Noon at Five O'Clock: The Short Stories of Arthur Yap

Noon at Five O'clock

21 Noon at Five O’Clock 1962 The sun seems to dazzle everything it touches. And however acclimatised, no one can be impervious to its seeping heat. He was going home, and suddenly he felt sick. Perhaps it wasn’t very wise to have walked that distance under the noon sun. But this is one of the thingsonedoes.Withouthavingtoseeifit’swiseorotherwise,thatis. He reached home. No one was in. His father would be at work. Not sweating perhaps. For there must be some air-conditioners around the place. He didn’t know where the others were. Then he remembered the amah1 was in. Anyway, she always is. Being perfectly domesticated by now. He had come home rather flustered. Lunch-time; she set a plate of rice and some curry on the table, and returned to the kitchen to conjure up something else. The sight of the curry took away his appetite. Somehow he couldn’t understand why people take it at most meals. In a hot country! The mandore who “does” the neighbourhood2 could squat near a drain and cram down rice-and-curry. People are always so logical. So why shouldn’t he have something more appealing, to the eye, to the mood. He hated that damn curry. And decided to take a walk. Again, it was perhaps not very wise. But. He didn’t run out of the house. He knew where he might want to go. He knew of people who run out of their houses, and then stood goggle-eyed wondering what to do with themselves next. He went to a bookstore. Not that it was a particularly wonderful place. But it is one of those places where one can look nonchalantly around and be taken as putting on a becoming sceptic attitude. That idea rather humoured him. But he could still feel the confounded heat. He went out. Sometimes there’s really no knowing. He didn’t know the side-lane he took could be that pleasant. He did not like it the first fifty feet. There were the industrious S.A.T.A. posters appealing for 22 a r t h u r y a p more blood.3 He wasn’t quite in the mood to give anything. Let alone that. There were also some hawkers. Rather obscure hawkers at that. Somehow they could all sell their wares. To anonymous-loving customers perhaps. There were doors on either side of the tall, grey walls. Part of which walls, plaster has flaked off showing the raw bricks. They were doors typical of old buildings—rather sunken in. He came to the dead-end of the lane. The two blocks of building had been blocked by another lying sidewise. Engineers and architects may scheme and “city-plan” but there are always (to him rather delightful) accidents. There were several doors on that block leading, to what he thought, might be shop-houses or coffee-shops. He didn’t want to turn back. And chose the oldest and creakiest-looking door. It would lead him to, or rather through, the oldest and creakiest coffee-shop. He thought. And being the oldest, the proprietor would naturally have nothing to be proud of. Therefore he could pass through without having to “drink” anything. The door groaned miserably. The interior was dimmer than the lane. But that’s only logical. He didn’t think he was going to meet a ghost. Or a helpless maiden. He toyed with the idea of the sprawling maiden. But somehow didn’t like it. The sprawling maidens he had read of and heard tell always appeared as if they were waiting for their cue. And this could be frightening. Really, he didn’t think. The hind quarters of the building showed no signs of life. He had rather expected a bleary-eyed boy to be clanking and whacking and sousing saucers in the process called washing. But sometimes people just live in the front. And leave the back to the family ghosts. And never look back. No one. And nothing. He went up the staircase he saw. At the top he could see a single window, paneless, in clear chiaroscuro to the surroundings. He went to it and looked out. He saw the courtyard , encased by two walls4 . The sun could not get in directly. The view looked five-o’clockish. 23 n o o n a t f i v e...