Then she took out the book that Sister Catherine had given her and her imagination transported her to a hillside in Cumbria, where Wordsworth had once roamed, and had looked upon England’s largest natural lake, about ten miles across: the real Lake Windermere, which had been formed by a different kind of excavation—by glaciers. Pansy marvelled at the power of a glacier, what would it have looked like, that it could carve a lake out of the hillside? She made it her dream to see the real Lake Windermere one day.
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
The distressed voice broke into Pansy’s reverie. She looked up in its direction. To her horror, she saw what looked like a runaway bicycle appearing over the far ridge, the rider hanging on for dear life but already giving up control, his legs spread wide, the foot pads and wheels spinning rapidly on their own, as the bicycle sped down the slope towards the sheer drop of the lake. Perhaps he could not see the lake from where he was.
“Look out! The lake!” Pansy stood up abruptly and hollered, dropping her book, cupping her hands round her mouth like a megaphone. “Look out!”
In the next instant, an angry buffalo appeared over the crest of the slope. It seemed to be chasing the person on the bicycle. As the bicycle came closer, Pansy saw that the rider was a Chinese male. Whether it was Pansy’s shout or the youth’s gaining some measure of control over the bike, he suddenly managed to turn it sharply down one side of the bank, to escape the sheer drop into the lake. The buffalo’s hooves screeched to a halt at the edge of the lake, as if awakened to its imminent danger by animal instinct. Clods of loosened earth from its hooves plunged down into the lake and plopped into the water below, disturbing its placidity. The buffalo snorted and pawed the ground for a few minutes with one hoof, as if contemplating whether to give further chase, but then decided not to. It turned and went back towards its field, its broad shoulders sagging in disappointment.
Meanwhile the youth and the bicycle slithered down the muddy bank and crashed into the ‘Danger! No Swimming’ signboard, which thankfully broke his fall. Pansy leapt to the youth’s rescue.
“You could have fallen into the lake!” she said disapprovingly as she hauled him to his feet, not having time to consider the taboo about physical contact with a stranger of the opposite sex. For some reason, she spoke in English, not the first language that one automatically used in these parts. Perhaps it was because she had been reading Wordsworth and was day dreaming about England.
“Yes thank you, Nyonya. I was quite aware of that,” the youth replied in perfect English, a little bit put out. “Are you always so bossy?”
Pansy was mildly surprised that he could distinguish a nyonya from a Malay girl. Most people might automatically assume that she was Malay, from her way of dressing and because she was so tanned. She hated it when people thought she was Malay or Chinese. Pansy was proud of her Peranakan heritage. The sight of a young man made her immediately conscious that she had only her home kebaya on, not the glamorous though fragile voile material which she wore for going out, but one which was more practical in non-see-through cotton, though it was still pretty, patterned with tiny flowers and lightly embroidered at the edges. The width of this embroidered, scalloped edging determined the value of the kebaya in Peranakan circles, as it was painstakingly hand sewn by experts. She looked at the young man with some admiration. This was obviously someone with perception and intelligence. But she wasn’t going to be bullied.
“I was concerned, you idiot! The lake is very deep. Coming down that slope like an absolute maniac!”
“You did notice that there was a buffalo hot on my heels?”
“It’s your fault if you upset him.”
“I was just crossing the field. How would I know it was his territory?”
“You’re lucky he didn’t gore you with his horns. You should have seen his face! He looked so disappointed when you veered off down the bank. He snorted and pawed the ground with his hoof…”
“Gosh! Your English is impeccable. Quite surprising in this region. You do have a way with words…” the youth said admiringly, despite being cross.
The image of the buffalo, snorting and pawing the ground, angered that it had lost his potential victim, must have entered both their minds at the same time, and it caused them to burst out laughing. And in that shared laughter, alchemy took place—differences were bridged, sheaves of time concertinaed into this moment. When they stopped laughing, they looked at each other with eyes as if they had beheld each other in a past encounter, from a previous life maybe, and they both felt simultaneously that this was not a beginning but a continuum. Pansy became keenly aware that this was a young man standing in front of her, who was maybe a few years older than herself, rather tall, slim and definitely good looking, his coal black hair sleeked back with Brylcreem. He was fair skinned as the Chinese tended to be, though he did not have the flattish nose of some of them, nor were his
