“This was your father’s mistress.”
The faded sepia tones of the photograph spoke of its age. Her name was Lim Mei Yee, Alvin’s mother said. She had previously been a secretary at the family firm but had resigned abruptly in 1978. As it turned out Alvin’s father and her had thought it better for her to be working elsewhere to avoid suspicion over their relationship.
She had gotten pregnant around the same time as Mrs Koh. Her fortune-teller had assured her that she would have a boy. Koh Beng Huat had been jubilant. He had promised Mei Yee the position of the lady of the household once the baby was born.
Unfortunately this had inflated her ego. She decided to turn up unannounced at their family home one day. Alvin’s sisters were still in school and Mrs Koh had come back home from the market to see her in laws serving tea to Mei Yee. She had almost started a fight there and then but her mother-in-law pulled her into the kitchen and told her to wait. Then she took a slice of cake that was on the table and brought it out to serve to Mei Yee.
Mrs Koh read the note her mother-in-law had pressed into her palm. Shock combined with gratitude overcame her.
In the seventh lunar month that year, just a short while before Alvin was born, Lim Mei Yee’s corpse was found at the foot of the block of flats where she stayed with her aged mother. The old lady’s corpse was found inside the flat they occupied. She had been wearing a red qipao. She had folded a piece of yellow talisman paper and placed it under her tongue before she jumped.
The paper bore her dying vow that she would break the heart of Koh Beng Huat and all his male descendants as he had broken hers. Starting with Mr Koh himself.
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Brenda wished Kevin a Happy New Year as she tucked him into bed. She had let him stay up for the countdown for the first time in his life. She sighed as she thought of her chance encounter with Alvin the previous month. She took a big gulp of wine from her glass.
‘He must never know the truth.’
-END-
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