The bowed, middle-aged Chinese lady passing by brought Wan Ling to mind this morning leaving the house. WL had emerged from her door first, slinking through the kitchen in her usual way and out into the garden. Hearing the footsteps behind, she had turned half-round, without allowing the encounter. What’s doing for Wan Ling on a Sunday? failed to be voiced, as the gal had quickly ducked under the drying stand. Stopping close against her window screen, WL peered into her room, cooing farewell to the cats. Wan had improvised and erected the wire screens herself, in order to keep the cats safe from prowling toms, it had been presumed. In fact the indoor pair were ailing in some way and needed to be kept isolated and out of the sun, Auntie Helen in the front room revealed. Currently Auntie H and WL were estranged, the younger showing the elder a black face, Helen described it. Through WL’s windows some kind of kitty cubicles could be seen, with what appeared decorations of some sort. Day and night Wan kept the windows wide open and more than one fan it sounded like through the night. The last few days a fluffy blanket with cat motifs had hung to dry on the rack outdoors. Passes of the windows usually drew what sounded plaintive miaows from the incarcerated pair. The fans overnight could not be heard the other side of the wall, nor any other sound from the room, apart from a low pealing of electronic bells seemingly programmed for 3AM. There was no disturbance there either; the sound was too faint to cause waking. Landlord Tan collected $850 monthly from Wan for the cat quarters. (Auntie H who kept a half dozen mogs indoors paid $1,100 for her small room.) Wan herself did not stay in her room. Mornings before work she called round and then again in the evening; weekends she may have stayed over longer. WL’s feeding in the neighbourhood remained the same. There was more work now, however, she had commented in one exchange. In the bathroom evenings it might have been fur remnants left on the floor tiles from Wan Ling’s grooming; fur that looked like feathers. There was some kind of full-time IT job now that Wan had reluctantly accepted; her previous job had claimed less of her time. Wan Ling stayed with her parents over in Block 10. Some years ago her father had warned if there were any more cats brought to the house he would toss them over the balcony. The wife, Wan’s mother, also fed cats through the Haig estate. Likewise the bowed woman at lunchtime might have been a catlady. The modest, shy, quiet and bowed were over-represented in the neighbourhood, and the city-state more broadly. In Malaysia & Indo it was nothing like that.
Haig Road, Singapore
