“HE’S A good boy,” Mrs Sunha muttered to herself. She had started talking to herself when alone at home before the war, but with much effort she had stopped doing it during the Japanese occupation. Just in case some spy is listening, she told herself. It needed much self-discipline to stop the habit.
But now with the British back she could resume her patter while she cooked, washed clothes and cleaned the house. This was freedom.
“I couldn’t have a better lodger. And now with his girlfriend popping in almost every other night, it makes life so interesting for me.” She smiled. “I’m glad I allowed him to bring her here. And I’m sure she’s not a woman of the streets. Not even a trace of perfume. Just some nice powder smell. It’s not Cuticura or Johnson’s Baby Powder. But it’s nice. Not loud.
“They laugh with such happiness sometimes. And she’s the considerate one, I think. It’s a woman’s shhhh! that I hear after they laugh too loudly.”
She didn’t mouth her next thought. It was too secretive and rather naughty a thought. I must try to get a peep at her next time. When he starts the motorcycle to take her home.
She put the last plate away and went to do his room. It was Wednesday. As she pulled the bedsheet off the mattress she had a shock. A blonde hair on the bed. She examined it closely, taking off her spectacles to scrutinise the long blonde hair to make sure it was blonde. She immediately went over the whole sheet and found two more. Now she was sure.
“Oh, my God! He’s been seduced by one of those English WACs. Bolder than our prostitutes. Women of low caste. Not like the elegant wives of English civil servants. Oh my God! The poor boy.”
It shook her. She couldn’t reconcile her image of her quiet Malaccan lodger who played his stick musical instrument every night and gave her no trouble at all, there in her house with a big-bosomed, big-bottomed, thick-thighed European woman.
As she cleaned Daud’s room the same thoughts went round and round in her head. She knew they would haunt her for weeks.
“Aunty! Pickles!”
“Oh dear. It’s that pickles lady, Faith Mosbergen.”
She opened the door and there Faith was with her basket of various pickles, drenched in perspiration but smiling.
“Come in, come in, Miss Mosbergen.”
“Moss. Faith Moss.”
“Yes, yes. I know you are Faith … Goodness, you look hot. Let me get you a glass of water. But I have no ice today. Not at the moment. I was going down to the shop later to get some.”
“Don’t worry yourself, Aunty. Boiled water’s fine for me.”
Faith was seated in the kitchen with a glass of water. She knew Mrs Sunha would be good for two bottles. One a saltfish pickle. The other needed discussion. Faith was sure Mrs Sunha didn’t keep the other one for herself. A regular present to a daughter, or sister or friend … No one could eat so much pickle. And she was grateful in her heart for Mrs Sunha’s charity.
After the decision and the careful counting of the money and the change passed back, it was either a piece of practical advice, the late Sunha’s eternally evergreen thoughts, Mrs de Quental next door (lime pickles), Mrs Das of Joo Chiat Lane (pickled papaya) or her perfect lodger, some Malay fellow, Daud bin Ibrahim.
Faith knew her buyers.
Today she had news for Mrs Sunha.
“Hope I’m not disturbing you, Aunty.”
“No, no, no, no …”
“I heard a whisper about your Malay lodger …”
“Oh yes?” with fears of the worst.
“He’s going out with a girl now.”
“Yes?” her eyes desperately expectant.
“A Eurasian girl …”
“What?” Mrs Sunha interrupted to make sure she’d heard it right.
“Yah. A Eurasian girl from Malacca.”
Faith saw Mrs Sunha’s wide-eyed interest and leant against the wall, settling in to give Mrs Sunha all the ‘gen’.
“Philippa Rosario. A spinster. School teacher. She came down here before the war. To teach. And just before the Japs took Malacca her folks came down. Even a brother who lived in Ipoh, with his wife and child. Children, I should say. I think there were two. They used to stay in St Michael’s Road but they’ve moved to Bukit Timah Road. Not Newton. Further up. Not as far as the Corneliuses.”
Faith took a gulp of her boiled tap-water. Mrs Sunha was open-mouthed with attention. Faith warmed to her listener.
“I’ve met her. Once. When Mrs Rosario was not in. She’s a beautiful tall lady. Could pass off as a European any time. Fair-skinned and blue eyes …”
“A redhead?” Mrs Sunha interjected sharply.
“No. Blonde. And such a lovely lady. So genteel … if you know what I mean …”
“Blonde, uh?” Mrs Sunha repeated, smiling with relief.
“Yah. Mrs Hendricks saw her with him at the Capitol. And the Newmans told me they go to the Islamic almost every Saturday for tiffin after work. He often plays in the d’Souza brothers’ band. Esme says he’s very good.”
Faith searched her mind for more, seeing Mrs Sunha was so very interested.
“He works in … but you probably know that.”
“Yes. The P.W.D.”
Mrs Sunha felt all the problems of the world were solved when she finally closed the door as Miss Mosbergen left.
“I wonder what Muslim name she’ll take when she embraces Islam …” she said, smiling happily.
“YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL from the back, Phil,” Daud mumbled, his head touching her shoulder as she lay on her front, relaxed and still flushed with passion. Their timing had been perfect.
“I would have fallen in love with you even if I only saw your back.”
She giggled.
“Or even if I only saw the back of your calves, my beautiful.”
“The trouble with you, Daud darling, is that you only saw cloth-covered women in your puberty.”
“Ah no. Don’t forget the attap-screened walls of Malacca …”
“But always bathing in sarongs, my peeper-Tom friend.”
“Sarongs, wet, clinging to every curve of the body. Better than looking at a perfectly shaped nude body with coarse skin …”
“Which you did in your time, lover boy?”
He grunted and shut his eyes. They were not going to any midnight show that night.
It seemed hours later when Philippa stirred and turned over.
“Ah … Aiyah … do I have to wash?”
“No hurry.”
They heard Mrs Sunha coughing.
“She’s not well, Daud. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Some kind of ’flu, I expect. But she’s in good form these days. You know, my lovely, I think she’s fallen in love with me.”
“You mean the other woman has become another real other woman now?”
“She’s become so … er … concerned … fussing, but not fussy. Like a mother recently … fallen in love, as I said.”
“Probably menopause.”
“Second or third, if you’re right.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her.”
“Neither has she seen you, Phil.” Daud chuckled, and added, “She’s heard you though …”
“Don’t you say it, don’t! I don’t groan.”
“Weep?”
“Oh, Daud. Yes, I weep with joy inside me.”
MRS SUNHA heard Daud kick-start the motorcycle. Her cough had kept her awake. She rushed to the window.
“Oh, she’s beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! And such lovely long hair. Our daughter would have had hair like that. But black. Thick, heavy, black glistening with perfumed oil, falling gently on her sari.”
She planned the meeting. They came back on Saturdays at about three o’clock. After lunch at the Islamic as Faith Mosbergen had told her. She deliberately left her lunch dishes in the sink and sat at the front window waiting.
As the motorcycle came in she rushed to the kitchen and started washing up. He could not get to his room without being seen. The kitchen door and his bedroom door were adjacent.
“Ah, you’re back,” Mrs Sunha said, seeing the tall woman behind him. But the light was behind them and she could not see Philippa’s face. Nor all of her figure.
Daud did not hesitate. “Mrs Sunha, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Miss Rosario.”