The air-conditioning unit disturbed and woke him up at first. Not the noise, for there was just about none; of course, there was noise, but it couldn’t be said to be a nuisance, let alone wake someone up. No, it was the water, the water from the unit, dropping onto the bed, every half hour or so. This particular day, it hit his ear. He turned on his back, opening his eyes slowly to adjust to the light. He had an uncanny ability to judge the time. He looked at the windows, curtains drawn, to see if the silhouette of the neighbours’ mango trees were visible. Not yet. He guessed it would be about 5 15 a.m. He swung himself to the side of the bed, pulled his sarong around him, and went into the en-suite bathroom. He emerged a couple of minutes later, face wet from the water, mouth fresh from brushing. He opened the bedroom door, the base scraping on the grey tile floor. Across the way, over the table, was the wall clock. His hand reached out for the knob on the wall to turn on the light, grimacing slightly, eyes tight. He looked, and a smile came; he wasn’t that much of a smiling person. The clock showed 5 10.
He stepped across the step to the containers of boiled water on the pink tiled worktop to the right of the sink. One after another, a fruit juice glass was downed. It wasn’t that he was especially thirsty, just that the heat and humidity dried everyone out; the doctors told you ‘eight glasses a day’. He thought to himself, ‘well, that’s at least three inside me.’ He reached for the vitamin tablets and popped them into his mouth. The two large fridges buzzed. Outside, the sound of some early birds began to lighten up the morning. Soon, the rooster would follow. Of all the birds, this surely was the most annoying. It was monotonous, with the same ‘kaka kaka kuo’, or what ever they made, over and over again. It was the same volume, the same sound, the same speed, and the same stupidity.
He walked over to the first fridge. This one contained the everyday things the family and housekeeper wanted. Well, the housekeeper was family, too. He knew that. The second fridge contained mostly fruit and vegetables, waiting for washing, peeling, and cutting, and on the top, the more efficient freezer of the two, the frozen fish and chicken. He opened the door, and in its light, picked up the carton of milk, and some pieces of fruit from the night before. These he placed on the grey circular table nearby, a step away. From the crockery rack he lifted some mugs, a couple of bowls and plates, and from the top shelf, the cereal. From the two bulldog mugs near the rice cooker, he chose the necessary cutlery. From the small shelf above the crockery rack, he extracted a candle. Turning on the smallest of the four gas rings, then pressing the ignition switch, he now lit the candle, and with this, lit the gas under the kettle. This rigmarole was necessary, because some years earlier, the ignition spark by the biggest ring had stopped functioning. He had not bothered to get it repaired, hence the need for the manual method. He blinked a few times, yawned, and was about to go back into the bedroom when there was a movement by the other door. His wife came in, bare feet, sarong, and a light sleeveless top.
She murmured ‘Good morning,’ and went to get a glass of water from the tray.
He said ’Good morning’ back, quiet.
She followed her husband into the master bedroom, and they both got into the bed, she banging her knee gently against him. She pulled the lightweight blanket over her, turned away, and he rubbed her back for a few minutes. There was no rush. It was too early to wake up the children and the kettle would take fifteen minutes or so, maybe ten. It was big full kettle. It was the sort of kettle one would expect in a coffee shop, rather than a house. How many litres did it contain? He had no idea.
The light grew slowly through the opaque windows. The first rays of the sun would warm the sky soon. Not too soon, he thought, because then he would have to get up, and he enjoyed the quiet time with his wife at this time of the morning. He looked at the woman; she seemed to have gone back to sleep. He stroked her hair a couple of times, and then heard the whistle of the kettle. With a slight sigh, he swung his feet over the bed, stood up, tightened the sarong, and went to turn off the gas. Nearby was a large thermos flask on a tray, with an assortment of water containers, plastic and metal. The children would need warm water in their mugs. Mum insisted on that. Cold drinks were frowned upon.
’No,’ he thought, ‘I’ll leave it to cool a bit.’
He returned to the bedroom, went into the attached bathroom, and picked up the can of foam and the yellow razor. The combining of cold water with a two-week-old razorblade soon woke him up. Cheek and throat weren’t too bad. It was the moustache area that was the main wake up call. He washed the foam off, and went, still slightly wet, to begin putting the bread and fruit on the plates, the cereal in the bowls, and milk or chocolate into the mugs. He switched on the main light. He went to the second, and bigger, more modern fridge, and pulled some bags. In these were kept the vegetables; they were usually, but not always, Chinese vegetables – kai lan, sawi etcetera.
There were others too, aubergines, broccoli. They were an opened-minded family when it came to food, with one exception. No beef, according to religious culture. That suited him, for he had stopped eating beef many years ago, although in his case, it was for reasons of health. There had been a number of scares regarding beef, particularly in Europe.
Anyway, it was, he thought, the least tasty of the main types of meat. In fact, they didn’t eat that much meat. Fish was the order of the day for maybe three hundred and fifty days of the year. He picked up one bag, selected about half the contents, replaced the bag, and shut the fridge door. He walked across the room to the water filter, on the way getting a plastic bowl from the bottom of the crockery rack. He filled the bowl, and put the vegetables in to soak. They did this with all the vegetables and some the fruit. They had a quick wash, and then a thorough soaking for an hour or two. Any insecticide spray would be got rid of, at least, a fair amount of it. They were having Hong Kong sawi for lunch today; a thick crunchy stem and juicy leaf, cooked in a tiny amount of hot oil, with garlic, and a dash of salt. They were wonderful and full of goodness. At least, that was the theory, if they were cooked in the correct way, without too much oil and water. Theory didn’t always match practice. He went back to the bigger fridge, opened the door, and had a look in the freezer. Here were a variety of the same plastic bags, but rock hard. In these were the fish his wife had bought a few days earlier. Sometimes, he left it for her to choose. Today was a simple matter; they all contained the same, ikan kerisi, or in English, bream. Not too long, and pink in colour. You could fry or steam them. There were usually three fish to a bag, the reason being it was easy to defrost the whole bag, rather than try to break up a bigger number when frozen. Little, if any, would be wasted. He walked across the floor and put the bag on a plate next to the oven. In the tropical heat, they would take no time to become soft, and then they could be gutted and cleaned. That was a job he enjoyed doing.
The oven was not an oven in the conventional way. Most people think of an oven as being quite large, with a pull down door and the ability to cook anything and everything up to the size of a decent turkey. This one looked like a large biscuit tin with a small tray and stood on the worktop between the water filter and the water containers. It didn’t look much but it was fine to grill lamb or chicken, or bake some fish. It perfected an already perfect home made pizza too. The Christmas turkey had to be a) small and b) chopped in half, and cooked in two phases. But it was quite a useful little machine.
The children insisted on Chinese for lunch, western for dinner. Why, he didn’t know. He hadn’t forced this on them; in fact, he hadn’t even suggested it to them when they were young. But it suited him; it suited everyone. He looked at the clock on the wall above the still closed window. It was time she got up, and the children too.
He went back into the bedroom, and slowly pulled the blanket off her, and began to fold it. She lay there, still asleep. He touched her shoulder.
‘It’s time to get up.’
She breathed in, and turned towards him, eyes open.
‘What time?’
He told her. She got out of bed, and followed him out of the room. First, she went around opening the windows. Then, she went straight to the front bedroom, from where, a few minutes later emerged two half-asleep children, a boy and a girl. They flopped in dazed fashion onto the chairs.
‘Good morning,’ he said.’
‘Good morning, Dad,’ said the boy.
He was about was about twelve years old. He lent forward, put his forearm on the table, placed his cheek on the arm, and appeared, with little effort, to go back to sleep. The girl was less responsive. A year and a half younger, she pulled her long legs under her, laid back, eyes closed. She also appeared to be sleeping.
The mother in the meantime was emptying the kettle into the flask and the other containers. One of these was a metal teapot. Into this, after the water, she put a sachet of South African herbal tea. When she had finished, she came to the table enquire what they wanted. They stirred, and a vague sense of being awake came into play. There were bread and butter for one, and toast and marmalade for the other, hot chocolate for one, tea for the other.
The girl poured some milk onto the cornflakes and began to eat. Through the windows, it was becoming appreciably lighter now.
The sounds of the neighbours getting breakfast could be heard, together with songs of the birds, and the noise of a car, or small lorry, or four-wheel jeep departing, perhaps for the market, maybe the office, or rubber estate. Whilst the children forced their way through breakfast, the mother unlocked the wooden rear door, and pulled it back against the whitewall tiles, near the tap for the washing machine. A short length of string was looped over both tap and door handle, thus stopping the door from closing with a bang, should it get windy. She then opened the outer security grill door, picked up the drainage pipe of the washing machine, and placed it on the concrete area at the back of the house. Then she shut the grill. Through its mosquito netting, the bleached compound wall stood silent, the vegetation from the empty plot over the wall becoming clearer as the light increased by the minute now. In the tropics, both dawn and dusk were a rapid affair. To the east, over the sea, the sky was turning a gentle orange, with a hint of purple; to the south, the hill became real, rather than just a silhouette and the coconut trees changed from their pyjamas into green. Yes, early morning was here.
The children finished their breakfast, and put their plates and mugs on the worktop. This was about waist height, and made of cement and pink tiles. Then they went off to the front bedroom to get ready for school. They had to be out of the house by 7 10 at the latest; the schools in these parts began work early, mainly of course, on account of the heat. They were the only places open at this hour, apart from the market and coffee shops. Mum came back to the rear bathroom, her clothes over her arm. She disappeared. He washed up, and then wiped the table. After that, he picked out the brush from its storage place behind the washing machine, and went first into the computer room and then the television room, before returning, pushing the accumulated dust with the brush. He did around the table. There were a couple of crumbs and the odd cornflake. He swept the rest of the floor, before pushing everything out into the yard, under the grill door. He filled a bowl with water, and sluiced down the concrete. Everything went into the drain there.
At this time, she came out of the shower, through the door, and opened the top of the washing machine. She put in the night clothes, and then switched on the water. He knew she would go to the front bedroom and bring out whatever else needed to be washed, mostly the children’s things. She was wearing a tee shirt with a collar, and jeans.
She went to the front room. He then began to sweep the rear bedroom. The brush, locally made, had a long handle and soft bristles, so soft, that after a few weeks work, they split open. Once a week or so, he used a wet cloth to wash the floor, standing on it with both feet, and walked with it, in a kind of penguin motion. It was effective, and more fun than using the mop. He saw his wife come back in with an armful of clothes. These she put into the washing machine, closed the lid, pressed the buttons, and the sound of the water came. She turned to go.
‘You want nasi lemak or nasi minyak?’
‘Nasi minyak’.
She went out. He heard the familiar sounds of departure; the car keys on her desk, the French window moving in its groove, the scraping of the security grill, shoes on the floor, the car engine beginning.
‘Bye, Dad.’
‘Ta-raa, Dad.’
The car doors opened, and shut. The security grill was closed. The car reversed and the noise faded. The early pre-breakfast quiet returned, save for the next-door wife doing the washing up. He replaced the brush behind the washing machine. It stood upright, rather like the guards in Whitehall, unmoving. The washing machine turned and gurgled, unconcerned with the rest of the world. He sighed, not in anger or unhappiness, far from it. It was just a reflex thing.
He had no tuition until the afternoon, so the morning, after doing some of the housework, he could do some writing on the computer. But first, he had to get the fish and vegetables ready. He went into the bathroom, washed his hands again, and then started work with the vegetables. He poured the water away, using one hand to keep them from dropping out. He refilled the bowl from the filter, washed the vegetables again, pouring the water out in the same way. The leafy part he checked for any yellow; the stem for any soil. Happy with the state of the sawi, he broke the stems into small three centimetre long bits, and put them into a bowl The leaf he broke into two or three bits, and put these in another bowl. Both bowls were protected from insects by a plate, or placed in the fridge for safekeeping. Breaking the vegetable into small bits would make it a bit easier and quicker when they were cooking.
He picked up a few garlic tears, brought them back to the worktop, and used a plate to crush them. He peeled of the thin skin, and then chopped the fibre into small bits, in rough fashion. If the sister-in-law wanted them finer, she could do it. He placed the chunks into a small bowl. This he put into the oven, and closed the door. Flies were a constant menace, of course. Using a cloth, he wiped the pools of water from the worktop. Now, there was the fish. By this time, they were defrosted enough to gut. Not totally, but that didn’t matter. In fact, if anything, they were easier to do this way. Some fish needed to have their scales removed, but not these, if they were being cooked in steam; then the whole skin would come of without any effort. First, using the wooden-handle knife, he cut off the rear, about two centimetres. Then, he inserted the tip of the knife into the right gill, and began to cut along the stomach, backwards, He put the knife down, and put his first two fingers into the gill, and tugged. The purple fibrous circles came out, usually with little effort, although sometimes they put up some resistance. He pulled backwards, the other organs coming out one by one. These, he put in one of the plastic bags that hung from the window. He opened the fish, and washed it, in and out, under the warm water from the tap. It wasn’t long before the three gutted bream lay with each other on the plate. Once again, he held the fish in place with his hand, to empty any remaining water from the plate. The plate he put in the oven. He cleaned the top of the work area, and went back into the bathroom once again.
It was now about 8 30. The sister-in-law came in most times around the 10 am mark, the last woman in the town to start work. But she had some good points. It was that it was hard to think what they were for much of the time. He poured another cup of tea.
The tea by now, of course, had cooled to just warm, and he drank it with effort There was a little in the teapot, and this he also drank. He picked up the thermos flask, removed the cork top, and re-filled the teapot. He put the flask back, behind the tray next to the tin of chocolate drink and sugar container. He rinsed the mug, and placed it on the tray. In these parts, you didn’t just have a couple of mugs of tea or water a day; the mug would be in constant use.
The washing machine had finished. He opened the top, and picked out the damp items of clothing. These he straightened out, and put them on the closed top of the machine. The sister-in-law would hang them in the yard when, or if, she came. If she didn’t come, he would go out later to hang them. He turned, and went back into the bathroom. First, he washed the toilet, and then with a hand brush, scrubbed floor and wall tiles. He used the shower to wash away the dirt. That lasted some fifteen minutes. Then, sweating from the enclosed space, he slipped off the sarong, went to the bedroom door, and threw the sarong into the bowl by the washing machine. If there were enough items, there would be a second wash. If not, then it would be done tomorrow. In the bathroom, he turned on the shower. The cold spray made him catch his breath. He opened the bathroom door, put his hand around the door, and pressed on the wall switch. The water soon became warm. He stood under it at first, and then stepped away to lather with the body shampoo. Where was this one from?
Ah, local. Sometimes they used the stuff made in Japan; rather like the toothpaste. After he had finished, more or less dry, he slipped on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt. This was fairly standard attire for many of the people here, although not the Malays. The men almost always wore long trousers. But in the house, these clothes were cool and comfortable, if not fashionable. He went into the computer room, and switched both the computer and the fan on. It wasn’t really a computer room, but a room with a desk and computer. But everyone referred to it that way. He opened the window a few centimetres. Next door, the neighbours’ papaya trees waited for the fruit to be collected. Some birds fluttered around, some sang. The sky was clear. It was going to get every warm.
He read the main news, both overseas and local, then he worked on his writing. This was when he lost track of the time. The only time in his life when he had written anything was for a school magazine, some thirty years ago, two poems and a short article; a poem about an African beggar, a poem about an evening in Africa, and the text about some ruins in Africa. Yes. His mind went back, in both place and time. He had started writing because of an unusual series of events. A few years earlier, he had taught at the local branch of a university, and had at first shared an office with a Malay colleague, with whom he had got on very well. A few months later, he was told that, because he was considered senior staff, he had to have his own office. He protested, but had to move. The new office was huge, and sparse, with a couple of bookshelves, and a table. In reality, he only used it for correcting papers from the students, and for consulting sessions. True, the correcting would take hours. But apart from that, the office was barely used, so much so that he was asked if someone else could take it. They would find him a smaller office. He agreed. The problem was, they didn’t. After a week or so, he gave up, and became the only teaching member of staff without a place of his own. Because of the heat, he retreated to the coolest place he could find, and that happened to be the car park. Not the main tarmac car park, but the grass area, further away from the buildings, where some teachers parked their cars. In front of the cars was the perimeter fence of the campus. Behind, were the buildings, and in front of them, the sea. So from one end you had the non-stop sea breeze; from the other, basically jungle, fresh and cool to watch.
This coolness of the place was further reduced by the presence of the trees. These were not any old trees. Well, there were old, but they were big and tall, and their branches formed a canopy, an umbrella over the place. He found that, being in the car with the windows down, it was very pleasant, far nicer and of course quieter than an office, and for the next three years, the Proton became the office, He would sit, seat pulled back, behind the wheel, and the front left seat would house the files, or scripts. If it became a little too hot, or some mosquitoes appeared, he would close the windows, switch on the engine, and air con. Across the way was one of the two canteens. The Malay woman who ran the place was always cheerful... in fact, most of the people here were... and the food, rather repetitive it was true, was plentiful and tasty. And so he continued in this fashion for the rest of the time. It was during one of these breaks in the car that he started to write. It was a bit strange perhaps, but true.
He was brought back to the present by the sound of the grill door being opened; the sister-in-law had come. No, it was too early for her. He heard the sound of the car keys on the desk, and knew it was his wife. She came past the room, and went into the back. She was carrying a number of packed bags. It was clear she had spent time at the market. He stopped his work, and went out to help her. She was in the process of emptying three bags of fresh fish into the sink, prior to washing, and then putting them into bags for freezing. Two other bags lay on the table. These he opened. In one, there were fruit and vegetables. These he put into the fridge, being sure to bring the older to the front, to be used first. The new stuff he put at the back. There were three clumps of leafy green vegetables, plus a group of apples, together with guava of uneven appearance and rough texture. In the smaller bag, there were three of four packets in oilpaper, a rubber band binding them.
‘For me?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered, washing the fish.
He opened them to find out what each contained. The first was some rice noodles, thin and orange. The second, the greasy dough know as roti canai, quite tasty but fattening. In the third, there was the nasi minyak; the fourth was a clear bag containing a chunk of chicken in thick brown sauce.
‘You want a hand?’ he asked.
’No, nearly finish.’
He opened the packet, spread the paper on a plate, and poured the chicken and sauce onto it. It looked good, and it would taste good, too. Malay breakfasts were very tasty; the only problem was that they didn’t fill one up for very long.
‘How about you?’
‘Already eat in the market. Somebody buy me.’
She continued with the fish, He picked up a spoon, and began to eat. He watched as she put two or three fish into each bag. He thought of an occasion a few months before, when, like this morning, she had come back from the market very early, but that time with fresh grouper, wet, spotted and brown.
’Very fresh,’ she had said. ‘I cook some for you?’
She had, and they were some of the nicest he had eaten anywhere. Later, cleaning some, he found they were slippery, and quite difficult to hold. That time, he had picked at the flesh with much pleasure. They were superb. But, as he had thought, and said to her many times, she was a fine cook. She had demurred; anyone could cook like her. He couldn’t agree with that. Others had, and would disagree, too. He thought of the ways she cooked crab, hardly the most inspiring, or easy to cook; with thick chillies and onion, or with egg; they were good, the prawns, too. They were cooked too in garlic, with the garnishing of daun kari, the slightly bitter small leaf used in Malay cuisine, and grown by next-door neighbour; but she or her sister would always ask first.
At the other end of the culinary scale, there were the simple noodles she sometimes, rarely, cooked if she or the children wanted a snack in the evening. They were nothing to turn your nose up at. The fish were finished, packed, and put into the fridge.
The woman went to the table, picked up the handbag and said, ‘Off to work now, bye,’ and went into the front room to get her keys. He continued with the breakfast. Half the pink-orange rice was gone. At the side, he had put the stick of clove, or chicken bone. The rice also had a little garlic and a few slices of pickled cucumber. The chicken was nothing to write home about, but the sauce was quite hot and piquant.
He finished, folded the paper, and put it and the chicken bag in to the rubbish. He washed the spoon, rinsed his mouth, washed around his lips, and then wiped the table. He poured a mug of tea, drank it, and then rinsed his hands, and went back into the computer room. The time passed, without him being aware of it. His sister-in-law came.
‘Good morning,’ she mumbled. He answered in the same way. She worked for his wife, her sister, for a modest salary, but with a number of perks, like free food and telephone, but the major one being the highly flexible and very short hours of work. It was just a five-day week, too; in this part of the world, there were very few who had that. She was a good cook in a limited way. She knew ten or twelve dishes, and these had good taste and were nicely presented. But it stopped there, meaning he ate the same food every ten days or so. He really didn’t mind that much, but on the odd occasion wished there were a little more variety. But, as he told himself, time and again, there’s food on the table, plenty of it, it’s hot, good quality, fresh, and nutritious. That’s better than a lot of people in the world get. This morning, she asked him how he would like the fish.
‘Steam?’
‘Okay.’
‘With tamarind?’ She used the Malay asam jawa.
‘Okay.’
‘What time you want to eat?’
‘Anytime.’
He usually ate early. She wore a batik sarong tucked under her arms. She washed her hands, and then checked to see what was prepared. She picked up the bowls, peered, put them down, then opened the door of the oven to inspect the garlic. Then she went to the washing machine, picked up, from tap behind it, the thin wire ring with the pegs on it, and opened the back door. She collected the clothes. He helped her, and then she disappeared around the back to hang them up. In this weather, it would take no time at all to dry many of the items; the thinner ones, like the children’s pyjamas might take less than an hour. It was quite possible, therefore, to do two washes in a day, and still have everything dry by two in the afternoon. This was, of course, except in the monsoon season at the end of the year. It came around the middle of November, and went on to the first week or two of January. The days, and the nights, saw thunderous downpours that might last an hour or two, but in between these would be drizzle. It became much cooler and fresh. He enjoyed the monsoon season. Others, notably children didn’t, as the rain and lightning knocked out the television reception. This bothered him little, as he didn’t watch that much, but the lightning did knock out the house’s circuit breakers, meaning the computer, and everything else, would go off. He had experienced this a few times, losing work as a result. Now, he was wise to it, and once the clouds reached a certain hue, and the wind a certain speed, he switched everything off.
At this time, the washing was hung up to dry, assisted by the fan, in the back bedroom, on nylon rope strung between the bars on the windows, giving the room the appearance of a slightly shabby and old -fashioned laundry shop.
But this morning was warm and clear, now getting hot. The sparrows pecked at the ground for invisible food. The mynahs strutted in almost professional style, bullying their smaller companions when there was any food to be got. It was a bit silly, considering the amount of food that was put out for them - noodles, bread, cake, rice. The compound of the house was unusual in that it was covered one hundred percent by cement; there was no grass. The car porch at the front was in tiles, pink and grey. The rest of the front, the two sides and the back were cement. That meant the house from midday to evening was hot, sometimes very hot. It also meant an absence, by and large, of mosquitoes. Next to the car porch was an elderly, rather sickly looking, but lightly productive rambutan tree, although ‘tree’ was a slight misnomer. It wasn’t that big. The bark on the trunk and branches was covered for the most part with a greenish fungal growth, and creepers clambered in symbiosis around them.
The other side of the porch used to house a mango tree, until the owner, an elderly Chinese woman, decided it needed cutting down, in case of damage to her property. Both these trees grew in a circle of soil, the part of the yards that were not cemented over. There were three or four more of the isolated circles around the yard, each occupied by some vaguely unhealthy plant life. On one side, next to the Chinese neighbour, a small fruit tree grew, that produced a small lime with an orange interior. It tasted like orange too, rather than lime. They were used to make juice, or squeezed onto the fish.
At the rear of the house, by the washing line, was the largest circle. It contained, at different times of the year, papaya trees, a small plant whose leaf was used in certain dishes, and there were, sometimes, other vegetables, in mini quantities. The other side had a small circle containing a white flowering plant, and some rough aloe vera. The soil in all of these places wasn’t that good, perhaps because of the proximity of the beach. He paused at the keyboard, and looked out of the window.
It was very bright now, the sun nearing the zenith. He stretched backwards, arms behind him. ‘Make sure your work is okay.’ Sometimes he switched off the computer when he had his food; other times he left it on. Today, he did the latter. He went out to see his sister-in-law. He poured a glass of water, and drank it, then he had one extra. He watched as she began to cook. She opened the door of one of the cupboards and extracted the wok. He gave it a quick rinse. It was important to wash anything that was kept, even for a short time, in the cupboard, because of the cockroaches. Not that the house as dirty, far from it. But the cockroaches came whatever you did. It was a fact of life in these parts. You washed bowl and plate before using. She gave a quick wipe with a cloth and put on the biggest gas ring, the one that you had to light manually. She used a match. In the wok, she placed a small circular ring, on three or four tiny legs, like a miniature table. On this would go the plate or bowl with the fish. Its job was to keep the food container off the wok. But first, she added water, and then placed the top of the wok over it.
This stopped the steam from escaping. After a few minutes, she lifted the top off, put the plate with the fish onto the ring, and replaced the top. She glanced at the clock up on the wall. Ten to fifteen minutes. Everything else was ready near the cooker. There were the bowls with vegetable leaf and the stem, the garlic, the oil, salt, the ladle, and the tapioca flour.
What would take most time in this type of cuisine was the preparation. The actual time necessary to cook was very short. He thought of her sitting on the floor, with pestle and mortar, pounding relentless fashion, and seemingly, for an eternity. He thought on many an occasion how much simpler and quicker it would be with blender. But she seemed happy enough. Perhaps it evoked nostalgia for her childhood in the kampung house by the estuary. There was no light, let alone a blender. In fact, from what his wife had told him, there wasn’t much of anything, including food. It seemed they had experienced a hard time in their youth. The fish were ready now; two bright pink bream, about fifteen centimetres long, laying a watery tamarind sauce. They smelled nice, and they would taste better. He knew this from experience. She used a particular tool to take the hot bowl containing the fish out of the searing heat of the steam of the wok. It was, in effect, like a pair of pliers. It consisted of two parts, joined by a hinge.
You held one of the arms with the thumb, the other with your fingers, to open or close it, according to size of the plate or bowl you wanted to pick up. It was a simple, yet effective and essential tool. The bottom of the two arms curved inwards slightly, gripping under the plate, and stopping it from sliding out. It was like a kind of metal claw, or large tweezers. He didn’t know its name; maybe it didn’t have a name. You went to the shop and asked for ‘the thing you use for lifting a bowl of steamed fish out of the wok.’ Then, everyone knew what were on about. He was fairly sure there was no name for it in English or Malay. The Malays wouldn’t be likely to use one; they didn’t do much steaming, apart from nasi lemang, and this they cooked in a bamboo cylinder. There was one place that was well-known for nasi lemang; Kijal, on the way from the south. There were a series of stalls, usually with women, along the road. It was quite tasty, but very heavy on the stomach. The Chinese, what would they call it? Pick out steam fish two leg? The French, he thought, might well have a name for it. After all, they had a name for a plate simply used to serve up fish. Perhaps they would call it ‘une vapeuriere’, or ‘vapeuriere au poisson orientale’. It wasn’t that important. But it wasn’t the type of thing you would buy on a regular basis. One would last you for donkey’s years, until it broke, rusted, or you lost it. He pulled up a chair at the table. She brought over the fish, then a bowl and rice with two chopsticks. She also brought a Chinese spoon, and placed it in the tamarind sauce. She picked up the wok with a cloth, then went to empty out the hot water.
The ring she hung on a hook on the window. She rinsed the wok, gave it a quick dry with a cloth, and placed on the cooker and turned up the gas. It was important to make sure there was no water in the wok. You add oil to it with even a tiny amount of water, and the fireworks start; non-stop spitting for a full minute or two. Then, she opened the bottle of oil. At full capacity, it was heavy, about three litres. She poured in a little oil, about three tablespoons, then replaced the cap and put the bottle back in the cupboard under the cooker with the gas cylinders were kept. Using the ladle, she brushed the oil so that it covered much of the wok’s interior. Then, she placed the ladle on a steel dish used to keep used, but clean oil. If you cooked vegetables, the oil could be used three or four times. In first went a section of the garlic. She then stirred for a short time, and then in rapid succession, added the stems, leafy parts, the flour mixed with some water. In a minute or so, it was over. She stirred, the ladle banging the wok in musical fashion. The vegetable was scooped up the wok and into a waiting bowl, followed by the yellow juice. She brought it over.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘You like, you finish.’
She giggled. Sometimes, she would take her meal with him; other times, she’d wait till her sister and the children had finished, and then eat, meaning she frequently ate around two. After washing her things, she might finish tidying up the children’s room, putting away the clothes from the morning’s wash, ironing anything that was necessary. Then, she would have a shower, and go home on her ancient and cumbersome bicycle. Often, she would be away not long after four. But now, she left him alone, and went off to the front bedroom. He had finished half of the fish when the vegetables came. With Chinese food, he always used chopsticks. He enjoyed the test of trying to eat in a clean and polite manner, rather than using the spoon as a mini scoop. A moment’s lack of concentration, and you splashed back on the plate, or worse, on the table or floor, embarrassing in a restaurant.
He also enjoyed eating a smaller quantity than possible with a spoon. It was almost quite refined. At least, he liked to think that. But the most important thing to him was that he enjoyed it. The stems of the vegetable were crunchy, the way they should be; the leafy parts were soft and juicy, their earthy taste blending nicely. He had a sip of Chinese tea; it was good for washing the oil away, and it was even better for stopping you sleep at night, too. Ten minutes later, the plate, bowls, and mug were empty. The plate with the fish had the bones, though. He lifted it up and poured the remaining drops of the tamarind juice onto the spoon and drank; yes, it was good. He got up, put the things on top of one another, and walked across to the sink. Using the sponge, he washed them, rinsing carefully to remove the soapsuds, and then laid them on the draining board. In the heat of the day, they would dry quickly, in no time.
He opened the back door and threw the fish bone onto the patch of soil. The birds and insects, plus the heat, would soon finish them. He went into the bathroom and brushed teeth and washed around his mouth. He looked back through his bedroom door at the clock. His wife and children would be home in an hour or so. What could he do? It was now hot, the heat oppressing. He closed the door of the bedroom, and then that of the bathroom. By the bed, he punched the air con button and reached for the hand control. He pressed maximum fan, 17 degrees Celsius. He switched on the wall fan too. That was better. He felt cool now, even after a minute or so. He lay back, in a half-sitting position; the pillows taken from the top of the bed were now against the edge by the wall under the air con. Nearby were a cheap children’s exercise book and a biro. He picked up both. He thought. Then he started to read through some work from the previous day. This he found a good way to get new ideas, and be able to start writing. The problem with this was, especially after lunch, with the food and the heat that it made him sleepy. Now was no exception. Almost without knowing it, the dozing began, and the dreams too. He awoke, refreshed, some time later. The sounds from the next room told him they were home from school. The bedroom door scraped open across the tiles again. A patter of bare feet, and an eleven-year-old girl, beaming, came past the bookcase, and flung herself on the bed.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he said.
‘Dad, I got 92 in English.’
She lay down, in her tee shirt and a pair of shorts, her long legs hanging over the edge of the bed. They talked for a couple of minutes. The boy came in to join them. Then, they both got up and went for their lunch. He followed them. His wife was getting the bowls or plates of rice.
‘You eat already?’
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Just a minute.’
He went back into the bedroom and switched off the air con. The fan he left. Around the midday mark, there were three wall fans blowing, plus a portable one of the top of the unused freezer between the fridges. Three sets of slatted windows were open, plus the back door. The computer room windows were open, as were the French windows in the lounge. Three windows in the lounge were open, too. But still it was sweat dripping hot. He lowered himself into a sitting position on the step into the bedroom. He watched the three of them eat and talk, and joined in too. Apart from the heat, it was one of the minor highlights of the day, being with his family, albeit for only half an hour.
The time was short because of the commitments the children, and wife, had. In fact, the children, for their age, had a very long day, like many in the place. True, the primary school finished at 1 15, but again, they were in by 7 20. School and other functions, like piano or sport, could take place anywhere from 3 to 7. There were athletics, badminton, basketball, chess, and the piano. Then there was homework, everyday. There were piles of it. No, he thought, they are not wasting their time with television. They are too busy with other things.
They finished their lunch. The children went off the shower and change into their afternoon gear. He helped his wife to clear the table, and then did the washing up She wiped, and put the things away, or it was the other way around. He cleaned the table, and arranged the plates neatly for his sister-in-law, perhaps putting a small quantity of vegetable or fish onto a smaller, clean plate. He poured her a mug of water. In a few minutes, she would come and eat a quiet meal. Unusually for a Chinese, she ate in the Malay style, using her right hand rather than chopsticks or spoon. The thumb and first three fingers were used to pull the rice into a small pile, and lifted into the mouth. Chicken and fish were broken in the same way; there was nothing wrong with this, although many Chinese, especially the younger age groups, were not keen. The Indians were another ethnic group who used the hand. As an Indian colleague some years ago had told him in a restaurant,
'I wash my hands. I know they’re clean. I don’t know about the utensils’.
Fair enough; he was being quite logical. He ate that way in a Malay restaurant himself, and insisted, in a gentle way, the family do the same. They did, and it made a nice change. After all, many people around the world used their hands to eat – pizza, sandwiches, and cake. Okay, they are dry, and that makes it a bit easier, it’s true. He went back to the computer room, to try to do some more work. The phone rang. His sister-in-law picked it up. A few seconds later, she came by.
‘Excuse me, can you teach 3 to 4?’
He sighed.
‘Okay.’
He hated afternoon tuition, mainly because of the heat, but also it stopped the work. But it would be foolish in the extreme to turn down any work. He switched off the computer, and went into the lounge. The fan was on. It was still pretty hot in there. The car pulled up. He glanced at the clock by the desk. It was nearly three. The children came sometimes with their mother, sometimes with one of the Malay female assistants from the gold shop that the family owned in the town. They came in. Two lower primary, a brother, and sister.
‘Good afternoon, teacher,’ they said in unison.
He forced a reply. It wouldn’t be fair to blame them, or be gruff. It was clear they were happy be here, and also Mum was paying him for it. They were also one of the few groups who came more than once a week. The sister had made especially good progress.
‘Right, what are we doing now?’
The hour passed in gentle, amusing insanity. They read about the two ladybird children with the ball, dog, going to see someone, going to the beach. He knew most of the twenty-four books backwards. He didn’t have a book of his own. When the children made a mistake, or couldn’t read a word, or even just paused too long, he was able to correct them. It was rare that he had to look at the book. The car pulled up by the mango tree.
‘Bye bye, teacher.’
They got up, and went out, shutting both the mosquito door and the security grill behind them. He had trained the students well. It was unusual for any student to leave without closing the door. The boy he called Hippo, because of his habit of yawning with his mouth open. The girl he called Mei Mei, the Chinese ‘little sister’; being she was, it was logical. Elder brother was ‘Ko ko’, and elder sister ‘Chei Chei’.
As they left, another car pulled up, and a teenage girl emerged. In she came, hair neck length, wearing spectacles, and a tee shirt and jeans. A pity, he thought to himself. A pair of shorts suited her better. She was a pretty and intelligent girl, who came from a small fishing village twenty minutes to the south. It was probably the only small fishing village in the world that had a gas powered power generating plant in it, too.
‘Good afternoon, teacher.’
‘Hi, I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘My mother telephone your wife.’
‘Okay’.
Financially it was, mentally it wasn’t, and educationally it was somewhere in between; but he enjoyed this teaching. They were doing the literature that was now part of the English Language secondary school exam. There were some short stories, and a selection of poems, two by local writers. He thought the Ministry were doing a good job in trying to improve the standard of English, and with the literature component, make it interesting. The car returned at the appointed time. She got up.
‘Bye, teacher. See you Monday.’
Monday? He didn’t know about that. Wife was not the most expert of communicators; forgetting was not an infrequent occurrence. On one occasion, three different students had come at the one time. She had forgotten who was coming when. The sister-in-law came through, and went to get her bag.
‘Bye, bye.’
She left, on the bicycle. If there was afternoon tuition, he asked her to remain, even if she had finished work, as a chaperone. It was important that the children knew there was a lady in the house, even if she were watching the television. It was true though, that none of the students were nervous, except two, both boys. One had to be dragged in by his mother. He had explained in was not the way to encourage the son to work. The other was a kindergarten student, who would take pleasure in offering the wrong answer to get a laugh from the others in the group. This caused much mirth; the problem was that it disrupted the other members of the group.
The sun was by now beginning to go down, the air getting cooler... not cool, just cooler; there was quite a big difference. He went into the back of the house to get a mug of water. It was important to drink a lot out here, he thought yet again. Through the open windows, he heard the sounds of the early evening, or later afternoon; he didn’t know what one would be correct. When did afternoon stop and evening begin? Children were laughing. There was the sound of the tyres on the road. Next door, they were frying for dinner; there were people chatting quietly in the warm evening sea breeze.
He thought of the evening’s meal. This was one of the highlights of the day, he thought. What can I do for tonight? He went to the first fridge and opened it. On a white plate lay one and a half fish from lunch. There was a bowl of vegetables, also left over. He put them both on the table, and shut the door. He opened the second fridge. In the chiller compartment, he found a good-sized bowl of rice. He placed it on the table. These three he could steam for his wife. It was plenty for her; she ate little for dinner. She didn’t want to get too fat. Fat? He laughed quietly; no, my lovely, you are not fat, not by a long way. He thought of how she looked now, in bed in the cool of the morning, rubbing her back, or holding her, quiet...
Then, reality came back; ah, lower shelf. Here, there was a lettuce in its wrapping. He found a couple of small cucumbers, a large carrot, and a guava. He placed them first on the table, then shut the fridge door, and went to the worktop. He got a bowl, filled it with water from the filter, and, taking off a few big strips from the lettuce, put them in to soak. The remaining lettuce he left on top of the cooker. He washed the cucumbers with care, then cut the them into circles, placing them on a large plate; the carrot he scraped with the knife, rinsed it, and chopped it into thin wedges; good for cleaning the teeth, he thought. He put a couple into his mouth; they were hard and crunchy. The lettuce could go on a separate plate. He looked at the bowl of vegetables. No, he thought, I won’t steam them. I’ll re-fry. With vegetables, there might be a problem with both appearance and texture after steaming.
The late sun’s rays came through the slats of the window. He picked up the guava, washed it, and then left it on a plate. The problem with guavas; they were tricky. Some people, like himself, enjoyed eating the pips; others, like his wife, didn’t. He put the plate on the table. She can cut it, he thought. He walked over to the bulldog mugs, to take out some spoons, forks, and chopsticks; he placed them on the table. Next, he went to the crockery rack to get plates and bowls. Usually, he put too many on the table; his wife then replaced some of them. His logic was that it was better to have them on the table, rather than have to get up in the middle of the meal; wife thought a half-bare table the in-thing. He got four mugs, and filled them with water. Then sighing slightly, he went to the stereo unit on the top of the first fridge. He chose a CD of traditional Chinese music, played on the erhu, by a player of quality from southern China.
It really was very good music. He then got the wok out from under the sink, and placed it on the big gas ring on the cooker. He lifted the ladle from its home in the bulldog mugs and laid it on one of the metal dishes containing the used oil. The jar of salt, the pepper grinder, he put nearby. Ah! He thought there was something missing. He went back to the second fridge, and looked inside, like a policeman searching for a clue. Yes! In a small plastic bag, he found three bright green limes. Taking two of them out, he walked to the worktop, and, with the wooden handle knife, sliced them into quarters. They would go well with the fish, he thought, or in the water.
Now, his attention turned to the main course for the children. Much as they liked lettuce and cucumber, it wasn’t really enough. He looked again in the fridge. There was nothing. Then, it struck him; the sister-in-law kept the eggs by the gas bottles. Had she left any there? He opened the cupboard, and, lo and behold, a small plastic bag with three eggs was there. Right, he thought, maybe fry, maybe omelette. I’ll ask them when they come in. With bread or toast, that would make a nice, nutritious meal. He put the eggs by the tray with the water containers, and thought for a minute. Then he found a cup in the cupboard, rinsed it under the tap, and cracked the first egg into it. The other two could wait until the children were back. Now, everything was ready. It was a case now of switching on the gas and doing the cooking. He went to the step by the bedroom door.
‘I think that’s everything,’ he said to himself.
He went to the first fridge, and got out the bottle of fruit juice from the tiny limes in the garden. He poured a few drops into a mug. A few drops were all that one needed, otherwise the drink became too bitter, too much acid in it. As with lime or, for that matter, lemon, a little made a bland cup of water more refreshing and palatable; ah, that was good, he thought, nice, just what I want, nice…
It was then that he woke up.
Outside, the snow came on down, brushing the trees. The sun shone; surprising, he thought, but not really. The county, in weather conditions like these, really was a pretty place. It was quite cold, it was true, but when the wind dropped, it could be quite nice to be out for a walk. He thought he might try that later in the day; two or three degrees might make a bit of difference to the skin. Yes, he thought, I’ll try to get out later, maybe after lunch. That would be nice; but not now, he thought, shivering slightly. He turned in the bed, trying to warm himself.
There was a knock at the door. The nurse came in.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, her Filipina accent muted by the time she had spent in Wales, her home now.
‘Yes, not too bad, thank you,’ he answered.
She felt his pulse, and with the stethoscope, checked his heart, then counted the pulse.
‘You’re fine,’ she said, ‘you have the constitution of a horse. In my country, you would be able to find a young wife, because she would know the children would be strong.’
She blew a mock kiss, and went out.
Not bad, he thought. If I weren’t so…
He stopped thinking. Shut up, you old fool. You had your time way ago. He half-laughed, something he was quite good at. Yes, a pretty good time, in many ways. I can’t complain, he thought. Images came into mind, from various places, of different people that he had known. A few minutes later, the assistant came in with breakfast. It smelled good; scrambled eggs, some toast and marmalade, and a small pot of tea.
‘No orange juice this morning?’ he asked.
‘Oh, sorry, I forgot. I’ll pop out and get it now; won’t be a tick.’
A minute later, she came back, and placed the glass on the tray.
‘There you are. Sorry.’
She grinned. He thought she was a good-looking young woman, about twenty, twenty-two, something like that. He leaned across the bed to the small table, and switched on the wireless. He ate through the breakfast, listening to the news at first, and then switching to one of the music channels.
He began to doze off again, in intermittent fashion. Wake up, you idiot, he thought. He got out of bed, and went to the bathroom. The shave woke him up; there was nothing like cold water and a half-blunt razor to get you going in the morning. He got dressed, and then went out to explore. Along the hallway, the other rooms were now open, the inhabitants in various states of mental agility.
He greeted them as he went by, getting a response here, and a blank look there. At least my brain is working, he thought; I might be a bit slow on my legs, and get a problem with the arthritis, but the grey matter still works.
He had always agreed with, and had followed, his father’s opinion that keeping the brain going was so important. True, he muttered, then realised he was guilty of mumbling, the very kind of thing he was trying to keep away from. The fact that he read the news, and was able to discuss things at some length, was a source of some puzzlement to the others in the home.
He thought of the place in Powys where his father had spent his retirement. It was a quiet place, by the banks of the Wye. The only things you could hear were the water and the birds... oh, and once there was a horse by the Post Office, until they built some new, and fairly ugly looking houses there. A little way up the hill one could always find the sheep, content in their ignorance, insulated from the world’s problems, and from the cold. He thought of some of the walks he had gone on, many years ago, and of the lane up the hill, past the house used by some education authority for weekend and summer courses. It was past this, a kilometre or so further up that he had once parked the car, and had a can of beer, the afternoon before returning to the Far East, knowing he was leaving his father yet again on his own. It had always remained a special place, a little pull-in by a fence, with the branches of the hedge nearby. It was one of those 'goodbye places' he had in his brain. Another one was in Hertfordshire, by a pub. The Comet, he thought it was called; appropriate if one were going to the airport. He hadn’t stopped there, though, but it had remained with him all these years, quite why, he didn’t know. Why was he thinking like this? He tried to focus his mind. Ah, yes. Once, when visiting his father, he had met one of the neighbours on the way to, or maybe coming from, the shop. He snorted with amusement. Yes, the shop, singular; it was the Post Office too. Or, at least, it used to be. Government cuts in services had meant the end for it. The one in Talgarth met a similar ending. That meant the locals had to go the twenty minutes or so to either Hay or Brecon, both pleasant enough little places, even in these times, with nice scenery on the way. But not much fun when the winter set in, and for the past fifteen years, they had got worse and worse. Global warming? A bloody joke, he thought. We could do with some global warming here. He realised he was drifting. Get back to the point. What was the bloody point? Oh, yes, he thought; my father and the neighbour’s comments. She had mentioned how smart he always looked, clothes clean and pressed, and then remarked, with a slight incredulity, on the newspapers he bought. The exact words he had forgotten, but it was along the lines of how intelligent he was, reading the fancy newspapers like the Independent and the Guardian. He hadn’t told the woman that the first thing Dad did was to throw away the sports and business sections, together with the colour supplements at the weekend. It was quite probable that half the newspaper went in this way. It was then stored, if that was the word – discarded, abandoned, dumped came to mind too – in the garage to be recycled, courtesy of the county council, or in the winter, used to start the fire. The news was analysed, then the arts. He thought of one occasion, a visit of some days, when on the lounge table, a low, sandalwood affair from Singapore – where did they buy it, was it in Tanglin? Keep on the point, you fool, he told himself. The table; yes, on the table there was an article from one of the newspapers - ‘Quiet musings of a Balkan bard’. Maybe they weren’t quiet. But they were musings. That was the sort of thing he would read. He half-laughed again.
One of the workers, an older woman who had worked there for many years, gave him an odd look.
‘Are you alright? You look a bit lost.’
He answered her concerns in the negative.
‘No, I’m fine. I’m thinking about a Balkan Bard.’
The expression, and the narrowing of the eyes, suggested she was somewhat disconcerted. After full fifteen or so seconds, she said,
‘Okay. It must be very interesting.’
She walked on. Blimey, he thought, is it that bad? He went back to the train of thought. The reality was that, who on earth, apart from his father, and two hundred or so fellow-readers, would bother with something like that? He laughed again, this time out loud. A fellow inmate looked in suspicion. He nodded, and walked on. He thought of the woman back home that evening with the family.
‘You know what I heard today? There’s this old so-and-so, walking around thinking about a Balkan bard; the bloke’s nuts.’
He imagined the response from the children.
‘Mum, what’s Balkan bard mean?’
He went back to the room, and settled down in the armchair, and began to read the news on the computer. An hour and a half later, fed up and depressed with war, bomb, murder, rape, torture and football, he switched off, had a glass of water, leaned back, and fell into a half-sleep. Out in the open air, the trees bent in the winter breeze, brushing the snow; he watched it glinting in the bright sunshine of the afternoon. On a day like this, the area could be as nice a place as one could imagine.
He lay back in the bed, and reached for the bottle of whiskey he kept out of sight from the others. He had a swig, the liquor burning his throat. So what, he thought, what else do I have? He thought of his children; 'Yes, he thought, I’m fortunate that they are both happy.' He had another swig of the whiskey bottle, and lay back in the bed. I'm near where my aunt passed away, oh, some fifty years ago, he thought, and now it’s my turn.
Outside, the snow came down more heavily on Mardy Park, blanketing the grass and trees. He thought of his long-gone wife. She was now at peace, in the cemetery, by the town of Kuala Dungun, where he had first gone in, what was it? 1988? No, 1987, in January; he had flown on a Fokker to the airport… airstrip might be better…in Kerteh, little thinking that he would end up spending a good chunk of his life there. His teaching contract was for just over a year and a half. The year and a half had stretched by many times. Ha, he muttered, thinking of the monkeys that played in the avenue of trees that lined the road into the airport terminal building. She was a good woman, a good wife in many a way, he thought. Not the easiest in the world, but a kind and caring heart. He thought briefly of their time, or the times – he half laughed – they had made love in the shower. I miss you, he whispered to himself. He thought of his brother and sister, who had pre-deceased him by many years. He hadn't spent that much time with them, but he knew in his heart that they were quite kind in their own way.
He had another drink. Then, he lay back on the pillow, pulled up the blanket to his chin, and looked out at the snow. It was then that the tears came; they didn’t stop until he slept. Then, there were the unending dreams, of a warm beach, coconut trees, and children on their bikes, playing chess on the floor, watching a programme…
The nurse found him the next morning, the bottle of whiskey open and empty, on his chest. She bent over, and kissed him, her hands caressing what little hair he had.
‘Oh, no,’ she whispered. ‘No, no.’ She pulled the blanket over him, and put the bottle on the table; then, again, the tears came.
He stopped typing and thought, 'I'm not sure the ending is quite what I want. It's a bit grim.'
He heard the sound of the car coming into the car port; she would tired after the heat of a long day at work.
