When the cab drops him off in front of the old bungalow along Clacton Road, the street appears unusually still. There is no movement, not even a breeze to nudge the leaves. The house looms, drab and forbidding, its windows abyssal eyes. It appears to be crouching in darkness and waiting to swallow anyone who ventures near.
A chill pricks at him. Has it been six hours? He has forgotten to check the time. He unlatches the gate and cringes at the din it makes. Then, gritty footfalls approach and his back tingles. He whips around, and finds only a passing neighbour who keeps his head lowered and dispenses no greeting.
From the other end of the street, an old man conveys a heap of scraps on a bicycle. With every inch of his body poised to spring, Landon watches the man until he passes, and then bolts through the gate and slams it hard behind him. He races across the driveway, through the house, and locks it up tight as a fortress, latching all openings and windows, even the ones in the attic. He decides against showering for fear that someone might slip in through the back, slit his throat and bleed his life away under a running faucet.
A cursory inspection of his possessions reveals nothing missing. He hauls a rusty dumbbell rod up to his bedroom. Then, compelled by a sliver of recollection, he pores through volumes of old journals and finds an entry inked on yellowed paper.
March 10th, 1965, Wednesday
My name is Arthur. I awoke in a hotel room darker than most I’ve seen. Tinted windows and dull green walls, beige-coloured drapes, a green telephone, a floral carpet, a card that reads Cathay Hotel. I remember passing a large Tiger Beer mural at the gable wall of a shophouse. Can’t see it from my window.
I got cuts all over the left side of my body; arms, legs, neck, some on my face. My head throbs. Can’t remember where I got them. The guy who brought me here said I was lucky to have survived a blast this afternoon. It had to be the concussion because I remember nothing beyond the moment they brought me out of the car and I woke up in a room I didn’t recognise. The guy said he’s going to bring me to England. I keep getting the feeling that I’m leaving something behind.
He reaches the end of the journal and takes up another. England? He flips a page and scans it from top to bottom.
…the feeling lingers. Maybe it’s nothing. I’ve left too many people behind. They all become one in my broken memory.
Faces I see on the streets represent them all.
Unnerved by the day’s encounter, he tosses the volumes back into the old trunk, lumbers over to the desk and begins to write in a state of haste and compulsion: My name is Landon…
The street lamps reveal two glinting spots in the crown of a frangipani tree behind the old house. The spots hold still for a moment, then streak soundlessly into the night.
2
CONTACT
LANDON WAKES FROM a dreamless sleep to red digital numerals reading twelve minutes past ten. He sits up and drops his legs to the floor, the hair at the back of his head tousled and standing. His shift schedule at the FourBees café, pinned to a small corkboard on a wall beside the writing desk, says he’s not due in until one.
He snatches his journal from the nightstand and opens to yesterday’s entry:
Adam was born today. Count to Adam: 1 of 5,475. In another fifteen years Landon will be dead. Met someone who calls himself John. He said to stay in crowded places for as long as I could. He mentioned something else I cannot remember.
Who the hell is John? His face appears in Landon’s head all fuzzed-up like an old Polaroid. Polaroids and facsimiles—perfect epitomes of my busted memory. It’s frustrating to be forgetting something all the time but the irony is that you would forget the frustration before you could remember what caused it. You find pieces of your day missing, and before the day ends you won’t even remember what’s missing from it.
And that’s only a part of what amnesia is about.
He unlatches the window and pushes the panes open. The sound of sweeping—swish, swish, swish. And with the same regularity comes the call of cicadas. A row of azaleas line the front of the patio. He looks down and sees Cheok at the driveway with the old besom.
He calls from his window, relieved. Cheok looks up at him and lifts a thick arm in greeting, his face shadowed under a straw hat. He is shaped like an urn, with a sturdy build and brown leathery skin, and chooses to wear only weathered denim shirts and khaki cargoes. Contracted to work the lawn once a week over a four-hour session, Cheok visits more frequently than he has to. Supposedly, his wife can’t stand his bonsai obsession. The truth is, he can’t stand her badgering over everything domestic.
Landon comes through the front door with coffee. “Unusual of you to start so late. Weather’s getting hot.”
“Got trouble with the truck.” Cheok finishes shearing the ixora hedges and shoves the trimmings into a garbage bag. “I brought the fertiliser for the hibiscus.”
“I never asked for them.” Landon sips out of his own mug.
“They’re good quality.” Cheok points to a canvas sack nearby. “Organic vegetable waste, very good for the plants.”
“I meant the hibiscus.”
“You need the hibiscus lah, give your garden some red.”
“It’s turning into your garden, Cheok.”
Cheok pushes the straw hat behind his head, wipes his hands on his trousers and takes the mug from Landon. “Anyone who see your house will think you own a café instead of working for one.”
Landon thumbs at his door. “They should look inside.”
“Your shift what time?”
“One. Got to leave by twelve.”
Cheok drinks his coffee and looks admiringly over the garden.
“You got any jobs after this?” says Landon.
“Only yours loh. I’ll work till three then go cook for missus.”
“Stay as long as you want. I’ll leave the keys with you.”
“No need. I’ll latch the gate when I leave. I hope you haven’t forgot?”
Landon stares vacantly at him.
“Dinner tonight—” Cheok prompts, lifting a pudgy finger.
“Nine at my place.” Landon blurts in a hurry. “I had it written down.”
“Good. Don’t forget the match tonight. You can forget anything but football.”
Cheok drains his mug in a single swig and Landon throws him a disapproving look because good coffee is never meant to be abused that way. They part and he goes back into the house and skims through the news on his tablet.
An article about the explosion at Orchard Road; 26 dead, over 50 wounded. Eight bodies only partially recovered, needing DNA identification. Glass facades of two nearby shopping malls shattered. Over 30 million dollars in property damage. Estimated 23 kilos of plastique explosives with thumbtacks for fragmentation. No one has claimed responsibility for the act but the police suspect domestic extremists vying for anarchism against organised religion and meritocratic policies.
Thumbtacks? What were they thinking?
From the window of his living room, Landon catches sight of a young man rubbernecking at his property from the gate. He is dressed in a business shirt, fair of skin and rather lanky and fragile of build. His hair is waxed and parted in an outmoded manner. Cheok walks over to him and initiates an inaudible conversation.