A piece to mark International Women’s Day on 08 March: A short story about a woman and a place using picture prompts
“Oh Gran, come on, you have to come with us. You can get there on a boat, don’t have to fly – so you can still go even at your age. I’ve been reading all about it. They reckon it will be the last chance to see the wetlands. Climate change, you know. We should go before it disappears. And you’ve never been anywhere have you? Get to see some of the world outside Australia.” My granddaughter shows me a brochure of a nature reserve with arching metallic stairs and a bamboo hide to see the wildlife. ‘Singapore – as you’ve never seen it,” the brochure boasts. Tucked under one of the hides a twisted piece of rusted metal rises from the swamp.
“What’s that?” I ask as I lay my knitting into my lap, and point a metallic pin at the paper.
“Oh, something to do with the war. Used to be an old army base or something. But it’s all rehabilitated now.”
I stare at the page till it swims in a sea of rheumy tears and I am forced to wipe them from the shallow creases around my mouth. I sniff, and my grandaughter leaves to fetch a tissue for a doddery old woman, perhaps regretting her earlier enthusiasm. If I look hard enough, I can see the other pole, twisted and bent, melded ‘sympathetically’ to the natural environment, or so the brochure says. I wonder if the canes have grown back. I remember when they were thick with ridges that could hold a man’s feet.
*
If I close my eyes I can see him, his angular face and earnest eyes silhouetted by palm fronds that trapped the air until we couldn’t breathe. That young man who told me he would climb any mountain for me. Oh, how I laughed. There we were; inches above a swamp on a hastily constructed bridge made to keep us out of the sea. The far-off mountains were a fools-errand at best.
“Oh how you must love me – if only we had one to prove it,” I sighed my hand lifting to my forehead in a Hollywood swoon.
“I’ll prove it,” he said and leapt the railing. He climbed until all I could see were skinny brown legs hanging from wide khaki shorts. “I can see all the way to Bukit Timah – reckon I’m about level with the top. Now will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I laughed, “Now get down before the Japs on that hill see you too!”
Our heads bobbled in unison as we ran arm in arm along the bridge, a makeshift aisle of swaying bamboo, a piece of mosquito net tucked into my nurse’s cap trailing behind until our friends retreated. We had a few hours; a wedding gift from our mates now scrubbing and prepping for the next assault on Bukit Timah.
And then he was gone and I waited.
I waited for him to tell me how he climbed the mountain, how he could see me and our bridge far below. I waited until they dragged me to a boat and the swaying bamboo was a cascade of flames dancing between charcoal matchsticks across black grass. Till I could hear nothing but the whine of the Kamikaze, high above our boat. “Don’t look back,” they said. “It’s all gone. Disappeared.”
*
“Gran, are you OK? Here I got you a glass of water.” My granddaughter pushes a tissue into my hands as tears slip down my cheeks, and I open my eyes.
“Yes, dear. It’s just all this talk of loss. Reminds me how beautiful things can be. They’re happy tears dear. You should go to Singapore – it is such a beautiful place and I would love to see the photos of my old army base.”
Photo Credit Writing NSW. Nature Writing Course 2023.
