Indeed, the walkways are jam-packed with people, young and old alike, teenagers and families, chattering busily. Not yet the 6.9 million population target projection, but it already feels like bursting point. Loud music blares out from several stores. Manufactured, garish colours shout from every sign and billboard. The white fluorescent lights simulating daylight are far too bright. The sense of claustrophobia squeezes Pansy’s breath. How she wishes she was back at West Wittering, the neighbouring village to Bracklesham Bay, in England, where she could stroll in peace amongst the vast sand dunes, hear the waves crashing onto the beach, and the wind, whispering soft across the Marram grass, skimming the fine sand, lifting it in spirals and creating patterns on the dunes and the shore.
As she walks in search of Flintstones, Pansy sees a heavily pregnant young lady and is taken aback by what she is wearing, a cropped top with a push-up bra, and low slung leggings which exposes her melon-hard pregnant belly. Hock Chye and Kim Guek would not have approved. They would have said, “Tak seronoh sekali!” They would definitely have been apoplectic.
“Call grandma,” Emily says to her daughters.
Anthony and his family are outside the restaurant, still in the queue to get in. There are so many eating places on the premises and yet there are queues for all of them. This is a country with a voracious appetite. Pansy is pleased that her daughter-in-law still harks back to tradition. The English word call is a direct translation from Teochew and Hokkien which means ‘to greet’. For a woman with three grown-up daughters, Emily is in exceedingly good shape and is fashionably dressed, carrying a Prada handbag.
“Grandma,” the girls call out dutifully, though they’re already in their twenties.
Pansy has adopted the English manner of greeting everyone with a kiss on the cheek. Anthony is used to it, but not the others. They squirm awkwardly out of her grasp.
Dino the dinosaur-costumed man shows them to their table. The wait staff of the restaurant is wearing faux skins, similar looking to those worn by Hanna-Barbera’s comic characters, the Stone Age man and his wife, Fred and Wilma Flintstone, their neighbours, Barney and Betty Rubble and their children. Waiters bustle about, carrying stone plates filled with cages of ribs and giant hamburgers. The restaurant is furnished like a scene from out of the animated American TV Series and is probably geared towards being nominated for the World’s Weirdest Restaurant TV series.
Goldie stands out from her sisters as her complexion is deep brown, whilst the younger girls’ complexions take after their mother’s. There is a misdirected value for a fair complexion in this country, so Goldie is disadvantaged in comparison. Pansy can understand why Goldie hates her name. She is quiet and seems to shrink into herself, whilst the other two chatter loudly. Her hair is cropped short, gelled into spikes, and she wears a row of studs in each ear lobe. Her outfit is mannish, a shirt tucked into a pair of workman jeans with a chain belt. She has on stout boots whilst her sisters have shoulder length hair, wear pretty dresses and totter on stilettoes. There is something about Goldie which reminds Pansy of someone or something, but she can’t put her finger on it. She slides into the chair next to Goldie.
“How’s everybody?” Pansy says with outward cheer.
“Fine…”
Every question she asks is answered in monosyllabic tones as if its owner’s mind is elsewhere. She stops the questioning since she feels that she is beginning to sound like an interrogator. Silence descends. Each person becomes preoccupied with his iPhone, texting, scrolling down messages from Facebook and looking at photos. They are together, yet not together. Pansy looks across the restaurant and notices that this modern malady is repeated elsewhere, people coming together for a meal but still needing the virtual company of others. This has become accepted behaviour. It is no longer considered an insult to ignore your physical presence and attend to someone else elsewhere. Gone are the days when being with someone meant that they make you feel exclusive.
“What brand is your mobile?” Pansy asks Andie. “You seem to be able to do all kinds of fancy things on it.”
“It’s an Apple, grandma,” Andie says as if talking to someone out of time.
“Mine is a Blackberry,” Anthony says. “They’re all smart phones. Shall I get one for you?’
“Why? Are there stupid phones?” Pansy says and everyone laughs. “No, I will keep to my dinosaur model. Easier to use. I think life was simpler when apples and blackberries were just fruits.”
A teenage Pebbles look-alike, with her top hair knotted around a plastic bone, comes to take orders. The food arrives, and it looks like a feast for cavemen. No one invites the elders to eat first anymore before they start eating. Not like in the old days. Even Anthony has dropped this practice. The manner of eating is akin to cavemen after a good hunt, everyone holding the ribs and burgers in both hands, chewing and masticating with little delicacy. Tak seronoh sekali! She imagines Hock Chye and Kim Guek lamenting. Even though Peranakans, Malays and Indians eat with their fingers at home and in some restaurants, it is done with a graceful etiquette and decorum.
In between mouthfuls, there is a flicker of conversation.
“So how is your condo? Nice, right?” Emily says.
“Yes. Very nice,” Pansy says in facile agreement. “I have a beautiful garden to walk around in, but don’t have to do all the hard work to take care of it in this humidity.”
“See! I told you I was right!” Emily says triumphantly. “People often don’t see as far ahead as me. Trust me. I usually know what I am doing. I’m always right.”
“Err… That’s not true, mum,” Goldie says without preamble.
Anthony drops his monster rib in surprise. His eyes open wide. The others look up.
“Okay, what did I do that’s not right?” Emily says in a loud, challenging tone.
“People are looking,” Anthony tries to get her to lower her voice.
“Aiyah you! Always caring about what other people think!” Emily barks at him.
“You want me to be an accountant,” says Goldie as if she has waited so long to say this, birthed with new courage. “So I took up accountancy and gave it a go. But I hate it. I’m utterly bored and unhappy. Imprisoned by numbers and cooped up in the office. Can I now do what I wanted to do all along?”
“I don’t know why you can’t be like your two sisters,” Emily says, making the girls preen. “They’re younger than you but they are setting a better example than you. Winona is in medical school and will be a doctor like your grandpa. Andie is in law and takes after your paternal great-grandfather. And you, you want to be a professional scuba diver. Take after who? For what? Dive for pearls? Harvest seaweeds? Or waste your brains to be just a deep sea fisherman? You want to spend your entire life around old boats and smelly fish…?”
“Emily…!” Anthony says warningly.
“What? What? What?”
“Mum, I love the sea,” Goldie pleads. “Doesn’t my happiness count?”
Pansy is so delighted that her eldest granddaughter has inherited her and her family’s love for the sea. She is about to speak when Emily retorts:
“Wah! You think you take a job to be happy one! Young lady, you should take a job to earn money, to put food on the table, for you to get a nice condo, afford a maid, pay your COE for a car, join a country club, and invest for your retirement. You find a job that buys you prestige, a good name for yourself in society, attract a good husband, make your parents proud! You’re already scuba diving as a hobby what. Just keep it that way lah! No need to make it a profession!”
“Professional divers do play an important role,” Pansy says softly, not reacting to Emily’s caustic reference to fishermen. “Look at their efforts in the Korean Sewol ferry disaster. Without them, so many would not have been rescued…”
Goldie turns to look at Pansy, with the look of a kitten which has just been snatched away from a ferocious, barking dog. Her eyes shine with affection and she reaches out under the table to squeeze her grandmoth
er’s hand. This gift of a touch is so precious to Pansy. It has been so long since she had this human connection that it almost makes her weep.
“Grandma, you are awesome!” Goldie whispers.
“Honey,” Anthony says. “Goldie has a point. She has given accountancy a good whack. Maybe now we can allow her to fulfil her heart’s desire…”
“How is she going to get enough money to buy herself a condo? Especially as she’s not showing signs of having any boyfriend, let alone a husband. Dressing like a lesbian does not help!”
“Emily!”
“Mum, sometimes your choice of words leaves very much to be desired,” Goldie says in an even tone. “What’s wrong with being a lesbian, in any case? Anyway, you don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself. I’ll soon be eligible to apply for my own HDB flat.”
“Are you a lesbian?” Emily almost shrieks.
“Mum!” says Winona in her sister’s defence. “You’re a hoot! In these modern times, a girl’s sexual proclivities are not such a big deal. Besides, it’s so old school to judge a person to be a lesbian by the way she dresses. What have you got against lesbians anyway? Are you going to disown me if I am one? As far as acquiring a home is concerned, a girl doesn’t need a husband for that these days.”
“Yeah, mum,” Andie joins in. “The reasons women in your time had to get married are no longer applicable for us these days. Today, we earn our own money and can support ourselves and buy our own home. We can even have babies through a sperm bank. No need to have a husband. Our government is so desperate for us to produce babies to plump up our zero-growth population that I bet you, before long, the government will also accept and support single unmarried mothers, like in the UK, Europe and the USA.”
“Aiyah! What nonsense!” Emily says. “This government will never tolerate unmarried mothers! You all modern girls talk such rubbish! A family unit will always be important. How can society exist without families?”
“Mum,” Andie says. “The government, as you called it, might try to call the shots but they can’t always succeed. Since 1983, our then prime minister has been trying to get graduate women to have babies. Today’s PM is still trying. So it is they who have to bend to societal changes. If they want babies, they will have to let us do it our way. The writing is on the wall for them if they don’t move with the times. I mean who would have thought that our PM would be on Twitter and have a Facebook account? Does this not show they know that the sand beneath their feet is shifting?”
“‘The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.’ It’s a quote I saw on Facebook,” Winona says.
“Families can also be damaging, stifling the individual…” Goldie says under her breath, her mouth concealed by a giant rib.
“What did you say?” Emily demands.
“Anthony,” Pansy says, to divert the stream of conversation. “I wonder if you have time to drive me to our old place. I feel as if I must lay a ghost…”
“Lay a ghost? What ghost? This is not the Seventh Month of the Hungry Ghost what,” Emily asks. “Are you talking about exorcism? Aiyah! Bad luck talking about ghosts. What ghost ah?”
“It’s an English saying, honey,” Anthony explains. “It means that mum wants to go back to her old village so that she can let go of it.”
“Aiyoh, those houses on stilts have been gone so long ago, what’s there to see?”
“Houses on stilts?” Goldie says as though it was an incredulous thing. “Singapore had houses on stilts? And you lived in one, grandma?”
“Aiyoh! Our Singapore history also you don’t know! What do you all learn in your expensive school?” Anthony says in a slightly exasperated voice. “I lived in it too. Until… until we left for England. It was lovely. Mum, do you remember when we used to lie on the floorboards and watch the waves coming in under the house and counting them? It was so mesmerising that I always ended up falling asleep…”
“I’m bored to death with all this talk of kampong days…” Emily groans.
“Wow! Cool!” the children say in unison.
“Oh, do you still remember that? You were eleven when… when we left…”
“Maybe, it’s better not to go back,” Anthony says, after a thought. “You won’t recognise the place. Everything you knew has been destroyed. The government let the land rest and stabilise for seven years after reclamation, before they started building on it. There is now a smart housing estate with three-storey houses where the kampongs used to be, plus a golf course and the ECP Highway and of course the East Coast Park. Even the rivers there have been diverted…”
“Yes, I remember the rivers, Sungei Bedok and Sungei Ketapang, right? The kampong kids used to fish and catch eels from them. I just want to go back there to recapture old memories. I need to see if Rama and Sita are still there…”
“Does ‘sungei’ refer to a river?” Andie asks.
“Who?” Anthony asks.
“I mean I want to see if some of the banyan trees I knew are still there…”
“Yes, the one at Bedok Corner is still there. Do you remember how I used to swing like Tarzan from the vines, with the rest of the kampong kids? But the fields that were around it have been stripped. The tree now stands in the paved car park of the Bedok Food Centre. It has been classified as a heritage tree because it marks the crossroads, at the spot where the old beach and coast used to be.”
“What? You, a Tarzan, daddy?” says Andie, giggling.
“Oh, don’t you laugh. I was a real boy, not like kids nowadays who are bubble-wrapped and are not allowed to do so-called dangerous things. The most dangerous thing kids do these days is play a Formula One racing game on their iPads. If they get a bit of dirt on their hands, their mothers scream ‘germs, germs, germs,’ and get hysterical! As a boy, I used to climb trees, scraping my knees regularly. We made up our own entertainment and had adventures in the wild lallang and forests, pretended to be Cowboys and Indians, Robin Hood, or Hang Tuah. We made arrows from coconut leaf spines and bullets from creepers’ vines, catapults from twigs. We played vigorous games like hantam bola and battled with our homemade kites, the strings fortified with glass powder which we pounded ourselves from broken bottles. I was really fit from the outdoors. You might be surprised but I did have a six-pack when I was in NS. I didn’t have all this flab,” Anthony says in a self-mocking way, pinching the roll of fat on his midriff. “It’s all due to this type of fast foods you kids make me eat.”
“I would have liked to live in a house on stilts right by the sea,” Goldie sighs. “I’ve stayed in them—in resorts in Indonesia and Thailand—and felt so at home. Now I understand why you lived by the sea in Bracklesham Bay, grandma. I thought I was the only one in this family to love the sea. Dad never talked much about his childhood before. I love everything about the sea, its sound, the waves, the smell of salt. Can I come with you to look around your old village, grandma? I would like to know what the East Coast used to be like…”
“It will be my pleasure. Only, as your mother says, there is no village now. Also, I don’t want you to be bored by stories of the old days…”
“But I like learning about our heritage. Singapore is changing so rapidly that we young people need something to cling to. In fact, I was wondering if you could tell me more about our Peranakan culture. We don’t practise anything Peranakan…”
“Aiyah, what’s so important about that kind of thing?” Emily says.
“Great idea!” says Anthony. “You two can go together. I’ve got so much to do on this new project. Goldie, you can take the Merc and drive grandma there. The area is easy to find. Just stay on East Coast Road, and after Bayshore, it will become Upper East Coast Road. When you pass Bedok Camp on your right and Jalan Haji Salam on your left, you’ll see the Bedok Food Centre. Right after Bagnall Court Condo. Here the road curves sharply round to the left and becomes Bedok Road. Then you turn left immediately into the ca
r park in front of Eastwood Centre’s Cold Storage supermarket, and you’ll see the heritage tree. There’s an information board underneath the tree so you won’t miss it.”
“It’s okay, dad. I’m sure the GPS will take me there…”
“Bedok Camp? What camp?”
“I told you it has changed, mum,” says Anthony. “Near where the Bedok Resthouse used to be is now an army camp. There is no more beach in that area. The old food stalls on Long Beach have been moved across the road to what is now called Bedok Food Centre. The food stalls are not the old rickety attap lean-tos you used to know. They’re more posh now, with proper electricity and running water, housed in a Minangkabau design food centre. But the good cheng teng and ju her eng chye are still there, and some of the Malay food, like the famous nasi rawan and lontong. I suppose they’re run by the descendants of the original hawkers, or the names have been taken over. I know that the old man at the ju her eng chye stall recently had a heart attack and his son runs the stall now…”
“I’d like to know how come you know the place so well,” says Emily, sounding disgruntled and slightly suspicious. “I don’t know the point of resurrecting places that have long gone. People should learn to move on…”
“Haji Salam Road rings a bell but I’m not sure if I know why…”
“Don’t you remember, mum?” says Anthony. “That’s where grandpa’s house used to be before he and grandma moved to their house on Nassim Road. But Haji Kahar’s heritage house with the green shutters is still there.”
Oh, Pansy thinks. Now I remember. That’s where George came from. The wealthy neighbourhood. I teased him about it. What did I say? Something about the fact that he looked like “the kind who lives in a house with a flush toilet”. But what did he say in response? What did he say? Oh I wish my brain was not so befuddled. But I remember he laughed, such a hearty laugh…
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