*
Sitting amongst mostly vacant dark wooden tables and chairs at Bread Chat, longing to be on the other side of the potted plants in the safety of The Bean, Percy had just finished his coffee when Norm arrived. Expecting him to be alone, Percy was surprised to see he’d brought company, human rather than canine. Forming a short train, were Hester, Meera and Trudy. Without ordering a thing, the four grabbed chairs, sat down and stared. They looked so grave that Percy wondered quite seriously if a tragedy had occurred, if some terrible misfortune had befallen a member of The Discussion Group.
On discovering what it was they had come to say, Percy longed for his first suspicion to be true. He would far rather someone else be brutally maimed in an accident than endure such insanity himself; a wish so profoundly cruel and selfish it might have drastically altered his future had he thought to express it. But like many things with the power to nudge life’s trajectory exponentially further and further from an outcome, the sentiment remained private.
It was Meera and not Norm who announced the news. After enjoying the cream tea at the Fullerton, further meetings had seen Hester’s homemade miracles hardening into fact. Recognition of Percy as something far beyond an average human was now absolute.
At first, a perplexed Percy feigned laughter, because he thought their proclaimed view of him was nothing more than a peculiarly unfunny joke. On the bright side, pretending to laugh was not a negative, for to pretend was a positive development in a man who rarely bothered with politeness unless he understood its worth; especially so since his wife left him. But after forcing out an uncomfortable chuckle, Percy soon realised nobody else was smiling. In fact, Norm appeared to be on the verge of tears. Percy, pale blue eyes coldly scanning them all, did not know what to think. It felt like a dream. Perhaps he had fallen asleep on the bed. Meera had said the word Prophet. She was talking about him. Was she? He wasn’t going to ask.
Through the silence that followed, Hester reached out and laid a hand upon him. Spotted and speckled with the experience of life, it contrasted starkly with his smoothly tanned arm. She gazed into his eyes, saying earnestly, ‘It is true, Percy. We have come to realise that you are someone very special. Very special indeed.’ Percy could see her old lips trembling as she spoke, like a thin rubber band caught in the blasting current of a fan. ‘The chosen one.’
Percy laughed, a real one this time. He felt relief wash over him. He could stop puzzling. It was a joke, after all. It seemed an odd sort of prank, though. He hated jokes, practical or otherwise, but at this precise moment part of him was enjoying it. To be experiencing something other than the flatness he’d trained himself to feel, in the months spent dragging himself from despair, was somewhat refreshing. Generally, he felt it was easier feeling flat and on an even keel than feeling up and down, but even so, flatness had its limits.
He freed himself from Hester’s now repetitive patting.
‘Percy?’ said Meera.
He stared at her. ‘What?’
‘We know. We know who you are. It’s okay. We don’t have to tell anyone else.’
Percy pushed his empty cup into the middle of the table, so he could fold his arms and lean on his elbows, allowing his face to draw close to Meera’s. ‘What do you know?’ A small smile formed on his lips, so small only he knew it was there. The punch line was coming. He waited.
‘I love you,’ said Trudy.
His eyes switched from Meera to Trudy. It was a blurted statement. It sounded true. ‘Pardon?’
‘We all love you,’ said Norm.
An unfamiliar chill of embarrassment raced over Percy, a sensation akin to every shifting molecule contained within his being passing through an icy blast; a strangely quick and jagged sensation, as if he had just been caught doing something wrong. He couldn’t think what to say. He wanted to go home. Words came of their own accord. ‘This is a bizarre sort of joke, I must say.’ But the words were as if someone other than Percy himself had spoken them, some unseen being hijacking his mouth. He panicked. Was he going mad? Was he becoming like Great Uncle Frank from Walthamstow? He’d ended his days in a threadbare grey towelling dressing gown insisting he was Jesus. So this was it. This was what the beginning of the end looked like. And he didn’t even own a dressing gown.
Percy drew a sharp breath, and questioned himself further. Had he, Percy Field, heard the word Prophet when in fact Meera had said something quite different? This represented another of Great Uncle Frank’s many afflictions; what Great Uncle Frank heard and what was actually said were rarely the same thing. A person could never be sure if by speaking with him they were compounding the problem by affirming his view. Percy had met him as a young boy, and all Great Uncle Frank had done was point at him and cry Beelzebub! What followed may have been a false memory, but Percy recalled his mother agreeing.
‘Joke?’ Hester’s voice was gentle. ‘No Percy. No joke. I saw you on Orchard Road. I saw what you did. On two occasions. Maybe there were more?’
‘And what did I do?’ Percy breathed more easily. He recognised his voice. The words were his.
‘You don’t need me to tell you,’ Hester said.
‘I think I might.’
‘You made a difference Percy. That is all I am prepared to say.’
‘I’m not sure I did.’
‘Of course you did,’ reassured Norm. ‘A huge difference. And you are making a difference to us. I haven’t felt like this in years. No. I haven’t felt like this ever.’
‘What are we talking about here?’
‘Percy, we told you. Meera told you,’ Norm replied.
Trudy began to make small sobbing sounds from behind her fingers. Norm tried to pull her hand away but she refused him, mumbling something about being one of life’s ugly weepers. But she stopped resisting when Percy reached out. He pushed down her hand, whilst saying, ‘Christ almighty, are you crying?’
With a blotchy, vein-bulging face, Trudy strained, ‘I am sorry, if you didn’t want us to say anything. I am so embarrassed. Percy. I… I…’
‘Take courage, Trudy,’ urged Hester.
Soon Norm and Trudy were clutching their mouths trying to hold back emotion, while Meera and Hester looked on, solemnly. The few people around them were beginning to stare, Percy noticed. Icy embarrassment gave way to a different shame, the hot flushing kind brought about by humiliation. So it wasn’t him who was insane, but the four sitting before him. Percy hissed for them to behave. They seemed determinedly fixed upon admiring him, trembling in adoration.
He stood up.
It was a disease, perhaps? Or some terrible worm burrowing where it shouldn’t? In the back of his mind was an unkind hope: maybe delusion was a symptom of Dengue fever, endemic in Singapore. Perhaps it might even be the nasty, sometimes-fatal, variety.
As he walked away, so Hester, Norm, Meera and Trudy rose from their seats and followed.