The fear of losing him kept Wei Wen awake at night. It was in this tormented state of mind that she made a plan. She had to lock herself into his future. She picked her date carefully; it was her fertile window. She snuggled up to Gimme Lao in bed and shared that her grandmother had a bad fall. While he hugged and comforted her, Wei Wen reached down to fondle him. Gimme Lao took it that she needed to connect and rolled over to reach for the pack of condoms in the drawer. He was slightly surprised when Wei Wen pressed him back down and straddled him. In the heat of the moment, Gimme Lao did not insist on protection. He simply assumed Wei Wen was on the pill.
Mary Lao was the first to notice that Wei Wen scrunched up her face when she spotted the plate of fried chicken wings at dinner, a dish she used to hanker for. She also noticed that Wei Wen had to excuse herself thrice to use the bathroom in the course of an evening. Before the young couple took their leave, Mary Lao pulled her son aside and questioned him. It turned out that he had no idea.
Gimme Lao flew into a rage when Wei Wen confirmed his mother’s suspicions. She might be two months into her first trimester. Why on earth was she so careless! It was not on their agenda to get married any time soon. A baby would only ruin their plans. There was no discussion to be had. The baby had to go.
Two days later, Gimme Lao was surprised when Mary Lao asked him to go home for a family meeting. He became alarmed when he found Wei Wen seated at the living room couch solemnly taciturn. Mary Lao wanted to know how she could help Gimme Lao and Wei Wen with their situation.
“We are not having the baby,” Gimme Lao announced curtly. “We never planned for this. I don’t intend to ruin my life for a careless mistake.”
“I know this is upsetting,” Mary Lao said. “Having your plans ruined is always upsetting. But having a baby, even an unplanned baby, is always a joyful thing. You just have to accept that it happened and include it as part of your future plan.”
“What are you saying?” Gimme Lao was truly alarmed now.
“I am saying that I am against abortion. So is Wei Wen, and so are her parents,” Mary Lao stated indubitably. “You have to take our stance into consideration.”
Gimme Lao stared at her with incredulity. “Are you ganging up to outvote me on such a major decision of my life?”
“It is not just your life. It is Wei Wen’s and the baby’s too. And I am here to help, not to bully you into anything,” Mary Lao explained. “Wei Wen can stay with us till the baby is born. We can take care of things until you two have the means to take over.”
“Why does she have to stay here?’ Gimme Lao snapped. He saw Wei Wen flinch and felt secretly vindictive.
“Wei Wen’s grandmother is bedridden so her parents have their hands full. I thought it best if Wei Wen moved in here.”
Gimme Lao looked across at his father, who sat timidly at the other end of the couch apparently without any opinion of his own. It suddenly crossed his mind that the men in the family were often relegated to the periphery when important decisions were being made. Without meaning to, he broke out into a cackle.
“Both of you have yet to turn 21,” Mary Lao continued. “I will of course arrange with Wei Wen’s parents to get you two married soonest. We will have to make it simple.”
“I am not getting married with permission granted by my parents!” Gimme Lao practically shouted.
Mary Lao looked from the flushed agitation on her son’s face to the pallid calm on Wei Wen’s and silently reminded herself that Gimme Lao had not been given enough time to deal with his emotions. The young man was probably not ready to discuss plans. She might have to take the lead and strong-arm the young couple into the best arrangements.
“Why don’t I arrange for all of us to meet Wei Wen’s parents this Sunday to discuss matters? I will book a table at the Mayflower Restaurant for lunch.”
Gimme Lao felt tears of anger well up. He grabbed a copy of the Straits Times and unfurled it brusquely to hide his furious, embarrassing weep. Despite the blurring of his vision, he could tell that the headlines were predominantly about the tragedy that shook the nation two days ago. A six-storey building housing the New World Hotel had suddenly collapsed upon itself. Thirty-three mangled bodies were pulled out from beneath the rubble as the nation wept. Gimme Lao felt as though he was being mocked. The unexpected pregnancy practically yanked the rug from underneath him and caused his plans to collapse into rubble. The bright future he saw for himself and Wei Wen was now sullied and mangled. The nation ought to weep for him.
Gimme Lao did not turn up for lunch on Sunday to meet Wei Wen’s parents. Although he continued to go home twice a week for dinner, he was distant and clammed up as he dug into his food and irascible when the topic of the pregnancy surfaced. Wei Wen had taken a leave of absence from the university, so he only saw her at his parents’ place. Mary Lao shared that Wei Wen’s parents were grateful their daughter was being taken care of. She had not personally met the grandmother or the brother, but Wei Wen sent their regards every time she returned from her home visits. Mary Lao hinted that Gimme Lao should find time to visit Wei Wen’s family with her. Gimme Lao pretended he heard nothing.
Every Wednesday, when Gimme Lao stepped into his dormitory room after his lecture, there would be a canister of herbal soup on his desk. Wei Wen still held the key to his room. As Wei Wen’s belly began to show towards the end of her second trimester, Gimme Lao felt mortified. It crossed his mind that the students on campus must surely stare and gossip. Did the woman not care?
One particularly hot and humid afternoon, the lecture ended earlier than usual and Gimme Lao returned in time to spot Wei Wen making her way up the staircase. She had to stop every now and then to catch her breath and sponge off the perspiration on her forehead. That was the moment it struck Gimme Lao. The entire affair was not merely about his dashed hopes and dreams. Her future was at stake too. It could not have been easy for her to carry an unplanned pregnancy through in the shadow of his silent hostility. Watching her from afar, Gimme Lao was suddenly overcome by the swelling within. He had been extremely callous and selfish.
Wei Wen was astonished when Gimme Lao came down the staircase to meet her. She began to tremble as he took over the canister and offered to hold her hand. By the time they stepped into the room and Gimme Lao turned to hug her, she could no longer hold it back. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed fiercely. Gimme Lao continued to hug her tightly as he whispered into her ear that it was going to be all right. They were going to be fine.
Gimme Lao began to spend weekends at home with Wei Wen. They went for long evening strolls at the Botanic Gardens, shopped for baby clothes at Tanglin Mall and consumed copious helpings of ice cream to satisfy Wei Wen’s cravings. They caught two matinees in one go, rushing from the oestrogen-driven showdown between Sigourney Weaver and the mother alien screening at The Capitol to the testosterone-fuelled aerial showmanship of Tom Cruise in Top Gun screening at The Cathay two streets away. Wei Wen underwent a phase where she craved excitement on screen almost as readily as she craved cakes and ice cream. Gimme Lao was happy to indulge her.
For a while, the two resumed having sex. They discovered that if Wei Wen positioned herself at the edge of the bed with a pillow wedged behind her, Gimme Lao could stand or kneel and not apply any of his weight on her. Or they could spoon at an angle that allowed comfortable penetration. But as the third trimester progressed and Wei Wen started to get abdominal cramps right after intercourse, the two stopped having sex altogether.
Upon Mary Lao’s repeated prompts, Gimme Lao finally allowed Wei Wen to arrange for a meeting with her parents. They picked a vegetarian restaurant at Chinatown to accommodate Wei Wen’s mother, who had recently turned vegetarian. In the initial awkwardness, Gimme Lao thought that diet preferences would be a safe icebreaker. “Why did you decide to become vegetarian?” He asked the mother.
“I was advised by my Buddhist friends. Forgoing meat is a way to atone for our sins.” The mother spoke softly. “Espe
cially after all that happened in the family. First Wei Wen’s brother, then her grandmother and now Wei Wen herself…”
“But Wei Wen is fine.” Gimme Lao was genuinely puzzled. “We just met with her gynaecologist two days ago. Both Wei Wen and the baby are doing well.”
“She is pregnant and unmarried. It is not fine,” the father retorted curtly. He had earlier refused to shake Gimme Lao’s hand.
Blushing deeply, Gimme Lao turned to Wei Wen and attempted to change the topic. “I know your grandmother fell and broke her hips, but what happened to your brother?”
“He had a cardiac operation several years ago. His health is generally weak,” Wei Wen soft-pedalled.
“I didn’t know that,” Gimme Lao said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why don’t you tell us when are you going to marry my daughter?” the father blurted out before the mother had a chance to shush him.
Gimme Lao realised that he was not going to get away from the meeting unscathed. “I thought it would be better if we got married after the baby is born.”
“You may accuse me of being old fashioned and traditional, but I think most people would agree with me that a wedding should occur before the baby shower. That is the right order of things.”
Gimme Lao bit his tongue. Now that he was reconciled with Wei Wen, he did feel sorry that she had to suffer the ignominy of unwed pregnancy. But he did not like to be pressured into a hurried marriage.
“Does my daughter have no say in this?” The father was displeased with the lack of response.
In an attempt to avoid confrontation, Gimme Lao turned to Wei Wen and asked, “Do you really want to go through a wedding dinner with that huge pregnancy showing beneath your wedding gown?”
“We can always get legally married at the Registry of Marriages first and hold the wedding after the baby is born,” Wei Wen replied softly.
Gimme Lao was caught off guard. Neither of them had broached the topic since the reconciliation. He simply assumed that she was agreeable to getting married after the baby was born.
“Now that my daughter has spoken her mind, I would like to hear from you,” the father challenged.
Gimme Lao swallowed and stumbled. “I just thought it would be easier to wait till we both turn 21.”
“Wei Wen turned 21 two months ago,” the father snapped. “I was told you were born on the day Singapore became independent. Which means you turn 21 in two weeks. Since National Day is a public holiday, I am sure all of us can make time for a trip down to the Registry of Marriages. If you have no violent objections, I would like to call upon your mother to discuss the matter. I would very much prefer my grandchild to be born to legally married parents.”
As much as Gimme Lao hated to be pressured into the arrangement, he could not come up with a valid objection. The next two weeks saw a flurry of meetings and coordination. There would be no invited guests. The two families would meet at Fort Canning in the morning, witness the ceremony and then proceed for lunch. The traditional wedding banquet could wait till after the baby was born.
When Mary Lao saw that Gimme Lao remained riled throughout, she came down hard on him. “You got the girl pregnant. You gave her the cold shoulder for half a year when she most needed love and support. You refused to meet your in-laws for months. Despite all this, I tried to make things work. I took in and took care of your girl and the unborn baby. I built a relationship with your in-laws. Do you not realise I am doing all this for your sake? Or do you want to be stuck in a miserable marriage with a bitter, insecure wife and hostile in-laws? Think about it!”
Gimme Lao went crimson with shame. It took his mother’s brutal honesty to shine the spotlight onto his selfishness. He lost sleep thinking about what Wei Wen had to go through during the months he chose to ignore her. By the time dawn arrived, he had made up his mind. He would love Wei Wen unconditionally for the rest of their married life.
That evening, Gimme Lao took Wei Wen out for an extravagant dinner he could ill afford. He booked a table at Compass Rose on the 70th level of the newly completed Westin Stamford Singapore, which stood proudly as the tallest hotel in the world in 1986. After a four-course dinner, he unveiled a wedding ring and properly proposed to her for the first time. He told her he was sorry for all the pain and hurt he had caused her and promised her he was committed to loving her for the rest of her life.
“Really?” Wei Wen was trembling a little when she allowed Gimme Lao to slip the ring onto her finger. “Will you love me? No matter what?”
“I promise.”
Gimme Lao was consumed with wedding bliss for the last three days before he turned 21. He finally understood what it felt like to prepare for a new chapter in life as a newlywed. He hand-picked the bouquet of roses and held it to his chest with pride as he watched the taxi drive up Fort Canning. He held the door open as Wei Wen’s mother assisted the heavily pregnant bride out of the vehicle. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Wei Wen’s father arrive in a second taxi and help a frail old lady out and onto a wheelchair. That must be Wei Wen’s grandmother. Gimme Lao thought it odd that her brother did not step out of the vehicle to lend the father a hand.
When the brother finally emerged, Gimme Lao stood stunned. He was clearly a teenager with Down’s syndrome. Swivelling around to meet Wei Wen’s gaze, his bewilderment swiftly turned to anger. The guilt in her eyes was the answer to his question.
Once again, he had been betrayed.
SEVEN
HAD GIMME LAO been superstitious, he would have believed his marriage was the curse that triggered the string of bad breaks following.
When he was 23 and undergoing internship in the hospital, a nurse swamped with paper work passed him the wrong document. Gimme Lao failed to double-check. As a result, a surgical patient almost had a perfectly healthy kidney removed. His supervising medical officer, who had to shoulder the blame, was so livid she made the rest of his internship a torture. He was practically relieved when his turn for conscription swung around.
When he was 25 and serving as a military medical officer, he was careless and left his cabinet key dangling in the keyhole. A bored and nosy medic on clinic duty went through the dockets and discovered that two of the soldiers, although categorised as combat-fit, were nevertheless granted exemption from combat training and assigned clerical appointments. It turned out that both were ‘white horses’, a term for military servicemen who received special treatment in camp because they came from prominent political families. A scandal began to brew. The two subjects were taunted and ostracised in camp, and their parents were furious that confidentiality had been compromised. The commanding officer had to expend copious time and energy executing damage control. When the ensuing investigation uncovered the trigger point, Gimme Lao was severely reprimanded.
When he was 26, Gimme Lao took up internal medicine at the Singapore General Hospital. The team of interns under his charge quickly learned that Gimme Lao did not approve of sentimentality. In fact, they suspected that Gimme Lao saw their display of compassion as a liability. During their daily rounds in the hospital, the interns were guided by Gimme’s frown to trim their observational reports to the essentials. Gimme Lao had no patience for the irrelevant. Relationship building with patients and their families fell under that category.
None of the interns impressed Gimme Lao. He simply tolerated their presence.
On their part, most of the interns tried to stay out of his way. All except one, a flamboyant young man who called himself Divine. Divine did not hide the fact that he was gay. He painted one of his toenails with multiple colours of the rainbow and vowed to march in Pride parades in all the continents that held them. Although most of the other hospital staff found Divine endearing in a quirky manner, the intern got onto Gimme Lao’s nerves.
At one point, Gimme Lao gathered his team of interns before the bimonthly departmental meeting and asked if they had any issues to surface for discussion. Divine raised his hand. There was this comatose pati
ent in a private ward whose parents barred the gay partner from visiting. How could the hospital help to solve this problem? Gimme Lao shrugged nonchalantly and said he did not see a problem there. The gay partner had no legal recognition and thus enjoyed no visiting rights. The hospital should respect the parents’ decision.
Later in the afternoon, Gimme Lao had a nasty shock when an unfamiliar slide popped up on screen midway through his presentation. It was a case study of the comatose patient that Divine brought to his attention earlier. It raised the issue of visitation rights and urged the hospital management to review policies that did not embrace the new diversity of evolving family dynamics. Apparently, Divine had gained access to his laptop during lunch break to add it in. As the management furrowed their collective brows to pore over the case study, Gimme Lao blushed furiously and stumbled. The head of department remarked coldly that the bimonthly departmental meeting was hardly the right place to review hospital policies, and that he was surprised Gimme Lao chose to bring up this case study. The secretary taking minutes was instructed to strike the item off the agenda.
Divine was waiting outside the conference room with another man when the meeting adjourned. Before Gimme Lao could stop him, Divine marched up to the head of department and asked if the committee had the opportunity to discuss the case. The man standing behind him was the gay partner who was appealing for visiting rights. The head of department swivelled around and looked daggers at Gimme Lao.
After the appeal was firmly rejected and the unhappy man turned away, Gimme Lao was harshly reprimanded by the head of department. If he could not manage an intern, he could forget about any management post in his medical career.
Gimme Lao wanted very badly to thrash Divine, but the intern was nowhere to be found. He ended the shift in a foul mood, went home and picked a quarrel with Wei Wen over an inconsequential matter. He was made to feel guilty only when Skye, who was five, became terrified and clung onto Wei Wen’s waist, crying bitterly.
Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao! Page 15