Chapter 13 Grandmother's Anger

Our parents were never good in business, In  many small ways their involvements were most of the time failures.Take for example our mother her business at the coffee stall unde0r the clock tower was a complete failure.Never mind the reasons leading to  it. 

Our father worst still,he never had any experience at all.When the family's fortune were taking a dipped he was still playing around at school.It was very unfortunate as the war also took its toll not only the family's fortune but also on him.

During the war they were on the run  and when they came back during the Japanese occupation all their properties were loss. He was then jobless moving around with some so called friends of which most were idlers.All dreamers who had nothing to do. 

We were then residing along Anson Road which our grandmother built.All those dreamers not only loitered around town with our father also led him by nose into all sort of wild suggestions.Most of their suggestions ended in losses.Much to the discontent of our grandmother.

I remembered that there were a time that our father did some selling of timber from our house.However without capital his stock were never large.He tried to obtained them from our grandmother but by then most of her savings were gone,

We were fortunate to have the wooden house  with roof over our heads.Poor grandmother was determined to hold on to it until her death.There were no doubt that our father was all the time trying to induce her to sell the house plus land away but our grandmother flatly refused him.

The back of our house was rented out to a clog maker but after some time he shifted away.Another tenant a night hawker who plied his trade of salt fruits etc. at the Great World Park was our next tenant.I remember that hawker well as he was a joyful man cracking jokes all the time with us.

It was he who spotted my younger brother drawing in the sand.My brother was than only five years old or so and he drawing well with just twigs on the sand.A budding artist in the making.He was always full of praise for my brother then.

He rented our back portion residing with his family of five plus another brother.Both brothers sold their salted fruits together.The brother was once spotted by a British film director to play a p[art as a Japanese officer in a film..

This "Ah Loy Sok" as we fondly called him whenever he saw me he would speak English his way."Fatt Tit Four Fue Come Tit Mau See."That was because I was send to study in an English school.

Our next tenant who rented part of our land on the left side to trade in sawn timber.This trader had large capital invested on that trade.Not only that he was very enterprising as he also hand saw huge "Chengal logs"By such he was making more profit because labour force extremely cheap then.

Then,for the first time I saw the sawing of logs to timber by sheer human strength. Just imagine only two thin old men could lift by chain blocks up to a sawing bench with little effort and brain.Sawing by machinery would be more costly apparently.

In short we were actually surviving on house rentals.My mother was tapping rubber for small holders then During our schoold holidays we would follow her ther the rubber hlding to help he by cleaning the latex cups.

On leaving the home guard our father was jobless for a couple years.Later when his brother open business trading in sawn timber he employed by him at $ 5/= per day.The business lasted a year or so before he finally closed shop.

For long our father had always pestered our dear old grandmother to dispose our last property so that he could involved fully in business with sufficient capital  to roll on.He was of course dreaming that he could succeed.

Many a times our grand mother had managed to escape his pestering by simply vanishing to Kuala Lumpur.That trick worked many times but our father never gave up,he pressured on relentlessly.most of the time.

Dear grandmother she  longed for us and therefore often returned to Teluk Anson,only to face her son's wrath  time and again,until one day she broke down and cried out,"Alright,I will sell it and let you have all the money'".

Selling was easy,but at a cut throat price.Those days money value were fantastically low.Money were scared and difficult to come by.Those who had held tightly to them.So when our last property was put on sales everyone tired to knock it down to rock bottom.

Our father apparently  was relentless pressured on our poor grandmother.With much sadness and with teary eyes she finally had to let go.Despite pf all odds - to give her only son a chance to make good in business,a thing she had no fate in knowing her son capability.

Nevertheless she felt it was time to let go and allowed the fruatration imbedded within her to flow away.However when she agreed  to sell that report there were numerous bad gossips. Adverse talks about how my father threatened and forced her to make such a rash action.One of the worst we heard was that our father threatened our dear grandmother with a knife and she sold it at knife point.

How true or absurd we  were never clear but our grandmother did sold that property,our last inheritance.The  buyer knew my plight there had offered to purchase it at an extremely exorbitant low price.

Take it or leave it, they said.Our poor grandmother was so hard pressed and with no other alternative that she just simply agreed to part with it.At least it was off her chest.What a tragic end to our last property.Our house plus the land of slightly more than one acres went up for only fourteen thousand five hundred ringgit.

The deal were much lower the current value those days.It should have been doubled or more.Initially she gave only part to our father to start his timber business but ultimately surrendered almost all to him.

Once the propert was sold we had to mov out of that property.We moved into a one room and one office house at our father business site.There our whole structure and out look in life took a drastic changed for the worst.Bad may it be but we strived on and survived.