“Room service, Madam,” he would say playfully.
He might even snuggle back into bed with her, to have his breakfast as they share the newspaper in easeful companionship, erupting with a comment every now and again about some article or story, their feet touching, and warming each other under the duvet. At times like that, William Blake’s poem came into Pansy’s mind:
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.
“Where am I?”
As the fuzziness in her brain clears, Pansy is hit by the realisation that she’s in a bed that George has never slept in, and never will. That he will never bring her breakfast in bed ever again. The terrible certainty whips her like a cat-o’-nine-tails, drawing blood in her. George is truly gone. Never to return. She is deflated, all the oomph squeezed out of her. What is the point of getting up?
“Stop being so self-indulgent!” she tells herself off.
Yes, it is a new challenge for her, to adjust to an existence when she’s not a priority in anyone’s life, nor anyone in hers. People who have spouses and family living with them cannot fathom this utter sense of aloneness. The hours in the day stretch too long. But she is not the only one singled out for this fate. There are many, old and lonely, who feel imprisoned in the solitude of their own company. Here in Singapore, the ageing population from the Pioneer Generation are increasingly in focus; it is strange that before this, no one had considered that the once broad base of young people would someday become old. The only hope for those living on their own is to go out and mingle with the crowd in the bus, food centre and supermarket, and pretend that one is not alone. It’s a horrible feeling when you know that there will be no one coming home to you, no cheerful calling out, no voice. Pansy who used to hate the TV being turned on in the day puts the TV on just so that she can hear voices, to have virtual people having conversations in her living room to ease the stark silence.
When George first died and she hadn’t got used to the idea that he was truly gone, she continued the habit of looking out for things she could treat him to whenever she was out—a good butter croissant, Thornton chocolates, a new pair of gardening gloves, a plant from the nursery, fresh minced lamb for a shepherd’s pie, or moolie she had found in an Asian supermarket to grate, steam into a cake then fry with eggs, to make his favourite chye tow kway. It pleased her when he was happy. He gave her life meaning, made it purposeful. She saved morsels of her day to hand them to him when she got home: “You know who I bumped into today, sweetheart?” “Hey, you won’t believe what I did!” “Guess what, George? I saw a flock of geese flying in formation today…”
But after his death when she got home, the house was still, empty, devoid of his presence and spirit. It was her first huge blow. He was gone and wouldn’t be back. She had no one to share her day with. Of course she had friends she could phone. But it was not the same.
“Time will heal,” one friend said to her.
“You’ll adjust,” another said.
People handed out platitudes kindly, but the well-meaning words grated, and sounded shallow. How could they know how much George meant to her?
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The words of the Yorkshire poet, WH Auden, lashed at Pansy in huge waves, reminding her of the enormity of her loss. She felt as if she was a boat about to sink. More than once, she too had wished she could stop all the clocks. Without George in her life, everything seemed deflated; the world seemed to be drained of colour. No amount of jamu could heal the wound left by his demise.
Now she’s away from all that was familiar. She has to try to live life again. A new start in a new country, almost. The day yawns ahead like a huge chasm. Pansy wonders how she is going to fill it on her own. All her daily routines—attending to her clients, house and garden, meeting with her friends, and her regular walks—have been snatched away by her move to a different country. Moving to a new neighbourhood is challenging enough, but moving to another country is a huge upheaval, even if it is back to your own.
She feels at a loss and is still in a state of inertia, with no enthusiasm to start something new. She could offer to go and cook and clean for Anthony and Emily—but they have a full-time helper. She could go and visit her grandchildren, but they are busy with their jobs, or course work at university. It wouldn’t be convenient for her to simply drop in. There is no one whom she knew sixty years ago that she could call. She wonders how old Hassim is now, the entrepreneurial boy who had devised games on market days for the town children, or whether Khatijah is still alive. Those were the days when the village shared one public telephone; there were no mobile phones, nor was there any Internet. It was difficult to keep in contact once the villagers were dispersed. Especially when the majority of the villagers were uneducated and could not write letters.
What can she do that will be meaningful? Lying there in the strange bed, Pansy looks out listlessly through the
