by Ovidia Yu
‘Do you know a Julietta?’ Aunty Lee asked Nina.
She seemed to think all the Filipina helpers in Singapore knew each other. Nina shook her head without saying anything. She knew a great many other domestic helpers in Singapore. She also knew some bosses refused to let their maids have any contact outside the home. Working for such people was like being sentenced to heavy labour in solitary confinement.
‘Jalan Kakatua … I used to know a Patricia Kwuan-Loo who lived in Jalan Kakatua,’ Aunty Lee said thoughtfully. ‘She was Patty Kwuan when she was in my class in school, and she married a doctor, Ken Loo. Then after Ken died, Patty went on a tour to China. Instead of buying fake handbags and watches, that woman ended up bringing back her Chinese tour guide and marrying him!’ Aunty Lee chuckled in gleeful approval but sobered to continue. ‘Patty just died quite recently. I saw there was a notice in the newspapers. “No wreaths”, “no donations”, no other information. I didn’t even know she had been sick. I asked around some of the other old girls but nobody had seen her for some time. If only we had known that she was sick or in hospital, we would have gone to see her.’
If the late Patty Kwuan-Loo had been sick, she might not have been up to receiving her old classmates, Nina thought. The class reunions Aunty Lee occasionally hosted at the café grew more gleefully raucous and uninhibited as the ladies’ inhibitions retreated with their schooldays.
‘One of my friends phoned the house to ask about the funeral service and was told “no wake, no service”. So funny, right! Usually such things they list all the family members to show people who is dead and who is still alive. Nina? Do you remember if Patty Kwuan-Loo had a sister or cousin called Beth living in the same area?’
Reading obituaries was one of Aunty Lee’s favourite daily rituals. At her age, it was a more effective way of keeping track of old friends than Facebook or Twitter.
‘Beth is Patty Kwuan-Loo’s sister,’ Selina said. ‘Patty’s second husband, Jonny Ho, is Beth’s partner in the KidStarters project. He is the Mandarin expert who will be working with the children.’
‘Oh, so he’s a teacher?’
‘He’s a native Mandarin speaker. And he speaks Standard Mandarin, not like the Singapore Mandarin people here speak. He says that the people in China would laugh at how people here speak Mandarin.’ Selina was sensitive about not speaking Mandarin at all, having studied Malay as her second language in school.
‘Jonny Ho inherited Patty’s house at Kakatua. But she didn’t leave him much else, that’s why he and Beth are turning it into a school. Did you know Patty Kwuan well?’ Selina seldom encouraged Aunty Lee’s stories, which tended to meander without a point. But there was always a chance the old woman knew something that might be useful. After all, you couldn’t know too much about people you were going into business with.
‘I always wondered what happened to that man. They say he is very good-looking. I never got a chance to see him. When Patty first got married again, Helen Chan threw this big dinner party for them so that we could all get to meet her new husband. I couldn’t go. That was around the time when those stupid people were blaming my chicken buah keluak for poisoning them, remember? But Helen told me, wah, that one is a real leng zai.’
‘That means “pretty boy”,’ Mark told Selina.
‘I know that!’ Selina snapped.
‘Anyway, I was waiting for a chance to look at this handsome man Patty had married. But then right after that Helen and her husband went to Glasgow to get a flat for her son. Her son is studying medicine there. And then, so terrible, while they were away their house got burglarized! That’s when the house break-ins just started, remember? The insurance still hasn’t paid up for everything; don’t know why so slow.’ Aunty Lee’s eyes shone with remembered excitement. Even Patty’s handsome new husband had been overshadowed.
‘And then after that Patty just stopped seeing people. She wouldn’t accept any invitations, didn’t even join us for the Founder’s Day reunion dinner. I told Helen one of them must have said something to offend her or her husband but she swore they never said anything. Then the next thing we knew, Patty was dead. Must have been one of those sudden cancers or heart attack or something. Maybe she found out about it and didn’t want people to know. She should have told us she was sick, but maybe she lost her hair and didn’t want us to see her. Patty was always very proud of her hair.’
‘So you don’t remember Beth Kwuan?’ Selina said with emphasis on the name.
‘Oh, of course I remember that Beth: Elizabeth, she was in school; now I know who you are talking about. Elizabeth Kwuan was one year ahead of us in school. She was a school prefect, always very fierce. She went with Patty on that tour to China where Patty met the PRC tour guide that she went and married.’
‘So will you help Beth out? She’s your old friend’s sister after all. I’m sure you can trust her—’
‘The mushrooms haven’t come yet.’ Cherril, finally off the phone, dashed into the dining room looking desperate. She was followed by Avon and Xuyie. ‘Can you believe how many things can go wrong at once?’
‘What? What? What? Quick, quick tell me!’
‘That was Elena Lim-Garibaldi on the phone. About this afternoon’s do. About the curry chicken.’
‘Hiyah, I told you those skinny dieting people wouldn’t appreciate curry chicken … so what do they want you to change it to?’
‘Oh no, they want the curry chicken. The spices are supposed to be good for stimulating the digestion or something like that. But they want only thigh meat without skin. And they don’t want any potatoes in the curry.’
Aunty Lee could have told Cherril that catering a party for a group of skinny businesswomen celebrating corporate weight loss was not a good idea … indeed, Aunty Lee had told her young business partner several times, though without any real intention of cancelling the job. Aunty Lee liked giving advice almost as much as she liked cooking.
‘But the potatoes are the best part of the curry!’ By the time of the party the soft chunks would have absorbed the perfect essence of curry and chicken. ‘And organic, some more!’
‘Can we take out the potatoes?’
‘I can take out the potatoes,’ Xuyie offered helpfully.
‘Of course you can,’ Aunty Lee was surprised but pleased by the girl’s offer, ‘but not yet. Leave them inside until three o’clock, otherwise the gravy will be too salty and too thin. Then we can use and make something else. At least they didn’t tell you to take out the coconut milk from the gravy!’
This suggestion drove Cherril into another minor panic. ‘Can they do that? I mean, can we do that?’
‘Look, we’re short of time,’ Selina said. ‘I told Beth that we would bring Nina back to talk to her. Unless that policeman of hers is still hanging around.’
Cherril turned to Nina. ‘Inspector Salim likes curry potatoes, right? We can use these potatoes to make something nice for the people at the station. If they like them, maybe they’ll even offer to pay and order more next time! How many people at his office today? Do you know?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t talk to Inspector Salim.’ Nina kept her eyes and hands focused on scraping thin strips down the length of a cucumber. But her expression hardened, and Selina picked up on this immediately.
‘If that man is still bothering her, it may be just as well to get her away from here for a bit. Nina’s not stupid. But men can be so persistent.’
‘I don’t think Salim will give up so easily,’ Aunty Lee said thoughtfully. ‘He’s not the sort to give up. But good for him to have to work harder to get her. Then he won’t take her for granted!’
If I go away for one week she will see she cannot do without me, Nina thought, then she will have to stop trying to get me married off.
Working for somebody else will show her what a good boss I am, Aunty Lee thought, then she will do what I tell her to do. And maybe spending one week far away from Salim will make Nina appreciate him more. Just to push th
ings a little further she said: ‘You say you don’t want to see Salim any more, just close your eyes, lor. What for you want to go so far away?’
‘Okay, one week,’ Nina said to Selina.
‘Okay your head,’ said Aunty Lee almost amicably. She had turned away from them and was rummaging in one of the cabinets beneath the counter.
Cherril made a sound that was half squeak and half moan. Having been with Aunty Lee far longer than her, Nina was far more efficient at practical cooking than she was.
‘I will help,’ Xuyie told her softly.
‘So can we bring Nina over to meet Beth?’ Mark’s voice was high in his disbelief. ‘Now?’
‘Sure!’
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ Selina all but clapped her hands.
Nina was the only one who was not surprised when Aunty Lee, clutching her bag and two pineapple tarts, led the way to Mark’s car.
‘Wait, Aunty Lee, you’re going too?’ Cherril cried out. ‘What are we going to do with all these potatoes? Throw them away? Such a waste! I should charge them anyway. It’s their fault for not telling me sooner. Can you tell them that we can’t take out the potatoes because without potatoes it won’t be Peranakan Chicken Curry?’
Aunty Lee was nothing if not flexible. Anyone who had tasted her food experiments could testify to that. As far as she was concerned, anything cooked with local ingredients was local food: ‘and since I am Peranakan, everything that I cook is Peranakan food!’ It was the waste nothing, adapt everything spirit of the Peranakan cook that Aunty Lee embodied, rather than any set of recipes. She would find some way to put those potatoes to good use. But not while Cherril was in full emergency mode. Cherril had Avon and Xuyie to help her take care of what Aunty Lee and Nina could have handled between them.
‘Leave them there!’ Aunty Lee called over. ‘Leave them to Nina and me. We’ll come up with something when we come back!’
CHAPTER THREE
Beth and Jonny Ho
Beth Kwuan stood at the upstairs window looking down on Jonny Ho talking to the new contractor. She’d had to come up to change for a meeting at the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) which oversees the setting up of child care centres in Singapore. Those bureaucrats had demanded to see her plans for soundproofing and toilet facilities. All the rules and regulations, requirements, and inspections were ridiculous, Beth thought. In the old days all you needed to train children were rattan mats on the floor and a tin potty in the corner. And hadn’t those children turned out much better than the youth of today?
When it was not raining the children played catching and hopscotch and jumped rubber bands outside, and if it rained they played Happy Families or five stones inside. Part of her wanted to throw up this whole idea of running her own preschool. But Jonny had worked on the figures with her. There was no other way she could keep this house. She tugged at the blue and white striped knit dress she had changed into. It was a bit tight on her, like all her late sister’s dresses. But they still looked better on her than any of her own clothes.
Beth knew she should leave soon if she didn’t want to waste money booking a taxi, but still she stayed at the window, watching Jonny Ho wave his arms around as he talked. She wished Jonny would come with her to the ECDA. He was so much better at charming people than she was. And he could impress them with his Mandarin. But Jonny despised Singapore’s rules and regulations. He was convinced their permits were taking so long because Beth was too stingy to hand over the necessary bribes, and refused to believe that was not how things were done in Singapore.
‘That’s how things are done everywhere!’ he had said.
Beth didn’t want to think about how Jonny was managing the renovations. The new batch of foreign contract workers Jonny was working with were all Chinese nationals. He had fired the first lot of men and demanded only Mandarin speakers this time. At least he wasn’t hitting them like he had hit that Indian welder. Jonny got very angry when people didn’t follow his instructions exactly and immediately. He had thought the Indian workers were making fun of his English when they tried to ask him questions. Their first contractor had quit after making a huge fuss about Jonny breaking that welder’s arm. Luckily Jonny was good at handling people like him. After Jonny threatened the contractor with all kinds of things from invented violations to Jonny’s close friends in the permits department to broken legs, the first contractor had quit the job and taken his workers with him. They were already behind schedule, and they left walls half hacked and stacks of child-safe railings propped on piles of padded play area squares. But Beth hardly had time to panic before Jonny announced he had got them a replacement contractor.
‘Even cheaper! The first bugger was trying to swindle us!’
Of course Beth still worried. But then Beth worried all the time about everything. That was how she had always been. It was wonderful to have someone like Jonny Ho around to say: ‘Leave everything to me!’ and take over.
‘Leave the building renovations to me!’ he had told her, and she did. Jonny had so much more business experience. Despite being younger, he had so much more experience in everything, and when he said: ‘Everybody will always try to cheat you if they can. But don’t worry! I will watch out for you!’ Beth knew she could trust him. It was what she had always believed.
That didn’t mean she didn’t worry about him, of course. Beth worried about what Jonny had thought of Julietta, and how he would react to Fabian. Julietta had disappeared after her nephew Fabian turned up at the house and made a scene.
‘If you can’t show some respect to your elders you’ll have to leave!’ Beth had told Fabian. To her relief, he had left. But she had seen Julietta slip out after him. Should she have stopped her? Beth had no idea what Fabian might have said to Julietta; what he might have tried to get her to do.
Well, there was no point wondering about that now. There had been no sign of Julietta, no queries from Julietta’s family members or friends, which Beth took as a good sign. It looked as though Julietta had been in touch with them even if her employer didn’t know where she was.
The only person who kept bringing up the missing woman was that stupid Mrs Selina Lee, who asked: ‘Where is Julietta?’ every time she came by.
‘I don’t know.’ Beth had finally told her.
This was difficult for Beth, who liked everything and everyone to be in the right place all the time. Surprisingly, Selina Lee had not seemed surprised. Nor had she seemed surprised that Beth had not reported Julietta as ‘missing’. Why get the government involved unnecessarily? Beth said. It would just mean more red tape and more delays and they could not afford more delays right now.
‘She’ll probably show up when her boyfriend gets sick of her or she runs out of money,’ Selina had said, making Beth feel almost fond of her. Beth liked Selina’s shy husband, Mark, though the poor man was clearly under his wife’s thumb.
Beth liked having a man around to handle things. If she had her life to live over again, there was only thing she would have done differently. She would have worked harder to get married. She would have liked to have had a man around. One who could earn enough for her not to have to work. It was another thing she blamed her late mother and sister for. The two of them had talked clothes and shoes and make-up together but they had never included her, never shown her what to do. Even though Beth had despised them for being superficial, they should have helped her. Her life would have been so much more comfortable now. Instead she was still the spinster sister. With all her things from her flat, she was squeezed into the small room that had once been her nephew’s while Jonny still occupied the much larger master bedroom he had shared with Patty. He insisted on cleaning the room himself. Though he let Beth do his laundry, he asked her to leave it on the little cupboard at the top of the stairs. Of course Beth had gone into his room to look around when he was not in. She had been half afraid of what she might find … a shrine to her sister, perhaps. But fortunately there was nothing of the sort.
Beth could not tell him that she had been lying on the bed enjoying the scent of his shampoo and aftershave on his pillow. Embarrassment turning into anger; she had lashed back at him: ‘Why shouldn’t I? This is as much my house as yours!’ and, for an instant, she had been certain he was going to hit her. ‘My sister’s dresses,’ Beth had said. ‘I need something to wear to the Ministry. I thought since Patty has so many dresses I could borrow something.’ The lie was convincing because her sister had always had too many dresses.
Jonny had glanced towards the walk-in closet, and the rage that had flamed up in his eyes lowered to a pilot light. ‘You should take all of them,’ he told her. ‘Give me more space.’
And the next day Beth had found all of Patty’s dresses, skirts, blouses, scarves, and winter wear piled on her bed and in heaps on the floor of her bedroom.
The loud grinding of poorly maintained gears drew Beth’s attention outside again. The contractor’s lorry had backed up noisily to the gate, and the new contractor was directing his men to load on what looked like bags of cement. The workers climbed in after, and the lorry groaned off. Why were they leaving? There was still so much work to be done …
‘Jonny!’ Beth shouted. ‘Why are they leaving? Stop them! Don’t let them go!’ Oh no, she thought as she headed for the stairs, had Jonny fired this contractor too?
Jonny Ho was the tour guide assigned to the Kwuan sisters on their tour around China. Beth had arranged everything without any help from her sister. Patty had not even wanted to go, but Beth had insisted. The shopping and sightseeing in China would be good for the new widow, she pointed out. Now her husband was dead, Patty ought not to go on spending so much on designer handbags, scarves, and shoes, and China was the best place to buy fakes.