BFES Schools Singapore Ex-Student Reunion Pictures

SINGAPORE REPRISE

 

At the door stand shyly worried

Fix your name-tag, fingers hurried.

Nervous smile, anticipating

The past incarnate, ghosts in waiting.

 

Scan the faces, cruise the tables

Peer at names on stick-on labels

Wind back memory, far-flung places

Strip the years from world-worn faces.

Accept a hand and shake it, eager,

But "No, I'm sorry, not my era.

Sixty-ish?  No, I much younger!"

Keep on searching - feed the hunger.

 

(The need to fit, the need to find

Not just the photos to remind;

But the life, the times, the laughter

Feeding dreams for ever after.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, twenty -

Singapore the land of plenty.

Took a while to readjust,

But that was then and now I must …)

 

"My God, it's you!" - voice fever-pitched

And suddenly the night's bewitched

For this is surely what you came for

The kind of memory-loss to aim for.

Then the flicker - recognition;

Time flies backwards.  Now, ignition!

Fingers hide your dropping jaw

And suddenly you find that you're

Exuding tears for three decades

Not lost or wasted, just dismayed

That time has flitted on so fast.

And yet it's here, your favoured past.

As years fall off, don't try to catch them -

Listen to the tales and match them.

 

Circulate, swap stares with strangers

Spin the cogwheels, wipe off ages.

"It can't be, no, I don't believe it!

All that time not changed a bit!"

"Tell me, what became of whatsit?"

"Not too loud - he's sitting opposite."

And after all the tears and squealing:

"Oh my God, you live in Ealing!"

"Promise that you won't lose touch -

Pop round and see us, really must!"

 

The band fires up (or starts to smoulder),

Youthful idols now much older,

Squinting back through lost-chord mists

To pick out long-forgotten riffs.

Antique guitars and beat-up drum kit

Fingers stiff, rheumatic, unfit.

Chuck Berry duck-walk far too tiring -

Guys of fifty risk expiring.

Granddads now in role reversal -

"It's R&B - who needs rehearsal!

Gilman Youth Club music weaned us,

Rock 'n roll came intravenous."

 

Groupies then stood tanned in line

Keyhole dresses, empire line;

Now it's Lycra, Next and Marks

Older, wiser - shoes by Clarks.

And dancers now who once were teens

In long-abandoned hipster jeans,

Have sagging bust-lines, braces needed,

Varicose veins and hair receded,

Pensions, paunches, some bus passes,

HRT and "Where's my glasses?"

 

Later still the night's a jumble

Past re-living, memories tumble.

Days and years and lives forgotten

Back as kids in '60s cotton.

Hand-made clothes at silly prices

Chips by the pool and durian ices,

Trishaw rides and nasi goreng,

Tropical sun and monsoon pouring.

Tables rock at shy confessions -

Fumbling teenage poolside sessions.

 

Then too soon the night is ending,

Addresses swapped for e-mail sending.

Goodbye handshakes, kisses, tears -

"Don't wait another thirty years!"

 

© Ian Royce 2001