The Girl With The Cardboard Port by Judith L. McNeil

Author:Judith L. McNeil
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 090898880X
Publisher: DoctorZed Publishing
Published: 2013-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

THE KAMPONG–KUALA LUMPUR 1963–65

CHAPTER NINE

As the car speeds to our destination, Givvy becomes more and more agitated.

‘We in jungle place, Missy,’ she mutters almost incessantly, and I begin to watch the landscape with growing concern.

The car stops.

Richard blasts the car horn, and I see a small boy running to a wall of crossed sticks. He pulls back enough for the car to drive through. We move forward—and into a village.

‘This is the house,’ Richard says abruptly, and almost throws our belongings out of the boot. ‘I’ve made arrangements for a Malay servant girl. I’ll be back sometime,’ and he just drives off, our bags of clothes in the dirt beside my cardboard port.

The four of us watch the clouds of dust from his speeding car settle back on the road. In disbelief I look around.

We are in a Malay kampong—a small cluster of dwellings huddling together at one end of an enclosed area—on the edge of a jungle. Still carrying my fourteen-month-old baby girl I lift the port and walk with dignity toward the dwelling, leaving a jittery Givvy to follow me with my son and the rest of the bags. It is a small squat house made from wood, standing on low stilts. The door isn’t fully closed and I nudge it open with the port and slide it in. There are no stairs, and I negotiate the fourteen-inch step up from the dirt.

The house is dark, cool and almost empty. We stand huddled in the main room immediately inside the door. To the right, hanging alone on the far wall, is a lopsided painting of a sailing ship slicing through white-capped waves. Standing on a bench to the left is a black telephone. It looks like a massive black spider, and I carefully pick up the handpiece and put it to my ear. There is a dial tone. God, I have access to the outside world. I have a working telephone—here in this place. Laughter wells up, threatening to choke me with its absurdity. On the far bench are three baskets piled high with beautiful fresh food, rice, a wok and one pot. No sink or running water and no refrigerator—but we have food to eat, and I send up a silent prayer of thanks to God.

The first room we’ve entered is the common room. A corridor leads into three small bedrooms. Each bedroom has the same furniture: a musty mattress lying on the floor with a pillow and one dumpy bolster—and nothing else. There are no cupboards, no curtains and no linen. To the back of the house is the bathroom. It is the familiar bathroom of Singapore, with a water tap over the cabinet. A small tin shed is out the back and warily we investigate.

An Asian floor toilet, filthy and stinking of piss and shit, is in the corner. I pull a chain covered in thick cobwebs and a hiss of water spills down. Thank God this works. Discarded on the dirt floor beside

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