CHAPTER 82
We had a week to settle in, a process that didn’t leave a lot of free time. We did get some exploring in, though, which included a trip to the Botanic Gardens. Maz had seemed almost ashamed when she had asked what amounted to my permission, and our late-night discussion became quite emotional for some very obvious reasons. We were both a little bleary-eyed when we roused Ish that morning, asking him to pack his raincoat and the little digital camera we had treated him to.

We took the bus out to the station this time, rather than walk, and then the MRT to the Gardens, where Maz led us to the ‘Visitor Services’ office at the entrance, where a young Malay woman was behind the reception desk. Maz said something in Malay, and after a few seconds, the girl’s eyes widened slightly, and she glanced quickly at Ish and myself before looking at the ring on my wife’s left hand. There was a quick exchange I obviously couldn’t follow, but I did catch our names and the word ‘Pinang’ just before the receptionist reached out for Maz’ hand, squeezed it, and then called over her shoulder for someone else, who turned out to be an older man. More rapid-fire conversation, another pair of widened eyes, and then a sharp nod.

“Mister Rhodes? May I be… I am sorry, but given the exact circumstances, I am unsure of the right words. Offering my condolences seems out of place, but I am sure you will understand the intent”

Maz pulled her tablet from her rucksack and quickly scrolled through some pages.

“This is the wedding photograph, sir”

Ish piped up.

“Is this where Mum and Alan got married, Dad?”

“Yes, son”

I turned to our new friends.

“I was in almost identical circumstances when we met, and we decided that as our… that the other two people involved would still be treated as family, and our son here understands why. That right, Ish?”

He looked at the older man, then at me, as if asking for permission, before Maryam simply said, “Go on, son”

“Okay. What it is for me… I have my Mum, and I have my Dad, and they are the best parents I could want, but, Alan and Carolyn, they did some of the making of my Mum and Dad, so they did some of my making, sort of. I think I should know about them. We can’t know who we are till we know where we’re from”

As the young woman stifled a grin, the older man was nodding.

“Mr and Mrs Rhodes, you have a very polite and sensible son. In what way can we help?”

Maz was clearly losing her confidence, and started to stammer, so I took over.

“We spoke about this last night, sir”

“Abdul, please. And this is Ayah”

“Thank you. Mike, Maryam and Ishmael. Anyway, Maz and I would like to leave something, as a memorial, but we wanted to avoid littering, or bringing in plants that would be out of place, such as a bouquet”

“Thank you. May I offer a suggestion?”

“Please do”

“We are replanting part of that area. You could adopt a plant”

“Sorry?”

He nodded to his colleague, who passed us some forms.

“There is a notional fee to join the Friends Society of the Gardens, and then you can request an adoption. As it happens, we are due to plant a new sapling today. Would that be a suitable touch?”

Maz’ eyes were now very damp, her speech choked, so she just nodded. Abdul smiled once again, leaving Ayah to squeeze her hand again.

“We have what the Americans call golf carts, Mike, Maryam, Ishmael. Ayah will process your application and take the payment. I am loth to take money for this, but it creates an audit record that will ensure the memorial is a lasting one. May I have an appropriate form of words?”

Maz dictated the simplest possible, being his name and the two relevant dates. As she said the second, Abdul winced.

“I see now. I lost a cousin that day. If you will please wait here? The ice cream place will serve you refreshments, if you wish”

Two cups of tea and a bottle of fluorescent fizz later and he was back, with another older man in tow, this one in overalls.

“This is Lee, one of our gardeners. He will take you to the site and plant the tree for you. He has a placard for it; once everything is set, we will replace it with a more durable sign. May I wish you all good fortune for the future?”

Maz said some more stuff in Malay, we all bowed, and then Lee led us to a little electric wagon with a small tree on the load bed, its roots bagged. We rolled almost silently along a tarmac footpath until the scenery matched my memories, or rather those held in my wife’s other wedding pictures. A tiny digger stood next to a hole in the soil, and Lee pointed towards it.

“The right place?”

Maz nodded, still unable to speak, and Lee looked at me.

“You able to help, Mister? Quicker for us, then I leave you private”

Two of us made short work of setting the little tree in the hole, and lee worked the little digger skilfully to refill the hole so that our new plant was firmly upright, and then attached a small card wrapped in clear plastic, bearing the words Maz had requested. He walked the digger well off to one side before shaking hands with me and Ish and bowing to Maz.

“I leave you private now, and I wish you peace. This is right sort of memorial: one that grows, lives. I look after it, okay”

He left us to our ‘private’ and ‘peace’, and the embrace Maz got from both of her men as she finally broke down. We sat on a bench for a while, after Ish and I had taken a few suitable photos, and once Maz was back with us we walked around the rest of the grounds, As we set off, she called to Ish, “I am so proud of you, love. Thank you”

The rain hit us half way round, but we had waterproofs, and the little kiosk had more tea. The rest of the day started in the waterfront area near Change Alley, or what had once been that tourists’ favourite, a bazaar and money-changing place, which was now a very upmarket skyscraper cluster, and then we took our lunch at Bugis Street, which set Maz chuckling at long last. Ish needed the loo by then, and once he was gone, Maz whispered a little history to me.

“I’ll tell you about Change Alley later, love, but this place, when Alan’s dad was here, was very different. For starters, it was a place, well, red light district, sort of. And not all the girls were exactly what it said on the tin”

“Do you mean girls like Alys, or Neil’s wife?”

She winced.

“I suppose so, but a lot of them I think were actually well-presented rent boys. Down there, though, there was a public toilet, with a flat roof, and all the British Forces men, they would climb onto it, and drop their pants, and get cigarettes lighters and, well”

She was waving at her backside just as a sneakily returned Ish asked, “Do you mean they set fire to their farts, Mum?

Oh dear.

“Er, yes, love, but how do you know people can do that?”

“It’s Davy at school, Mum. Says his big brother’s friends do it. Wouldn’t it burn your bum? What if the flame got sort of sucked back in? Would you get all cooked, or would you just go bang?”

Once again, I sighed, and Maz found the most evil of grins.

“Young man, I do believe there is only one place suitable to round off the day. Now, pick what you would like for lunch, please”

“Where are we going, Mum?”

“A surprise, my love. One for Dad as well”

“Will I like it?”

I had thought her prior grin was as evil as possible, but I was wrong. The new one was even worse.

Lunch was a selection of noodle dishes with a side order of satay chicken skewers, and with the addition of some ice creams my stomach was quite comfortably replete as Maz navigated us through the public transport system to Pasir Panjang, where I understood why her grin had seemed so warped.

There was an ornate Chinese style arch.
There were copious references to some embrocation called ‘Tiger Balm’.
There was an entrance to what was called ‘Hell’s Museum’.
There were exhibits.

The statues and structures looked quite old, some of them rather crudely done, and I assume they were made from concrete or similar materials, but they were all painted up extremely brightly, and, well, we were in Hell, or rather ten Hells, and they were depicted with zero subtlety but an awful lot of enthusiastic detail, from people being sawn in half or having their arms and legs chopped off to bodies hanging off trees with knives for leaves.

Ish loved it. Maz was finally smiling. I was simply astonished.

“Alan’s Dad loved this place, my darling’s. It’s changed a bit, though2

“How? Sorry—I mean for worse or better?”

She waved at Ish, laughing happily at some grotesque torture or other.

“Define those two words, if you can. Anyway, that one where the man’s being crushed, they used to have a statue of a demon driving a small bulldozer, road roller, with lots of knives sticking out of the roller and controls on it just like a real one. Bit unrealistic”

I indicated some floridly insane bit of sadism.

“Unrealistic?”

“Point taken. Too unrealistic even for here would be better, I suppose”

It turned out that our house lay just over the low ridge behind the ‘Villa’, so it wasn’t that far a ride. We picked up some snacks for our supper, plus another couple of bottles, and then walked a couple of hundred yards to the station, where the line took us right back to that mornings first stop. A now-familiar bus ride took us back to Alan’s Dad’s stop, as I thought of it, and home. Once again, there wasn’t the slightest hint of a discussion as we all changed and settled into our pool, slightly footsore. A few sips, and then I remembered.

“Maz?”

“Umhum?”

“You said you had a story about Change Alley?”

“Oh yes!”

A little voice interrupted.

“Is it about farts again, Mum?”

There was a little surge of bubbles around his waist, and he started into waves of laughter, while Maz shook her head, trying her best to keep her own laughter under control.

“No, darling. It’s about taxi drivers”

She turned back to me, a happy grin on her face smoothing over my worries from that morning,
.

“Foreign Navies, mostly Yanks, would berth near the Collier’s Quay end. Sailors would come ashore, grab one of the old taxis and ask to be taken to Change Alley”

“But aren’t you already there, just about? On the Quay?”

“That’s the point. The drivers would get them aboard, take a scenic drive through the city, and then drop them off at the other end and charge them a fistful of dollars and its friends. And the Yankees wouldn’t have a clue”

“Surely, when they got to the other end of the alley, they’d realise?”

“Too late then, but that’s not all. They’d quote the price from the meter, and the sailor would ask if they took American dollars, and they would. One for one”

“And the exchange rate was?”

“Oh, today’s terms? An American dollar was, well. Let’s say a US dollar was the same as an Aussie one, while the Singapore dollar was about fifteen cents Aussie”

“Um, as our friends would say, Streuth!’. They still doing that?”

“No. God---Lee Kwan Yew--- he said any driver caught doing that would get caned. In public. Worked, just as intended”

That said me thinking about how to do business in the new country, as well as how Ish might cope in school. Public corporal punishment? Ouch, literally. I needed to do some serious thinking on that topic.

I looked in on him later, as he settled down for the night.

“Had a good day, son?”

“Was great, Dad. Can we go again? For the devils place?”

“I think so. Now, sleep well. Getting school uniform tomorrow, and a couple of suits for me, so it’ll be a busy morning”

I closed his door with a smile, that little worry from his comment about his mother’s first wedding dress now fully salved.

Fart jokes, and amusement at cartoon levels of fantasy violence.

He was most definitely my boy.