by Ovidia Yu
‘I told you my name yesterday, what.’ Aunty Lee peered short-sightedly at him over the top of her reading glasses. The glasses were more for cooking than reading; shelling prawns was a finicky business when you were as particular as Aunty Lee about symmetrical halves and keeping the heads (rich with roe) and tails intact.
‘You told me you were Mrs Lee; do you know how many Lees there are in Singapore? Even not counting those right at the top?’ He laughed again.
Aunty Lee did not.
‘He works for that playschool that Silly-Nah wants to get her baby into,’ Aunty Lee explained to Cherril, whose curiosity was almost steaming out of her ears. ‘That Kick Star place where Nina is working for a few days. Sorry, ah, boy. I cannot remember your name.’
‘Excuse me for correcting you, but I don’t work for KidStarters. I own it, so you might say they all work for me. And, by the way, my name is Jonny Ho.’
Aunty Lee got the impression Jonny Ho was pausing for effect, so she allowed the pause to go on longer to greater effect.
‘Do you want a table?’ Cherril offered. ‘Avon, Xuyie, show him to a table. And stand up straight, please.’ Her curtness was not directed at Jonny Ho but at the two girls who were leaning into each other while they stared and giggled.
Jonny Ho waved one hand dismissively. ‘I came to have a chat with your boss. Business talk.’
Cherril opened her mouth, probably to say something cutting, then shut it again and smiled grimly. All those articles she was always reading to Aunty Lee about ‘Responding not Reacting’ must have sunk in.
But Aunty Lee had not been paying enough attention and she jumped in: ‘This is my partner, Cherril Peters. You got any business talk you better talk to her. I only cook.’ Aunty Lee waved a slimy prawn shell dangerously near Jonny’s dress shirt (dark green today, with almost black collar and cuffs). ‘Careful ah, otherwise today our special instead of Lam Mee we got Lam Customer Shirt!’
Lam Mee literally meant to ‘pour soup over noodles’. Though Jonny clearly didn’t get the joke he smiled gamely, humouring her. He was certainly on his best behaviour this morning. Aunty Lee wondered what he wanted.
‘You should stay and try my Lam Mee. Last time, when I was young, we only made it for special birthdays. Wah, I remember how excited we children would get and we were allowed to eat the red egg strips; that’s why, even though here we are not serving it for a birthday, I said we must have the flat red egg.’
‘Strips of omelette with organic food colouring,’ Cherril explained quickly, seeing Jonny’s doubtful look. Wherever the man came from, he had not grown up in Singapore.
‘Why don’t you go and sit down and talk to Jonny, Aunty Lee? Xuyie will do the prawns. I can finish up here. The stock is already ready, and the girls and I can manage from here on.’
What was there left to manage? Aunty Lee looked at the huge clay pot where the stock was simmering, rich with chicken, pork bones, pork belly, and her own personal tweak to make the soup sweet … dried shallots, dried octopus, and dried flat fish. It might be boiling but it was certainly not ‘ready’. Cherril was just trying to show Aunty Lee how well she had learned to manage in the kitchen. If she had been a minor concubine in Old China it would be time for the empress to have her poisoned or put down a well. But since they were in modern Singapore Aunty Lee knew the younger woman was only trying to prove her worth.
‘I got to wash my hands first. The prawn shells, don’t … ’
‘Yes, I know. Don’t throw. Put them back in the pot. I’ve watched Nina doing it a hundred times, Aunty Lee!’
Of course, she had not … not for this particular dish anyway. Which reminded Aunty Lee this was the first time in years she had made the Lam Mee without Nina. In fact, in the recent few years it had been Nina who had done the bulk of the preparations for this special, with Aunty Lee providing a running litany of directions – more because it was what she had always done than because Nina actually needed help.
‘So, this dish is some kind of fancy dish at your restaurant?’ Jonny Ho courteously rose to pull out a chair for Aunty Lee when she joined him, drying her hands on a dishcloth.
‘Not so fancy. It is basically yellow noodles in a rich stock topped with chicken, prawns, and things. It’s a traditional birthday celebration dish. Last time it would only be prepared to celebrate big birthdays, like when somebody turns seventy or eighty years old. This is the dish you would serve to visitors when they come to give you red packets and mee sua.’
‘Mee sua? Oh, for long life.’ Jonny shook his head. ‘All these old customs. By the time I was growing up there were no more things like that. So, whose birthday are you celebrating? Or do you just cook it up whenever you feel like it?’
Aunty Lee started to brush off the question, then remembered that Jonny Ho had lost his wife … and much more recently than Aunty Lee had lost her husband. Even if he covered up his feelings, Patty’s death must have left a gap in his life. Like one of her recently widowed friends said ruefully: ‘Now there’s suddenly nobody to get irritated with, I don’t know what to do with myself!’
‘My late husband’s,’ Aunty Lee said quietly. ‘Next week he would have been seventy-nine years old. So I cook all his favourite dishes the week before: this week.’
Jonny Ho started to say something but stopped himself and nodded several times.
‘You never stop missing them,’ Aunty Lee said, ‘but after a while you get used to it. After a while it doesn’t hurt so much. At first, the worst thing for me was forgetting my husband was dead. I would see something or taste something and think: ‘Oh I must show it to M. L.’ and then I would remember. It took me a long time to stop doing that. And every time it happened it was like I lost him again. It hasn’t been a year yet since Patty died, right? Give yourself some time to get used to your loss.’
Jonny Ho’s face remained blandly polite and expressionless, but Aunty Lee assumed this was the professional mask worn by air stewardesses and other service professionals. A great deal could be going on beneath that polite demeanour. Aunty Lee had seen Cherril (who had spent years serving on Singapore’s premier airline) attend with gracious professionalism to customers who she later denounced in colourful language.
‘You know, you are the first person to talk to me like that? About losing my wife?’ Jonny Ho shook his head. ‘Everybody else is thinking I am a gold digger; that son of Patty’s even accusing me of changing her will, of wanting her to die.’
‘He’s just upset. Fabian lost his mother after all. People are allowed to say stupid things after people die. I think there should be a one month get out of jail free card after your husband or wife dies.’ Aunty Lee was joking but Jonny did not laugh. Again, Aunty Lee was glad that M. L.’s children, Mark and Mathilda (now established in London with her own family), had never given her any trouble over their father’s will. That Silly wife of Mark’s had tried, of course, but making trouble came naturally to Selina, and Aunty Lee did not take it personally. Especially as Selina would soon have a little Lee to distract her from what Aunty Lee might have cheated Mark out of.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you the other day,’ Jonny surprised Aunty Lee by saying. ‘You should have told me you are famous!’
Aunty Lee remembered being one of many who had speculated with great interest that Patty’s new husband was swaku (‘swaku’ meant ‘mountain tortoise’, meaning an ignorant country bumpkin) who she didn’t want her friends to meet.
‘I would have met you long ago if Patty didn’t suddenly turn into a hermit. What happened to her?’ Aunty Lee asked. Now the mysterious husband was sitting at the table opposite her she thought him over rather than under sophisticated. ‘We were in school together, you know. Why did she cut off contact with all of us? Was she already getting sick? Was it because of the cancer? Was it cancer?’
‘My wife, Patty, was very sensitive,’ Jonny Ho said.
He looked earnestly at Aunty Lee, who managed not to say Patty Kwuan-Loo was one
of the least sensitive women she had ever met. Wasn’t it Patty who had said to M. L. (with Aunty Lee standing right there) on hearing the news of their engagement: ‘Are you sure she is still fertile? Women her age, even if they still get periods, doesn’t mean their eggs are still good!’
Of course, Aunty Lee would not carry a grudge against the woman for so many years … still, she would not have minded a chance to say something similar to Patty on her second marriage.
Perhaps that explained Patty’s sudden retreat from society? Had Patty’s years of blunt talking generated a backlash once she revealed a weakness for this handsome young tour guide? But Jonny was still talking, and Aunty Lee pulled her thoughts back to the present and tried to catch up with the conversation. He had left the subject of his late wife far behind.
‘So you see, what I have here is a business proposal for you.’ Jonny touched his fingers together and, leaning towards her across the table, fixed her with an earnest gaze that made Aunty Lee think of real estate agents and MLM marketers.
‘Huh? Sorry, what?’
A spasm of impatience flickered across Jonny Ho’s handsome face. ‘What I’ve been telling you about. For Aunty Lee’s Delights to provide healthy packed meals for the children at KidStarters. We can tell people that the children are getting traditional home-cooked meals from one of Singapore’s top chefs! And it would be wonderful advertising for you, because all the children’s parents will want to come here and try for themselves the meals that their children are getting in school.’
‘But if their children don’t like my food then how? They will all run away from my restaurant! Anyway it wouldn’t be home-cooked food. Nowadays I hardly ever have time to cook at home unless I am having guests. And even then I will often prepare the dishes here in the restaurant and bring home.’
‘But Aunty Lee’s Delights is a home-cooking restaurant.’ Jonny’s patient, polite veneer was back, at least on his face and voice. His index fingers were drumming impatiently on the tabletop. ‘So the food can be prepared here and we can still call it home cooking.’
‘I thought you might like something to drink.’ Cherril put two glasses of homemade barley on the table. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
Cherril had been trying to get Aunty Lee to think about expanding the business for some time, and Aunty Lee suspected she had been listening with more attention to Jonny’s proposal than Aunty Lee had.
‘It’s a good idea to think about catering to Mark’s baby’s school. A lot of grandparents are babysitting these days. They can come here for children’s meal packets too. Some people will do anything for their grandchildren!’
Jonny Ho looked at Cherril with new attention, clearly appreciating the grandparent angle but not yet sure if she was an ally or competitor.
‘I’ve been trying to tell Aunty Lee that she should think about franchising,’ Cherril continued, ‘then we can get into the supermarkets, and we won’t be limited by how many people we can seat. Here, even if you want to come and buy takeaway the parking is a headache, and it’s not convenient for people without cars.’
‘Good points. Your partner knows what she’s talking about. I did research on you, you know … ’
He must have seen the Wikipedia article that someone had put up, Aunty Lee thought. Selina had made a big fuss about the ‘invasion of privacy’ but Aunty Lee suspected that was only because she hadn’t been mentioned. Mark and Mathilda, who did appear in the article, had been amused.
‘You are not using your full potential. Right now you have a good product; you have a good name. Everybody here knows Aunty Lee’s Amazing Achar and Aunty Lee’s Shiok Sambal. Things like that are not going to last, you know. You must capitalize and cash out now while you can!’
Cherril nodded. She pulled out a chair and sat without being invited. Of course Cherril thought it was a good idea … it was what she had been trying to talk Aunty Lee into since she became her business partner.
‘If this works out, we can get other schools on board and make lunch boxes to sell in supermarkets.’
‘But first of all we have to find you a new location. Here, no matter how good your food is, you will always be a small shop in a housing estate. You should be in District 9!’
District 9 included Orchard Road and was part of Singapore’s key shopping belt which meant property rental there was the among the most expensive in Singapore. But Aunty Lee knew that price was not the same thing as value, and the value of her small shop was precisely the housing estate it was located in. Where else could she have a shop within walking distance of home? (Something that had become very important if Nina was no longer going to be around to drive her.) She looked at Cherril, who also lived in Binjai Park. But Cherril had a dreamy glow in her eyes that suggested she saw an Orchard Road location very differently … Aunty Lee sighed. She could remember her own girlish longing for big city excitement. Now she missed life in the kampong days when you knew everyone in your village and everything you could need was within walking distance. And what about Cherril’s mother-in-law? Anne Peters often dropped into the café and was ready to help whenever an extra pair of hands was needed. She would not be able to do that if the shop moved to Orchard Road.
Though, of course, it was entirely possible Cherril didn’t mind putting a little distance between them, no matter how well they got along.
‘Hey, Rosie!’ Aunty Lee was as startled as if she had been slapped. Jonny Ho had reached across and rapped the table in front of her. ‘Careful ah, at your age too much daydreaming – people think you got Alzheimer’s!’ He laughed loudly to show he was joking.
If Aunty Lee had not been so intrigued by the man, she would have found him offensive.
Cherril asked how the renovations at the school were going and when Nina would be coming back. Though Cherril had agreed they could manage very well without Nina, it could not be denied that Nina’s absence was felt. Pots simmering on the stoves were no longer automatically skimmed and stirred. The dishwasher was not automatically filled and emptied, and glasses were not automatically dried and polished with glass cloths. Of course, they had staff who could be told to do all these things, but suddenly it felt as though they were giving instructions all the time.
And it was worse when deliveries arrived, because it had always been Nina who went through the orders, since she was almost as good as Aunty Lee at sussing out the quality and weight of ingredients and dry goods. And, unlike Aunty Lee, she didn’t get distracted by organic coconut oil samples or the problems the deliveryman was having with his haemorrhoids.
‘Renovations are coming along slowly. But we had to take some time off because your son and his wife wanted us to go and look at some renovations for their house, with the new baby coming.’
‘You’re handling the renovations?’
‘I have contacts in all kinds of businesses so I can arrange for them very cheap, much cheaper than going to some company they don’t know. If you want, I can get someone to makeover this place; give you a more up-to-date look. Plus, if you want I can arrange a new maid for you – also very cheap.’
‘Then why didn’t you go and arrange a maid for Beth? For your KidStarkers school?’
‘Beth complained to you?’ Jonny’s sudden suspicion immediately interested Aunty Lee more than his salesman charm.
‘Nobody complained. I want to know why didn’t you go and arrange a cheap maid for her so that she doesn’t have to come and steal my Nina!’
Jonny roared with laughter and actually punched Aunty Lee playfully on the arm. ‘Wah! You better not let Beth hear you say that! But you are right. You’re good!’
‘Well, why not? If your maid agency is so good?’
‘My maid agency is the best,’ Jonny said, ‘plus the cheapest also. Plus, growing fastest. You should consider becoming investor and let us grow your money for you!’
‘How can I?’ Aunty Lee said inviting disbelief. ‘My money is all invested by Cognate Finance already.’ Cognate Finance
was a Singapore institution. Aunty Lee’s late husband had always said: ‘When Cognate crashes, Singapore will crash. And if Singapore crashes no point worrying’, so all their money had been invested by Cognate. They might not make the mega profits Jonny Ho described, but Aunty Lee trusted them not to lose what money she had.
Jonny took up the invitation to show (yet again) his entrepreneurial brilliance. ‘I ask you, what is the biggest expense of having a maid here? The levy is $265 per month. Security bond with MOM: $5000-$7000 depending on the nationality of the helper. And say a Recommended Salary of $450 per month.’
Aunty Lee waited, not seeing the relevance.
‘But if you forget about all the levy and bond and recommended nonsense, say you pay the maid $250 a month – $250 a month, that’s all! And the women want to come because that is still much more than they can earn back home. So they come in by applying for tourist visas or they come in via a third country. The problem with these maids is they only want to make money; they don’t know how to work. They are stupid and dirty and full of lies. But if employers need them enough they will close one eye and try to train them enough to take care of the kids and the old folks. But the bottom line is, they come here for the money. And no matter how much money you pay them, it will not be enough, and they will come up with all kinds of tricks.’
Of course, Aunty Lee was aware that some people felt this way about their foreign domestic helpers … but most at least pretended to see them as human beings. ‘If you treat them well … ’ she started.
‘Oh I know. You are one of those that likes to pamper your maid, and give her benefits like teaching her how to cook and advancing her pay so that she can send money home to her family, right? Well, I tell you, you are being conned. You think she will stop when she has got enough? No way. Next thing you know she will be asking you for more money because her father has cancer or her mother needs operation: some stupid excuse!