Impractical Uses of Cake

by Yeoh Jo-Ann

  “This splendid debut novel is so charming, so whimsical, that its incisiveness sneaks up on you, slowly, gradually, until at last you look up from the last page, dazed, marvelling at how exactly Yeoh pulled it off.

  Impractical Uses of Cake is a wise and wondrous book.”

  KIRSTIN CHEN

  author of Bury What We Cannot Take

  “A fascinating novel, written with economy, sophistication and wry humour. The porous nature of the boundary between ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ is explored with sensitivity, along with a neat balance between the mundanely ordinary and the seemingly nonconformist. Yeoh Jo-Ann exhibits emotional depth in telling her story with tact and nuance.”

  PROF RAJEEV PATKE

  Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2018 Judge and Director of the Division of Humanities, Yale-NUS College

  “Yeoh Jo-Ann exposes the cracks in Singapore’s gleaming facade with wit and compassion. An impressive debut.”

  JEREMY TIANG

  Singapore Literature Prize-winning author of State of Emergency

  Copyright © 2019 by Yeoh Jo-Ann

  Author photo by Joanne Goh. Used with permission.

  Cover design by Qin Yi.

  The following poems are used with permission:

  “Ulysses” © 1833 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from Poems (1842), Ticknor and Fields

  “The Merlion” © 1998 by Alfian Sa’at, from One Fierce Hour, Landmark Books

  “In Country Sleep” © 1947 by The Dylan Thomas Trust, from In Country Sleep: And Other Poems, New Directions

  “Untitled” © 2010 by Cyril Wong, from oneiros, Firstfruits Publications

  All rights reserved

  Published in Singapore by Epigram Books

  shop.epigrambooks.sg

  Published with the support of

  National Library Board, Singapore

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Names:

  Yeoh Jo-Ann, 1982–

  Title:

  Impractical uses of cake / Yeoh Jo-Ann.

  Description:

  First edition. | Singapore : Epigram Books, 2019.

  Identifier:

  OCN 1090531958

  ISBN 978-981-48-4512-0 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-981-48-4513-7 (ebook)

  Subject(s):

  LCSH: Romance fiction. | Teachers—Fiction.

  Classification:

  DDC S823—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, May 2019.

  ALSO FROM THE EPIGRAM BOOKS FICTION PRIZE

  FINALISTS

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  2017

  The Riot Act by Sebastian Sim (winner)

  Sofia and the Utopia Machine by Judith Huang

  9th of August by Andre Yeo

  Nimita’s Place by Akshita Nanda

  If It Were Up to Mrs Dada by Carissa Foo

  18 Walls by Teo Xue Shen

  Band Eight by Tham Cheng-E

  2016

  The Gatekeeper by Nuraliah Norasid (winner)

  State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang

  Fox Fire Girl by O Thiam Chin

  Surrogate Protocol by Tham Cheng-E

  Lieutenant Kurosawa’s Errand Boy by Warran Kalasegaran

  The Last Immigrant by Lau Siew Mei

  Lion Boy and Drummer Girl by Pauline Loh

  2015

  Now That It’s Over by O Thiam Chin (winner)

  Sugarbread by Balli Kaur Jaswal

  Let’s Give It Up for Gimme Lao! by Sebastian Sim

  Death of a Perm Sec by Wong Souk Yee

  Annabelle Thong by Imran Hashim

  Kappa Quartet by Daryl Qilin Yam

  Altered Straits by Kevin Martens Wong

  For my parents, for putting up with all the noise

  A man and a woman are in a supermarket. They do not speak, except to announce items on their shared shopping list.

  “Eggs, check.”

  “Cereal.” The box lands with a thud in the trolley.

  “Pears.”

  There are fifteen items on their list.

  The woman is dead. She died today. The man knows this but isn’t sure how he feels about it. Why should things be different now? But they must be.

  They finish their shopping and he drives them home. It’s his home, really, but he has grown used to sharing it with her. Sharing his books, his bathroom, his kitchen, his television (which she doesn’t ever watch, but he would be fine if she did), his six-seater dining table and three-seater sofa. One of the pillows on his bed smells of her, combined with his shampoo. He hopes she won’t leave, now that she’s dead. Her death has put a ring of anxiety somewhere between his chest and belly.

  They go to bed and he holds her, wondering what he wants from all of this. It cannot be reasonable to want anything, and he is a reasonable man.

  She lets him hold her, wondering what he wants from all of this. It cannot be reasonable to want anything, and he is a reasonable man.

  I

  THE DAWN SKY is full of pinkish clouds, but Sukhin goes out anyway. None of the other early-morning runners are about, not even the nutter from the condo down the road. He feels a little smug. Hah. Afraid of a little water. The smugness makes the next couple of kilometres much more bearable than usual, and a little while later he is halfway through—finally. As the air around him thickens with the smell of a thunderstorm brewing, he strains to run a little faster, willing himself to take longer, quicker steps.

  Sukhin hates running. It bores him. It makes him feel stupid, all this ridiculous gasping and heaving, this inelegant, unimaginative pavement-pounding that he practises every morning to get from his flat to…his flat. Zero displacement—how ridiculous. But he is sticking to it. It’s cheap, it’s convenient, and he needs the exercise.

  “Unfit people just aren’t productive,” he heard Ken tell the new coordinator a few months ago. “They tire easily—there’s just no stamina. It’s not even a question of being willing or unwilling to work.” They were in the staff pantry and Ken was looking right at him—clearly, he meant that Sukhin was unproductive, tired easily and had no stamina, and, just as clearly, he wanted him to know this.

  There was a time when Sukhin would have said something cutting, when he would have refused to exercise on some prideful principle, not wanting to prove Ken had any sort of point. But denial took more energy now than it did when he was younger, and he found himself looking closely at his growing paunch in the mirror, checking his energy levels throughout the day, comparing his stride to Ken’s and Tat Meng’s and Dennis’, and, after exactly a week, coming to the decision that exercise would have to be dealt with.

  This morning, as the rain courses down in streams, drenching him all the way to his insoles, he wonders if he should have joined a gym instead.

  The trouble with gyms, though: the people who go to them.

  Years ago, Sukhin went to a gym. The people maddened him. Men in front of wall-to-wall mirrors, trying to isolate obscure back muscles. Women in perky ponytails, checking themselves out in the same mirror, gushing about how much their thighs hurt after class. And bright Lycra, everywhere he looked. Why would anyone dress in bright Lycra to engage in repetitive actions with other bright-Lycra-clad people, usually while being falsely cheered on by a gym-appointed bright-Lycra-clad chieftain, whose employment depends solely on people being unable to motivate themselves without being shouted at w
hile dressed in bright Lycra?

  This was all lost on Dennis, who had dragged him there, who only rolled his eyes, saying: “Sweetie, relax. You sound crazy. Worse—you sound angry. With Lycra.” And off he bounded to spin class, whatever that was. Sukhin went home.

  So no. No gyms. No bright Lycra.

  Sodden, Sukhin reaches his apartment building. He can hardly see— his glasses are misted up, the rain is in his eyes—and it takes him five tries to punch in the correct code at the gate. He feels like shouting but doesn’t. Instead, he takes comfort in stomping across the lobby and jabbing repeatedly at the Up button, even after the lift doors open.

  “Zero displacement,” he growls, once the doors close and the motor starts to whir. “Zero displacement.” There’s a metaphor in this somewhere, he feels—he just hasn’t pieced it together.

  “See? #04-03 talks to himself.” The night guard gestures at the CCTV monitor marked Lift A. The morning guard has just clocked in.

  “Mr Dhillon? Teacher lah.” The morning man is older and used to be on duty in the CBD, where he saw all sorts of crazy types and stored them as anecdotes for friends and family. “Lawyers, teachers, all the same. All talk a lot, all crazy. Have I told you about the one who took off all his clothes and threw them into traffic?”

  The digital wall clock in the security booth beeps twice. It is six o’clock.

  It takes Sukhin exactly thirty-seven minutes to shower, dress and cycle to the junior college where he works. He is exceedingly proud of this. Every two months, he uses the stopwatch app on his phone to make sure he’s keeping the proper time.

  Two minutes to chain his bicycle to the gardening shed and walk to the canteen. His morning teh si gao kosong is always ready—he keeps a tab with Mrs Chan, and she makes his tea just before he arrives at 6.45. Four minutes from the canteen to his office, one minute to start his computer, ten long, beautiful minutes for his cup of tea. Then he gathers his books and notes and heads down to the courtyard for morning assembly. He takes the back stairs to avoid meeting any of his colleagues. Sukhin likes to keep his mornings his own for as long as possible.

  Today, he finds Dennis waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Sukhin grimaces.

  “God, you’re hot when you’re angry.”

  He wishes he had a clever retort, but he’s never ready for Dennis. “Just tell me what you want.”

  “Cover for me—I’ve got 2SO2B for first period, but I need to run out and do something very quickly.” Seeing Sukhin frown, he repeats, “Very quickly.”

  “I might have a class for first period, Dennis.”

  “You don’t. Thursdays you have the first two periods free.”

  “Ah. How convenient.” Sukhin realises—as usual, too late—that Dennis hasn’t even factored in his option to refuse. While he fishes for something snide to say, Dennis dashes off, waving, mouthing: Love you.

  Also as usual, Sukhin feels equal parts affronted and impressed by Dennis’ thickskinnery—a word that, in Sukhin’s head, exists just for Dennis. Sukhin would never, ever run off and leave someone else in charge of his class. But of course he will cover for Dennis—it’s easier than getting him out of trouble afterwards.

  The walk to the Science block feels a little odd—he never has cause to be there, and the last time he moved through this part of the school was back when he was still a student here himself, lost on his way to a talk at LT6, the small, damp-smelling lecture room that was killed a few years ago and resurrected as the art studio. After ten minutes of increasingly frantic searching, he finally finds 2SO2B.

  Expecting—some of them even having prepared for—their Thursday morning Further Maths tutorial with Mr Yeong, the students are baffled at Sukhin’s entry. He rather enjoys this. He hands a stack of photocopied poems to the nearest student and tells her to pass it around.

  “Mr Yeong has gone to see a doctor,” he tells the kids, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “Today, we’re going to do what’s called practical criticism— something neither practical nor really critical, but rather fun to do if you like to show off.”

  He starts by reading out an old favourite by Philip Larkin, his face straight and serious, his voice dry and pedantic. It’s the poem he uses for the first lesson in poetry with every new class he takes on, but he still enjoys the rush of dropping that first line, that rueful “They fuck you up...” cutting through the classroom, cutting out all the chatter. And just like his did when he was seventeen, as Mr Brooke’s booming fuck you up sliced through the tepid afternoon air, their eyes light up with something like glee and they lean a little closer towards him. Ah, the power of the four-letter word in the Singaporean classroom. For the rest of the lesson, Sukhin coaxes as many awkward responses as he can from the class, marvelling at their sheer pep and how it makes up for the lack of instinct and sensitivity. He dishes out the usual prac crit prompts: “Why ‘fucked up’, guys? Why not just ‘ruined’? Or ‘miseducated’? Read the last stanza out loud—what does that sound like?”

  It ends up being his favourite lesson of the day—fresh blood is always sweeter, he tells the new teachers. They always laugh—but these days he’s a little suspicious of the laughter, now that Mr Narayan has retired and Sukhin has taken over as head of the English department.

  “Call me Ramesh,” the illustrious Mr Narayan said to Sukhin on his first day, nearly eight years ago.

  Sukhin tried. But he couldn’t do it; he couldn’t casually say something like “Ramesh and I are thinking of making Beckett part of the required reading this year” without feeling like an asshole or an iconoclast. So Sukhin went on calling Mr Narayan Mr Narayan, just as he had done when he had been fresh blood in the man’s classroom. He knew the other teachers always laughed at that.

  “Mr Dhillon is so handsome…those eyebrows!”

  “He’s okay lah—nice face, but everything’s a bit too…pointy. Do you think he and Mr Yeong are dating?”

  “Oh my god, really?”

  “I’m asking you. Jesus.”

  In the canteen, it is the usual lunchtime frenzy. Waving away impatient orders for coffee and sandwiches from a group of students—“Wait lah! Or you come back later!”—Mrs Chan is looking out anxiously for her favourite, her Mr Dhillon. It is 1.15—he should be here already. His lovingly prepared sandwiches are all wrapped up, and his extra-large cup of teh si gao kosong is ready. She checks the clock again—another two minutes and she’ll make him a new cuppa. No extra charge—there’s no way she’d let him suffer lukewarm tea.

  Ah, he’s here. She fusses over him as much as she dares, telling him that he must “drink more water, sleep more, cannot work so hard”, pressing him to accept a free banana.

  Hers is an irrational devotion—she knows that Mr Dhillon has never done anything to warrant any of it, but she can’t help wanting to make this grim, tired man a little less grim and tired.

  Today, she forces him to take a banana and a curry puff—poor thing looks more tired than usual, and is he getting thinner? Must be working late. Probably not sleeping well. She sighs as he walks off, laden with carbs and tea. Aiyoh, Mr Dhillon, must quickly get married.

  Marriage, if it had entered the mind of the irate Mr Dhillon, would have very quickly made its exit. It is the hottest time of the day and Sukhin is at his grumpiest, his sense of charity dulled and tongue sharpened. Making his way through the loud, tireless horde, he tries very hard not to frown. Or shout. It will be the noise, surely, that will one day make it impossible for him to continue. A class of kids—fine. But the cacophony of a whole sea of them, with their easy, unfettered chatter and their stupid boundless energy—it makes him want to kick things. The tea sloshes around inside its tight-lidded paper cup, a little storm in his hand to match the one in his head. He eats a sandwich but doesn’t really taste it.

  There is hardly anyone in the staff room—most of the other teachers are eating their lunch together in the adjoining pantry. When he first arrived, Sukhin had felt obliged to join them. And s
o he endured the small talk, the whingeing and the occasional unwanted confidences, and then one day, just as he’d unwrapped his sandwich, someone said, “Hey Sukhin, it’s been a year! Happy anniversary!” The horror—he’d spent a whole year essentially paying court to these people, most of whom he didn’t have anything in common with, all of who he suspected thought him unreasonably quiet and strange even when he was trying his best to be pleasant and good and sociable. The next day, he ate his lunch at his desk while reading Dune and felt content for the first time since he’d joined the school. He never ventured near the pantry at lunchtime again.

  And now, in the tiny, windowless office that used to be Mr Narayan’s and is now Sukhin’s, he eats his second sandwich.

  The door opens and Ken walks in. No knock, no hello, just: “Saw you with 2SO2B when they were supposed to be having F Maths. What was that about? Where was Dennis?” Ken is speaking in his interrogator voice—pitched low, slightly gruff—the same one he uses to grill the boys on misplaced balls and bats, the one he always uses when he wants to convey that what he’s talking about is a Big Deal.

  “Hey. I’m busy, actually.” Sukhin’s computer screen is off; he’s reading Stephen King’s Christine. He hopes he sounds rude.

  “Hmm.” Ken doesn’t budge from the doorway. “So you took his class, right? Don’t think that’s allowed.”

  Sukhin goes back to reading. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Yup. Okay.”

  “You owe me. You and Dennis.”

  Sukhin refuses to look up from his book. He starts counting backwards from twenty in his head. At the count of twelve, he hears the door shut.

  Ken is head of PE—in Sukhin’s mind, head of nothing. He joined the staff just two years ago, and from the very start they detested each other. Sukhin can’t remember how it began, possibly something to do with a misquotation— but it ended with Ken saying he would never allow his children (he has two) to take “a nonsense subject like English Lit” and Sukhin saying he couldn’t imagine anyone taking serious academic advice from a PE teacher. And from then on, regular volleys of barbs and darts flung both ways.