There had been no rain in the last couple hours the lad at Nilla confirmed, only this morning. This afternoon the canal had been shallow & empty as usual, yet here at dusk there was a good level of murky water that seemed to have drawn a number of chaps to the railing. The girl on Wong Ah Fook had not been. The night before she had put on a little micro show, which included some numbering that might finally aid the acquisition. Shamefully, pitifully, tens, hundreds & thousands in bahasa still undid some of us. It was ridiculous, stupid. A lad had come past and must have given the gal a quick once-over. Brief as it had been and walking on by as he did, the lass caught his interest, smilingly calling out after him. Lima ribu!… Ah ha! Say no more! Lima was five; ribu the multiplier in tens. (RM50 — under sixteen in Sing dollars.) Half a minute later crossing the bridge, sure enough the gal had come up to the shutters further along where the lad had stopped. Looked no-go on this occasion; anything less than fifty was not on. (For a White of course, that figure would have doubled, if not more.) Later in the evening the Trannies further up by the first lane emerged. It would not be out of the question that for those add-ons the price may have been a wee higher again. Odd how long it had taken the water to come down from upcountry. During brekkie the downpour had lasted under 20mins. For the second day the shutters were down on the Tamil provisions store around from the hotel, where the morning newspaper was usually bought. That was unusual. Did it mean the little cat there would go hungry? It appeared not. The couple earlier passes morning & afternoon had found it by the stairs beside the back lane. Instead, tonight there it was atop a more comfortable bed. Cardboard had value for many here—for emergency shields from the rain, to soften seating and more so again for the rough sleepers. Almost certainly, with the Tamils absent, some neighbour there had thought of the cat, providing both bedding & food very likely too. Like the red wheelbarrow, much depended on that little, thin stray grey on Jl. Siu Nam. Rarely did any passerby fail to give it some kind of acknowledgement.
Johor Bahru, ML
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