Part ONE.
***
"Hey, so, your girlfriend, how good is she?"
"How good in what sense? She's great at fashion design."
"Aiyoh, not that. I mean, how GOOD she is."
"Huh?"
"In THAT. You know."
"No, I don't know."
"Liao, Ah Hock, your Bella lah. Is she good in bed?"
"Isobel. And that is none of your business."
"Hah! I bet you didn't manage to get her. Lousy."
"As if."
"You don't dare to tell us if she's good or not. I bet you chickened out!"
Dylan, or Ah Hock to his friends, shook his head and sighed. It was old news that Isobel and himself had hooked up, say, a month ago. He was twenty-two, she was nineteen. They met at a bar, she had asked for a vodka ribena and he had been the bartender. He never believed in all that love-at-first-sight crap but he had to admit that she had mesmerized him. His eyes never left her that night, and she of course, took the opportunity to sneak a few drinks for free.
Isobel was a fashion student at NAFA, and quite a good one at that. She was rich, very rich, but there was the downside of her parents forever working overseas. She had never been happy, materialistic pleasures did nothing for her. She was laid back, humourous and every ready to help out no matter what. Qualities Dylan loved about her.
His phone vibrated and the melody of Anna Tsuchiya's Rose - Isobel's customized ring tone, blasted. His friends raised their eyebrows and made all sorts of kissing sounds.
"Oh Dylan, hold me closer!"
"Shut up you idiots," he snapped, before answering her call.
"Hey Dylan," there was no need for her to identify herself; he knew the sound of her voice, its sweet ringing in his ear.
"Want to come over? I'm really bored and my parents aren't home, as usual."
"Hmm?" he replied nonchalantly, not wanting to seem desperate to see her. In actual fact, he had been dying to see her all day.
“You mean you don’t want to come over? Don’t play coy with me Dylan.”
He laughed, she knew him inside out.
“All right, I’ll be over soon.”
He heard her giggle over the phone and the sound of her blowing a kiss. In his friend’s standards she was average, but Dylan liked the way her body had curves in all the right places. She wasn’t stick thin and Dylan was thankful for that. What was the use of hugging skin and bones?
“I’ll be waiting with ice cream,” she said with a slight purr.
He grinned sheepishly, but a thought ran through his mind that wiped the grin off his face.
“I’ll need to get an errand done first, so I’ll be tad late.”
“Okay, I’ll try not to let the ice cream melt.” and she hung up.
Dylan quickly gave an excuse to his friends and scooted off. They really irritated him sometimes, always joking about sex. They hadn’t done it, yet. He hailed a cab. Isobel was waiting for him, but he had to get something done first.
He got out at the same green block. The paint was a mouldy green and the block was about give or take thirty years old. He climbed the familiar steps to the third floor; steps covered with paint and reeked of stale beer and urine. The corridor wasn’t any better, litter everywhere and empty beer bottles lay forgotten.
He walked up to the same unit, with the same brown grille door. A cross hung below the unit number and the translucent glass window louvers were closed. Dylan approached it apprehensively, and hesitated before knocking on the door five times. Two quick knocks and three slow knocks. Just like the way he used to do so, those five years back.
No one answered the door. Nothing unusual, except that it was quite obvious that someone was inside. Dylan could see the glow of the fluorescent lights through the windows. He sighed. It looked like he wasn’t going to get an answer that day. He was used to this disappointment and it had even become a numbing ache in his heart. He decided to wait. One minute, then two, five and all the way to ten.
He sighed again before methodically taking a red packet out of his shirt pocket and sliding it under the wooden door. It contained half of his monthly salary as a bartender and he felt that it was the least he could do. After all, he was the one who left.
Dylan turned and walked off, but stopped and turned back to gaze at the door, harbouring the futile hope that something would happen. But nothing did. He walked on, climbing down the stairs slowly. He would just have to come back again next month.
But till then, Isobel was waiting. He checked the time on his handphone and cursed. She had been waiting for close to an hour. He messaged her before running out to hail a cab. Isobel hated being alone.
Back on the third floor, the wooden door creaked open. A middle aged woman picked up the red packet and counted the money inside it. It was exactly the same amount she received last month. She gazed at the corridor hesitantly, to make sure that there was no one around. She stepped outside and stood before her door. She paced about, slowly placing each foot meticulously before the other, imagining how he would have, those few minutes ago. She finally went back inside, and closed the door, locking it behind her. Five minutes later, she let the tears fall.
“My son, my precious son.”
