Stop! Pak Abdul shouted, flailing his arms.
Stop! George shouted, leaping up and down to catch the attention of the drivers.
“Obviously the driver of the excavator nearest to Pak Abdul neither heard nor saw the people, as he was high up in his cab, the roar of the engine loud, the mechanical claw stretched out in front of him. Pak Abdul was right in the stride of the wheels. I saw my mother rushing forward, trying to pull Pak Abdul away. Both George and I ran in desperate lunges towards them to yank them to safety. But before we could reach them, the gigantic jaws opened and exposed their metal teeth. The teeth clamped shut, closing their mouths around Pak Abdul and my mother…”
Chapter 10
Goldie cannot help herself. As her grandmother is relating the story, she sobs and blows her nose repeatedly, her shoulders shaking. Amazingly, her grandmother is dry-eyed, as if all her weeping had been done a hundred times before, and now there are no tears left to cry. When she is less engaged with her own feelings, Goldie notices that her grandmother is sitting far too still, arms hugging herself, and yet she doesn’t seem to be present, as if she is ensconced far away, in that other period of her life. With a shock, she realises that a perceptible change has come over Pansy, as if one of Harry Potter’s dementors had sucked out part of her life force. Her grandmother looks deflated, the face and body suddenly sunken, as if the vitality has drained out of her in the process of the story spilling out.
“Grandma, are you all right?” Goldie asks softly, so as not to shock her.
Pansy raises her glazed eyes and seems not to recognise her.
“Mak?” Pansy says. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”
Goldie holds and rubs her grandmother’s hands, which seem to have gone gravely cold, though the sun has not gone down yet, and is still throwing glints of silver on the rippling surface of the Bedok River. Her heart contracts at the lightness of Pansy’s hands, the skin papery and mottled with age spots. Goldie gently rubs warmth back into her grandmother’s hands. Slowly the action revives Pansy somewhat and brings her back to the present.
“Where am I?” she asks, her voice frail. “I feel so tired…”
“Come on, grandma, let me take you home.”
The family is out again for dinner, this time at a restaurant which serves local delights, laksa, char kway teow, mee goreng, satay and various others, though Pansy is not with them.
“Dad, it’s scary the way grandma switches from being here to being in another time zone. I think grandma is losing it, you know,” Goldie announces. “Sometimes she thinks I’m her mother! Did you hear about Cho Cho’s and Pak Abdul’s deaths? So gruesome!”
“What? You? Looking like our elegant great-grandmother, with your spiky hairdo, and studs in your earlobes? Your jeans and manly shirt?” Andie laughs. “I don’t think women in the 50s would have looked even remotely like you.”
“Be careful ah, your grandmother’s mind is koyak already. Don’t believe everything that old woman says,” Emily says sharply, pointing her chopsticks at Goldie, her mouth, loaded with char kway teow, exposed for all to see.
“Don’t worry, we’ve already made an appointment for her to see Dr Kwa,” Anthony assures Goldie, ignoring Andie. “They do say that people with dementia live more and more in the past, and vacillate between forgetfulness and lucid moments. Talking about my grandmother, Kim Guek… she was a beautiful and elegant lady; always in her sarong kebaya, looking so feminine. Now that you mentioned it, Goldie, your features do have a striking resemblance to my grandmother’s. If your hair was softer and longer, it would definitely improve the likeness…”
“Ha, ha, ha! I can’t imagine dajie with long hair, and looking like a girl,” says Winona, tossing her own long hair in an exaggerated femme fatale manner.
“Well, I just might show you!” Goldie says, bristling in defiance. “I’m being sent by my company to China to do some auditing for a few months. I might just let my hair grow.”
“You’ll always be a tomboy,” Emily says, uncharitably. “You can never be as feminine and pretty as your sisters.”
“Emily!” Anthony barks.
“Before you go off to China, come for tea and I’ll bake a pie for you,” Pansy says on the telephone. Goldie is pleased to hear her grandmother sounding like her usual self. “Your grandpa used to love the pies I made for him. I’ve also found your Cho Cho’s photograph. I’ll give it to you when you come here. I want you to have it.”
“That will be lovely, grandma,” Goldie says into the mouthpiece. “Why don’t I come and pick you up on Saturday? I have to come in a taxi as dad has the car. Then we can go and buy the ingredients? That way I can learn what goes into it and you can teach me how to make it too.”
“You’ve just made my wish come true,” Pansy says, her voice brimming with delight. “I’ve always dreamed of having a daughter who would share the joys of cooking with me. A granddaughter is just as precious.”
“It’s been my life-long secret wish to learn how to cook properly,” confesses Goldie. “No one in my family knows how. Especially not my mother. She’d probably say I’d be no good at it. It’s just that our modern lifestyle never encourages us to learn any cooking. We have a maid at home who dominates the kitchen and cooks all the meals. Then on her day off, we go out to eat. There is a widespread selection of food out in the hawker centres, plus hip cafes which sell a plethora of Western dishes and desserts, which means this doesn’t give a person the incentive to want to cook. Especially now that Singapore is getting hotter and hotter, it must be uncomfortable in the kitchen. But I still want to
