Against the call of an Asian koel comes the sound of rustling from his lawn. Startled, Landon steals a sidelong glance through a slit in the window. The garden light is on and he detects a shift in the shadows.
Someone is on his property.
He arms himself with the rusty dumbbell rod and patters down the steps and across the living room floor. He tries to identify the intruder through the lacy drapes, but catches only a dark shape as it fleets out of view.
With his back against the wall, he carefully turns the handle and throws the front door open. He raises the rod at the intruder and Cheok withdraws in fright.
“Who you expecting?” he exclaims, alarmed.
Landon rolls his eyes. “You could’ve knocked.”
Cheok raises two red cellophane bags of food and a hot pot. “I knew you’ll forget.”
Landon slaps his head. An appointment missed is as good as a promise broken. He steps aside to allow Cheok passage. “I’m sorry, there’s a lot going on and—”
Cheok shoulders past his explanation and steps into the living room with a jaunty gait. He clears a space on the teak coffee table and lays out the food sealed in shrink-wrap. “You got stock cubes?”
“In the fridge. Tray on the right.”
Cheok carries the empty hot pot to the kitchen.
It is ten o’clock by the time the lid comes off steaming. Cheok slides the vegetables into the broth and turns it into a picture-perfect bubbling stew of cabbages, radishes, leeks, mushrooms and carrots. Landon picks at a plate heaped full of raw pork and liver, blanches them in broth and dips them in a vinegary garlic sauce.
Cheok passes him a bowl of boiled quail eggs. “You got wine?”
“I though you brought beer?”
“Saving it for the match.”
Landon shreds broiled beef between his molars. “A nice 2010 Andrew Lane merlot.”
“French ah?”
“Only the name of the grape,” Landon, still chewing, now poaches shrimps with a slotted spoon. “It’s Napa Valley.”
“Somewhere in France ah?”
“You want it or not?”
“Any wine is good.”
Landon fetches the bottle, uncorks it and pours the merlot into tin cups. They drink, sloshing the liquid on their palates and guzzling it down. Cheok gives an approving belch, his breath rich with alcohol and tannins.
On an antiquated redwood shelf the TV rambles on about a race around Pusan between feisty young girls and a group of elderly men. Landon zaps it with the remote. News. A serialised soap opera with a crawling plot. A documentary about people in rural China who migrated to cities and worked themselves to death.
Cheok looks sidelong at him. “The game’s not on for another hour. Poker? One dollar per bet.”
“How’s your missus?”
“Alzheimer loh. The usuaclass="underline" whole day just mumble to herself. I think putting her in a home is better. She’s happier when I’m not around.”
“You’ll miss her.”
“I visit you every day, loh.” Cheok sneers. “Better still, I move in.”
Landon reaches over with the bottle and tops up Cheok’s mug. “Somehow I get the feeling I’m running a shelter for the old and grouchy.” “You are.”
“Maybe I should consider running one for real.”
“With your memory?” Cheok raises his voice in mock derision. “You will starve me to death and smell my rotting body and think it’s the garbage.”
Landon laughs. Cheok responds with a look of indifference that makes him laugh even more. From another cellophane bag, Cheok fishes out a bunch of golf ball-sized fruits with red leathery husks. “Lychee?”
“Okay.”
Above them the ceiling fan whirs and creaks, punctuated by the crack of lychee husks and the occasional squeak when Cheok sucks out the pit. When it is time for the match Landon zaps the TV and the festive rumpus of spectator chants and drums fills the living room. Cheok goes to the kitchen and returns with the six-pack.
“Tonight you akan mati lah, my friend,” he says with an evil grin.
“Cheok, just watch the match.”
6
SOMETHING SANE
WHAT MAKES A dying child happy? Stories? Games? Companionship? Clara has done enough to know that toys won’t do since the children don’t own them for very long. So this week she has a Jenga set. Anything that’s good for the brain and muscles and would help Pansy with her HIV-induced lipodystrophy. Pansy would only be borrowing them. She likes that notion because it has a glow of optimism to it—that she’ll see Clara again next week and the week after.
The lobby of the hospice is all plaster and paint, but it has a lofty ceiling that lets in the light and breeze. It’s the spot where you get to see contingents of wheelchairs passing, laden with the old and the young. Clara watches them. She has waited an hour for the director but she doesn’t mind.
Ten minutes later, a genial matron with curly white locks and a smiling gaze that never falters steps out of the elevator and ambles towards her. She is dressed in grey and wears black pumps.
“Director.” Clara extends her hand, her smile fresh as ever, enlivened by the infectious warmth of the matron’s presence.
The Director puts a hand to her heart. “Please, call me sister, or aunty if you would.”
“Aunty Ratnam, I’m Clara.”
“I figured,” she says. “I feel so bad to have kept you. But I insist on meeting every donor and partnering guardian.”
“Well, I’m very humbled.”
“A full year’s expenses is a lot of money.” Aunty Ratnam touches her arm and leads her on a gentle stroll. “I’d like to know what inspired you to this.”
To redeem a great and unpardonable sin, Clara would’ve blurted if she was huddled inside a confession box. She has selected eight hospices, homes and sanctuaries, and five years of sponsorship accorded to each would give her forty years of sanity—if the institutions lasted the decades. And they would. Every generation has its share of the unfortunate and afflicted. Forty years. She would have switched identities twice by then.
“I can’t have children and I’d like some of my own—to love.” Clara says. “And I thought, where else better than to love in a place where it’s needed most?”
They pass a manicured garden with pavers and ornamental boulders. There Aunty Ratnam beams like the sun. “You put it across very beautifully.”
“It’s true.”
“This will be your second time meeting Pansy?”
“It is. She was very lovely the last time. Shy but lovely.” Clara pauses at a fond recollection. “She warms up very quickly.”
They pass under shelter and in the enveloping shade Aunty Ratnam’s smile wanes a little. “Pansy has about six months. We’re hoping she can pull through the year to see her tenth birthday.” Her tone is tender but brutally honest.
“I understand.”
“If she doesn’t, the rest of your support will be reimbursed.”
“Least of my worries, Aunty Ratnam.”
The matron drops her gaze but her face brightens once more. “All right, I shall not hold you any longer.” She squeezes Clara’s slender arm. “Spend some time with her.”
“Thank you.”
The Coterie provides—that much she has to admit. This is the best thing she can do with her money because none of them live very long. It doesn’t matter if she appears as a different person from one child to another. Identities are of no importance to the dying. When the Coterie gives her a new one she’ll move to another hospice and get a new haircut, maybe a new set of colours for her face. What matters is how well she sends them away—the sick and dying children.
The Director turns back to look at her. “I thought I didn’t recognise the name,” she says, a frown marring her warm demeanour. “But you look awfully familiar to me.”