Gimme Lao could not remember ever taking any risks. In school, he excelled academically because he was intelligent, diligent and abided by the rules. During his medical training, the same aptitude and attitude carried him safely through. Gimme adapted, but he would never push the boundaries or show his superiors any disrespect. This attribute could only be an imprint from his father. Like Lao Sheng Yang, Gimme Lao obeyed the system.
As much as he was excited about the months ahead, Gimme Lao was also wary. Once the incumbent party introduced him as a political candidate, he would have to learn to live life under a constant spotlight. Any statement he uttered might be subjected to misinterpretation or malicious distortion. Any behaviour caught on camera or video might be misread or prevaricated. The margin of error permitted would be razor-thin. Taking risks would be a luxury he could no more afford.
Tan Ai Ling was his one and only chance to disobey the system. He needed to have that one cherished item in his life that was not dictated by others. No one but him should decide if the time had come to terminate the relationship. Till that moment arrived, he would manage the risks.
Gimme Lao did not have to go looking for Gordon on Monday. The man was waiting for him in his office wearing a perturbed look. The main wing at Tan Tok Seng Hospital had referred a female patient to Gordon over the weekend. Recently returned from a trip to Hong Kong, she had fallen very ill. Based on initial test results, Gordon feared that they might be looking at their first case of the virulent atypical pneumonia that World Health Organization had earlier identified in Southern China. Gordon urgently needed Gimme Lao to verify his suspicions.
Gordon had been right. SARS had washed up on their shores. Tan Tock Seng Hospital became the designated hospital to front the battle against the epidemic. Everyone plunged into combat mode, and everything else became secondary.
When Gordon came down quickly with a fever and tested positive for the SARS virus, the entire team at the Communicable Disease Division went into shock. He was the first case of a comrade crossing the line to join the casualties. Gordon struggled for three weeks before he succumbed to the virus. Tan Ai Ling told Gimme Lao that Shemin was in terrible shape. She would break down midway through her rounds and sobbed horribly into the N95 mask she was wearing. Someone would have to relieve her duty so that she might rush off to the toilet to remove her mask and wash up. The poor girl was putting herself in danger.
As Gimme Lao was one of the key personnel on the battleground, he was allotted a single room to rest so as to minimise the chances of infection. Tan Ai Ling joined him whenever her rest hours coincided with his. They locked the door, drew the curtains and huddled closely on the single bed. These were stolen hours of freedom the two treasured. Once, Tan Ai Ling started to weep softly. When Gimme Lao drew her close and kissed her tenderly on her forehead, she whispered that she was crying because she felt happy. If she did not survive the SARS epidemic, at least she had experienced romance and the touch of a man. She would be really bitter if her life had ended before that happened.
Gimme Lao was touched. He did not understand how he could have made such a difference in someone’s life. But he was deeply pleased to learn that there was one person to whom he represented the precious chance to love and be loved in return.
The two discussed and agreed that it would be too risky to keep meeting at Hotel 81. Tan Ai Ling would persuade her cousin to let them rent a room above his hair salon. Gimme Lao would pay the rent. It was to be their very own place.
The SARS epidemic did eventually blow over. On the day that the Tan Tock Seng Hospital executive director announced that they could all go home, Professor Eleanor Moh summoned Gimme Lao. She locked the office door and told him she had some important news. Her husband had convinced the prime minister that Gimme Lao should be fielded for the very next election. This SARS crisis was as much a challenge as an opportunity. They planned to portray Gimme Lao as a national SARS hero. This would allow him to leapfrog from virtual unknown to instant celebrity, miles ahead of the other new political candidates.
Gimme Lao had to clench his fists under the table to hide his excitement. He had not expected things to proceed so speedily. But he was ready. He had known his entire life that he was meant for something extraordinary.
However, the information that Professor Eleanor Moh next shared shook him up a little. With the backing of the executive director, she had made a deal with the doctor who headed the operation to track down all the cases of infection on the island. The hospital would make it known that it was Dr Gimme Lao, and not Dr Zhang Lei, who had headed the task force. They would also acknowledge and honour Gimme Lao as the very doctor who correctly identified and diagnosed the first SARS patient in Singapore. After all, the late Dr Gordon Hoh was no longer around to receive the accolades. It would be a crime to let the honour go to waste.
Professor Eleanor Moh ended by reminding Gimme Lao not to share the details of the arrangements with his wife. For a politician, a supportive spouse was an invaluable asset. But if the relationship soured further down the road, the same spouse could prove to be the most fearsome enemy. Her advice was to build the trust, but limit the sharing.
Gimme Lao’s heart skipped a beat. He wondered if he had shared too much with Wei Wen already.
In the months that followed, Gimme Lao was caught in a whirlwind of private briefings by the Prime Minister’s Office and public appearances at constituency events. The next election would only take place three years down the road, but the upper echelons of the incumbent political party wanted Gimme Lao to start working the ground right away. They were nervous about an up and coming opposition party member who was both sharp and eloquent and were eager to crush her by pitting the national SARS hero against her.
Gimme Lao was initially unfazed. His targeted opponent was inferior when it came to educational qualifications and professional achievements. The opposition party she represented was underfunded and disorganised. In contrast, not only was he better qualified, he was also backed by a political party that had dominated the parliament over the last 40 years. It was inconceivable that their stronghold could be challenged.
However, Gimme Lao soon found out that he had underestimated his opponent. Jowene Tay was a fiery candidate on a passionate mission. She was campaigning as a single mother who found herself penalised and oppressed by the system that was put in place by the government. While married couples with double incomes were given housing and child care subsidies, she and her child received none. Her efforts to petition a change in housing policies were met with bureaucratic indifference. Singapore was, in general, a conservative society, the authorities explained with dispassion. It would not do to use public funds to subsidise citizens like her, who chose an alternative lifestyle.
Jowene Tay was infuriated. She tapped on social media to share her frustrations and was astounded when a huge wave of support rolled in. There were middle-income earners who were angry that their elderly parents chalked up astronomical hospital bills but could not qualify for assistance because they were home owners. There were low-income singles who were unhappy that they had to stay with their parents because there were limited public housing options available for them. There were gay couples who were frustrated that the legal system provided them with no recognition, support or protection. All of them claimed to feel Jowene Tay’s pain.
To Gimme Lao’s horror, his opponent turned her weakness into her strength. Jowene Tay rode on the wave of support she received from marginalised groups who felt they too had been slighted by the system. By the time the general election was announced for 2006, Jowene Tay was leading Gimme Lao in the unofficial polls.
Gimme Lao fought hard. He attended baby shows and kissed as many babies as he could. He visited nursing homes and handfed toothless residents spoonfuls of congee. His political party made sure that his campaign was featured prominently on the front page of the Straits Times. Yet it was to no avail. The electorate was inclined to root for Jowene Tay the underdog
, and Gimme Lao lost his first election.
After the vote count was over, Gimme Lao sent Wei Wen a message to inform her that he was not going home yet. There were bound to be some reporters lying in ambush and he did not feel ready to talk to them. He next sent Tan Ai Ling a message to ask to meet her at their little hide-out above the hair salon. He told her he missed her terribly.
Gimme Lao had not seen Tan Ai Ling for over three months. He had taken a leave of absence from the hospital to focus on the election campaign. And he did not dare arrange to meet her clandestinely either, not when the media spotlight was trained on him. In truth, he hadn’t really missed her that much. He had been too busy to think of her.
The first thing that caught Gimme Lao’s attention when he stepped into the room was the scroll laid out on the bed. It was an original by pioneer Singaporean calligraphy artist Tan Siah Kwee. Gimme Lao’s heart sank. He had gotten it as a birthday gift for Tan Ai Ling two years ago.
There was a letter placed next to the scroll. It was dated the day before. In her exquisite handwriting, Tan Ai Ling explained that she had decided to break up with him. It had not escaped her that his love had diminished over time. Even when they did spend time together, his attention was never on her. She could understand when he said it was too risky to meet up during the election period. But was it so risky to send a text message of concern? Was that why she received a miserable total of five messages from him over the last three months? If she was no more on his mind, she did not wish to remain in his life either. She had arranged for a transfer to another hospital. And she would like him to leave the room key with the hair salon lady downstairs.
Gimme Lao slumped onto the sofa. For a moment he was unsure how he felt. Was he devastated? Tan Ai Ling was right when she observed that his love for her had diminished. Snuggling with her in their little hideout had become as much a routine as his dinners back home with Wei Wen and Skye. Perhaps this breakup was for the better. He ought to be glad that neither his career nor his family life had suffered any repercussions.
Gimme Lao checked his watch and decided that he had ample time to catch a nap. That was what he should do; get rested, go home to his family and pick up from where he left off. Nobody would suspect anything.
Unbeknown to Gimme Lao, Wei Wen had moved past mere suspicion. She knew. She had hired the service of a private detective and held a docket of photographs and video footage of Gimme Lao and Tan Ai Ling at their little hideout above the hair salon. But Wei Wen had yet to decide what to do with the evidence gathered.
For the past two years, Wei Wen had been stretched thin by the demands on her as a daughter and a granddaughter. When her mother called her up crying on the phone one day, she could not make sense of her incoherent babble and so had to rush over in person. It turned out that her parents had had a squabble and her father hit her mother for the first time in the 42 years of their marriage. The squabble concerned a woman that they had recently hired to help them out at their hawker stall. Her mother was convinced that the woman had seduced her father.
When Wei Wen confronted her father, the old man denied it. The China stall assistant was a hardworking single mother making an honest living. Was it wrong of him to be kind and fatherly to her? There were no grounds for her mother’s accusations. Why should he give in to the unreasonable demands of a jealous wife and deprive an innocent woman of her job? He refused to fire the suspect.
Wei Wen’s mother continued her accusations through tears. Her father was blind to the China woman’s agenda. He was turning 65 soon, by which time he would be eligible to draw out monthly payments from his CPF retirement account. That was what she was after. The tabloids had published countless tales of gullible Singapore men who were swindled out of their retirement nest egg by scheming, manipulative China women. Her father was just too bull-headed to acknowledge his own stupidity.
It took weeks for Wei Wen to settle the dispute. Eventually, she helped the China stall assistant secure another job in a different hawker centre across town. She also made sure that the next stall assistant her parents hired was an elderly woman who did not have what it took to arouse her mother’s suspicions or jealousy.
During the period leading up to the election, Wei Wen’s grandmother began to display signs of dementia. She kept forgetting to take her showers, but insisted that she had when she was queried. Twice she lost her balance and fell while trying to put on her pants. When she eventually urged the family to stock up on rice and hide it from the Japanese soldiers, they knew it was time to seek professional help. It fell upon Wei Wen to sign her grandmother up for a programme in a dementia daycare centre and to ferry her to her various medical appointments. This routine continued for more than a year before her grandmother finally succumbed to pneumonia and passed away.
Wei Wen felt relieved. Finally free from caregiver duties, she arranged for her parents to go on a vacation in Vietnam. But she was unprepared for the devastating news that came three days later. Wei Wen’s business contacts in Vietnam had signed her parents up for an overnighter on a tourist boat. Subsequent investigations after the accident traced the fire on the boat to a cooking gas tank explosion. It was likely that her parents panicked and jumped off the boat. Their bodies were found the next day near Trong Mai Rocks.
After the initial shock, Wei Wen beat herself up over her parents’ untimely demise. It did not help that she had to fly over to Vietnam by herself to collect the remains. Gimme Lao had a paper to present at a conference and could not avail himself, whereas Skye was recuperating from an injury he had sustained in camp. As she sat alone in the waiting lounge in Noi Bai International Airport holding her parents’ urns on her lap, Wei Wen felt disconsolate. Within two months she had lost her grandmother and both her parents. And neither her husband nor her son was at hand to offer her support and solace. That was the moment it struck her; there was nobody she could count on.
Wei Wen had a fierce argument with Gimme Lao over the issue of custody for her brother Too Sexy. There was no reason why they could not take him in; they had a spare bedroom. The family maid could sleep on a rolled out mattress next to the bed. But Gimme Lao was adamant that Too Sexy should not live with them. He was even willing to foot half the bill for the nursing home.
Eventually, it was Gimme Lao’s brutal honesty that won the argument. If something untoward were to happen to Wei Wen tomorrow, Gimme Lao was unwilling to take over custody of her brother. It was best that Too Sexy was placed in a nursing home right away.
Wei Wen gave in. On the day she helped Too Sexy move in to the Assisi Lodge, she sat in the garden with him and held his hand, crying. He needed to understand that her hands were tied. She was married to a man who was unwilling to share her burden. In fact, she began to wonder if Gimme Lao would act in the same callous manner when her time came. At the worst she still had Skye, Wei Wen contemplated as she dried her tears.
Skye hated that he could not be discharged from hospital in time to accompany his mother to Vietnam. He lost sleep thinking of Wei Wen all alone, handling the red tape and processes necessary to bring the remains of his grandparents home. But that was not the only thing keeping him awake. Skye was also worried about KC Kok.
After Skye broke up with Jason, he withdrew from the swim team. He felt he needed to keep a distance for the healing to begin. Although it hurt to be on the receiving end of Jason’s cold animosity, the pain brought about a startling clarity. His first love was flawless only because he had wilfully imagined it to be. He had allowed the shine of Green Lantern’s light to blind him to that which he did not wish to see. Jason was capable of cruelty and hypocrisy.
The distance he now kept from the swim team also illuminated another blind spot of his. This was a pack of alpha males who regarded their physical prowess with narcissism. The adoration they received from lesser creatures like KC Kok further convinced them they were a caste worthy of reverence. Skye shuddered when he realised he had behaved very much the same way. He would never in a mil
lion years pick a scrawny, creepy teenager like KC Kok as a friend.
That was precisely what Skye decided he would do.
Skye kept a lookout for KC Kok. In the student cafeteria, he sat down opposite the teenager uninvited and started a conversation. Although his initial efforts were met with suspicion, Skye persevered. Over time, KC Kok began to let down his guard. When he eventually permitted Skye to browse through his treasured portfolio of photographs, Skye knew he had hacked through the firewall of distrust, for KC Kok had been too shy to show it to anyone else.
The photographs in the portfolio took Skye’s breath away. There were portraits of people, many of whom Skye knew in college. KC Kok’s lens brought out a singularity to their mood and personality that he would otherwise have missed. There was the look of annoyance the cleaner wore as she approached to clean a messy table while the occupants laughed heartily. A lone girl sat looking dejected, surrounded by other cheerful students chatting away in the cafeteria. A heavily pregnant lecturer held on to the handrail for support as she manoeuvred up the stairs clumsily. The swim team did their warm up stretches by the pool, their vivacity vibrantly illuminated by the morning rays. KC Kok had been able to imbue these suspended moments with meaning and significance. It was then that Skye learnt to look beyond KC’s social awkwardness to see the incredible sensitivity with which the teenager viewed the world.
The two became fast friends. Now that Skye had dropped out of the swim team, he needed a new sport. He urged KC Kok to join him for his afternoon jogs, but KC Kok could not keep up. So the two compromised and took up cycling instead. After their lectures ended, they would pedal their way to West Coast Park, grab a drink from McDonald’s and settle down on the embankment to chitchat. They grumbled about tutors who bored them to death and tutorial assignments that inspired suicidal thoughts. They shared gaffes they committed or witnessed and scandals they overheard. No topic was taboo between them.
Let's Give It Up for Gimme Lao! Page 23
