Aunty Lee's Deadly Specials (7 page)

GraceFaith ran up and pulled him away. “Stop it. Edmond, are you mad? Stop it!”

“He’s a troublemaker,” Edmond Yong said.

“You’re going to break his arm! Stop it!” GraceFaith pushed Edmond Yong away and released
the man’s arm. “What do you want? This is a private function.”

The newcomer also looked familiar to Aunty Lee. Was this the beginning of Alzheimer’s?
Aunty Lee put the thought aside as she pushed her way through the murmuring guests
to get a better look at him. Yes, the man definitely looked familiar, but unlike the
woman with Henry Sung, he did not seem to recognize her.

“I need to speak to Mr. or Mrs. Sung,” the man said. “I tried calling their offices
but I couldn’t get through to them. It’s about a friend of mine who’s missing. He
was working on a project here. His name is Benjamin Ng.”

“No one here by that name,” Edmond Yong said. He sounded like a schoolboy bully. Aunty
Lee thought he had probably been bullied in school and was getting his own back. “You
are trespassing. You better just get out of here before we call the police!”

“Wait. Please,” the man said. “I know he was here working on something. Is he still
here? I just need to reach him. Or can they get a message to him at least?”

“What is the message?” Aunty Lee asked helpfully and hopefully. She had no idea who
Benjamin Ng might be but she intended to find out.

The man turned to her, but before he could answer, GraceFaith pushed him out and shut
and locked the gate.

“Come on, the food will get cold and then everything will be wasted,” she said, sounding
like a bossy school prefect.

Sharon said, “I don’t believe it. She’s got the key to the back gate but I’ve got
to phone the house if I want to drive in. Can you believe that? Anybody would think
she’s the daughter of the house! You know, GraceFaith got Mabel all worked up before
the party because there was algae in the pool. I told Mabel nobody was going to swim,
but of course she didn’t listen to me. Now look. After all that fuss nobody is swimming
and nobody is eating.”

It was obvious to Aunty Lee that people had, in fact, been eating. Her buffet was
already looking tired in parts. The
nasi lemak
had been a great hit. The advantage of a
nasi lemak
buffet was that as long as the rice was kept steaming hot, everything else—crunchy
anchovies and peanuts, folded omelets,
otak,
fried chicken chops, and fried fish fillets—could be kept warm on heaters. Aunty
Lee took pride in her rice soaked in coconut cream before it was steamed with knotted
bundles of her homegrown
pandan
(screw pine) leaves and crushed stalks of lemongrass. For today’s buffet, Aunty Lee
had included chicken frankfurters, fried fish cakes, and luncheon meat as well as
a vegetable curry that food purists would have objected to. Still, these side dishes
had come to be part of the Singapore
nasi lemak
experience and Aunty Lee believed the best menu was one that suited dishes to the
tastes of the eaters. And though it was not part of
nasi lemak,
guests were clearly enjoying Aunty Lee’s special chicken
buah keluak.

“We should let Mabel and Henry know somebody is looking for them,” Aunty Lee said.

“Why?” Sharon asked. “Why should they be bothered just because some nutcase is bugging
them?” she added as GraceFaith joined them.

“Sharon’s always so intense,” GraceFaith said. “I’m not criticizing you, of course.
That’s what Mabel always says: ‘Sharon is so intense.’ The problem with some clients
is they have no respect for boundaries.”

“I have to get something else for Lennie,” Henry Sung said, looking helplessly at
the buffet spread. He picked up a fried chicken wing and looked at it, then put it
back on the warmer. The tray he was holding was smeared with food and there were splashes
of gravy on his trousers. Aunty Lee saw Nina and Cherril cleaning up the rest of the
mess by the steps.

“I’ll take care of that, Dad. Go and change before Mabel sees you.” Sharon Sung took
the tray from her father.

“Let me do that for you,” GraceFaith said.

Sharon snatched the tray back from her without answering.

About the same height as GraceFaith, Sharon looked much thinner in a black dress and
pumps. Yet GraceFaith seemed more comfortable in her body than Sharon was as she smiled,
shrugged, and moved away.

Sharon arranged several bowls on her tray and saw Aunty Lee watching her.

“I don’t suppose you remember me. I’m Sharon Sung. I was in school with Mathilda.”

Sharon Sung had red bloodshot eyes. Aunty Lee hoped that Mathilda, her stepdaughter,
was getting more sleep than this young woman.

“Will he eat chicken
buah keluak
? It’s my special dish.”

“He asked for it, apparently. I don’t know if he wants to eat it or throw it at the
maids.”

Aunty Lee watched as Sharon ladled chicken
buah keluak
into a bowl and added it to her tray along with a plate of rice with fried chicken
drumsticks and fried anchovies. She would have made a good cook, Aunty Lee thought,
seeing how she instinctively arranged the food to its advantage. Too many cooks forgot
that presentation was part of preparation.

“I don’t see why everybody makes such a big fuss about
buah keluak
. People only think it’s so special because they have to make an effort to dig it
out of the shell, which means they have to slow down and taste what they’re eating.
Otherwise they just shovel the food in without tasting it!”

Sharon spoke fast. She made Aunty Lee think of a student trying to get attention by
making smart-aleck comments. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. Once when he didn’t
like the dinner the maid prepared, he phoned KFC to come and deliver. Dad scolded
him for wasting money and Len said Dad should take it out of the maids’ salary because
if they cooked better he wouldn’t have had to order in!” Sharon laughed awkwardly.

Mathilda had already been away at Warwick University when Aunty Lee married her father,
but home on vacation, she had hosted a school gathering at the Binjai Park house.
Aunty Lee remembered one of the girls saying loudly, “Just wait until that woman has
a baby and your dad leaves everything to it instead of you!” followed by that same
awkward laugh. Aunty Lee had not been hurt by the girl’s words. She knew other people
were probably thinking far worse things.

In fact she liked Sharon Sung for saying what others didn’t.

“This is supposed to be a law-firm party, right? I mean this is supposed to be to
celebrate me becoming partner, right? So I thought I should dress like a law partner.
I don’t know why some people seem to think that just because a party is held in somebody’s
home, it must be supercasual. Maybe we should have put down a dress code on the invitation.
But then if it’s a law-firm party, you assume that people are going to know how to
dress, right?”

Sharon might be trying to make her colleagues feel uncomfortable about dressing up,
but GraceFaith, the only one in hearing range, smiled serenely and fluffed out her
hair.

While talking, Sharon kept one arm folded protectively across her stomach, palm cupping
the elbow of her other arm as she emphasized her words with jerks of the plate. Her
defensive body language reminded Aunty Lee of her domestic helper, Nina, when she
had first came to work for her. At that time Nina’s previous experiences had taught
her to be afraid of everything and everyone in Singapore. Now, of course, Nina was
not afraid of anyone or anything, even telling off her employer when she felt the
need.

Sharon scooped up some of the
buah keluak
gravy in a spoon and tasted it.

“Why did you do that? Isn’t that for Lennie?” GraceFaith stepped up.

“I always taste food I’m serving,” Sharon said. “It’s a personal rule. Then nobody
can blame me if something’s wrong with it.”

“I do the same thing!” Aunty Lee said.

“That’s what makes you a good cook.”

Aunty Lee could also tell that Sharon was trying to be “nice.” And it was obvious
from her body language that this unfamiliar behavior made her uncomfortable. Her voice
had the high artificial note people adopt to talk to strange babies, her shoulders
were tense, and her smile was almost a grimace.

“I hope your brother likes it.”

At a safe distance, Aunty Lee followed Sharon up the steps to the main house. If anyone
asked she would say she was looking for the toilet. But it was curiosity about Leonard
Sung that was really driving her.

“Oh, Rosie, so nice to see you again. You don’t remember me? It’s Doreen, lah.”

It was the familiar-looking woman. Of course Aunty Lee knew Doreen Choo. They were
not close friends. But as their generation started dropping off, the survivors drew
closer naturally. But—

“I had a little work done,” Doreen said. “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

“You mean plastic surgery? I heard it’s dangerous, right? Didn’t some famous writer
go for chin tuck and then die of heart attack?”

“I also go for tai chi meditation. No need to do anything, just imagine the moves.
Can do it while watching k-drama.” (Aunty Lee nodded agreeably though she did not
understand why women like Doreen were so fond of Korean TV miniseries. Wasn’t real
life far more fun even if the characters were not as good looking?) “Are you going
up to the main house?”

“Well, I was looking for the—”

“Me too. Let’s take the lift. Just one person; I always feel bad, so you come with
me.”

The little chairlift ran up the slope alongside the stone steps and into the house,
not stopping till it reached the second floor.

“We should have pressed ‘one.’”

“The toilet up here is nicer. Got real flowers instead of plastic like downstairs.”

“Shh—” Aunty Lee heard something.

“Dad, you have to do something about Mabel!” It was Sharon’s voice, coming from one
of the rooms. It was harder to make out Henry’s mumbled response.

It was interesting, Aunty Lee thought, that while Mabel’s daughter addressed her by
name, her husband called her “Mum.” Aunty Lee would not like to be called “Mum” by
a man who had to be at least seventy.

“We shouldn’t stand here listening,” Doreen said.

“Then how will we hear anything?” Aunty Lee asked reasonably and very quietly.

“I can’t hear anything anyway. I got my eyes fixed, so now I can see better, but I
still cannot hear properly.”

“What did you do to your eyes?” Aunty Lee asked. “Cataract removal, is it?”

“Cataract and some kind of corny transplant. Henry got that young doctor of his to
do it for me.”

“That Dr. Yong that’s looking after his son? I thought Henry Sung is a doctor, right?
Why can’t he take care of his own son?”

“Henry is a very good doctor but we are all getting on a bit, so they have that boy
here to take care of the daily things. And also he is in Mabel’s prayer and healing
group, so she can keep an eye on him and everybody is happy.”

“He prays while operating, ah? Like that’s how to concentrate? Must be like talking
to God on mobile phone while driving, right?”

“No lah! Other people pray while he operates, lor. And it is not just praying, they
are very scientific. Last time Mabel told us about this man in America who was cured
of stage-four liver cancer by Plácido.”

“Plácido Domingo?” Aunty Lee hazarded a guess. “One of those man singers who sings
Christmas songs?”

“Maybe. Oh, I don’t know. My ears are not yet fixed to hear properly. I was supposed
to have some hearing thing put in, then the clinic at BTP burned down so it was postponed
until I don’t know when. Ah, GraceFaith. Come here. You must tell my friend Rosie
about that man cured by Plácido. You know, that one Mabel was talking about. I must
stay up here in the air-con for a while. I can’t stand the heat. I don’t see why people
have parties outside in Singapore. Even Lee Kuan Yew uses air-con.” It being a truth
acknowledged among Singaporeans if not universally that their country’s first prime
minister could do no wrong.

“It’s not that hot, Doreen,” GraceFaith said. She put a hand on the older woman’s
arm and propelled her firmly toward the chairlift. “And it was placebos Mabel was
talking about, prayer and placebos. I’ll switch on the chairlift for you, okay?”

“Oh!” Doreen stumbled and almost fell. “My legs not so good, can’t walk so fast. Ow!
Girl, you are hurting my arm! I think I’m going to faint, let me sit down quietly
for a while. I need some warm water. Rosie, if I don’t make it, please tell Henry
and Mabel it’s not their fault. I am an old woman and not well.

“We can sit here comfortably for a while,” Doreen Choo said to Aunty Lee once GraceFaith
had found them chairs and gone in search of warm water.

Aunty Lee was impressed.

“You mentioned a fire at Bukit Timah Plaza?” Aunty Lee was always interested in fires.
“How come I didn’t hear about this?”

“Small fire only. I think only one foreigner died but nobody knows who. You wouldn’t
be interested.”

“Are you waiting to see my father?” Sharon came out of the room looking sulkier than
usual.

“I want a word with your mother. She arranged my eye operation for me. I was supposed
to get follow-up checkups, but then after that fire at the Bukit Timah Plaza clinic,
I never heard anything more from them. Checkups are supposed to be part of the package.
Now you are a partner you can go and check for me.”

“Aunty Doreen, Sung Law and Never Say Die are totally separate—” but Doreen was not
to be stopped.

“And then somebody phoned me after that, you know. Did I want to go through with the
ear operation? he asked. And have I don’t know what cartilage injections? Only I was
out with some friends at the time and I didn’t get the number. I was telling Rosie
about the operation. She’s also interested.”

“I’m sure someone will get back to you,” Sharon said dismissively. “I don’t have anything
to do with Mabel’s healing stuff. It doesn’t have anything to do with Sung Law.”