‘Sure, sure,’ Frank responds magnanimously.
‘Do you know that they don’t have shakes at the McDonald’s here?’
‘No.’
Enough for me. ‘Yeah,’ I say, getting excited about the chance to spin a yarn. ‘And when we ordered the Happy Meal, it was like a Monty Python sketch. I said to the lady at the register … and they aren’t pimply high-school losers in the place, either, they’re prim old ladies who have found a way to be useful in society … they respect this job. I think they were all recruited at some church function where Ronald McDonald snuck in and waved a fry around. Now, they believe. They got McJesus in their hearts and grease in their souls. Anyway, I get to the register … and let me tell you, the way people around here line up … if your nose isn’t touching the back of a head, you just aren’t in line. Someone will come between that half inch and claim a space.’
Frank interjects, ‘That’s a very ingrained Chinese incentive: if you aren’t first, you’re last.’ He says the motto in Chinese, kiasu.
‘Whatever. And, when I get up there, they ask, “Meals for you?” Like, “Cripes, I don’t know. I just found myself waiting in line with two small, starving kids because I wanted to get close to you. Kiss me, you fool. No? Okay, then I’ll order something. I want a hamburger Happy Meal, a fish burger, fries and a toy. But instead of Coke, I want milk.”
‘Madame barks at me as if I need to learn my catechism. “Cheeseburger Happy Meals. No toy with fish. Large fries for one dollar more.” Softening, she asks, “Super Guzzler today?” I say, “I don’t want a cheeseburger, just a plain hamburger, and I’ll buy the toy. Regular fries and I’ll pay extra for the milk.” She repeats: “Cheeseburger Happy Meal, no fish Happy Meal. McFlurry for you?” I repeat louder, “Why don’t you just grab a hamburger instead of the cheeseburger and let me know what I owe you for an extra toy. Give me a side order of milk.” The manager appears and they go into a conference. Meanwhile, the kids have pushed down on the straw dispenser enough times to splice together a hollow plastic bridge from here to Timbuktu. After a bit, she calls into the mike, “Cheeseburger without the cheese.” She puts the fish, fries, drinks and toy on a tray – it was the exact same Ronald-McDonald-in-his-spaceship toy I had when I was a kid hooked on Happy Meals. “Where’s the burger?” I asked. “Gone already.” Frank, they didn’t have hamburgers in stock after all that!’ Hoo whee, I’m cracking myself up.
‘Frank,’ I look up. ‘Frrraaannk,’ I shout. He’s slinking out of the room. ‘I got more … Haw Par Villa, we went there, too.’
But he’s somewhere else, morse-coding messages to the home office.
I spend another morning swimming, being the invisible lady at the baby pool, and the afternoon pushing the double stroller through another sightseeing mission. I wish the book had a page or ten that said ‘Stay home’.
For today’s sojourn, I pick the Crocodilarium, which has over 1,000 crocodiles and alligators from all over the world. Kids and crocs go together like peanut butter and jelly, no? Also, it’s down East Coast Park, which is right across from Fortune Gardens. I can take Sadie and Huxley out in the stroller and make a day of it. We can play on the beach and get lunch at any number of places and ice-creams on the way back. If anyone has to go to the bathroom, there are several clean facilities available at regular clips.
The story of East Coast Park is that of much of Singapore’s park and recreational growth: massive land reclamation. They are so good at it, so addicted to it, that Singapore has probably tripled its birth weight in the past 40 years. Reclamation is responsible for turning the East Coast into an 8.5-kilometre palm-fringed park along a sandy beach. Designated trails cater to cyclists who generally rent bikes at kiosks in the park. There are very few places to practise riding in Singapore and, as such, many locals are not especially good riders. Add to that the endearing tendency of many – blame it on the heat – to invite collision in any activity that offers promise. Just try getting out of a lift here if others are waiting to get in. I don’t believe it’s an act of aggression when you’re walked into and pushed back into the lift. No, in fact, once over the sheer surprise that people were already in there – how’d it happen? Magic? – apologies come forth with embarrassing sincerity.
The cyclists, young and old, ride in curvy lines and stop in the middle of the path whenever the heck the urge hits them to do so, oblivious to the possibility that someone might be surging full speed behind them. Imagine you are driving down the highway and suddenly brake to a stop just because you feel like it. Bang. Boom. Crash.
My dad actually taught me and my brother and sister this lesson one day, though it wasn’t the lesson he was intending. It happened on a summer vacation, the day he came through with the promise, ‘I’m going to stop this damn car if …’ The ifs varied from ‘if you don’t stop fighting’ to ‘if you don’t stop singing’ and a few times we were threatened with being stuck in an unmoving, cramped, smelling-like-orange-peel car instead of a moving, cramped, smelling-like-orange-peel car, because we were making fun of Dad.
This time, we were on a treacherous mountain path in Wyoming where you couldn’t see what was ahead. We weren’t fighting or being particularly bratty, but my sister – sweet-sweet Bonnie as we called her because she never did anything mean to anyone – had the gall to busy herself with hook-rugging instead of looking out the window at the view. We’d have been safe if she’d just proffered a line or two in response to Dad’s poetic enthusiasm at the big tree. Unaware, happily involved, she continued working on the ladybug’s shaggy wing. Dad screeched to a stop in the middle of the road, on a steep hill where my thumping heart told me a camper van was going to barrel into us. We couldn’t believe Dad was risking our lives because Bonnie wanted to do a craft. He yanked her door open, ripped the hook rug out of sweet-sweet Bonnie’s hands and hurled it over the side of the mountain. He started the car half a second before a pig truck flew into the rearview mirror. We weren’t hit but the close call had us glued to the windows and thanking Dad repeatedly for showing us these awesome things. Bonnie especially found a million ways to say ‘Wow’.
Aside from the bicycle paths, the park has large, open grassy spaces ideal for kite-flying, picnicking, frisbee, soccer; clumps of wild, dense bird sanctuaries with lily ponds fringed with pink frangipani, periwinkle and yellow allamanda; and an array of forests, some with evergreen and Binjai trees, others with palm varieties.
All is well for the first half hour, not that it isn’t arduous. Manoeuvring a double stroller with two plump passengers – plus the must-have bag – along sidewalks hugging the equator takes its toll. When Sadie asks me for the fourth time to pick up an egg – which is really a young, green mango, rampant on the ground at this time of year – I get irritable and angry. I tell her they are all full of bugs. That shuts her up. She gets worried for Daddy. Bugs. Safe room. Sebastian’s out to git ’em. I tell her I didn’t mean that sort.
She unworries quickly when we turn into the California Dog for lunch. After that I ask the kids if they want to play on the beach. Of course they do. I buy sand toys at a stall and put them in their swimsuits. From the path, the beach looks groomed and inviting. Up close, I realise an AA meeting must have just broken up, cigarette butts and coffee cups everywhere. The next curve of beach is a little better, fewer cigarettes, more chip bags. I clear a nice little square for us and we make sand castles. We hunt for shells, have races along the beach and swim in the water. It’s oily, tarry, carrying all manner of man’s and ship’s waste, but I don’t let on, try not to think about it. The kids are having fun. Freighters, tankers and other vessels anchor so close to the shore, you can see the barnacles. It’s the shipping industry that has made Singapore a wealthy nation. It is also what deprives it of a glorious beach. We’ll take a 20-cent shower at one of the bathroom stations. For now, it’s good. We’re a mom and her kids being silly and carefree. I smile to myself. I can do this.
The Crocodilarium is farther away than I tho
ught. The kids are getting uncomfortable in the heat and I am becoming drained. My arms are sore and complaining, spasming at times from the effort. I haven’t brought enough water and everyone is parched. Sadie wants to go home and watch a video. I stop the stroller mid-path and berate her for not appreciating the scenery. I throw her egg collection overboard.
At last we get to the Crocodilarium. I read the sign: ‘Due to new management, we have discontinued crocodile wrestling as the new management feels it is an abuse of animals.’ The next paragraph says: ‘Shop open from 10 to 4, crocodile shoes, wallets, purses all big discount. We take all credit cards.’ Fighting? Not nice. Skinning? Okay.
There are three tour buses in the parking lot, their passengers milling around the shop. They fit the stereotype of the Japanese – short, skinny, good clothes, faces behind cameras. Do Japanese get two lives? One to photograph and one to watch? There is also a janitor-type in a sarong that seems to be made from a patchwork of teatowels. Tucked into this is a fresh, bright red Lacoste shirt. He pushes along a cart made of spare parts – bamboo for the handles, old signs for the bottoms and sides, bike tires – and he speaks on his cell phone. I wish the kids could appreciate the irony.
I pay $15 admission and buy two Yakult yogurt drinks for another five dollars. We stay ten minutes.
The crocs are in cesspools according to their type – the North American, the Asian, etc. To our eyes, they are separated by size and heaped together with nothing to do or look at. They seem in a stupor, flopped over one another with wide-open mouths, like the orgy is just winding down.
Even the kids feel repulsed. The promise of ice-cream and a video back home help cleanse the mind’s palate.
I don’t have the heart to tell them that tomorrow, we’re going to the Bird Park.
I come home beat. My work is piling up and I have to attend to it instead of tuning in to the Frank show. But like clockwork, as soon as I hunker down and get myself all set up, he comes out onto the balcony with nothing of his own to do, watching as I attack my emails. He hovers around all hangdog, like I picked someone else for the prom, just because I continue to tap, tap, tap away. He takes my working at night as an affront and a rejection. Indeed, he is becoming dangerously hooked on attention. Resigned, I shut down the computer.
‘Okay, talk. But I’m timing you. You only have three months. Then we go home and this has to stop.’
‘What if we have more than three months?’ he asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Why did you say that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, it’s a strange thing to say.’
‘Stop grilling me. Get off my back.’
Okay, you are a witness or perhaps even a friend – exactly where in this exchange did I cross the line and start badgering? Was I not minding my own business when he came out and tossed over an odd little morsel worth sniffing?
Ordinarily I’d let myself feel the rage, I’d admire its colour, swirl it around, take a sniff, take a sip, let it linger on my tongue, swallow it slowly, and only then breathe fire. But now I am a muted dependant and I need a bunch of money to keep up with the tour book. So, instead of exploding, I get up and make him his favourite dinner: pretzels in a bowl. I should have known – been through it before, haven’t I? In his peculiar little mind – not all the time, but some of the time – feeding Frank means I’m trying to ‘control’ him. I might as well bring him stuffed garbage cans, unpaid bills, wrinkled shirts, broken toys and a soiled wok. It all screams: Fran wants me to do something. It all triggers the same reaction: I don’t hafta if I don’t wanna. She’s not the boss of me! He is convinced – some of the time – that anything I suggest smacks of puppeteering. Some of the time, when I suggest we play tennis, he’s sure what I’m really saying is that I think he’s fat and lazy.
‘What about a movie?’
‘Oh, right, drag Fatty off to the movies?’
‘No, no, tell me what you want to do.’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything.’
‘Well, I’m not doing a good job guessing.’
‘Why do we have to do anything? You always have to do something.’
‘I can’t do nothing. It’s impossible. Especially if I’m in the same room with someone who is also doing nothing!’ Now I’m screaming.
‘You’re never, ever happy, Fran.’
Though these conversations are regular, they’re random. They only happen some of the time. Months and months go by and I forget, because this man just finished dancing with all my girlfriends when no one else would. He stayed up all night fixing the printer. He organised my closet when it appeared that I had no intention of picking things up off the floor. When Frank is good he is very, very good. And when he is bad, it is a surprise all over again.
I have learned how to stop the fight before it starts and give us something to do: a blowjob. He never bothers interpreting fellatio. He never isn’t a changed man afterwards.
I finish wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and slink toward his chest. I take a moment to look at him, kiss him, lay my head on his shoulder. His eyes are closed and he wears a light smile.
‘Enjoy that?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Me too.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Frank?’
‘Hmmm?’
‘What did you mean when you said something about being here longer?’
Silence. Dread. I didn’t wait long enough. I picked the wrong time. His eyes fly open. He turns his head to me. But instead of being irritated, he takes me in his arms and, full of sex, murmurs into my ear. ‘Let’s go out tonight. We’ll play some tennis, get some dinner.’ He kisses me on the top of my head, gives me a final squeeze and gets up to read the kids a story.
Pearl happens to be available and is, funnily enough standing at our elevator bank. She is expensive but the kids look forward to her visits, so I tell myself she is guilt-free. She brings dry, awful cookies and gummy candy shaped like American food – hot dogs, pizza, burgers. She also cooks them heaped helpings of ‘Frat Rat’ which, if we use proper diction, is fried rice. She understands that she can’t bring in other wards but her husband, Bert, is okay. When she comes through the door, Sadie waddles over to her, takes the bag of sweets and tells Pearl she’s her favourite person.
Tennis under lights is strange at first, a little too soft and unreal. But we get into it soon enough. We can hear the laughter and screams of children in the playgrounds nearby, see couples strolling along the path and joggers bounding by. After about 20 minutes, we’re playing extremely well together, smashing the balls, making terrific shots, offering up ‘Too good’ when an impossible point is won. We are living, breathing fountains of salt water. Eight at night and the weather is relentless. I’m sloshing through puddles that come from me. We towel off every ten minutes, but still the racket slips in my hands. Places I had no idea held sweat glands – ankles, thumbs – are raining. After an hour, we rinse off, change and charge into the pool.
At night, the grounds are lit up by lanterns; submerged globes make the pool luminescent, the colour of blue ice. The moon appears with uninhibited visibility, a crisp, full circle, large and close, tucked into a thick, black, endless sky embroidered with stars. The stillness and calm, the homeostasis that slowly blankets us as families return home and kids quieten down, reminds me of something I keep shooing away: happiness, peace, excitement poised on the horizon ready to be experienced later when I can actually feel, for the first time in years, rested and rejuvenated. We cool down and swim, smooch and caress, splash and frolic and decide it’s high time for a beer.
We trudge off to our locker rooms, shower and change. I’m beat. I just can’t get up. The locker-room lady comes in and starts the whole deep-throat hocking cleansing ritual that so many people here seem to think is just so damned appropriate to do any time, anywhere. She motivates me to get out.
Frank has been waiting for me
for quite some time. He’s whistling the sixth song in the Beatles White Album. He whistles an album in the correct order.
‘Sorry. Where to?’ I ask.
‘Let me show you Boat Quay.’
We get a table right on the riverbank. Postcard romantic. People stroll, look at menus offered from the village of restaurants and pubs. The weather has cooled off enough to make sitting outside peaceful and comfortable. It’s a put-your-feet-up, the-day-is-over, take-stock night. A bumboat passes by, an ancient fisherman steering her quietly through the water, pensively. Heading where? How much has he seen of the world? What can you make doing that sort of thing? Ah, who cares. Where the fuck is the waitress, is what I want to know. I start flapping my arms. She comes over and we order a jug of Tiger and a vodka grapefruit.
‘Grapefruit, is it?’ asks the waitress.
‘Yeah, grapefruit juice.’
‘Uh, yeah, let me check for you.’
A while later, she returns.
‘We don’t have that juice.’
‘Okay, I’ll have cranberry.’
‘Cranberry, is it?’
‘Yeah, cranberry juice.’
‘Okay, let me see.’
A while later she returns.
‘We don’t have cranberry.’
‘I guess you didn’t look at what else you have in the way of mixers on either of those trips –’ I begin.
‘I go check for you.’
‘– Because then we might actually get down to having a drink!’ I finish, shouting after her. People are staring. I can’t help it, I’m getting hypoglycaemic because this idiot is standing between me and my cocktail.
‘Let’s go,’ I say to Frank.
‘We can’t,’ he says. ‘My jug’s here.’ He sits back with extreme satisfaction. His jug, his Singapore, his new role as a world-famous spy chaser and copyright superhero, and his girl (in that order?).
The manager comes out and asks me if he can help. I glare at him, menacingly, challengingly, and tell him that if he can get me a large vodka tonic in ten seconds flat, then, yes, he can help me.
Tales From A Broad Page 5
