Being in Two Places At Once

The magic of books is that you can be in two places at once – physically sitting wherever you are, in your living room or on the beach and also, wherever the words on the page take you: Africa, Asia, Narnia, the past or the future.

I’ve been working on Chapter Two of my memoir, Iced Tea and Laksa. Chapter Two is entitled “Makan”, a Malay word meaning food, a meal and to eat. (Yes, you spotted it, there is a them going on here – I may be living in London but I haven’t forgotten my very Malaysian passion for food!). I was sitting in my living room in my suburban house in South London, tapping away at my laptop. It was a hot, muggy Saturday last week. Outside, my poor garden was wilting in the dry heat, a victim of the hosepipe ban in this drought.

In my mind, I was back in my grandparents house in Taiping in Malaysia. It was a hot, glaring morning and I was cycling with my brother and sister, looking up at the puff ball clouds and feeling the blaze of the sun on my skin. I remembered how my grandma would call us for lunch, “Children, come – makan!” and how we’d sit round the table with my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. While my grandma said grace, we would sit quietly, our heads bowed, waiting to say “amen” so we could eat.

And in the meantime, the food would be there on the table, steaming and smelling delicious. Sesame chicken, fried pork with potatoes, fish curry, fried kangkong with chilli. A huge bowl of fluffy white rice. And we would wait, peeking at the food from under our bowed heads, our tummies rumbling, waiting, waiting. When would we get to “amen”?

My partner Angie came in just then, that Saturday in South London. “Shall we have lunch?”

I jumped up from my laptop. “Oh, yeah!”

I was absolutely starving. “What’s for lunch?”

“I thought I’d make a salad…”

“A salad?!” Dry, crispy bits of lettuce that would leave me starving after a whole bowl of munching and crunching?!

I said, “We’ve got that left-over chicken and ginger I made last night.”

“We’re saving that for dinner tonight.”

“Let’s have it now! I’ll make something else for dinner.”

Who can live without a microwave these days? Five minutes later, we sat down to steaming hot chicken with garlic and ginger and fluffy rice. I laughed, “Amen!”