“Soon after, whilst we were still in the throes of our bereavement, your grandfather was summoned into the Medical Registrar’s Office.
“The registrar, Dr Menon, spoke to him gravely. The rawness of our loss must have fuelled your grandfather’s reaction.”
“I’m afraid your audacious behaviour over the incident regarding the villagers at Kampong Tepi Laut has reached the hospital’s medical board. I’m sorry to say that you are to face a tribunal for your misconduct,” Dr Menon said.
“My misconduct?”
“Yes,” the registrar cleared his throat. “You are charged with abusing your position as a medical doctor in this hospital by using the hospital telephone to carry out your seditious activities. And you also tried to amass support for your cause through coercing other members of the staff. You did this whilst you were supposed to be attending to your duties.”
“This is absolutely ridiculous!” George said in a heated voice. “People were being treated unfairly and I was trying to get some justice for them. Besides, I only used the telephone during my breaks.”
“The telephone in the hospital is not for your personal use.”
Dr Menon continued in his monotone voice, citing more of George’s transgressions, and the disciplinary procedures. George stood up abruptly,
“You can tell the tribunal members to shove their supercilious attitude up their ***. I’m handing in my resignation!”
“Dr Chan!” Dr Menon exclaimed, reddening at the expletive, and cautioned him. “You’re a good doctor. Don’t throw away your career because of your impetuousness. You would have to face graver consequences if it were not for the influence of your eminent father.”
“My father? My father?” George said, now really angry that the father who had disowned him had continued to remain embroiled in his affairs, yet had not had the grace to contact him or help him out when he was needed. “I don’t have a father.”
He came home directly to rant about it.
“There’s nothing here for us,” he said to Pansy. “Let us get out of this country. You’re a qualified registered nurse and I’m a medical doctor. It won’t be difficult for us to be accepted by other nations. Let’s go where people have the freedom to say what they think. You’ve always loved the idea of England. I can get a posting there easily. Why don’t we go there?”
Chapter 11
Pansy misses Goldie. Her granddaughter is facing cold winds in Beijing, as summer gives way to autumn. But she can’t remember what Goldie is doing there. Is she on holiday or working there? Or has she gone there to live? This muddled brain is becoming a nuisance! The worse thing is that she’s vaguely aware of having known something before, yet now the fact refuses to surface, hanging on the fringe of her mind in tattered wisps. Pansy is cross with herself.
She considers calling Anthony to ask about Goldie, but doesn’t want to hear him say with exasperation, “But I told you already what. Aiyah, how many times do I have to tell you?”
She is sure Dr Kwa has said something to him and Emily about her condition. They had taken Pansy to see her but Dr Kwa had told her nothing, though she had sent her for all sorts of tests, including an MRI. Pansy is not bothered about being told everything if she was found to be terminally ill. She has lived life to the fullest with George, and to be frank, life without him is lacklustre. So she has prepared herself mentally and spiritually, taking every opportunity to chant and meditate so that she is restful and calm. In the Buddhist and yogic scriptures, it is said that the best way to leave this world is to be in spiritual readiness: that the quality of one’s life at the point of death determines, to a large extent, the quality of one’s next incarnation.
Pansy hopes that Goldie has the right clothes for the cold. Someone once told her that the secret of enjoying the outdoors is to dress appropriately for the weather. Now who would have told her something like that? She goes through the alphabet in her mind, to see if any letter will trigger a name or image. But nothing comes. Bother! Pansy wonders if Dr Kwa had mentioned the reason for her forgetfulness to Anthony and Emily. Is she afflicted with dementia? Has she got Alzheimer’s? Will she know? Or will she simply slip into a fugue of amnesia?
Pansy opens her window to see if there are any traces of autumn here in Singapore. There was something that George showed her whilst they were still in Singapore that gave her a potted experience of autumn. But she can’t remember what. The greatest fear that Pansy has is of losing George by forgetting about him.
Yet she remembers how she had looked forward to autumn in England, when the warm colours of the rainbow in the leaves and berries were a feast for the eyes. The natural world is so vibrant and changes on an almost daily basis to present a new facet each time, so that you have something to admire as soon as you step out your door—like changes in the intensity and quality of light, in the colour of wood and tree trunks, the variety of flowers and plants which seem to know their own timings to appear. With seasons, you
