A Mother Away From Home

It was summer of 1998. I’d just graduated but remained in UK for a while, trying to earn some extra money. Mak had warned me that jobs were quite difficult to get – she had heard of more people getting retrenched and companies downsized than new jobs offered. Instead of asking me to return home as soon as possible, Mak advised me to stay put and delay my return while earning some income.

Following her advice, I joined some friends registering with some job finder agencies for any suitable temporary jobs. After numerous job hopping experiences from one factory to another, I was invited by a group of close friends staying in Manchester to join them becoming assistants in a bakery factory. So, I spent the last month of my stay in UK in Old Trafford working as an assistant in Jesse Oldfield Bakery.

The job wasn’t that difficult and the pay was quite good. The company produced slab cakes, fruit cakes and layered cakes and we were assigned to help out with the decoration – arranging cherries, raisins, sultanas, and nuts on top of the cakes according to certain designs. I had a lot of fun there, working as a team with a group of friends, getting better pay than I did in Leeds (since we dealt directly with the bakery management without going through any agency, we got full payment without any commission being omitted from our pay)

And I had people taking care of me, practically mothering me…

Some second year students had decided not to go back for the summer holiday and remained in UK. A few of juniors I considered close to me were also staying at the house I made my temporary resident in Old Trafford – Cik Ju, Ina, Matun – and they were all good at pampering…

We often found hot food waiting for us upon return from work. An engineering undergraduate at Lougborough University then, Cik Ju also stayed in Manchester during the summer holiday. She was keen on trying out Indian food recipes and we were treated to many appetizing main courses and scrumptious desserts.

Ina, an architecture student in Manchester University, was the one who enjoyed doing the cleaning up and tidying up the place. Not that the house was a mess – but it sure felt good coming back from a hot and cluttered factory to an orderly home.

But none of their pampering and mothering affected me the way one girl did.

Matun, one of the actual tenants of that house, was on Bank Negara’s scholarship to study accountant in Manchester University. She overlook the welfare of everybody staying in that house – almost as caring and protective as a mother hen of her charges.

One night, I was very exhausted and fell asleep while watching the TV. I was awoken by the sound of someone switching off the TV. Then she proceeded to cover me gently with a duvet (or quilt, as we call it in Malaysia), her touch so tender as if she wanted to ensure that my sleep would not be disturbed. So, I kept my eyes closed when she attended to me but as she moved away from me, I spied her movement with half closed eyes.

It was Matun making her final round - after she made sure that all the doors were properly locked and bolted, she switched off all the main lights and left the kitchen lights on, knowing that I prefer to sleep with some light on. She once again checked that the duvet covered me properly before going upstairs to her room.

And that was the first time I remember being tucked in by anybody. Ever.