I went away but I could still hear what came next. “Which parents wouldn’t want a son like that?”* * *Chris taught me during the months of August and September. My ‘O’ levels were in November, so it didn’t give him much time to go into details. It was a “crash course,” like my father said, which was why he was willing to pay Chris any amount, just to see me through the exams. He didn’t mind if I didn’t score top marks, it was enough that I passed.
Chris and I got along well with each other. He never talked much about himself, and once in a while he would answer pages. I once watched him as he was using the telephone. He looked very relaxed, he smiled a lot, as if the person on the other line was telling him non-stop jokes. He gesticulated when he spoke, shrugging his shoulders, waving his finger sometimes as if at a naughty child. But when he made me do sums, he would still drift off into his own world. What kind of world was that, I often wondered? Once in a while he would mutter something, and a look of irritation would cross over his face. Once, I distinctly heard him say the word “sorry”. But not to me, of course.
There was this day when it rained. There was the sound of thunder and my mother told me not to play with the computer. I closed the windows as the first drops pelted the roads. I caught sight of a man running with a newspaper on his head. I heard the sound of doors slamming. Trees were bending in the wind, a rummaging in their leaves. My mother asked me if I had Chris’ telephone number. He was due for tuition any time now.
“I got his phone number. But I don’t know if he’s still in,” I said.
“Better call him and tell him not to come. It’s raining heavily.”
“I can page him,” I said. “But I don’t have his pager number. He never gave it to me.”
“You call him then. Tell him not to come today. Tell him some other day. Poor boy.”
I cleared my throat as the phone rang in Chris’ house. Garfield’s eyes were glaring at me, with their scratched pupils. Suddenly I heard a girl’s voice saying, “Hello.” But I wasn’t listening to her. I was trying to listen to the other sounds behind that voice. I was listening out maybe to the sounds of water, a fountain maybe, some classical music in the background. A dog’s bell, the shuffling footsteps of servants. But there was nothing.
“Hello? Hello?”
And then the phone went dead.
“Is he at home?” my mother asked. Before I could answer her, there came a knocking at the door. My mother opened it and it was Chris, the ankle part of his jeans wet, but that was all. He had an umbrella.
“I was lucky,” he said. “I was at the bus stop and I was about to rush across when this road sweeper came by. She was pushing this trolley, and she was wearing a rain coat. She gave me an umbrella from her trolley. I didn’t want it at first, but she told me to take it. Is that lucky or what?”
My mother nodded and smiled at Chris. While we were in the room she laid a newspaper under the television rack and placed his wet shoes on it.* * *“We don’t have much time left, Hafiz. And you’re giving me this.”
Chris had given some sums to do as homework, but I had rushed through them 10 minutes before he arrived at our door. Three out of the four sums I got wrong.
“You don’t seem to want to concentrate,” he said. “I mean, there are all these drawings in your textbook.” Chris sighed and leaned back in his chair. He looked at a spot on the wall. I took the textbook into my hands and slowly flipped the pages. One coconut tree after another. What was I – a monkey?
“You tell me now what I should do,” he said.
I scratched my forehead. Who could answer a question like that?
“You know, I don’t really have to do this. But you know what? I had to crash my dad’s car.” He put his hands behind his head and continued staring at his spot. “If it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t need the money so badly. You know I take the bus down to this place? If I had the car it might have been easier. But then again if the car was okay, I wouldn’t need to give tuition.”
“Was it serious?” I asked.
“Nothing much. We were racing after a night at Zouk. Do you know where Zouk is? It’s a club. Disco. Anyway the guys were all crazy, some of them were dead drunk, and they challenged me to a race. We went down to the Lim Chu Kang area, and went at 100, 110. Crazy.” Chris started laughing. “But I wasn’t drunk. When the police came and tested me there was no alcohol. It was just reckless driving. I’d just hit a post, that was all.”
“Wah, so fast ah?” I said it even
