Notes from an Even Smaller Island by Neil Humphreys

Author:Neil Humphreys
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International

Chapter 9

There is nothing like a funeral to really ruin your day. Or to be precise, one tragic funeral that I had to cover as a reporter. A former national footballer had died and I was sent to the family home to interview the relatives. They say it comes with the territory but if I never have to interview grieving relatives again, I will be a happy man. After speaking to the family, I racked my brain in an attempt to conjure the words needed to write an obituary for a man I had never met. As I stood by the roadside, waiting for a taxi, it started to rain and I had no umbrella. What a day this was turning out to be.

I was then blessed with what probably has to go down as the greatest conversation of my life. Finally stepping into a taxi, I was initially startled when the middle-aged Chinese driver turned a full 180 degrees to say hello to me. This has never happened before. At best, the cab driver may nod through his rear-view mirror but usually he just stares straight ahead and says, ‘Where you wanna go?’ So there is nothing like a set of pearly whites beaming at you to make you want to slip back out of the taxi. Before I had even had the chance to contemplate such a drastic course of action, he spotted my notepad and away he went.

‘Ah, you’re a writer, is it?’

‘Yeah, kind of. I’m a reporter.’ I saw his eyes widen in the rear-view mirror and he sat up straight. ‘What you write about?’

‘Sports, but mainly soccer.’

‘Ah, Fandi Ahmad?’ he enquired brightly.

Fandi is Singapore’s favourite footballing son, a fabulous striker who played for several European clubs. He is now the coach of the Singapore Armed Forces.

‘Yeah, I sometimes have to speak to Fandi when his team plays,’ I replied but the driver did not seem too interested in this. His fidgety body language suggested he was itching to get something off his chest.

‘Listen, I have a story. But no name, eh? Like you say, off the record, okay?’

‘Sure, Mr Ong, no problem,’ I replied teasingly.

‘Hey, how you know my name?’ he cried out in despair.

‘It’s written on the name tag next to your picture, Mr Ong.’ He began to look seriously distressed so I stopped teasing him.

‘They’ll know it’s me if you say my name.’

‘Who will know it’s you?’

‘The PAP.’

Now this was getting interesting. The taxi driver was referring, of course, to the People’s Action Party, the ruling party of the Singaporean government. Generally speaking, the local men that I have interviewed here are more willing to talk publicly about their penis girth than they are about the negative aspects of the PAP. This guy clearly had something interesting to say. Unfortunately, he was insane.

Staring at me intensely as if he were Travis Bickle, Robert De Niro’s character in Taxi Driver, he lowered his voice. ‘If you get sick, don’t go to government hospitals because they’ll kill you.

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