“That will have to be another time,” said Angela laughing. “See how busy I am! Mark’s teacher is entering him for the National Speech contest. That will mean more work for me, you know – helping the boy, being his audience as he practises. You don’t know the troubles we modern mothers have!” she laughed happily. She was never happier.
And then – she couldn’t believe in her good fortune – she saw Boon come in with Minister himself. There was a ripple of excitement as heads turned to look at Minister, appropriately dressed in batik shirt and casual pants. Boon introduced some friends to him; they talked affably, bursting into loud laughter now and then. She went up to greet him smiling amiably and self-consciously, aware of the looks in her direction and then she called the birthday celebrant and introduced him to Minister himself.
“I see you’re a great speaker,” said Minister with great amiability. “I saw you on television in a debate and now I hear you are going to be entered for the National Speech contest. Well, good luck, son.”
Mark flushed with pride and said, “Thank you, sir, thank you very much,” with the urbanity seldom found in a fifteen-year-old schoolboy.
My son, my son, glowed Angela. She looked at her husband and saw him looking very proudly at Mark. She was proud of Boon too; she would be even prouder when he was Member of Parliament.
Minister stayed a short while but had the kindness to accept a piece of birthday cake first.
“Oh, Joyce, I’m glad you’re able to come!” said Angela, going up to the youthful reporter from The Straits Times, who had recently been introduced to her. Joyce was doing an article for the section ‘Trends’ which explored new lifestyles in Singapore, and was interested in the current trend of having children’s birthday parties in hotels, instead of at home. The photographer with Joyce was busy taking pictures.
Mooi Lan moved up adroitly, discreetly, to whisper that Michael was feeling unwell; he was threatening to throw up and was likely to get into a tantrum.
“Oh bother – ” cried Angela with some anger against the second son whose difficult nature threatened to spoil an otherwise perfect day for the elder. She was perplexed for a moment, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention by going up to him.
Mooi Lan whispered, “Shall I take him home? I can easily get a cab outside the hotel – ” but Angela said hastily, “No, wait. Not a cab. I’ll get Doctor to drive you back. (She and Mooi Lan always referred to Boon as ‘Doctor’ when they spoke to each other about him.) I wonder whether Aminah has cleaned Michael’s room yet? It’s the day for airing the mattresses. Oh bother!”
The girl threaded her way back deftly through the crowd. Angela whispered something in her husband’s ear, and he got ready to leave immediately, signalling to Mooi Lan to follow him. The girl had one arm solicitously around Michael’s shoulders. Michael looked pale and weak. Mooi Lan’s face was flushed.
“Come back quickly, as soon as he’s settled,” Angela whispered to her husband as he left the room.
He returned an hour later and continued to move around among the guests in high spirits. When Angela asked him in an urgent whisper, “How’s Michael? Is he all right?” he answered, “Oh, he’s all right. Mooi Lan put him to sleep in our room. The mattress in his room was being aired.”
“You were gone an hour. I was so worried.”
“Oh, he’s all right, he’s all right. You worry too much about him.”
Angela thought, with relief, I’m glad Minister went home before this. Otherwise Boon couldn’t have left and I would have had to drive Mikey home myself or get Mee Kin to do it.
She looked at Mark who was animatedly talking to his principal. She did not want to think of Michael any more.
Chapter 8
“Okay, Mikey. Let’s go through the questions again. Let’s see how many you can answer now. Okay?”
The cheerfulness was feigned. Angela was tired and dispirited. “Ready. Question number one. What are the characteristics of living things?” The boy sat beside her at the table, looking down at the floor.
“Come now, Mikey. Answer the question. I’m sure you can answer it, darling. We’ve gone through it three times already. What are the characteristics of living things?”
She waited, patiently. Michael still said nothing. His eyes remained lowered. “Mummy will help you with the first point. Okay? Then it will be very easy for you to go through the other points. Remember, there are five points altogether. All right. Living things breathe – ”
The boy remained resistant, unresponsive. Angela screamed inwardly. The important PSLE examinations were fast approaching. Mark had been among the top 8% in Singapore, one of the special, super kids, the high-flyers. Was this second son going to do so badly, he would be streamed with kids who would be given an extra grace period of two years to prepare for the G.C.E. O’ level?
Oh, I shall die of shame, Angela agonised. I shall die of shame if a son of mine ends up with slow-learners, kids from the kampungs.
“Mikey,” said Angela, her efforts to remain calm in the face of mounting exasperation giving a shrillness to her voice, “Mikey, remember you’re going to sit for the PSLE soon. You want to do very well in the exams for your Daddy and Mummy, don’t you? We shall be so proud of you. Mark did so well in his PSLE. You’re proud of your big brother, aren’t you? And he’ll be so proud of you if you do the same. And you can, Mikey darling. You’re a very bright and good boy.”
The boy was not stupid – that was the exasperating part. He wrote well and could get high marks if he wanted to. But he chose to remain stubborn. The deep distress Angela suffered when his class teacher called to inform her that Michael would have to be moved to the B class, was unspeakable. The teacher made the supreme mistake of saying that Michael was slow. Angela had flushed and retorted, “He’s not slow. He can write well – as you yourself once told me.” Unimaginative, dull, stupid teachers often contributed to a child’s problem. Look at Mark. His teacher was so encouraging, so inspiring. All Michael’s teachers could do was load the boy with dull homework and tests. Angela had been tempted to put the boy in another school. But would it be of any use? There was no guarantee that the teachers in the other school would not prove equally inept.
“Hey, what about a birthday party like Mark’s, in the Hotel Grande – or in any hotel you like?” cried Angela with exaggerated enthusiasm. “If you do well in the PSLE, you’ll have a party like that – or even better. Or a holiday in Disneyland? Remember Adrian and Sulin went there with their Mummy and Daddy last year? Hey, what do you say to Disneyland?” The wide smile and the frown on the forehead borne of enormous strain were ill-matched; the muscles on the boy’s face tensed, and he sat rigidly on his chair, still gazing on the floor.
And now Angela could bear it no longer. “Now, listen to me, boy,” she cried with sudden energy. “You can’t go on playing the fool like this. You’ve got the important PSLE exams coming soon, and you’ve got to study, do you hear? There are so many things to revise, and you act like a naughty, unco-operative boy. Your Maths tutor said you hadn’t been paying attention, and your Chinese tutor told me your grades have gone down. Now what do you say to this, Michael? Michael, LOOK AT ME!”
Her voice rising with each utterance, she jerked the boy’s chin up to face her, eyes flashing. His eyes were now level with hers. He looked straight into her eyes, unblinking, the large tears formed and coursed down his cheeks, but he made no effort to wipe them. His hands gripped the sides of his chair, knuckles jutting, white.
“Michael, you’re making your mummy very sad by all this!” cried Angela, her voice quavering in angry pleading. “You could make her so happy just by obeying her a little more and doing what your tutors tell you. I’m sure you can do that, Mikey?”
Another confrontation – another struggle of wills, which would leave her exhausted and make the boy retreat a few steps back, so that when she started again – oh, weary process! – it would be almost from starting point. Why was he so difficult?
He was not stupid, that was certain. He was just being difficult. Angela had sworn never to say it, after reading the article in Reader’s Digest on ‘How to Deal with a Difficult Child’ and the feature in The Sunday Times on ‘Sibling Jealousy: What Parents Must Know’, but now she cast resolution aside, so angry was she with this child who made no effort to respond to all his mother’s efforts.
“You disappoint me, Michael. In fact, you shame me, do you know that? Mark is such an obedient and studious boy and always comes out first in class. He never plays the fool. He always listens to Mummy. He’ll go to the University and be an engineer. Michelle is not as clever as Mark, but she’s obedient, and she’s a good swimmer. She obeys her coach and practises hard in her swimming. She will be a national champion one day, her coach says. And you, Michael? You don’t try at all. You don’t try one teeny-weeny bit. What are you going to be, for God’s sake? You prefer to be stubborn and disobedient and sullen. Your teachers call Mummy to school and they say, ‘Mark is such a good student. How come Michael is like that?’ How do you think Mummy feels to hear something like that? That’s why I say you shame me, Michael. You shame your Mummy.”
The big, long-lashed eyes were still fixed on her, disconcertingly unblinking, the tears overflowing.
“Oh, God, I give up,” cried Angela, turning away. “Go to sleep. Maybe you’ll be better tomorrow.”
The boy remained fixed to his chair. Mooi Lan now came in, noiselessly, and gently eased him out of his chair. She took him to his bathroom, laid out his pyjamas for him. She made him a glass of hot Ovaltine and led him to his bed.
Angela went into her own bathroom for a fit of crying. If only Boon had time to help her in her work, she thought. But her anger was not directed against him. He was busy enough with his community work and the work he was doing for Minister.
Boon’s political ambitions must never suffer because of his son, thought Angela with determination. I shall have to manage. I shall have to put things right.
She was glad to drive over to Dorothy’s apartment the next day, for one of the endless antique auctions, to get her mind off the problem of Michael. Mee Kin was there, and she drew Angela’s attention to a large carved four-poster bed. “Look,” she said, “how beautiful it is. Yet when I first saw it, after Dot had brought it in from an old junk shop, it was an ugly thing, with some parts actually rotting. But look at it now. Dot knows the right place to send these things to be restored. Listen, Angela, the bed in your mother-in-law’s house is going to look better than this one. If you don’t rescue it soon, I shall! It’s a sin to let a treasure like that lie unwanted!”
Dorothy’s antique bed was taken up at $5,000. “Five thousand dollars!” gasped Angela. “To think that old wormy creepy thing in the cockroach-infested room is worth this much.”
“Possibly more,” said Mee Kin. “Why are you such a fool, Angela? Why do you let that thing go to waste? And there may be other items worth saving. I told you that long ago.”
“Chinaman and his wife are sure to talk,” said Angela. ‘They’re sure to say I’m taking advantage of a poor old woman, making money out of her. They forget that they make use of her name shamelessly to buy shares and properties and whatnot. This is the trouble with in-laws like these. Do you know, I give all the time! I’ve never taken a cent or anything off the old people. She gave Mark an ang-pow of $20 for his birthday and I bought her foodstuffs, a piece of black silk for her trousers and odds and ends, which came to much more than $20.”
The antique bed was forgotten in a shopping trip with Mee Kin. Angela specially looked for, and found a book on dinosaurs, Michael’s favourite, full of colourful pictures. She had it gift-wrapped.
The boy was in his room when she returned, the door as usual locked. She knocked softly. After a while, he opened the door, and stood at the doorway, sullenly, awkwardly, his eyes on the floor.
“Mikey, darling, Mummy’s bought a little present for you; see, open it and have a look,” she said brightly.
The boy took the book with limp hands. “Open it, darling, open it and see,” she coaxed, feeling the old exasperation rising dangerously. He put it on his bed and unwrapped it, dispiritedly. He stopped unwrapping when the cover was revealed and remained still, staring at the floor.
“Has chae-chae given you lunch?” she asked, struggling. She left him, still sitting on his bed, his hands limp by his side.
One of Michael’s teachers had once said to her, “Don’t worry about Michael. He’s not stupid. He may not do his homework or pay attention in class, but if he wants to, he can pass the tests. I’ve observed that many times. He will pass his PSLE.”
“Do you know if he’ll pass well?”
“It’s possible. He once surprised me by getting almost full marks for his Science test.”
Angela clung to the hope.
Chapter 9
They wandered to the pond, only the two of them, in the bright sunshine, through the tall grass.
Funny, thought Michael. The pond is full of clear water. And there are goldfish in the pond. I thought it was muddy and dangerous with devils hiding at the edges to push people in.
“Come on, Michael,” said Uncle Bock. “Let’s get into the pond, let’s catch the goldfish.”
“How are we to bring them home?” said Michael. “We have no container, no plastic bag or tin.”
“Tin,” said Uncle Bock, pulling an empty cigarette tin out of his pocket. “Plastic bag,” pulling a big blue plastic bag from the other pocket. “Net,” picking up a net with a handle. “Here, Michael, catch the goldfish with the net.”
They waded into the pond. The water was cool. It rose to their waists, and gave them a sense of exhilaration with its coolness and sparkle. The goldfish scattered in all directions in the bright sunshine-warmed water, and Michael laughed. He lifted his net high in the air; it was gold with fish.
“Oh, Uncle Bock! Look! Look at my fish!” he cried with joy. There were nets and nets, tins and tins, full of fish. Michael and Uncle Bock laughed in pure happiness.
And then they were on a tree, a big tree with huge, strong branches that spread far and made beautiful seats in the singing wind and leaves.
Uncle Bock said, “See, see that bird? It’s the bird that cries, Tee-tee, tah-loh? Tee-tee, tah-loh.”
Michael said, “You can’t see the bird, Uncle Bock. Grandma says you can only hear the bird, not see it. Only very special people can see it. And that means good luck coming to them.”
“Has anyone seen the bird?” said Grandma who was under the tree, looking up. “Listen, I can hear it now. Listen.”
The three of them listened. The plaintive sounds floated in the air, as from afar. Tee-tee tah-loh? Tee-tee tah-loh?
“‘I can see the bird! I can see the bird!” cried Uncle Bock excitedly clapping his hands. “See, see! It’s a big beautiful green bird!”
“I thought it was a little black bird, but yes, it’s green, it’s a beautiful green bird,” said Grandma as a big beautiful bird with bright green feathers flew over their heads.
“We’re going to be lucky, Grandma and Uncle Bock!” cried Michael. “We’re special people! We have seen the bird that calls Tee-tee tah-loh! Tee-tee tah-loh!”
They laughed for pure joy. “See, Grandma and Uncle Bock!” cried Michael. “I can fly. I can fly, like a bird!”
And he flew in the air, swift and light as a bird. He thought Uncle Bock and Grandma had begun to fly too, like him, but when he looked more closely, he saw them still under the tree, waiting for him. He ran to them, and they each held his hand and lifted him off the ground. He moved along with his feet tucked up under him, laughing: Who would think Grandma could be so strong as to do this with him? His daddy and Uncle Wee Nam had done that once with him when he was a very small boy; he remembered.
They reached a small wooden house at the bottom of the garden.
“My house,” said Michael proudly. “Nobody’s allowed to enter. Nobody’s allowed to knock
but you may come in, Grandma and Uncle Bock. Come into my house!”
“I ... want ... to ... go ... in ... see Michael.” Uncle Bock’s voice was full of pleading. The words were uttered with effort, painfully. “Oh come in, Uncle Bock,” said Michael. “Come in!”
“No, please. Go away, Michael’s not well. Come again another time. Okay, Ah Bock?”
“Want ... to ... go ... in ... see Michael! MICHAEL!” The comforting warmth that had enveloped him was being tugged away; a sense of panic was mounting. His heart was beating faster. Something had gone wrong.
“Please go away, Ah Bock. I tell you Michael’s not well. Go away now.”
“Who’s there?” It was his mother’s voice, shrill and sharp.
“The idiot one. He wants to see Michael. I don’t know how he found his way here; I’ve told him to go away – ”
“Ah Bock, Michael’s not at home. He’s gone out with Boon. Do you hear? He’s not in. Now go away, please – ” There was a wail, and then a clamour of voices.
With a tremendous tug of will, Michael opened his eyes and blinked uncertainly in the afternoon light streaming into his bedroom. “GO!” The voice had risen to an exasperated shriek. Then there was the banging of the door. “Thank God,” he heard his mother gasp. “The idiot, the imbecile. Luckily you saw him, Mooi Lan. Otherwise the idiot would have run upstairs and disturbed the boy’s sleep. Oh, God, why do things like that happen to me? Mooi Lan, I want you to keep a very close eye on the door from now onwards. And I’m going directly to that wretched Ah Kum Soh to give her a good ticking off. The fool! The fool!”
Michael lay motionless on his bed.
Chapter 10
You poor thing, you miserable woman, but you are all like that, thought Angela and shook her head in commiseration. She looked at the swollen belly, round and firm as a melon, rising incongruously from flatnesses and hollows lifting the sarong in front with its roundness. “How many months now, Aminah?” she asked, wondering how on earth she had not noticed before. She must not forget to ask Mooi Lan, “How come you didn’t notice either?”
The Catherine Lim Collection Page 6
