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| From a Hungry Go Where review - see below for link |
Contrary to popular belief, pubs and bars are not places where you get drunk, behave boorishly, get into fights, pick up girls or whatnots. Pubs are places where you have a quiet little makan, where you read books on spirituality or new age thinking, where you have deep philosophical conversations with your closest friends, and where you receive phone calls from schoolmates living 400km away… Well, OK, maybe not all people or pubs, but for me, Rennie’s was this.
In those days, my daily routine was simple - an early start at McCann (I would get in around 6 - 6:30 in the morning) then work until about 6 or 7, go home for dinner then after a short rest, off to Rennie’s, usually armed with a book. On the days when Existential Crisis dogged me, I would often ring Yew Leong and Michael and we’d meet for a beer and a chat. And often, Oxtail Soup too. There were others I would meet up with, but this was the regular group I had.
I would go to Rennie’s maybe 3-4 times a week and each time stay until midnight or so then head home for a 5 hour nap before repeating the process the next day. I have, fortunately, never needed much sleep and 5-6 hours a night has often sufficed.
I wasn’t very close to Rennie and Trudy and preferred to sit quietly in the back portion of the pub. There was a bubbly waitress/cashier named Rose whom I did get along with. She was a diminutive thing, often partially hidden behind the L shaped bar counter, but she would often call out a greeting when I arrived and that was nice. There was also a waiter named Zul I believe (or was it ‘Joe’? My memory fails me) who will feature in anther story soon.
The Phone Call Thing.
It was not uncommon to receive phone calls at the pub and I was one of those who’d sometimes have my name shouted out a few moments after the jangling of the phone. No modern technology? Hey, we got by…
One of my oldest friends is Andrew Chan who then lived and worked in SIngapore. One night as I sauntered in, book in hand, Rose looked up and immediately called out ‘Hi, John! Your friend Andrew called from Singapore. I told him to call back at 10:30!’
‘Thanks, Rose!’ I called back and as I walked in past and acknowledged the regulars who preferred the front portion of the pub, I glanced at my watch. It was almost precisely 10:30…
Even I had not realised my routine was quite so fixed or obvious that the waitress in my local pub knew of my comings and goings...
The Ming Thing
Besides work, Yew Leong, Michael and I often lamented the lack of female companionship in our lives. Typical young-guy stuff lah. One night, we were sitting at our usual place, bemoaning our lot, when suddenly Yew Leong said ‘Hey there’s a good looking chick sitting at the bar!’ Now as I said, the bar is an L-shaped thing. The long part of the counter was parallel to the wall and the short part of the L had its back to the inside part of the pub, which is where we usually were. The wall between the two had a large aperture in it which in later years was covered with a clear perspex window. Back then it was a unrestricted opening. Just at the curve of the bar sat an Anchor Beer barrel, a decorative item that right then, obscured the sight of this goddess from me. Both Michael and Yew Leong could see her but her beauty was elusive to me, without any obvious craning or standing up.
Instead I summoned Zul who was leaning against the wall at the end of the bar. He immediately popped through the open doorway into the back and came to us. We got on very well with Zul so I chose to jestingly berate him. ‘Zul, how can you do this to us?…’
The poor guy looked genuinely shocked and asked ‘What happened, guys? What’s wrong?’
I looked at him in mock sterness and replied ‘There’s this beautiful chick sitting by herself at the bar, and you know the three of us guys are lonely, and you don’t even introduce her to us? How can?…’
Zul visibly relaxed and said she used to come to Rennie’s every now and then and he would introduce her. And he did. And that’s how I came to meet Kuan Ming Ying, or Ming, as she introduced herself when Zul dragged her to us.
It’s been close to 30 years since that meeting and I can’t even remember her face now, though I do know the guys weren’t wrong in their initial description. She worked for Schering, the pharma company and we stood around chatting for a short while. I did call her a day or two later. And we went out for dinner and drinks. And then again the day after. And the day after that… And almost every day for the next 2 weeks, in fact. Each night was a wonderful few hours of eating, drinking, chatting, laughing, joking and connecting.
It was on the 2nd date I think that she said she was actually leaving to go overseas at the end of the the following week. She’d been transferred to the Berlin office. And so we went out every night, kind of to make up for the fact that we’d only had that short period of time before she left.
We talked about life, the weniverse and everything. We talked about her work (contraceptive products, mainly), my work (trying to be subservient to a head with Napoleon-Syndrome - and failing), the world, Richard Bach, destiny, fate, who God is, where we go after we leave this life, and more. It seems we could go on and on for hours and not be bored. And yet we had that travel date looming over us.
And so I saw her off at the airport the next week, we wrote each other for awhile and I know she eventually hooked up with someone, and I eventually left McCann and went to work in Singapore.
And I never saw her again.
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| From a Hungry Go Where review. See below for link. |
The Lat Thing
A few years later, I was in PJ again with my (now-ex) wife, Jessica, and we popped in to Rennie’s for some Oxtail Soup and beer. There were only a few other people in the pub at the time and lo and behold, one of them was Lat! The world-famous cartoonist, whose work I absolutely adore, was sitting at the bar with another man having some drinks and a quiet chat.
I explained who it was to Jessica and we agreed an autograph would be essential so we wandered over and interrupted him.
‘Err… sorry. Excuse me for the interruption, but we saw you and we’re huge fans (a little exaggeration was in order I thought) and I wonder if we could impose on you for an autograph, please?’
Lat and his friend both smiled at us, not at all put out by the interruption. Lat chuckled and said ‘Oh, fans! ha ha OK sure…’ and reached for a paper napkin. He borrowed a pen, then looked at me with a glint in his eye and said ‘I’ll only charge you one ringgit…’
I replied with a laugh ‘Oh my wife has come all the way from Singapore you know…’
Without skipping a beat, Lat said ‘Singapore? Oh then it’ll be TWO ringgit!’
And we all had a merry laugh as he sketched out a little Mamat for us on that napkin. And no, I didn't have to pay a thing...
I kept that napkin for years, and hope it’s still with me. Years of shifting houses and the divorce has meant some stuff may now be hidden somewhere or even left behind so I’m not sure it is still in amongst my piles of mementoes. I’ll probably check for it when I have some free time. It’ll be a little yellowed, I’m sure, but the memory of that short encounter is still very much with me.
I have a few more memories of Rennie’s to share and maybe will compile them into another post. Whether I do or not though, those memories remain within me and the sharp edge of the pub’s closing cuts a painful tear in those memories. Not blood, but tears, almost, pour out from the wounds. As I said at the start, pubs are not just about beer and whisky, they’re about friendships, conversations, growing up, growing closer, even growing apart. Rennie’s was this and more. I shall miss it.
Lovely recollections !
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