Grandad had a close friend, Francis.

‘Francis had always been the Romeo type you see’, my granddad tells me, placing a long drawn out emphasis on his last word. His words, heavily accented with a mix of Indian, Singaporean and British influences, a result of growing up speaking Tamil in Singapore under British rule.

‘Everybody loved Francis, he was so confident’, his head rests back on the sofa. I tell him it’s okay if he wants to go to sleep; the doctor said he should rest. His head bounces back up; he is intent on telling me this story, the story of how he met his wife.

‘Francis… Francis was a bastard child. Do you know what this is my dear? He was the son of a Scottish rubber planter and an Indian rubber tapper,’ he says, smacking his lips playfully together whilst speaking, and pressing the air with his fingertip upon each syllable, enthused that he has remembered correctly. I cringe inwardly at the term ‘bastard child’ but let him carry on.

‘What you must understand my dear is that I had never kissed a girl before, see. I did not know how to approach these women,’ I smile, and again say nothing, knowing how much of a Romeo he himself was at that age, ‘but I had a plan: to steal Edna away from him.’