by Tham Cheng-E
A memory sparked and died as soon as it entered his head. It left an imprint—a floating spot in his vision. And the harder he tried to give it clarity the faster it slipped, like sand between his fingers. He lifted the gown off its hanger and draped it over his arm. That landlady wouldn’t care much for hairpins. But for this he would have to make her a deal.
/ / /
In the months after, Arthur lived off a meagre income he got from a till job at Fitzpatrick’s supermarket. Then shortly before Christmas he landed himself an interview for a barista opening at the Robinsons Café at Raffles Place.
“The coffee’s good.” Robert swallowed the brew with an audible gulp. “Where’d you learn how to use these?” he thumbed at the antiquated percolator behind the counter.
“London,” said Arthur. “I worked at the Ace Café for a few years.”
Robert lifted his thick, shaggy brows in admiration. “The leather boys, huh.”
“I’ve seen them.”
Robert stared at Arthur long enough to induce a twinge of discomfort. “I find a certain semblance in you,” he said, wagging his finger pedantically.
He got up from the bar stool, went over to an oak-panelled wall behind the counter where an old daguerreotype hung. It depicted a small group of men and women behind the counter; at the centre stood an aged but elegant Caucasian lady, and beside her a young man with his arms propped casually against the countertop. He was a spitting image of Arthur.
“Very mystifying,” said Robert, alternating his sight between Arthur and the daguerreotype. “You’re a doppelganger.”
Arthur’s stomach churned. “May I know when this was taken?”
Robert squinted at the lower right corner. “It says February 2nd, 1942. I heard we’d only had one bloke running the café before the surrender.”
“That might explain it,” said Arthur, feeling immensely relieved at having consulted his journals before the interview. “My father worked here when he got hurt in a bombing raid. He told me stories of how this place became a sanctuary when food and water ran low, and of how generous the store managers were.” He went over and passed a fond finger over his own face, smiling at the fascination of it all. “This man is my father.”
“Well, damned if I hadn’t met him in person,” said Robert, giving off a brisk chortle. “A little war hero of our own! On this account I should be obliged to give you the job!”
“He has passed on, I’m afraid.”
Robert frowned. “So sorry to hear. What was his name?”
For a moment Arthur stood gobsmacked. Then it came to him in an epiphany and he seized it before it slipped back into the depths. “Anton, sir,” he said. “Anton Lock.”
“I would have to look him up in the records then,” Robert said. “Now for one last thing.” He pulled out a pulpy blue card from a clipboard. “You have a very old IC, and you know they’ve changed it since ‘66. I need to know if it’s legitimate.”
“It is, sir,” said Arthur. “I got registered in ‘55.”
“Still, you could’ve changed it in ‘66 when you had the chance.”
“I was away in London.” Arthur was prepared for this.
Robert sized Arthur up with that formidable gaze of his. But this time Arthur secured his trust with a steadfast disposition. “You will get it changed as soon as you can?” said Robert. “We take no chances in this country.”
“Certainly, sir.”
A young lady breezed into the café wearing groovy tiered ginghams and velour bell bottoms. An expensive-looking bag hung from the crook of her arm and large red hoops dangled from her earlobes. She strutted past them, her clogs clattering on the floorboards, and headed straight for the glass counter where the muffins were kept and ordered one.
“You’re paying for that, I suppose.” Robert’s voice bore down on her.
“I am.” The young lady rummaged her purse for coins.
“You put it on credit the last time. Staff gets discounts, not free breakfasts.”
“Paid my due, Mr Marshall.” The young lady turned to leave, taking along her muffin in a bag.
Robert’s arm shot out and halted her. Then turning to Arthur he said, “Keep tabs on her, my friend. No more credits on her morning muffins. This café accepts cash only.”
Arthur greeted the young lady, whose brief glance towards him had the unmistakable air of condescension. Robert said to her, “Meet Arthur, our new barista.” Then turning to Arthur he said, “Arthur, meet Rachel.”
Arthur offered his hand, but Rachel merely shouldered past Robert’s outstretched arm and went on her way.
13
ASYLUM
Dear Arthur,
I trust this letter finds you warm and snug in wintry London. I know London hardly snows. It is often wet and grey in winter, so I hope this letter dispels the dreariness and brings you cheer.
A piece of good news: I wrote in my previous letter that military enlistment comes officially in force in March this year. Last month I verified with the manpower office that you do not exist. Please don’t whinge over this because it keeps you safe. You have an interim identity in London which I hope you will guard diligently so that life will be easier for the both of us. Arrangements will be made for your return in another year, two at the latest.
I must apologise for not allowing you to write me. Again, it is for your protection. You must’ve known by now that Graeme Sanderson at Ace is part of this. He’s here to help, but he’s only paid to and he knows too little to give you any information that’s of worth. Otherwise he’s a good guy so please go easy on him, unless he’s trying to turn you into one of his leather biker boys.
I hope Ifor Evans Hall is adequate residence for you over the past four months. I apologise for the relocation and the fact that you have to put up with the student bashes, fundraising and all of that. Hotels and apartments have too many eyes and ears in them. Student residences are a better choice.
Do you like the selection I got you? I hope they came through in one piece. I thought you might like Matthew and the Mandarins. You’ll find two records in the package. Enjoy them, they’re quite a hit back home.
One more thing: remember the Mount Carmel address I sent you? Don’t forget to remit the cash every 6 months. In time you’ll know what it’s for.
Yours truly,
Willow the Wisp
November 9th, 1967
14
DECEMBER 1967
IT WAS THE twilight before Christmas Eve. London weltered in a misty mizzle at a temperature near freezing. Arthur’s frosty fingers could scarcely hold the letter at its edges. Receiving a letter at the height of one’s loneliness was spiriting. It asserted his existence when he was just about convinced that he no longer mattered to the world.
Traffic thinned along Camden Road. On the damp sidewalks commuters hustled home in brisk, plunging strides, their heads lowered against the chill, vapours streaming. The courtyard of Ifor Evans Hall was bedecked in bulbs of red and green strung on catenaries. A white marquee stood over the open car park where students mingled to the voices of Johnny Mathis and Ray Stevens crooning jigged-up carols on scratchy vinyl records.
Arthur sat on the steps to the cafeteria and read the letter for the fourth time. He didn’t mind being the only loner around, he supposed. Being sociable wasn’t exactly a commendable trait for a fugitive. His fingers had taken the full measure of the bitter cold, and with considerable difficulty he employed them, frozen and juddering, in folding the letter and sliding it back into its envelope. As usual, the letter had no return address on its back, but it had become habitual to search for it each time he received a letter from the elusive pen-pal who called himself Willow the Wisp.
The dance had begun by the time Arthur entered the marquee. Beer went round in plastic cups, and boozed-up overgrown adolescents jived to a rendition of Little Saint Nick by a four-member amateur band. He thought he might meet someone with whom he could strike up a decent conversation, drink in hand, j
ust to show the others that he had a mate and that he wasn’t just a pitiable recluse desperate for attention.
Mother used to lament about how Christmas was besmirched. She said that the world threw out the Absolute not because it was untruth but because relativity was more convenient.
Still, this is hardly conversation material for the occasion.
He hung around stacks of chairs and hungered for a smoke. But he wouldn’t content himself with the weedy fags being passed around. Nothing beat the good old lustrous flavours of flue-cured tobacco. He found no table, and it would be rather debasing of him to fix himself a pipe while bumming crossed-legged on the floor like a schoolboy. With difficulty he fed the tobacco into the bowl of a meerschaum pipe while standing. He tamped it and ruined four matchsticks before lighting it.
A few students passed him with sneering, sidelong grins. “Puffing a bowllaweed eh, Chink?” said one of them. “You’ll fit right in the Marshal Keate, mate! Crammed full of barmy pipe-smoking gaffers!”
Arthur expelled the smoke, squinted at them through the smokescreen and responded with a dispassionate nod which seemed to disappoint them. It all ended there and then. Fights were for puerile, overgrown adolescents.
During an intermission someone played a vinyl of Dora Bryan singing All I want for Christmas is a Beatle, and it annoyed Arthur so much he decided to scoot. He passed a stand and grabbed two cups of ale, then made his way to a spot behind the marquee, sitting down on a kerb at a poorly lit parking lot. There he downed the first ale in a chugging draught and drank the second one slowly, between takes of the pipe. A hailer mounted to a lamppost behind him still blared the cackling voice, now sounding like a scathing satire for his current plight. He scowled through the entire song, until it finally transitioned to the smooth, trilling voice of Lena Horne:
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light.
From now on our troubles will be out of sight.”
Sick little joke. Chug up a few more ales and his heart would be light as a feather.
“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, make the yuletide gay.”
Shut up.
“From now on our troubles will be miles away.”
Footsteps. A young woman sauntered into the lamplight, dressed in a pink turtleneck, grey leggings and brown calfskin boots. She wore her hair parted in the middle, and long and straight to her shoulders. From her lips came a smile that kindled recognition. But a name was slow to surface. Arthur’s jaw fell open when it came to him. He never thought he’d hear himself utter it again.
“Hannah?”
Her eyes wrinkled in a titter. “What took you so long?”
“I think I’m better disposed to ask that question.”
“I was worried you wouldn’t remember me.”
“In another month or two I might not have.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Hannah. “Wouldn’t want you spending Christmas alone.”
Arthur snapped off a bitter laugh and looked away. “I think you owe me an apology.”
“I thought we’re supposed to be friends?” Hannah rubbed her hands and blew into them. “Friends don’t owe each other anything.”
“Now you owe me two.”
“Aw, don’t be a whinger, Arthur,” Hannah coddled. She was slowblinking her lovely eyes and stepping away from him one teasing step at a time. The wan light of the lamp fell away, and her face slipped once more into a penumbrous gloom.
“I don’t know if I should stop you or dump you,” said Arthur.
Hannah laughed indulgently. “You haven’t changed, Arthur.”
“Why the hell are you walking away?”
She stopped and came back into the lamplight, her calfskin boots gritting on the asphalt. “Because I don’t know what an enraged man would do to me.”
“Don’t be difficult, Hannah.”
“Who’s being difficult here, Arthur? All this time you won’t even shake to a reunion with someone who’s crossed the Atlantic to see you.”
Hannah offered a gloved hand and lifted Arthur off the kerb with force he did not expect. She then opened her arms and he lingered in a moment of indecision before taking her into a tentative hug, then slowly pressing her close. He felt her arms tighten around him and he closed his eyes to the familiar scent of her hair.
“You must be really glad to see me,” she said, perching her chin on his shoulder.
Arthur did not reply because any response would have seemed frivolous. He pulled away and took her by the arms. He was watching her now, beholding the beauty in a face that had finally ranged into focus for the first time since he was whisked away to London over something that was but a washed-out ghost of a memory.
“You got a place to stay?” he asked.
“Recommend something.”
“I know a cosy little room on the third floor of the block behind me.”
Hannah tossed her head. “Lead the way.”
/ / /
The door opened to darkness and Arthur clicked the light on. The room had a fusty green carpet that smelled of old cigarettes and a window with heavy velvet drapes. A single bed was set against a wall, and opposite the bed there was a desk with a chest of three drawers. There was a washbasin at a corner, and beside it, a narrow wardrobe. Arthur held the door open and Hannah entered, dropped her hippy patchwork bag into a chair and sat down at the edge of the bed. “So we’re sharing the bed?”
Arthur broke an obliging chuckle and closed the door behind him. “I didn’t think it would be ethical,” he said. “I’m taking the floor.”
She smiled at him. “You’re a darling, Arthur.”
“So when are you leaving?”
“That’s a rather unpromising remark. I just got here.”
Arthur laughed again at the irony of it and sat down on an armchair opposite the bed. He crossed his fingers over a raised knee and sustained a deliberate, practiced smile as someone who was about to begin an oration. “The last I remembered was the blast that burned off an entire repository of memories and left a void in my head. Then I got hooked up with a bunch of biker boys who offered me a job out of thin air, got holed up in attics, in sweaty little basements and practically lived off a duffel bag because I was being moved from one accommodation to another every three months. For an entire year I was haunted by the feeling that I had left someone behind. And it took a lot of hard thinking to figure out that someone was probably you.
“Then came these letters.” He sent the folded letter skittering over the two Matthew and the Mandarins records on the desk, still in their half-opened postal wrapping. “Mystery gifts of prawn crackers, canned trotters…” He alluded to the contents of his desk with a derisive shrug, “And they all led up to the grand finale of your voilà appearance just when I almost succeeded in giving you up.” He paused and polished his day-old stubble on his chin. “I don’t know what to make of this, Hannah.”
“With a friendly hug and an offer to take my bags?” She crossed her legs and cupped her chin innocently in her hand. The coloured glow of the Christmas lights bled through the window and flashed against the side of her face.
“You are Willow the Wisp, aren’t you?”
She looked into the darkness outside.
“I thought it sounded like you,” he added. “Detached and elusive.”
Hannah reached out and took him over and sat him down on the bed beside her. She wrapped his arms around her waist and held them there. But she made sure their shoulders did not touch, and Arthur made no advances either.
“Quite frankly I don’t know what the hell I’m running from,” he said.
“You really don’t remember?”
“I’m not sure if it’s something I want to remember.” “It isn’t.”
Arthur knew better than to pry. He found it difficult to meet her gaze, so he went on looking at her eyes as he struggled with indecision. When he made up his mind he held her tenderly by the elbows and began drawing her to him.
<
br /> Initially Hannah did not resist. She made little snippy movements when Arthur’s head began listing to the side and his face came closer to hers. And just before their lips touched she stiffened and pulled away. Arthur’s eye flashed open.
“I’m not ready to cross the line,” she said.
Arthur did not persist. He gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder and got up from the bed. But his disposition would not lie.
“I’m sorry, Arthur.”
“Don’t be.” He installed himself at the desk where his journal lay open.
“What are you doing?”
“Writing the day,” said Arthur, penning away as he spoke. “We should have a little celebration tomorrow for your arrival.”
Hannah went on looking at him.
“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve. We’ve got all day.” Arthur threw her a smile over his shoulder. “We’ll have breakfast, then an afternoon picnic at Kensington Gardens, and a nice candlelit Christmas dinner over a bottle of sherry. They drink a lot of sherry here.”
Hannah smiled with her chin in her hand. “Can’t wait.”
“Take the bed. I have a sleeping bag.”
“You’re such a darling, Arthur.”
She kicked off her shoes and cocooned herself in the warm spread of down. Arthur could feel her watching him as the tip of his pen quavered to his strokes. From the window came the off-tune singing of drunken revellers.
/ / /
The darkness was full. Hannah sat up in bed and wiggled her sock-clad feet which peeked from the far end of the duvet. She had not slept a wink, though she had kept her eyes closed for the past three hours—a skill honed and perfected over decades. The clock above Arthur’s desk read three thirty. Arthur was sleeping on the floor beside her, covered in a felt blanket, his torso rising and falling with the clockwork consistency of a deep sleep.
She retrieved a capsule-shaped object from her sock, twisted it and spun out a fine needle like the nib of a propelling pencil, scarcely a few millimetres in length. A nudge from her foot sent Arthur stirring and flipping to his side. She pulled away the felt blanket and jabbed the needle deftly into the mid-section of Arthur’s back where you would find the least number of somatosensory cortices and cause the least pain. It went past the cotton and punctured the skin. Arthur didn’t move.