‘No need, old fruit. We could hear every moan from these armchairs.’

  ‘You could have warned me Madhu was here,’ K says lamely.

  ‘I thought you were in Johor Bahru.’

  ‘Only for lunch by the sea. I didn’t want to stay for the nightlife with a couple of faggots – nice guys that they be. Making hay with delectable Venus, are you? Now, there’s a wench I could eat alive, if you don’t mind me saying so. Not that I would of course, at least not until you’ve chewed your fill.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t chewed my fill,’ I say curtly.

  K tries a conciliatory tone that only works on those who don’t know him. ‘Not bitchy about my brotherly embrace of your beloved, are you? She didn’t respond you know … not much anyway, ha ha ha. You know I never roger the wenches of friends. Enemies don’t count.’

  K never leaves room for compromise. People love him or hate him. Only I do both. Sometimes I find his incredibly light view of life attractive. At other times I find him unlovable. This is one of the other times, and I’m not sure if my feelings are spawned by Venus or Agnes or both of them. ‘It’s all some great game to you, K, isn’t it? Bernard’s dead, the police are investigating and all you can do is take a couple of homosexuals off to lunch by the sea and roger Chin’s wife.’

  ‘Well, that’s not bad is it? I mean, be reasonable. It would be difficult to fit a lot more into one day, ha ha ha.’ K isn’t at all put out by my tone. But then he is hardly ever put out. He disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of beer and two glasses.

  ‘Haddock old chap, of course it’s all a game. We are anthropologists, after all, so we should know. We know all anybody does is play roles. Might as well enjoy the theatre. You – unless things have taken a sudden turn for the better recently – act the part of unrequited lover forever waiting for Venus. Tell me, is there a touch of masochism there? Do you enjoy the role? Is anticipation of the honey more satisfying than the taste of honey? Is deferred gratification the real aphrodisiac we all seek?’

  ‘None of your damn business.’

  ‘Struck a nerve, did I? Just advice from an older brother. Venus is a beauty. Best thing you’ve laid hands on, or should I say not laid hands on? It does seem a bit weird though, your spending time with the most desirable woman in Singapore and not bedding her. You’ll agree that needs explanation.’

  ‘The explanation is simple enough. Her husband Richard is in a coma in the special annex of Holland Village Nursing Home. He’ll never come out of it but she is not ready to cuckold him.’

  ‘Holland Village Home you say? Bit of a coincidence there. Old Ra’mad’s wife’s been there for two years. He goes there every Sunday morning with a bunch of flowers.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ I now know where Venus meets the mad chemist on Sundays. ‘That’s kind of noble of the old bugger, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course it is. Every Sunday morning for one hour old Rat-Mad plays the noble role. A lot harder for your young Venus. But sounds like she’s playing a role too – the faithful wife who won’t betray her husband – though if comatose, no way he’d ever know she did and must be beyond caring. Society applauds her for keeping values most of its members happily break in private. And you, Haddock me lad, expect her to behave in the way you’ve weirdly got used to. Having a comatose husband is bad enough, no need to compound the dear lady’s problems with a comatose boyfriend. Anyway, what’s the story behind this husband? How’d he get into a coma?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And you’re not curious?’

  ‘Of course. But all I know is what Venus has told me. His name is Richard, but I know nothing about him. Only that he became comatose two years ago and is not expected to come out of it.’

  ‘And what do you know about Venus? She is, after all, one of the best-known faces in Singapore.’

  ‘Almost nothing. She’s several generations a Peranakan but apart from that I’ve no idea about her family or history. She has a house but I’ve no idea where it is and I’ve not met any of her relatives.’

  ‘Any children?’

  ‘She hasn’t mentioned any so I presume none.’

  ‘Haddock, you amaze me. You are besotted by a married woman you are not bedding and you know next to nothing about her. What on earth do you two do together?’

  ‘Eat. We went to the zoo once – had breakfast with the orang utan and Venus interviewed her. I swear it’s true: she asked Ah Meng, that’s the orang utan, questions and Ah Meng
answered, with Venus translating for the camera. She likes animals. Seems to love Barnaby.’

  ‘Well, that explains why she’s with you. But have you never asked her about herself – school, family, home, you know?’

  ‘I’ve tried but never got much. She studied here – left the year before you came, fortunately. She studied alongside her cameraman, Siggy, who seems to be her best friend but nothing more – he’s gay. She did some of Bernard’s courses. That’s about it. I don’t want to appear pushy. I suppose when she’s ready, she’ll tell me.’

  ‘Venus is a very sexy woman. From what you say, she’s been without it for two years. Believe me, neither of you can wait for ever. If a wench is with you all the time, she wants it. The longer you wait for her, the less chance you’ll get what you’re waiting for.’

  The world according to Woolf is a simple one. We all act all the time. The roles all involve getting it or not getting it. I want to scream there is more than that to life, but I don’t. He might be right.

  11

  The Reading

  THE MORNING after the screams of the evening before I am sharing a large pot of the best Javanese coffee in my kitchen with David, who never needs an excuse to drop in. I took to Javanese coffee after I read Tom Stamford Raffles planted it when he was Lieutenant-Governor of Java. My drinking Javanese coffee would please my father – Dad called me Tom after his hero; pity he didn’t call me Sir Stamford. Anyway, it’s good coffee.

  I’m telling David about the rats story I invented to explain the screams from my back room when – coincidences do happen – Ra’mad pokes his moustache around the back door. ‘Good morning, David, Doctor Haddock. You haven’t seen my rat by any chance? It’s past time for his antidote you see and I can’t find the little fellow anywhere.’