The Catherine Lim Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

and despite her efforts, the wasted, pallid body with the
stiff beard jutting ludicrously from the old chin, forced itself upon her
sight.
    And now the idiot one – his howling
penetrated her ears, reminded her of a film she once saw as a child, of a
vampire howling at the moon in a desolate graveyard. Angela felt sorry for her.
She knew she had to do something.
    “Ah Bock,” she said gently, “come, I’ll take
you to Ah Moi Cheem’s house.” This was a distant relative, in a village way out
of town. “Here, look, I’ve some money for you, money for you to spend,” opening
her leather handbag. She recollected his ecstatic joy at being given some money
once.
    She tried gently to lead him away; he
resisted, she winced. Oh, the burden of it all. A huge, ugly, brutish creature
– and not even a real son.
    He went on howling; each sob from Old Mother
drew a loud wail from him. It was intolerable.
    “What about coming to my house and playing
with Michael?”
    The idiot one stopped howling, considered
the proposition.
    “Michael,” he repeated and began to smile,
the tears still on his face. Angela screamed silently.
    “All right, Ah Bock. Get into my car now.
I’ll drive you over to my house,” she said, suddenly heavy of heart.
    She put through a quick telephone call to
the capable, reliable Mooi Lan.
    “The idiot’s coming. I simply have to get
him out of the way here. He wants to play with Michael. But keep an eye. Make
sure he doesn’t do odd things with the boy. Keep them separately occupied if
you can. Load him with plenty of food. Just keep him occupied.”
    Oh my God, I’m bound hand and foot, she
thought as she drove off with the idiot. She returned, tired and sad, smack
into one of those hateful money discussions among the brothers. Chinaman had a
calculator – a calculator in a house of death! ‘Uncle Abacus’, ‘Uncle
Calculator’, she must not forget to tell Mark. They were discussing the funeral
preparations and the cost. Old Mother was too distraught to have a part. She
left it to the three sons.
    Click, click, click went the tiny pocket
calculator.
    Chinaman – Uncle Abacus – Uncle Calculator
was working out the costs, to be shared by the three brothers.
    Request no wreaths or scrolls. Cash
donations to be used to reduce expenditure.
    “I leave everything to you,” said Wee Boon,
tired and heavy-eyed, longing for the whole thing to be over. The call of
Friday poker, Sunday golf, was as strong as ever; he had missed them in the
last two or three months.
    “Yes, you handle everything,” said Wee Nam,
the youngest brother who was already owing his eldest brother a lot of money
and would be owing him his share of the funeral expenses.
    Angela saw him whisper something to Boon,
heard her husband say, “Don’t worry.” Her suspicions were confirmed. Parasite.
Parasites all round.
    The funeral arrangements went on smoothly
except for an incident. Angela was to narrate it to her friends later with the
flushed excitability of a person who has witnessed incredible things.
    It was incredible – the sheer macabreness of
it all.
    The coffin from Singapore Casket had duly
arrived, ordered by Wee Tiong; as the men hoisted it from their van into the
house, Old Mother began to rant and rage. The coffin was suspended for a full
five minutes on the shoulders of the two swarthy Indians as they looked on,
open-mouthed, at Old Mother flailing her arms about in her rage.
    A proper coffin, raged Old Mother. Not your
improper modern, useless coffin. The kind of coffin that his father was buried
in, that I will be buried in. Cannot you sons and daughters do even this for
your old dead father?
    She waved a hand imperiously at the two
Indians, to take away the offensive coffin from her sight.
    And the old one then went and stood beside
the corpse and began again the plaintive dirge.
    Oh, I can’t bear this; how awful, how
gruesome, thought Angela and she saw Gloria run out to retch. It could have
been an