An Angel in the Corner by Allie Gledhill

Author:Allie Gledhill
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908746887
Publisher: Panoma Press
Published: 2013-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

After my uncle left Australia, my grandmother came to stay with us. Nana had always liked me. She was from Malaysia and she liked it that I had learnt to speak a few words of the language. She would show me off to the hoards of Malaysian relatives who would visit us when she was staying.

Nana would ask me questions in Malaysian and I would answer her, proving to the crowds of Malays that not only did I understand her question but I also knew how to answer her in Bahasa. All the relatives would remark at how good my Malay was – ‘especially for a white girl’ they would mutter to each other as they nibbled on their homemade curry puffs.

I loved to visit Malaysia and when I was there I would eat my way around Kuala Lumpur. I’d gain stones from the nasi lamak, the kuey teo and the laksa. Nana would take pride in the fact that she had a granddaughter who so unashamedly enjoyed Malaysian food. She also liked it that I had my driver’s licence and when she visited Perth, I was able to chauffeur her to and from the Burswood Casino.

My grandmother was one of nine brothers and sisters born in Kuala Lumpur. Her mother had died in childbirth when Nana was fifteen. My great-grandmother’s tenth child had died with her.

My grandfather, Norbet, was a brilliant musician and celebrated boxer. He was one of the British Military Police sent to Malaysia during the Japanese occupation towards the end of World War II. At the end of the war, some of the military police, including my grandfather, remained in Malaysia. He met my grandmother, Laila, after he caught a young man trying to break into the family home that she shared with her father and her brothers and sisters.

Young Norbet was declared a hero for having captured the burglar and from that point forward my great-grandfather treated him like royalty. He encouraged Norbet to select one of his daughters for marriage – a daughter who married a strapping English solider would have a good future. But my great-grandfather didn’t need to encourage him. Norbet had already fallen for his daughter Laila.

Laila was breathtakingly beautiful. She had a small frame with a thin waist and slim elegant limbs. Her skin was bright and clear and her face was graced with high cheekbones and full lips. She had an air of fun, liveliness and mischief about her but she could also be bad-tempered and cruel. She had grown up during the Japanese occupation in Malaysia and had witnessed violent crimes. To her, violence was a way of life, a means to survive; sometimes it was the only way to survive.

Norbet and Laila married in Kuala Lumpur and had two children – my mum, Anne, and her elder brother, Harry – before they moved with their two young children back to Norbet’s village in the north of England. Once they’d settled into their village, they had two more children.

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