“It got to a point where it felt like flying. They were crazy. But I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You think you’d understand? Anyway your dad doesn’t pay me just to sit around and tell you stories.”
For the next two hours Chris didn’t tell me any more stories. In fact he scolded me on many occasions. Previously he would give me encouragement, say words like “ok, that’s the way” and “you’re getting there”. But on that day he was frowning, and as I did my sums, he watched over my back and he made clicking noises in his mouth when I made mistakes. He sighed heavily. And then the swearing started.
“Eh, who taught you to do this way?”
“Nobody.”
“Then what is this? I just taught you how to do this last week! This is all fuck, you know that? I don’t know where you learn this from. Definitely not me.”
Then Chris made me do a few more questions. His pager went off, and when he looked at the number he went, “What the fuck does she want?” Then he looked at me and asked, “Why, stuck already ah? Want me to show you?” And then he smiled at me and shook his head, as if thinking to himself, I don’t know how else I can help you.
“I can show you how to do, fine, but I’m not taking your exam,” he said, as he made broad strokes across the work I had done.
“Chris I’m sorry you had to come down today, raining and all.”
“You know if I was your father, if only he knew where his money was going…”
“Chris I’m sorry.”
“Look at all this, Hafiz. What is this?”
“Chris I’m sorry. Don’t talk like this anymore.”
For a moment he stopped. And then I realised that the rain too, had stopped. I wanted to walk out of the house, as if I had something I was planning to do but the rain had spoiled my plans. Meet some friends for football, or just go down to the Nintendo shop to watch some of my friends play fighting games.
“Hafiz,” Chris said. “I’m not sure I can do this anymore. When I was told to do this tuition thing I was told ‘O’ levels. That’s sec four, sec three work. Or, maybe in your case, some sec five work. But I have to always start from the beginning, from sec one work, things you should already know, simple basics. I don’t know, Hafiz.”
When the session was over I saw him to the door. My mother was thankfully, on the phone, so she couldn’t have heard any of our exchanges inside my room. When she saw Chris, she told her friend that an important call was coming in. I wanted to tell her, Mak, go and tell that your son is taking tuition. It’s all right.
At the door I looked at Chris. He had a new haircut, and he slipped into his shoes without putting on the socks because they were dripping wet. He asked for a plastic bag and put them inside.
“Chris, not raining anymore ah, Chris?” I asked.
“Yah.” And then he said goodbye to my mother. “Goodbye, Auntie.”
As I watched him go, a sinking feeling gripped me. I saw his umbrella hooked on a water pipe just beside the gate. But I didn’t call out for him to collect it. I didn’t even shout out a goodbye. I just watched him, twirling his plastic bag into the air and catching it, knowing just when it would fall into his hands. A puddle had formed where his umbrella was standing.* * *That was three years back. Nowadays, I do a bit of waitering down at Clarke Quay. I had failed my ‘O’ levels for the second time, and after that we all had a big talk and I decided it was best if I just went to the army first, because sooner or later I’d have to do it. For my National Service, I was sent to the Civil Defence section. I made a few friends, generally well-behaved, none of them were into things like drugs and hanging out late. I met my first girlfriend during my NS days too, a girl called Nur Salawati. I call her “Wati” for short. Now and then I think of my secondary school days, and then sometimes I think of Chris. I think about what might have happened if Chris had stuck around with me, with us, a little longer, not gone off just like that, even though he never asked for payment for the four sessions he gave me. But when I do that, I don’t think so much about the day he left but what happened a few months after.
It was one week after my exams had ended, and I knew that I had screwed up my papers. I recalled especially during the Maths paper, drawing big zeros on the foolscap, and then turning them into coconuts, and from them I drew coconut trees. Anyway I was in the living room and my mother was asking for Panadol. She was having a headache, and there was none in the house. It was raining heavily outside, but I grabbed some money and proceeded to the corridor. After I had closed the door, I realised that I had no umbrella with me. Then I saw Chris’ umbrella at the water pipe. We had left it there, thinking that one day he’d come back to take it, without having to knock on our door. It would have saved both Chris and my family a lot of embarrassment. I took the umbrella and walked down with it.
At the void deck, the ground was like that of a fish market, slippery. I walked carefully, taking small steps, and watched as sheets of rain unreeled from the sky. Gusts of wind swept in and peppered bumps on my skin. And it was here when the
