Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao!

by Sebastian Sim

  At dinner, Grandma Toh would rummage through her shallow chest of history and dish out grievances against Western atrocities. It took her many weeks, but she eventually concocted a personal version of Chinese sufferings under the westerners that freely disregarded chronological order and accuracy. Prior to China’s Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the century, the Western powers introduced both opium to weaken the will and Christian missionary teachings to confuse the mind. When the Chinese decided to rise up in rebellion, eight imperialistic Western nations ganged up and sent in their troops. That led to the Rape of Nanjing, where up to a million Chinese were beheaded, mutilated and sexually violated. Eventually, when the great Sun Yat Sen forced the bullies to the negotiating table to invalidate the unequal treaties imposed upon China, he was ruthlessly assassinated.

  In the beginning, Elizabeth made a heroic effort to address Grandma Toh’s historical inaccuracies and logical lapses. Opium and Christian teachings were not conspiring addictions, the Rape of Nanjing was committed by the Japanese in a totally different war decades apart and the great Sun Yat Sen was never assassinated. But when it became apparent that Grandma Toh was not malleable, Elizabeth learned to tune out and shut up.

  At church, Elizabeth chose to confide in Pastor Clarence. She had expected the comfort of solace and encouragement. But Pastor Clarence surprised her.

  “This is God’s challenge for you. Bring your mother to church. Do not leave her to drown.”

  Elizabeth froze. She could not imagine her mother receiving grace in the house of the Lord. In her mind, Grandma Toh belonged to the crass landscape of chilli pounding, neighbourly gossips and radio soap opera addiction. Elizabeth herself sought an escape from that landscape of unpolished manners and petty concerns. Why would she want to bring it along with her to church?

  Elizabeth began to avoid Pastor Clarence. Whenever that was not possible, she pre-empted by asking Pastor Clarence for advice. How should she deal with the many challenges at work? She hinted at male superiors who cornered her with unwanted attention, female colleagues who ridiculed her for her repetitive wardrobe and the unreasonable workload piled on her by her bullying boss. It came to a point when Pastor Clarence was truly worried for the young lady. He spread the word among the congregation that Elizabeth needed help. Soon, help started to pour in.

  Elizabeth found herself swathed in goodwill. A strong referral landed her a job selling Yamaha pianos near C. K. Tang Department Store along the new Orchard Road shopping belt. A timely connection linked her up with a British family who was looking for a piano teacher for their child. Church ladies passed her clothes they couldn’t fit into anymore after childbirth. In fact, the flurry of camaraderie attesting to God’s grace satisfied Pastor Clarence so much that the lone, unsaved soul of Grandma Toh buried under a mound of joss stick ash was all but forgotten.

  For the first two years that Elizabeth worked at Yamaha, she was happy. Colleagues she worked with were civil, and the customers she served cultured. Her English became polished as she adopted the intonation of the many foreigners frequenting the showroom. She enjoyed sitting down to play a tune and drawing customers to her like hummingbirds to nectar. She knew in her heart that some customers purchased the pianos because they dreamt of playing as gracefully as she did. That realisation made her proud.

  During her breaks, she pretended to be a shopper and strolled along Orchard Road all the way till she reached Orchard Market. She tried on scarves and winter jackets as though she was planning for a holiday where there would be snow. She picked and examined cuff links and ties as though she was going to surprise a boyfriend. Once a fortnight she would splurge a little and pay to tease her palate with something new and alien at the Cold Storage Milk Bar. Peach slices encased in gelatine moulds. Pineapple upside down cakes. Mincemeat tarts and lemon meringue pies. There was so much delight to be had.

  By the end of the second year, the realisation finally seeped in that there was no winter vacation to look forward to and no boyfriend to pick cuff links for. The clothes she received from the church ladies went quickly out of style. The novelty of sitting alone at the Cold Storage Milk Bar savouring a new item was replaced by the painful awareness that she was pampering herself only because no one else in her life was doing so. On her scheduled rest days on Tuesdays, she hated awakening to the pounding of pestle against mortar and the nauseating aroma of sambal chilli. And Sunday church had become a chore now that she had to rush off to the busiest shift of the week right after service. God’s grace had all but disappeared from her life.

  Elizabeth became secretly desperate. She was all of 25 and had never gone on a date before. There were simply no eligible candidates. She would not consider anyone with a lower education, or anyone who did not speak good English. That practically ruled out all the young men within a mile. There were men at work who might be eligible, but they did not seem to pay her any attention. There were men in church who looked promising, but she did not know how to approach them. Her despondency sharpened when a young couple moved in next door. They were both two years her junior, and it irked her whenever she spotted them strolling leisurely through the night market, hand in hand. Her desperation peaked when the young couple gave birth to a baby boy. She suddenly realised that she might never have anyone to call her own; not a husband, not a child.

  Elizabeth became bitter. If she had to end up alone, she would need money to take care of herself. She calculated and decided it was too slow to save up based on her meagre pay. She asked the British family whose child she was tutoring to recommend her. Once she had secured enough piano tutoring assignments, she quit her job selling pianos at Yamaha to become a full-time tutor. She took on students with a vengeance. She would tutor three students in the day, go home for dinner and then head out for yet another night lesson. She gave herself no rest day.

  Within a year, Elizabeth was earning five times what she used to make at Yamaha. As her savings account grew, her bitterness ameliorated. She began to give herself a little treat in the afternoon between classes. She would spend a leisurely hour flipping through fashion or interior décor magazines at the MPH bookstore along Stamford Road, or munch on a peach tart and sip from a cup of milk tea, while seated comfortably in the cosy dimness inside Jack’s Place Steakhouse or catch an afternoon matinee at Capitol Theatre. It was during those afternoons of leisure that God’s grace re-entered her life.

  Elizabeth loved foreign movies. She caught Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and embraced Hollywood musicals as her personal antidote to counter the harshness of reality. She watched Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and found herself identifying with the rebel in Sidney Poitier. When she learnt that Sidney Poitier had been the first black actor to win an Oscar, she passionately adopted him as an idol. In fact, she was so inspired she convinced the young couple next door to name their toddler, who was assigned to her mother’s care, Sidney.

  It was, however, a challenge to teach the toddler his new name. He was born Lao Chee Hong, which translated to Grand Ambition. When Elizabeth coaxed him to enunciate Sidney, the mumbled echo that emerged was Teenee. Further cajoling brought forth Heenee, then Nimee and finally Gimme, by which time Elizabeth lost patience and gave up. Grandma Toh, too, found the name Gimme much easier to master than Sidney and so the name stuck. This was how Gimme Lao came to pioneer a new English name.

  Elizabeth was not particularly fond of children. She tolerated Gimme Lao’s presence in the house only because he occupied Grandma Toh and staved off her desire for a grandchild of her own. Elizabeth entertained a rather vague vision of herself as a mother. In contrast, the vision of herself as a wife was infinitely sharper. She knew exactly what kind of a wife she would make, how the furniture in her house would be arranged, down to the last detail of the curtain across the window and the cutlery on her dining table. She was only waiting for the right man to show up for dinner.

  And then he came into her life. Sidney. Sidney McKellen.

  She first heard his voice.
She had just finished demonstrating a tune to a new student when she heard the door down the hall open and a booming voice announce itself, “Darling, I am home.”

  As footsteps approached, she turned to greet the person whom she imagined must be her new student’s father. But her voice was caught in her throat. Instead, she gaped at the bluest pair of eyes she had ever come across. Fortunately, the new student, a plump girl of eight, hurled herself at her father and provided Elizabeth a window of several seconds to recover herself.

  “Good afternoon! You must be Doreen’s new piano teacher. I am Sidney McKellen. Pleasure.” The man said as he extended his right hand, a sparkling smile sprouting simultaneously on his lips and in his eyes.

  “Captain Sidney McKellen, British Air Force!” Doreen announced giggling, her arms wrapped round his neck and hanging from it like an obese little chimpanzee.

  Elizabeth smiled weakly as Captain Sidney McKellen gave her a firm handshake. She noticed instantly that he had a chiselled chin with a cleft, not unlike Sean Connery, whom she caught in the James Bond flick You Only Live Twice recently. Almost instinctively, she recalled the scene where the secret agent 007 enjoyed a shampoo and lather rubdown by three Japanese sirens in a large wooden tub. She felt knots in her stomach.

  This was the man she had laid out her dinner table for.

  She could distinctly see it in her mind. Captain Sidney McKellen seated at the table, his thick palm holding her silver fork and delivering a sliver of duck confit to his luscious lips angled at the precise gradient of his cleft chin, the sky blue in his eyes reflected in the ocean blue of her table napkin. Even his tie was in a colour complementary to her curtains.

  Elizabeth suddenly felt like shopping. Over the next few days, she bought herself three new dresses and tailored them for a better fit. She also bought two pairs of earrings, a necklace and a bottle of Chanel No 22. The following week, she showed up for Doreen’s piano lesson in a sleeveless shift dress in striking indigo. Doreen’s mother gasped and avowed that the item was most stunning. When Elizabeth agreed to share her tailor, Doreen’s mother took to her immediately. But Captain Sidney McKellen did not show up that day.

  When Captain Sidney McKellen failed to show up over the next few weeks, Elizabeth began to panic. She decided she needed to gather more information. After the piano lesson was over, she would stay behind and chat with Doreen’s mother and fuss over her younger daughter Madeline, a toddler with eyes as blue as the captain’s.

  It took Elizabeth two months’ worth of investigative interrogation disguised as innocuous chatter to pin down the critical piece of information. Every Sunday morning, Doreen’s mother took Doreen along with her to attend the weekly gathering of her gardening interest group. The captain would be left alone to babysit Madeline. Elizabeth’s heart pounded. She garnered her courage and casually mentioned that on Sunday mornings, she had to relieve her mother of her babysitting duty so that her mother could do her marketing. It was exhausting to look after a bouncy toddler all by oneself, for one simply could not afford anything less than full concentration.

  In full glory of God’s grace, Doreen’s mother picked up on the bright idea Elizabeth implanted in her mind and happily suggested Elizabeth bring her toddler over on Sundays as Madeline’s playmate. That way, the two adults could take turns and not tire themselves out.

  Elizabeth shopped again. This time round, she bought black lace panties.

  Back home, Elizabeth stumbled when Gimme Lao’s mother responded to her enthusiastic suggestion with a puzzled look. “That is very kind of you.” Her tone was courteous, but cold. “But I work five and a half days a week, and Sunday is really the only time I get to see my child.”

  Elizabeth paled. She could have slapped herself. In her haste, she had forgotten what she had learnt at Yamaha. The way to sell an expensive piano was to sell the music.

  “I just thought it would be a wonderful opportunity.” Elizabeth spoke slowly, but thought quickly. “They have bought all these educational toys for their girl. She is the same age as Gimme, but she can already spell and read simple picture books. They even have an ingenious card game that teaches her how to count, add and subtract. If Gimme plays with her, he gets to learn all these too.”

  Gimme Lao’s mother liked the sound of the music, and the piano was sold.

  The following Sunday, Elizabeth skipped church for the first time in over a decade, and Gimme Lao met his playmate Madeline for the first time in his life. Captain Sidney McKellen served a chilled glass bowl of pineapple punch and a silver platter of assorted English biscuits. Elizabeth did not touch the biscuits for fear that the crumbs would wedge themselves in between her teeth and disfigure her smile. Gimme Lao had no such concerns and grabbed one freely.

  Madeline seemed to take an instant liking to her new playmate. She abided by the captain’s gentle persuasion to be generous and offered Gimme Lao a choice selection from the platter on an open palm. Gimme Lao spotted the offer, dropped the biscuit he held in his hand, rushed forward to seize the offering and effectively slammed Madeline off her feet. It was a good thing the that floor was heavily carpeted. Madeline simply looked dazed to find herself suddenly seated down.

  Elizabeth howled. She threw herself on the carpet and hugged Madeline as though she was trying to protect her from a falling beam. The captain laughed and remarked that it was perfectly all right for toddlers to play rough. He said to leave the kids alone and let them work out their dynamics. Elizabeth blushed to think she might have made a fool of herself. But she caught a glimpse of her black lace panties showing where her hemline had folded upon itself and decided the foolery of falling onto the carpet was worth it.

  Over the next few Sundays, Gimme Lao and Madeline worked out their dynamics. Madeline took on a nurturing role and expended tremendous effort trying to teach Gimme Lao the alphabet and simple arithmetic using her chest of educational toys. When her playmate did not display any measure of interest, Madeline turned to household appliances and demonstrated how to flush a toilet, or activate the garden hose, or climb onto a rattan chair to flick a switch and watch the garage door rumble downwards nosily. These lessons fascinated Gimme Lao. He especially loved switching on the garden tap, stepping onto the wriggling hose and wrestling with the water spurt till the two of them were completely drenched. The water adventure often left the two giggling themselves silly, till Elizabeth stepped in to halt the fun and chide Gimme Lao for his mischief.

  Gimme Lao did not like Elizabeth. She put a cap on the fun he was having and never failed to step in just as the fun peaked. When he lost interest doodling in the colouring book and started applying the colour markers on Madeline’s face, Elizabeth stopped him. When he picked up a piece of Lego brick and attempted to stuff it down Madeline’s throat, Elizabeth stopped him. When Madeline reached out to wipe a crumb off his face and he defended his muffin from what he interpreted as an attempt to snatch it by biting Madeline on the finger, Elizabeth screamed and stopped him.

  Gimme Lao finally figured it out. Madeline was the switch that triggered responses from Elizabeth, much like the switch that triggered the rumbling descent of the garage door. When Gimme Lao handed Madeline a soft toy, Elizabeth ruffled his hair as a sign of approval. When Gimme Lao hugged Madeline and planted a kiss on her cheek, Elizabeth cheered and applauded.

  Once the cause and effect was established, Gimme Lao wised up. He would rush to the tart platter and pick one that he did not fancy to offer Madeline. While Madeline was distracted and Elizabeth fooled, he would return to collect the one with the strawberry topping he wanted for himself. The strategy was simple and effective.

  Sometimes, when Elizabeth annoyed him by capping his fun, he would run across to Madeline and bite her on the shoulder. The ruckus of Madeline bawling, Elizabeth picking her up to cuddle and soothe, Madeline screaming for her father, the captain embracing the crying child and Elizabeth not letting go and leaning herself into the captain’s embrace tickled him. Gimme Lao learned from exp
erience that Elizabeth would chide, but not physically punish him, when the captain was around. Only in the captain’s absence would Elizabeth pinch or slap him.

  Gimme Lao liked the captain, if only because Elizabeth paid him less attention when the captain was around. She would play the piano for the captain and laugh heartily when he applauded at the end of the performance. Then she began to insist that the captain sit down so she could lean over his shoulder to teach him a tune. Sometimes they would sit side by side and attempt a duet. When the captain fumbled, a giggling Elizabeth would slap his arm and grab his palms to position them. Soon, Gimme Lao witnessed the captain retaliating by grabbing Elizabeth on the waist and tickling her till she turned blue. And then suddenly, they stopped playing the piano. They would disappear for long stretches on Sunday mornings and leave Gimme Lao and Madeline to their own devices.

  For the several months that followed, Gimme Lao benefited from the perpetual cheerfulness that seemed to enwrap Elizabeth. She bought him toys of all shapes and make from the night market; a blue rubber float outlined like a flattened duck, a wooden rocking horse with a pink mane, a bolster in the shape of a giraffe with orange square dots and a plastic drinking cup sculpted like a kangaroo with a gigantic pouch. Gimme Lao’s mother eventually had to urge Elizabeth to stop. She was pampering her boy unnecessarily.

  Elizabeth did eventually stop. Not because the mother urged her to, but because her cheerfulness came to an abrupt end.

  Gimme Lao had no inkling that fateful Sunday morning when the door down the hall unlocked itself softly, that his play dates with Madeline were officially over. Both of them looked up, startled, to see Madeline’s mother step in, signal them to be quiet and tiptoe down the passageway. Pandemonium erupted almost instantly. The opening shrieks and screams were followed by an interminable stream of wrangling, until Elizabeth finally emerged from the bedroom in shameful tears. She grabbed Gimme Lao and her handbag and stumbled out the door. The last thing Gimme Lao remembered was a glimpse of the tart with the strawberry topping, sitting untouched on the platter because he was saving it for later.