The Rose of Singapore Page 4

  Peter replied, “Well, that’s nonsense. Anyway, I’m older than I look.”

  “You go school here? Why you live in Singapore? Your daddy is army boy?” she asked.

  “Good grief, no! I’m not a schoolboy,” Peter said, laughing. “I’m nineteen. I’m in the RAF.”

  Obviously puzzled, she looked quizzically into his face.

  “I’m an airman. I’m stationed here at Changi,” he said. He flapped his arms as if he were a bird in flight. Her anger melted and she forced herself not to giggle at the sight of him looking so serious while flapping his arms up and down. Of course she knew what an airman was, but he looked far too young to be a serviceman. “You know, a bird,” he was saying. “An airman is like a bird. He flies.”

  “Do you fly?” she asked, almost unable to control her laughter. Her anger had melted and she was interested in this boy. He looked so innocent, and he made her laugh.

  “No, I don’t fly. Well, not very often. Only when I’m being posted from one camp to another.”

  “You are an officer?” she asked. “You are very young to be an officer.”

  “No. I’m not an officer. I’m just an airman. A tiny cog in the wheel,” said Peter, warming more and more to her company.

  “A tiny cog in the wheel! I do not understand.”

  “It’s just a saying, meaning I’m someone who helps in a small way.”

  “Oh! I see,” she was saying, when suddenly, rising from the nearby runway with a roar, and slowly gaining altitude as it passed low over their heads, a Handley Page Hastings aircraft, a four-engine aircraft of Transport Command headed north, its course altering due west as it approached the coastline of Malaya. It was probably on its first leg to England, thought Peter.

  “What work you do? You fly big one, same as that?” asked the girl at his side.

  Peter laughed, “No, I’m not a pilot, nothing so exciting. I’m a cook.”

  “A cook!” She repeated the two words as if more amazed than if he had said he flew big planes. “You are very young to be RAF cook,” she said. “What you say your name is?”

  “Peter,” he answered.

  “Peter,” she repeated, and then again, “Peter,” as if turning the name over in her mind.

  “Yes, Peter,” he was saying, loving the way she pronounced his name. He decided to try his Chinese on her. “Now that you know my name, what is your name?” he asked in Cantonese.

  A look of intense surprise came upon the girl’s face. Astonished, she asked in Cantonese, “You speak Chinese?”

  Peter chuckled. “A little,” he said, again in Chinese.

  “Where did you learn Chinese?” she asked.

  “Here and in Hong Kong, and mostly in the kitchens where I work. In the kitchens many of the workers speak no English, so I learn Chinese and speak to them in Chinese. And I can write a few Chinese characters, too,” Peter boasted. Eagerly he bent forward and with his index finger drew a short horizontal line in the wet sand. “Yat,” he said, “One.” Then he drew two horizontal lines, “Yee, two,” He followed by writing in the sand all the characters up to ten, reading them in Cantonese as he wrote them. “I can write up to a thousand,” he bragged. “And look, I can speak and write ‘one cup of tea,’” This he also did in Chinese. “I can speak and write several other kitchen terms in Chinese,” he said.

  “You are a very clever boy,” said the girl in a surprised and delighted voice.

  “And look!” said Peter laughing. “See if you can read this.” Carefully, and with considerable thought, he moved his index finger through the wet sand until he was satisfied at the characters he had drawn. “Well?” he asked.

  The girl studied the characters. She was not sure, but she thought she knew and she began to giggle.

  “It means,” said Peter seriously, “There’s a fly in my soup.”

  Clapping her hands in delight, the girl exclaimed, “Oh, you are so funny. The kitchen boys teach you all these things?”

  Returning to English, Peter said, “Well, not only the kitchen boys but also the cooks and waiters. There is one kitchen boy that I especially like who teaches me Chinese. He’s the one I fight with.”

  “Fight with?” asked the girl, perplexed.

  “Yes. He’s called ‘Chuff Box.’ That’s his nickname. We fight often. He’s smaller than me, but he always wins. He’s teaching me to fight Chinese style. Really, though, we are very good friends.” And then he said with a grin on his face, “Perhaps you and I could teach each other something,” followed by, “Please, won’t you tell me your name?”

  Amazed by him, she looked into his enquiring face, a little boy’s face full of kindness and innocence, she thought, and she suddenly thought of her late husband. He had been just like this boy when they had first met. There were the same characteristics, the same show of caring, the same qualities, the same youthfulness. Her late husband was not European, he was Chinese, yet she could not help but see a likeness. Perhaps it was just her imagination, she thought. “Why?” she asked Peter. “Why you want know my name?”

  Imitating her voice, Peter mimicked, “Why you want know my name?” Then he answered her question quietly and affectionately. “It’s because I like you,” he replied. “I like to be with you.” And at that moment he felt something towards her he had never experienced before with a woman. Without knowing it, he was falling in love.

  4

  Chan Lai Ming was her Chinese name, but she was also called Rose. Living in a British colony, many Singapore Chinese adopted an English name.

  “Lai Ming is a lovely name, and you’re lovely, too,” said Peter. “But I shall call you Rose. It’s such a pretty name,” and he gave a little laugh, saying, “it’s easy for me to remember.”

  She smiled. “My friends are Ah Ling and Susy Wee,” she said. “Susy is my very special friend. She is soon to be married to a business man who owns a beauty parlour close to the Cathay cinema.” Then she asked, “Do you come here often?”

  “Almost every day,” replied Peter.

  “To look for girls?” she asked, looking up into his face and smiling mischievously.

  “Good Lord, no!” exclaimed Peter. “Well, maybe just to look at them.” Then he said, “You’re the first Chinese girl I’ve spoken to here on the beach.”

  “You are not married. You are too young to be married,” she said. They were statements, not questions.

  “I’m not too young,” said Peter. “But, no, I’m not married,” and he wondered why she was so curious.

  Accompanied by Jimmy and Taff, her girlfriends had moved a hundred yards or more down the beach. Peter could hear them shouting and laughing, and he watched them for moments as they frolicked together in the shallows. He was glad that he was alone with Lai Ming. Fascinated, he studied her. She had such a beautiful face, even though, as she gazed out to sea she looked so sad. With her jet black hair falling down around bare shoulders, he saw her as a cuddlesome doll and was daring himself just to touch that creamy, porcelain-like skin. He wanted to hold her to him and to kiss that exquisite little mouth, but instead he did nothing except sit and study her, and wait until she spoke again.

  Eventually, when she did speak, she caught him by surprise. Turning her face to him, she said, “I was once married. I was very young. I was only sixteen. I was married to a good man, a kind and devoted husband.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Peter.

  He detected tears forming in Lai Ming’s eyes, but for the moment she controlled them. A tremor, though, entered her voice when she said, “He is dead. He died in an accident.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” said Peter.

  “It seems such a long time ago, but many times I still think of him,” she said. Now, without a doubt, he could see tears in her eyes, tears that were about to run down her cheeks.

  “Perhaps it’s best you don’t talk about it,” suggested Peter, feeling uneasy at seeing her looking so sad.

  She smiled through her tears at him. “You
are a good boy,” she said. But she wondered, why am I thinking of my husband when with this boy, this complete stranger?

  After a pause of several seconds, deep in thought, and looking far out across the water, Lai Ming quietly said, “I want to tell you.”

  Thus, that day, while sitting with Lai Ming on the sands of Changi Beach, Peter listened and learned much of her past. Spellbound by her soft, lyrical voice, he did not interrupt her.

  She was born in Palembang, on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, she said, to Chinese parents who were murdered by the invading Japanese when she was in her early teens. She herself was rescued by a young Chinese ship’s engineer who sneaked her aboard his ship, an old tramp steamer bound for Singapore. On the ship’s arrival in Singapore, he asked her if she would marry him. She had said ‘yes’ not only because she had no one else in the world to turn to, but because she found in him so many good qualities and was attracted to him. Shortly afterwards, they were married. He looked after her well, providing her with all she needed, even sending her to a good school in Singapore where she learned to speak English. To her, her husband was the best man in the world. Together, they were both blissfully happy, and even happier when she bore him a son. Somehow they managed to survive the cruel Japanese occupation of Singapore and it was not too long before the British returned and peace came once again to the island. Three years ago her husband was returning from Brunei on the same ship in which he had brought her to Singapore. It was to be the ship’s last voyage and was being delivered to a ship-breaker’s yard. The ship never arrived at its destination. When miles out at sea a boiler in the engine room exploded killing her husband and the crew working in the engine room. The ship sank in deep water. Only three deck hands and the cook survived to tell what happened to their ship, and of their ordeal swimming in shark-infested waters, before being picked up by a passing freighter.

  Lai Ming paused, her eyes searching Peter’s face, then, after a few moments, she continued, “I am alone now, to fend for myself and my seven year old son. He is at a boarding school here in Singapore.” Sighing wistfully, Lai Ming became silent again, her dreamy eyes gazing at him, her memory flooding back to those happy days when her husband sat at her side looking at her, just as this boy was looking at her now. She shrugged and smiled at him. “I don’t know why I have told you so much about myself,” she said. “We have not met before, and soon we shall go our separate ways.” She placed a tiny hand on his arm. “Peter, I don’t know why I tell you my troubles. I have never before told a stranger of my past.” Taking her hand from his arm, she ran tiny fingers through the sand that separated them.

  Peter saw her lovely, almond-shaped eyes again turn away from him, and he believed she was actually blushing. He lay back on the sand and watched billowing clouds scudding across the sky, black clouds that soon would blot out the sun. White horses were already racing across the wind-swept water of the Johore Strait; water which, only minutes ago, had been calm and still, was already whipped up into a fury. Away to the left palm trees swayed ominously. Peter thought, we’re in for a hell of a storm, and it won’t be long in coming. But, for the moment, he cast the threat of the approaching storm aside. “I’d like to know you better, Rose. I would like you as a friend,” he said sincerely, again sitting up and looking into her face.

  She smiled sadly at him, “For me it is a big pleasure meeting you, Peter, and I have forgiven you for nearly drowning me, but our paths must go separate ways.” She looked away from him as she continued by saying, “After today we shall not meet again. It is better that way.” But she knew she spoke those last words with a heavy heart.

  “I don’t understand you, Rose. Why shouldn’t we meet again?” Peter asked. “Don’t you like me?”

  She smiled tenderly at him. “I think you are a good boy.” She was about to say more when a large drop of rain, and then another, splashed cold upon her bare shoulders. Lifting her face to the sky, she watched as a mass of rolling black clouds finally extinguished the sun, and she felt the warmth of the air turn suddenly cold. The brightness of the day was gone, suddenly it became almost dark.

  Peter wanted to say, “Let’s get our asses out of here,” but instead politely said, “Rose, we must go, and quickly.” Jumping to his feet, he stretched out a hand to assist her. “Come,” he said, and she grasped his hand and he pulled her up so that she stood facing him. She was not even five feet tall, not by two or three inches. He felt like a giant towering over her, the top of her head did not even reach his chin. A warmth towards her flooded through him as he looked down upon that beautiful little face and into those lovely brown eyes that were gazing up into his. He wanted to crush her to him, to hold her and to feel her snug in his arms, but he just stared down at her in wonderment. A vivid flash of lightning striking close by, immediately followed by a booming crack of thunder directly overhead, brought Peter back to the predicament, even danger, they were in. The skies had opened up, too, for suddenly cold, heavy rain lashed down upon them. With urgency in his voice, Peter shouted, “Let’s run to the coffee shop.” Then he remembered his clothes lying on the beach several yards away. “Excuse me,” he said, and raced away from her. Scooping up the already saturated clothing, he then raced back to Lai Ming who was already hurrying towards Pop’s shack.

  He heard Taffy shout, “We’re heading back to the village, Peter. Are you coming?”

  Peter shouted his reply, “No. I’m staying here. You’ll get drenched. Stay here.”

  “No. I’ve a buffet to do this evening at the officers’ mess. Good luck. See you later,” Taffy shouted.

  Peter watched as his two friends disappeared into the deluge of rain that was now cascading from the heavens, then he raced after Lai Ming who was already halfway between the beach and the coffee shop. In the distance, not far from the beach end of Changi’s main runway, a grove of palm trees swayed before a quickly rising wind, and huge green leaves of banana trees growing in the silt near the shack loudly rustled their warning. More vivid flashes of lightning lit up the sky, and the sharp crack and rumbling of thunder grew louder, constant, and more intense. Catching up with Lai Ming, he again grasped her hand, and feeling her fingers entwine in his, they raced to the sanctuary of the coffee shop through sheets of cold, blinding rain.

  Running, dripping with water, laughing and still holding hands, Peter and Lai Ming dashed into the palm-thatched shack which provided some shelter from the howling wind and driving rain. In several places, though, the roof leaked like a sieve, the constant dripping of water forming little pools of muddy water in the dirt below. Lai Ming’s two girlfriends were already seated at a table.

  “Hey, Pop, four hot coffees and a packet of biscuits, please,” shouted Peter, as he and Lai Ming joined the two girls at the table.

  Pop grinned in his usual friendly manner and replied, “OK, Johnny. One minute.” He shuffled away on bare feet to where a blackened water pot stood amid glowing embers within a bucket-shaped charcoal fire, the kitchen’s centrepiece. Yellowish-brown smoked fish hung from an overhead beam of bamboo, and in a shallow china basin were several black and white striped eggs that had been buried for months in warm mud and were now ripe and ready for eating. From another bamboo beam a basket of green and yellow Chinese cabbage and lettuce swung in the wind. Beneath these were open boxes containing root vegetables, and in a corner of the kitchen were a number of smoke-blackened pots and pans in which Pop and Momma’s gastronomic delights were cooked.

  In a far corner of the shack sat Momma, once again lovingly suckling her newborn baby. Around her, still naked, her other three children played, running in and out of the tiny waterfalls flowing through the roof, shrieking with laughter, and making comic faces when the cold rainwater splashed down upon their bronzed bodies.

  A flock of scrawny hens braved the storm by scratching in the mud outside the shack, while others pecked insects from the dirty, sandy, wood-planked floor, from the rotted plywood and canvas walls, and from the termite-ridden poles
holding up the place.

  “Hello again,” said Peter to the two seated girls. “This is quite a fun place, isn’t it?”

  Both Ah Ling and Susy Wee giggled and looked with some curiosity at him, and then at Lai Ming.

  “He is just a little boy,” teased Ah Ling in Chinese. “You are stealing a little boy from his Momma.”

  “But you know what they say, ‘Big boy, big cock. Little boy, all cock,’” said Susy, also in Chinese. And to Lai Ming’s absolute embarrassment both girls exploded into a fit of giggles.

  “He speaks some Chinese,” snapped Lai Ming at her friends in English, and then she scolded them in Chinese.

  Obviously embarrassed, Ah Ling buried her face in her hands, and said, “Me very sorry.” Peter, though, detected poorly suppressed giggles.

  Sitting across from Peter, and trying to keep a straight face, Susy said to him in Chinese, “What’s your name?” But she too could not stifle her giggles.

  “They are both very naughty girls,” said Lai Ming. “I am ashamed of them.”

  Peter chuckled. “I think they are both very funny girls,” he said. He hadn’t understood what was said word for word, but he did get their meaning. “My name is Peter,” he answered Susy in Cantonese.

  “Me very happy to meet you, Peter,” responded Susy, in English, and she held out her hand for him to shake. “Friend of Ming is friend of mine,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Peter, realizing that neither Susy Wee nor Ah Ling spoke English as well as Lai Ming did.

  The conversation was interrupted by Pop, who approached the table saying, “Here, Johnny, four coffees and biscuits,” and he set before them four miniature blue-tinted cups of steaming hot coffee and a packet of sweet biscuits. “One dollar eighty cents,” he said.

  Peter said, “Thanks, Pop,” and paid the man.

  Now, torrential rain was falling, and as the wind shrieked and howled, lightning streaked through dark skies, and the continuous peals of thunder smote the air like gunfire from a thousand howitzers. In places, the canvas sides of the shack blew apart, the wind whipping the ragged ends so that they flapped violently. The water-logged roof leaked more than ever but Pop, Momma and family remained unperturbed, having experienced countless such storms.