To my utter surprise, Allens, the English fish and chips shop was still there on the corner, as I remembered it, at the end of the parade of shops facing the bus terminus right by the roundabout at Serangoon Gardens. Its lighted signboard had a Union Jack and the stylised drawing of a fish. Even before I stepped inside, the smell of hot oil, fried fish and chips hit my nostrils, awakening old, buried feelings about my father, bringing a lump to my throat. The warmth of the shop caressed my face as I opened its doors. I chose the Ikan Kurau fish and chips, which cost $1.50 cents. At a time when one bowl of noodles was 30 cents and our house rent was $15, this was a huge sum for me. But this was no time to quibble over cost.
“I know that smell from anywhere! Allens always made the best fish and chips,” my father said with a quavering smile and voice when I presented him with what would prove to be his final treat.
He only managed a mouthful. I doubted that his taste buds were miraculously revived but at least his memory of its taste was making him happy momentarily. At least he knew that I did not hate him, despite all he had said and done. I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
“You are a good daughter,” he mumbled, before he slipped back into his morphine-induced fugue.
At last, he had said something nice about me. I grasped at the straw.
So at the age of 52, my mother became a widow. She had been married to my father for 35 years. My two elder brothers had since married, but my mother still had five children to look after; Third Elder Brother was jobless, three of us were still schooling, whilst one needed medical care all his life. I was about to sit for my Senior Cambridge Certificate Exams at the end of the year. Hopefully I would pass, so that I could get a job to help towards the expenses so that my sisters could continue school. It meant that for me, there was not even the remotest chance of going to pre-university or university itself. The family’s welfare had to come first. The elder brothers had given their fair share of support and now they had their own families to care for. It was up to Third Elder Brother or me. I had to admit that I was green with envy, eavesdropping on my classmates discussing their plans to attend pre-university and then university. At times like this, one wondered what one had done in previous lives to deserve one’s fate. Although my family converted to Catholicism, our Buddhistic teachings had never been deserted.
On the day of my father’s funeral, I was staggered by my mother’s anguished cry as her husband’s coffin was being carried out of the house, “Why did you have to leave first? Who’s going to take care of me and all these children?”
On the rare occasion when my father had taken my mother out to town as a treat, Mak would thread the fragrant bunga melor and chempaka into her hair. It delighted me to have seen her like that. She looked so beautiful and carefree. I also enjoyed seeing my Indian and Malay neighbours wearing flowers in their hair. My dearest friend, Parvathi, also used to plait the chain of creamy jasmine into her jet-black hair, which made her look like a princess. The practice seemed to be dying out, though I was pleased that many Indian women still upheld the custom, and they also used flowers in garlands. But once her husband died, a widow, like my mother, could no longer wear flowers in her hair, as it was deemed unbecoming. Indian women who were widowed had to put on white clothes forever. This was not so for Peranakans. But the family of the deceased had to mourn for three years. For the first year, we were allowed to wear only black, the second year we could wear shades of blue, and in the third, we could wear muted colours, but not red. In a situation when we had to wear a uniform for school or work, we would wear the appropriate colour on a small square of fabric that was pinned to our sleeve, to indicate that we were in mourning.
Strangely, I missed my father’s presence in the house, even the smell of his cigarettes. In the evenings, I expected to see him sitting at our small table, which also held our TV, wearing his singlet and checked sarong, writing into his notebook all the permutations of Chap Ji Ki, the local numbers gambling game. I expected to see him settle himself in his chair to watch his favourite American TV series, Sea Hunt, which starred Lloyd Bridges as former United States Navy frogman Mike Nelson. Ah Tetia had an aluminium cigarette case with intricate carving and this now seemed orphaned without him. This was the only thing my mother kept, as she gave away his personal effects sorrowfully. No matter how many times he had wielded his arms and fists at her, he was the only man she had ever known intimately since she was 17. His absence drew new lines on her face, pushed her shoulders forward, as the burden of bringing up five children on her own became her sole responsibility. She had lost a husband and we had lost a parent. I never realised the preciousness of having a father until he was gone. I truly prayed that Lao Ee had waited for him and taken him across the bridge into the spirit world.
In May,
