2012 June - Singapore

The fans are swirling around above my head, one, two, three, four……. I’ve lost count.

Ahh, where’s the water! My mouth is on fire.  My fingers are aching.  The people around me make it look easy.  I’ve never taken so long to eat a simple plate of rice and vegetables.

I didn’t intend to come here.  The rain led me here.  It almost feels cooler outside than inside today.

It’s fallen off again! I give up.  I’ve got to get a fork.  It’s white and plastic and you immediately think food is going to taste nasty but it makes no difference to me.  Looking around I see most of the locals using one.

The short green crunchy vegetables are sure to help me.  I don’t know what they are but the doctor said I must start eating more green vegetables.   It felt slightly embarrassing when she asked me to tell her when I had last eaten anything green.  Does a peppermint sweet count?

There’s a girl standing by the drinks counter wearing a smart flowery dress and sandals.  Why does she keep looking at me?  I quickly look down to check I haven’t unknowingly poured half my plate of food down my white shirt.  Okay there is a tiny mark on my cream trousers but I’m sure that’s some of Lucy’s jam and toast.  If anyone asks I always blame the kids.

“Can’t take them anywhere,” I’d say.  It’s easier blaming someone else.  Done that all my life – “it wasn’t me it was her,” I would say, pointing at my sister.  And for some reason I’ve always been believed. Yes, I do regret some things.  My sister is nice about it though, and she very rarely mentions it.  I didn’t mean to lock her in the bathroom and turn off the lights.  It was a joke.  I thought she would be able to get out by herself.  Okay I told mum and dad that she’d gone to bed early, but how was I to know that she’d be too frightened to get out of the bath in the dark, move an inch or even squeal.  When I went to bed that night I remember my bottom feeling a lot hotter than the bath water had been when mum eventually realised that Toria was still in the bath.

Wait a minute, that girl is still looking at me.  Maybe I know her.  Maybe she knows me or we’ve seen each other somewhere before.  I really can’t think where though.  I’m pretty sure I remember most things from the other night.  It was dark.  And there were lots of people. 

She’s gone, phew.  She obviously needed something to distract her.  I don’t know how I managed to be a good distraction, but by the look on her face she preferred to look anywhere else besides the gentleman standing next to her.  He looked more like a colleague than a friend or lover.  Maybe they had had an argument at work or she had to meet him out of politeness.  Whatever it is she needs to learn some manners.

Strange though – there are three other women / girls (never know what to call us, woman sounds so old, like a grandmother) sitting right next to me, by themselves, minding their own business.  All three of them have a telephone in their hand.  One is looking straight at it, maybe playing a game.  Weird that these days telephones are played with more than held to the ear. The other girl is holding her phone up, but again looking directly in to it, not saying anything.  Me, I’m just looking and watching.

Oh god, I really should learn not to stare, even though most of the time I don’t know that I’m doing it.  I’m always telling the girls not to stare or say something inappropriate out loud.  I quickly look down.  I think he thinks I’m staring at him.  I didn’t mean to, honest.  Oh no, I think I may be blushing.  Okay, he is rather attractive.  Dark hair, lots of it; tall, but not too tall; good build, but not too broad or two muscular; nimble on his feet, like he wants to be always on the move.  The men here do appear quiet and reserved, more than the men I’m used to anyway.  Most of them look shy, cute and polite.  They don’t ever leer at you or whistle, or make jokes that they think you will find funny, but those that do don’t care if you don’t smile as all their mates around them are laughing and whistling even louder.

I haven’t looked up again yet.  Has he gone? Surely he’s gone now.  Like the rest of them he was probably only here to grab that essential midday fuel.  Food is not a treat, it’s a necessity.  Every living species has to consume some sort of fuel whether we like it or not.  I sometimes wish I didn’t have to eat – too many choices, too many right and wrongs.

“An apple a day keeps the dentist away;  5 a day helps you work, rest and play; no carbs – protein only;  polyunsaturated and unsaturated;…….” If I regimentally stuck to all the advised routines I think I would be digging myself an early grave.

Now she’s pretty.  Young looking, 21 I would guess.  I think she’s on holiday with her mum.  (apologies to the lady standing next to her if you are friends.) If she eats that everyday no wonder she looks so slim and youthful.  A small bowl of finely cut up pieces of fruit – melon, grapes, pears, apple and oranges I think. 

“Soya milk keeps you youthful,” maybe she drinks that every day?  She’s standing right next to the sign.

Bright pint - holly’s favourite colour; I haven’t seen a long dress in that colour before.  She looks busy talking to her friend who’s wearing purple – Lucy’s favourite colour.  It is a shame that in such a busy society today we don’t have the guts to simply go up and ask someone “where did you get that?” Would that be seen as being rude, intrusive or would it be seen as a compliment and taken more as flattery? I would see it as the latter.  But no one has ever stopped and asked me such a question.  Should I take that as a subtle hint?!

Now where did she get that?  It looks delicious.  I wonder if she asked for the extra topping of chocolate sauce and sprinkles or if it comes as one piece.  And before you ask it is not for me (I am telling myself this), it is for my daughters.  Holly would die for one of those.  It seems to come in a little bowl that looks like a boat.  And yes, Lucy would end up spilling it all over the floor and herself but she would laugh and I would try and laugh with her.  As long as I don’t have to clear up the mess, again.  One good reason to take them outside to eat – someone else will wash any mess away.  But of course sitting here I wouldn’t be able to feed her in just her nappy and then get her straight in to the bath.  You can’t win.  That’s when you need the garden.  Oh to be back home standing in our big kitchen overlooking the garden.  I’m kidding myself.  Once a year if we’re lucky it gets warm enough to open the kitchen doors and let the children play outside.  Even then they would be dressed in a cardigan and tights and possibly a woolly hat, not a sun hat.  We would have to turn the kitchen in to a sauna for it ever to be warm enough for the girls to eat in just their knickers.

It’s getting quieter now.  The midday rush is tailing off.  Everyone’s going back to work or back to whatever else they were going to do.  I can’t even see a single tourist.  But of course they have a tight schedule. How could I forget? The Hotel breakfast doesn’t last all day and they have been told by their tour guide about how hot it gets in the middle of the day so they are up bright and early and are ready for their lunch before the clock even strikes midday.  It’s three o’clock now.  The tourist bus will be full and every gallery humming with foreign voices.

We’ll be packing to go home next week.  I’ve only ever eaten here twice before.  It’s only a short stroll from our apartment but I never seem to find the time to come.  The food in the fridge is good enough – slightly shrivelled lettuce leaves, aging tomatoes and the remains of the pasta that the girls didn’t finish the night before.  But I bought the ingredients and cooked it with my own fair hands so it must be eaten. 

For the first time since I sat down the queue has gone for the sugarcane juice.  Only ladies work behind the juice bar counter.  They all look like mums, like me.  They’re probably wondering what I am doing, sitting here by myself, sipping my glass of green liquid, chilled with ice, which they made for me only an hour ago.  I’m taking a very long time drinking it.  All the ice has nearly melted.  It’s feeling hot in here again.  I’m relieved to see that the ladies do have even bigger fans operating directly behind their heads.  They don’t have much space to move, certainly the ladies who are slightly wider around the girth than others.  But they look content.

Some people are now walking away from the stall with cups of coffee - cups smaller than a French expresso  which usually make me feel faint.  Back home ladies would be accompanying this with a little “treat”, a scone with jam and maybe even some cream; a small slice of carrot cake, or even a piece of chocolate cake and some thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches.  I have missed my tea pot; bought as a wedding present from John Lewis, bright red with white spots.  You can fit enough tea in there to serve six mums, all thirsty after a busy day with the children.  Come to think of it that will be the first thing I use when we get home, accompanied with a slice of my mother in law’s Scottish shortbread and an episode of the archers.

I’ve enjoyed my stay here.  Have you ever been to Lego Land in Denmark? The original, first ever Lego Land where all the small streets are perfect and not a single speck of rubbish can ever be found.  Well I feel I have found my second Lego Land, just a thousand times taller and only a thousand times bigger.  Every street is immaculate and every building looks architecturally designed to the very last brick or pane of glass. Living on the 21^st Floor I feel like I’m only inches above the ground as I look over another four buildings even taller than ours, and I can’t even see the windows of the flats on the seventieth floor, let alone any living moving person.

I used to long for those holidays where I could swim outside every day in the open air, doing lap after lap of a fifty meter pool with no one to disturb me, never feeling cold, and wearing that beach dress and bikini that I’d hidden at the back of the cupboard until the time was right.  Now suggestions of a hotel by the beach - all inclusive massages, food and drink, and scuba diving - makes me shrug and say, “let’s go home” – and I mean home in Scotland, where I can dress the girls up in their purple double lined rain coats, their home knitted scarf, hat and gloves and we can all go and jump in muddy puddles in the park in our wellington boots.