The Life of a Banana by PP Wong

Author:PP Wong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Legend Press

Chapter 22

Roses Are Red, Grandma Is Blue

Grandma is acting a bit weird. Like we have to be at the airport in three hours and instead of her usual morning Chinese tea, she asks the con-see-age person for black coffee.

“Two and half sugars, if more I throw in toilet.”

She does not read the newspapers from cover to cover but flicks through the pages quickly. Uncle Ho is staring at her too. He puts his hands on his ears, but she still carries on. The front page story is about an Indonesian maid who jumped from a flat on the twentieth floor. This was after her employers made her sleep on the balcony and use a rusty, dripping tap to wash herself. Grandma turns the newspaper upside down, then sideways, then upside down again. Lai Ker looks up from his lads’ magazine and whispers, “Looks like old age is finally getting its grip on the old bird.”

Grandma paces up and down our hotel room with a stressed look like she’s about to do a Maths exam. She stops and points at me with her yellowing fingernails.

“Xing Li need haircut. We go now.”

Auntie Mei ALREADY brought me to her super nice childhood hairdresser Graca Wong yesterday.

“Grandma, I had a haircut already. Auntie Mei brought me… ”

“Your haircut look like monkey head. You need proper haircut, proper lady will make better.”

“But we need to go to the airport in a few hours.”

“WE GO NOW.”

I do not want to start World War Three over a haircut and quickly put my new red flip flops on. Lai Ker looks at me and uses his fingers as if he is letting an imaginary gun shoot his head.

Grandma pushes me to the front of the taxi queue. Being a senior citizen in Singapore gives you certain rights such as queue jumping.

“We go 115 Bukit Timah Road. Hairdresser called Lin, she give proper haircut. Then all friends West Hill be jealous. They wish they got such nice Grandma.”

She gives me a smile that lasts for a quarter of a second and sits back on her seat. I can’t see my only friend Jay turning green over my multiple haircuts. Judging from his messy dreadlocks, he probably wouldn’t notice a thing. Thinking of Jay makes me smile. I kinda miss his long speeches about Viv-Audi. I wonder whether he’s having a good time in Jamaica with his family.

The taxi driver whistles as he drives down the motorway.

“Stop your whistle, whistle. People paying money for you drive, not make musical.”

The taxi driver glances at Grandma in his rear view mirror and stops whistling. We pass worn out 1960s-style houses with colourful shutters and outdoor coffee shops with loud blaring TVs and even louder blaring old men with Guinness. Grandma starts to twist the handle on her leather bag. The taxi stops outside a ghetto-type hair salon. A pink neon sign says, “Lin’s Hair Place”.

“Auntie, that will be $20.80.”

Grandma has twisted the handle on her bag until it looks like a curly telephone coil.

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