Oliver (version 2)

Orange coconuts clustered at the tops of the pretty green palm trees looked attractive, yet I feared they might fall any moment and roll menacingly into the huge, Olympic size blue swimming pool. The pool was enticingly surrounded by fish ponds and landscaped gardens at the centre of the condo's skyscrapers. What could go wrong?

Every plant was enchanting, with contrasting colour of red, orange or yellow flowers against dark green leaves. I counted four types of palm tree. The red stalks of the lipstick palms entranced me. I could identify the coconut palms by the orange coconuts, orange, I presumed, because in springtime the coconuts were not yet ripe.

I was so mesmerised by the orange coconuts overhead that I almost bumped into the plump, jolly, smiling Chinese man who was walking towards me, limping. My diagonal route forced him to my left to the edge of the swimming pool.

"So sorry," I gasped. "Goodness, I'm glad I didn't manoeuvred you into the pool. I don't suppose your pocket watch is waterproof."

"Never mind, Madam. My old-fashioned pocket watch pre-dates waterproof watches. It doesn't work. Somebody threw it in a bin. I rescued it."

"Ah recycling."

He smiled, "You are admiring our coconut palms, Madam?"

"Yes, I was wondering - are the coconuts in danger of falling and kill somebody?" I asked.

"No, Madam. I assure you, we are looking after all the trees and plants in the gardens. We will pluck the coconuts long before they would fall of their own accord."

"Thank you. How will you do that? How will you reach them?"

"With a ladder. I am too old to climb up a palm tree, unaided."

"A bamboo ladder? You have a head for heights!"

"But all the residents here, except those on level one, are living in heights. You are living in which block, this one, block eight, Madam. Eight is lucky in Chinese. So no coconut can kill you."

"Thank you. If you don't mind, I'll take out medical insurance, just the same. At least you can eat the coconuts."

"And drink the coconut milk, Madam. When I was a boy, we would tie the coconut trunks together to make rafts. Waterproof."

"You are Chinese? What is your Chinese name?"

"You may call me Oliver, Madam. My Western name. I have a Chinese name, but everybody calls me Oliver."

"How shall I remember your name? Like an olive tree?"

"As you wish, Madam."

"And what is your title? Are you gardener, maintenance, or what?"

"I do not have a title, Madam. I do a bit of everything, help out whenever needed."

"Ah, 'Man Friday'. Odd job man - factotum?"

"All of this, and more, Madam."

"Do you pick up the leaves which fall around the swimming pool in the morning, or do you supervise the younger gardeners?"

"I do what is necessary, Madam. I sweep with my broom, made of coconut palm fronds. The same brooms you make from your garden trees where you come from?"

"In London we buy brooms in supermarkets, brooms made of plastic. Made in China. I must go."

"You have a wonderful weekend, Madam." He bowed.

"See you again, Oliver," I said, hopefully.

***

A week later I was standing looking up at a tree, trying to identify it.

Oliver limped towards me. He said, "That is a cashew nut tree, Madam!"

"Where are the cashew nuts?"

"Look up and you can see one hanging from the cashew nut apple."

"Apple. Where's the apple, Oliver? I don't see one."

"Look on the ground, Madam. By your feet. This red one. If I may pick it up for you."

I stepped back. "It looks like a red pear."

"It does indeed, Madam. But it is sour, like many fruits. So you have to boil it with syrup. Let me wipe if off for you with a leaf. You see the nut. Please take it."

"May I keep this, Oliver?"

"Of course, Madam. But you must be very careful. Use protective gloves, and cover your eyes with goggles. When you handle the cashew nut, it is covered in corrosive white sap. Better you grow vegetables in the allotment. Every resident can have an allotment. You must keep it tidy."

"I'm going back to England for the summer."

"Then I will keep your allotment tidy for you. No charge."

"Thank you. Please help yourself to some of the vegetables."

"So kind of you. Have a good day, Madam."

I carried the cashew apple and nut upstairs to the rented apartment where I lived with my husband. The red cashew apple and beige nut sat for weeks in a bowl beside the sink. I did not dare touch it.

After a few weeks of swimming, I got to know another resident, Elizabeth, a plump, black-haired Chinese lady. She had been doing aqua-aerobics with a group of Chinese ladies, all of a certain age, or rather an uncertain age.

I asked her, "What is your name and what do you do?"

"I am Elizabeth, a tiring English teacher."

"Oh? You are retired?"

"Yes, I am tired many years."

"But you still speak good English."

"My first language."

"Ah, yes. And your other languages are?"

"Chinese. Mandarin, must speak at school. At home mother speaks Cantonese. Father hakka. You know hakka?"

"Do you know Oliver? What does he do here?"

Elizabeth shrugged, "Everybody knows Oliver, long time. He is here long time, since estate was built, fifty years ago, when I was girl, and he was boy. I think he is staying and working in orchard, before land is sold and redeveloped. He just stays on, caring for cashew nut trees, and mangoes, and bananas, and coconut palms. Mrs Lim tell you. She moved in when first block was finished, already."

Elizabeth beckoned to Mrs Lim and swam off. I waited patiently whilst Mrs Lim waded over. Mrs Lim had white hair with peeped out from her white swimming cap. She kept tweaking her hair and pushing her hearing aids.

"Good morning, Mrs Lim. Can you tell me about Oliver?"

She removed her swimming hat and adjusted her hearing aids.

 I repeated the question, twice. She still could not hear nor understand me.

She said, 'I don't know nothing about trees no more. But palms is not olive trees, la. Old trees no more, already. Palms is coconut palms. Full height already. Does that answer questions, la?"

"Yes, Mrs Lim. Thank you so much."

She carefully replaced her white swimming hat, over the hearing aids, and her hair in a bun. I had not meant to cause her so much trouble.

Whenever I saw Oliver, easily seen from a distance, with his limping gait, I waved at him. He waved back at me.

***

I went to live at home in London, for a year or two. When I came back, Oliver looked much thinner. One of his eyes was half shut. I asked him, "How are you, today, Oliver?"

"Perfect, Madam, now I have seen you. Long time, no see."

"I was in England, with our son. Do you have a wife and family, Oliver?"

"No family. No son to bury me when I die. But I have money for my funeral. In the bank. The piggy bank!"

I did not understand what he meant, but I laughed, "Great. See you again, soon."

***

But he did not see me again, and I did not see him. After a week went by, I asked the Indian concierge at the entrance to the gym block if knew where Oliver was.

He shrugged, "I don't know Mr Oliver. He is a visitor, not a resident, isn't it?"

I sighed, "I'm sure you know him by sight. The man with the limp."

"The old man? Thin old man? I hear he was sleep-ing all day. He has a bench behind the sheds, isn't it? The sheds by the garages, at the far side, by block ten, isn't it? Last autumn, the man-a-ging tries to get rid of him. But he comes back. First the managing sacks the gardeners. Residents complain new gardeners prune trees too much and kill them. Residents demand managing sacks new gardeners. Then the man-a-ging changes, isn't it?"

"Is he still there?"

"I don't know. I see nothing. I am sit-ting here, isn't it?"

"Why don't you go and check on the grounds?"

"I doing my job, sitting here."

I took a long walk, right the way past blocks seven, six, five, four, and three. I stopped by the outdoor children's pool, the outdoor adult, gym, and the outdoor  children's play area. Beyond the fountains were the ponds with the goldfish, linked by waterfalls. I read the sign? Do not throw in the water unwanted fish or tortoises. 

At last I reached the oldest block, block one. Fine, tall coconut trees stood beside the skyscraper. Beside the coconut trees were the sheds. What was behind the sheds?

I crept around the corner. Under a litter bin I saw the old watch which Oliver had worn. I picked it up.

Then I saw Oliver, sleeping.

I didn't want to wake him. I didn't say anything.

Maybe if I crept up quietly, the sound would waken him.

I crept up. He was fast asleep. Very still.

"Oliver!" I whispered.

No reply.

"Oliver!" I said

No reply.

I shouted. "Oliver! Oliver! Oliver!"

I ran back towards the pool, calling, "Help, call an ambulance! There's a dead man. Police! Ambulance!" What was the emergency number? Not 999 like England. 911, like America. Faster. I shouted, "Call nine one one!"

Two boys and a Filipina maid ran over. They began talking excitedly. The maid got out her mobile phone and screamed into it. People came running from nearby flats. Soon a crowd collected. Broken coconut shells lay beside the sheds.

One of the boys crawled under the bench and pulled out a coconut. He turned it over and it rattled and a coin fell out.

"Give me that!" I snapped, snatching it. The coconut had a slit in the top. It was a makeshift money bank. I put it in my tote bag.

Sirens sounded and everybody turned to look. The ambulance screeched to a stop in the nearest car park. The doors flung open. Two uniformed men emerged with a stretcher, marched over and carried off Oliver. His arm flopped out. They stopped by the ambulance, fastened his arm using a ribbon with clips at either end, and covered the stretcher with a sheet. They drove away.

The residents, chattered at machine gun pace in Mandarin, Hokkien, and other indecipherable dialects. I did not understand. Eventually they drifted off.

***

The next day a notice appeared in the glassed notice boards by the lifts, an appeal for money for the wake.

I raced down to the pool to speak to Elizabeth. We stood in the shallow end of the swimming pool, not swimming, discussing Oliver.

"He had no family," I said, "How did he survive? From the allotments? The decorative fish in the pool? Coy, carp? Can you eat the fish?"

Elizabeth nodded and shrugged. "Can, can. You can eat any fish. We Singaporeans eat sea fish. But people from mainland China eat river fish. Our Oliver, Western name. Nobody know his real name, Chinese name."

"He was not employed by the management?"

"Never. Nobody know. Here long time already.  Lived on this estate fifty years."

"Did he eat fruit and leftovers from the cafe in the bins?"

"Maybe the cafe give him leftover food, sometimes."

"Management does not make a way, never do that. Depend on family. He has no family, so up to us. Management does not want a wake in the building. So Madam Lim lies, says Oliver is cousin of her husband. She is widow. Nobody check."

So Oliver was given a grand send-off. The company which organises wakes sent a marquee and boxes of packaged food and drink.

I said to Elizabeth, "No chairs and tables."
Elizabeth said, "No need. We use white plastic chairs from around the pool. Everybody use this, Same, same. You take a drink?"

I looked at the packets of juice and tea. I could not decide between barley, chrysanthemum, or lemon.

Elizabeth asked, "You have the same in England?"

"No. Apple and orange juice. Mixed juice. Cranberry, even mango, if you're lucky."

"Before you go, you must eat sweets, can take home, to make happy a sad occasion. Also you take auspicious red thread. Chinese custom."

I looked, puzzled, at the pile of three inch long red threads.

Elizabeth instructed, "Old custom. Tie red thread around your finger, wrap it around, for good luck. Even you drop it on way out, no matter."

***

I still look for Oliver every day. I miss him.

Sometimes when I float in the pool, I look up at the coconut trees and remember the day we met. I imagine I can still hear him.

I ask him, "How are you enjoying today, Oliver?"

He answers, "Today is perfect, now I have seen you, Madam."

***

-ends-

Copyright Angela Lansbury Feb 3rd 2016.

  

An index to short stories from around the world

Introduction about Inspiration from Catherine Lim
I heard the word 'ghosts' then 'stories' and 'I don't believe' from an animated, vociferous female voice in the Tanglin Club's Tavern restaurant at lunch time. I had been listening to men talking about London, and finance, and Ladies talking about food and shopping. Who could be talking about ghosts and short stories? Only Catherine Lim.

The older generation, Catherine Lim's 'aunties'  living Malaysia, where she grew up, and in Singapore in the Sixties, in one storey huts in kampongs (villages), hearing the palm trees blowing, watching the shadows jumping, may have thought and talked about ghosts. But youngsters today live in in crammed flats in skyscrapers surrounded by TVs, no time or space for ghosts.

Yes, I was right, Catherine Lim, famous, and gleefully infamous, was holding forth to three mesmerised listeners. I had met her at least three times before.

I remind her that I had first heard her when she spoke to either the American Club or the British Club (probably both). As a result I bought her books of stories. My favourite was the one about the teacher. I saw her a second time when she was teaching at Crescent Girls' School. As usual the girls sat cross-legged on the floor in a large hall. Catherine pranced to the edge of the stage, so lively that I watched entranced, afraid she might fall off, I imagined with a huge crash, creating lots of excitement.

Waving her arms, she was striding about - perhaps only metaphorically, perhaps, actually smaller than I remembered, she merely seemed to be rushing about. She told the girls how to write a creative story, a piece of fiction, or indeed prose, using metaphors, similes, and numerous other rhetorical devices, challenging for teachers and pupils in the UK, never mind mostly Chinese girls, teenagers, for many of whom English was a second language.

Now I wanted to meet her to discuss Singapore and books. I invited her to dinner.

Imagine my delight at a long private chat with Catherine Lim, after I extracted her from two groups of people keen to chat to her at the bar. Eventually, both of us two, glass in hand settled down at table to right the world,so that we could later write the world.

I asked Catherine many questions about herself and her writing. Eventually she asked me what I wrote. I confessed that I had 300 unpublished short stories.

"You must publish them!" she insisted.

I could not disobey nor delay.

So here are my short stories.

Short Stories from Singapore
1 Oliver, the Chinese Olive

Angela Lansbury, B A Hons, CL, ACG, author, photographer, speaker.