Tales From A Broad (22 page)

‘Sadie, what about the clothes and books and backpack?' I remind her.

‘Well, that was all I liked.'

‘Pat, we had the best time here. I wish you two could have come.'

‘I know. I couldn't leave my mother,' Pat says.

‘Forty-nine Christmases, 49 Easters, 49 Thanksgivings. Every summer. She even sits in my chair,' Bill laments.

I cut him off. ‘We had a Christmas Eve formal cocktail party at our friend's apartment. Oh my gosh, you should have seen the decorations …'

Caroline is famous for her holiday zeal. Weeks before Christmas, she had a different set of themed earrings on every day: Rudolphs that lit up, wreaths made of pine, Santas that said ‘ho ho ho' when she tugged her earlobe. Her apartment was chockablock with paraphernalia on Christmas Eve, from the tree that swayed to the music, to the one that had ornaments in the shape of her family, from the electric train that went through all 10,000 square feet of her apartment, to the authentic Santa sleigh that vibrated when you fed it coins. She had replaced her curtains with ones bearing a winter wonderland pattern. There were matching slipcovers and pillows. She somehow had icicles hanging from the ceiling. My favourite decoration was the life-sized manger with robotic holy men and a stereo playing ‘We Three Kings', ‘Little Drummer Boy' and ‘Silent Night'. Caroline was decked out in a fur-lined red dress. She and Todd had the space, they were very generous and genuinely enjoyed having a crowd. Todd was jolly though rather busy. When he wasn't handing out red and green Jello shots, he was untying Barbie from the train tracks. Just when he thought he could mingle, he spotted something amiss in the manger. ‘Hey, Clive, put Mary back. She doesn't like that.'

Thousands of kids were there because the maids had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. We all brought a dish and some drinks. I brought homemade potato
latkes
, applesauce,
ruggelah
and three bottles of my brother's Snow Farm Wine that I hid away in boxes when we moved. The party started at five. I wore a yellow cocktail dress that was short but smart, and a black pearl necklace and sapphire diamond earrings Frank brought back from Bangkok. Several of my friends' parents were there visiting so we adopted them for general grandparent duty.

‘… Yeah, it was nice …'

‘Well, it was so good of you to call,' Pat says, wrapping it up a bit abruptly.

‘Where's Huxley?' Bill asks.

‘Merry Christmas, Bill. See you in a few months.'

‘I'm getting old. I don't have a few months.'

‘Bill, you've been saying that since I first met you ten years ago.'

‘Just hang up, Bill. I'll bring dinner,' Pat says. ‘Goodbye …'

‘Hi Ma!' I say into the phone.

‘Frannie! I was just doing my exercises. I usually turn the phone off when I do them but I thought that I hadn't heard from you in so long. I was just telling Sonya how Hanukah came and went and I didn't hear a word from you. I don't even know if you got my card. Did you get the kids anything with the money I sent? I would have sent a gift but I wouldn't have known if it got to you. At least with a cheque I can see if it was cashed. You didn't cash the one I sent for your birthday. Ah, speaking of birthdays. Did Frank get my card? Did he have a good birthday? I hope you didn't drag him around to all your things and you just let the poor guy relax. From what Pat tells me … can you believe I have to hear about you from your mother-in-law … Frank must keep up with her. I know she does that email you want me to do but you know me, I'm just learning how to use the VCR. Pat says you and Frank are always out on the town. Poor Bonnie and Harris, they're too busy to go out. They don't have maids. We've had six feet of snow already. I'm out shovelling every day. It's good exercise, besides, I don't trust the boys who come around. This neighbourhood isn't safe any more. But I don't know where to move. Oh, I have to hang up in a sec, I just noticed the time. I'm late already. You didn't tell me how you are? Or the kids. Typical! I love you. Talk to you next week.'

I had hoped to get a quick chance to assure Mom that I was swell. I had always been such a source of commotion, disturbance, worry, grief, stress, fear (why else have kids?) all my life that I wanted to make amends and prove that I had my act together. I was a long way from convincing Mom. Even if I said nothing more than ‘I was just about to go to the store' she'd be sure it was another hair-brained, crazy scheme I was cooking up.

‘Well, guys, let's get dressed for Jenny's,' I call out.

Frank puts down his paper. ‘What?'

‘The Boxing Day party. At Jenny's. Remember?'

‘No.'

‘Well, it starts at noon.'

‘No.'

‘Yeah, it does.'

‘I mean, I'm not going.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't want to.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's going to be the same people from the Christmas Eve party and the same people from the Christmas Day party.'

‘I guess there will be some cross-over attendance, yes. What's your point?'

‘What more could I possibly have to say to these people after one night apart?'

‘Oh, come on, get dressed. I'll write out some conversation cards for you or you can just sulk against the wall. Anyway, you don't want to be all alone on Boxing Day.'

‘I don't know what Boxing Day is. I
do
want to be alone. I would
love
to be alone. Alone with you and Sadie and Huxley.'

‘That's so sweet to hear. Listen, I'm going to –'

‘Go out for your run,' Frank finishes.

‘Yeah, and I was going to meet you there because I want to run for a few hours today. So I've packed a bag for you to bring to Jenny's so I can shower there.'

‘No.'

‘She said it would be okay.'

‘No.'

‘What now?'

‘Don't run. Stay.'

‘Jeez, Frank. I can't make a day out of a sofa and a newspaper. I need other ingredients. Don't be mad.'

‘Don't keep Samantha waiting, Fran. I'll see you at noon.'

‘Thanks.' I give him a long kiss because I still have a minute before Samantha will be at the gate and because I can't bear to just leave him standing there with his arms outstretched in the void.

‘I didn't think I'd make it out,' I say when I see her.

‘Oh, my gang isn't even up yet.'

‘What time do your kids go to bed?' Mine had been up for hours already.

‘Sometimes they just don't. And sometimes they sleep all day.'

‘That doesn't worry you?'

‘I read a book,
Your Body, Our Cash
, all about how big companies want us to be awake during the day so we can buy things.'

‘I never thought of it that way.'

‘Sure, look how the commercials for toys and junk food are on during the day. And the stores …'

‘Open in the day,' I add, wide-eyed. ‘Yeah, you know, you're right! Still, I could write a book:
Kids Who Don't Sleep Don't Get Toys … and Other Things Children Should Know to Make Their Lives More Pleasant
.'

‘Fran!'

‘What do they do at 1 am?'

‘Oh, we make bread or play chess or watch television.'

‘We? So how do
you
function during the day?'

‘Bet!' We laugh.

Our plan is to go down East Coast Park and over Mt Faber and take a cab to Jenny's from there. Now that we're doing one long run a week, it's critical for our sanity to find inventive routes on this small island. Last week, to make up a two-hour run, we went through a mall from end to end, on each floor. I thought it was brilliant. We got aircon, we had some steps, we got to leap over things like wheelchairs and small children, and we could window-shop. Plus the bathrooms were much better there than in the park – better soap and some even had toilet paper.

Not too many people are in the park this morning but it's still a scene. There are four kinds of groups that can be found here no matter what the time, no matter what the weather, no matter what the holiday. First, there are the public workers, lean, swarthy men from places like Sri Lanka, who live in encampments in the park. Their ghettos are hidden from public view by trees and shrubs but if you peer between the branches, you can see them laying out their straw mats, cooking over butane stoves, smoking
bidis
and washing out the cloths they wrap around their waists and then tuck between their legs. I don't know what they call that look; it's like Aladdin before he got rich. In the earliest hours of the morning, like 5 am, a crew of them sweep the paths free of detritus; another set, reams of black garbage bags artfully coiled around their heads, like walking dispensers, change the bin liners; and still another just stand there harmlessly, but unnervingly, curling their lips as they watch me run past.

Okay, so that's the worker bees. Then you have the people, usually poor families and teenagers, who pitch tents and camp out. They bring everything that's not nailed down and set it up just like it is at home, outside the tent. They put sofas and crockery, televisions and radios, tons of meat and rice and snacks and drinks and breakfast items onto a trolley and sail over to their plot of land, be it the tarmac, the sand or the grass. They stay up all night (so as to avoid the consumerist mind control of the big retail establishments?) eating and singing and eating some more until they pass out wherever they please, be it the grass, the tent, the tarmac or the sand. I'm sure they wake up with thousands of welts, a gift from the carpet of red ants that patrol the landmass, and the thick clouds of mosquitoes that rule the ankle zone of Singapore.

Then you have your bathroom attendants. They live with their families in the rest stations. It is not what most westerners would consider a home. Yes, they have running water, yes, they have lots of indoor plumbing, but they sleep in a hot little cell between the Gents and the Ladies and probably live on the snack food they sell: very instant noodles (just add saliva); Twisties and cuttlefish floss (you got me, but it's written on the package and you don't find it at the dentist's).

Finally, there are the ever-present teams of Tai Chi practitioners. I've been in the park in extraordinary weather and at the frightful hours of dawn and dusk, and there they are. I love them best. Happy herds of people past 50 in T-shirts that designate their class name, making small, tight movements to tape-recorded instructions. The cassette they listen to was produced before anyone used the word ‘digital' for anything but a clock. The hisses and pops, static and blur are so grating, I can't imagine these disciples get the zen for their yen, but they are such a jolly lot that I feel grateful to witness their simplicity as I sweat and drip on another endless workout.

We leave the park, run along the highway on Shears Bridge and get honked at. ‘Oh, look, it's Lisa and Roy. Hi!' I wave and blow a kiss. We run past Suntec City Mall.

‘Fran! Samantha!' come a duo of voices.

‘Hey,' I say, still running, to people sitting outside drinking coffee.

‘Who were they?' Samantha asks.

‘I think it was Simon and Melanie.'

‘Oh, I helped her breastfeed.'

‘That must have been a while ago, 'cause just the other day, I helped her up after she and Simon passed out in front of the koi fish. I found them at five in the morning when I went out for a run.'

‘Where were their kids?'

‘Pearl. Wonder what that night totalled.'

When we get to Mt Faber, Singapore's idea of a mountain, we trudge up the hill. Cable cars leave from here and stop at the World Trade Centre and then Sentosa Island, a little freckle of land used until 1970 as a military base. As logic would dictate, it is now a pleasure resort–theme park. Most people say it sucks: too expensive, too run-down, what a waste of space. While I see Sentosa Island that way too, I love it for those very reasons. I remember our first visit. Sadie enthralled a snake charmer who directed a python to slither up her tiny body like a stripe on a barbershop pole. I bit my nails but she begged for more. We took a hike down the ‘Dragon Path', following an ancient archaeological site where the first dragons were discovered. Really. There were plaster-of-Paris skeleton remains of 200-yard-long mythical reptiles and partial human skulls. Really. And then we went through Sea World. It took about one minute and cost $50. It features a moving platform that takes you through a glass tunnel of ocean life. I read every placard aloud to the family and we took another spin in an effort to amortise that $50. Then we went to the surfside burger place that would have been better without the insanely loud technobeat. We had a deep-fried lunch, hung out on the beach, rented paddle boats, collected things. And then found ourselves covered in tar.

We went to the hotel there and used their facilities. They had a shower outside of the pool area and we scrubbed until the black ooze on our feet and butts was the colour of nicotine stains and not quite sticky enough to pick up more than a few thousand grains of sand. The kids wanted to go to the pool, so we carried ourselves like guests, haughtily looking at the towel man, wagging our fingers at the cocktail boy, and no one thought otherwise as the kids went through the waterslides and frolicked in the pool. After that, we changed back into our clothes and kept looking at each other, saying, ‘This is our new life. This is great!' All right, so we got a little gooey, a little sunburned, but all that was of no concern as we sat in the Thai-styled lounge area, open on three sides to the South China Sea, a few ceiling fans spinning, the band, Kep Tan and To Nil, singing ‘Muskrat Love'. We lapped up the sunset with a bottle of happy-hour half-priced Moët and two Shirley Temples, toasting our friends back home who were bundled up with drippy noses. We spotted our first family of wild monkeys, picked up the car and went home, wondering what exactly everyone thought was so funny about Sentosa. Okay, the next day I had tar on my butt and deep-fryer fat in my veins, but it was worth it.