... notable events : The neighbour's house...

Uncle Rosly. That's what we called him. He was our new neighbour along our rear boundary fence and it was a love-hate relationship from the start.

It all started in the early 1980s. My father, taking advantage of low property prices, had purchased a piece of land in what was then the limits of the Petaling Jaya township. Located in the housing area designated as SS3 along the road SS3/1, it was to be his dream house, his legacy, his house.

It faced a small service road just inside of a main road that was at the time, rather pompously labelled Jalan Majlis. To the left was a small electrical sub-station on a wasted piece of empty land which was at least 20% larger than ours, while to the right was a large monsoon drain across of which was a 2 storey house belonging to a Chinese contractor with the same surname as ours. The rear boundary was the only real boundary that we shared with anyone else... Uncle Rosly.

He had been the first to build a house on that small square of land with just 4 housing plots, building on the inner most quarter. We were the second.

Right from the start, our interactions with our then future neighbour began and the house had yet to even be built. The surveyors found out that Uncle Rosly had erected his rear fence at least 2 metres into our property. The architect for our house was called. After a little tussle and a little haggling, we eventually got our 2 metre stretch of land back, but our housing contractor would have to erect the common chain-linked fence at our cost. Fine. We were building fences along the other 3 sides anyways. What was important was that we got the correct size of land that we'd paid for.

Interestingly, it created a strange situation for Uncle Rosly. He had suddenly lost his entire spacious turfing along his backyard. Not only that, we had suddenly become the proud owners of a very nice coconut tree, one which I would over the years, climb and pluck the succulent fruit and hone my coconut parring skills with a kitchen chopping knife with. It stood at the left rear corner of our property and abutted a short sliver of Uncle Rosly's fencing which was now very obviously jutting into the other two plots. Apparently our dear Uncle Rosly had not only built his fence into our lot, he had also shifted his fence into his other two neighbours' lots as well, and hence now protruded a small rectangle of fenced area into the substation's lot. Tsk tsk tsk.

With the spacious land came our dog to patrol and guard the property. We named him Andy. He was a bright and intelligent fellow, black furred with brown splotches, and he even came with a birth certificate. Perrin Coffee was the name on his official birth certificate although we didn't call him that. I guess the Coffee was in referrence to his dark coat. As for Perrin, I had no idea but with his birth certificate, he was definite pedigree. Uncle Rosly however, didn't think much of our pedigree Perrin Coffee aka Andy. Uncle Rosly like most Malays, loved of all things, cats. He had probably close to a dozen cats at anytime in and around his house and each and everyone of those pampered royal cats, took offense at our Andy. It was pandamonium everytime a cat chose to come near the border between our two houses... the border of which was guarded and patrolled by the cat's sworn enemy.

It didn't take Uncle Rosly long. Up went a thick hedgerow along the chain-linked fence. It grew and grew and soon grew taller than the original fence until I doubt I could find the fence inside that monsterous growth today if I tried. But it worked. It was a lot more peaceful after that. We could still hear the cats, and Andy as well as his successor the brown furred with black patched Cindy, patrolled the land still, and on occassion found fault and reason to bark through the dark green leafy mass. By and large however, the peace was kept.

We never saw much of what went on over the fence after that. On occasion, the savoury smells of curry or rendang would waft across, or the muffled sounds of maids laughing while hanging out the clothes to dry could be heard, but the border was otherwise impenetrable. In my gardening chores, I struggled to maintain the overgrowth from spilling into our side of the fence but there was no stopping the monster. It grew so thick that one couldn't even see through the fence. That was when one day we realised that something wasn't quite right.

The barkings had stopped for days now. Not a sound came across the boundary. It was strange. On the floor above, from my sister's room windows I watched. Apparently, something was wrong. The lights never went on at night, the cats never roamed and nary a sound came from across the fence. Uncle Rosly's house was empty, his half completed renovations along the monsoon drain side to add a 3rd storey roof terrace was abandonned, unfinished. Having done a few bike-bys of Uncle Rosly's frontgate over the next few days, I confirmed that it was well and truly abandonned. Uncle Rosly, our dearest neighbour for years... was gone.

This was an awesome mystery to a young teenager like me! One worthy of the Famous Five and the Hardy boys (not to mention, Nancy Drew too), and I was not one to shy away from a ready adventure. Over the fence I went, torchlight in hand.

It was spooky right from the start.

The front door was open, the lights weren't working and most of the things were gone except for perhaps the large pieces of furniture. There was dust, papers and just about every bit of rubbish imaginable, strewn everywhere. Even the cats were gone although I saw much evidence of their royal presence within the house, a paw print here, a cat's toy there... it just seemed so abandonned, yet it contained so much of a living presence. It was after all, our much loved Uncle Rosly's house... the one we had learned to live with and grown up with, it's often reassuring presence along our rear boundary... always there... now simply... gone. It was too much for a young kid like me to take in. I got as far as the entrance to the kitchen before bolting back out through the hall and out the front door. I didn't stop there. I ran straight out the front driveway gate which was also unlocked and ran round the semi-ring road that led from Uncle Rosly's place to the sanctuary of our own garden gate, not stopping till I was well and safely back within our own walls.

I don't know what happened to Uncle Rosly. My parents say that he went into financial problems and his house was seized. I don't think even they knew for sure what happened. The house stayed empty and lightless for years. The cats never teased my dog anymore, the half completed renovations were never finished. That was how it stayed when later my family too, shifted out of our family house and moved down to Singapore to work and study.

Often on return trips to check on our house tenants, we would see new people in old Uncle Rosly's house, evidence of changes, evidence of life returned, but to me, it was all too distant... to me, it would always be Uncle Rosly's house with Uncle Rosly's cats, Uncle Rosly's monster fence and Uncle Rosly's coconut tree which he had so graciously planted for us.