The monster snaked away along Stamford Road past City Hall MRT station toward the Orchard Road shops.  So did the jigging Singapore crowd as the New Year’s threatening meteorological pyrotechnics let loose the first egg-cupful rain drops.  “Time for a Tiger,” my companion commanded and we ran for the Raffles.

At the hotel’s ornate, wrought-iron veranda, a London-style taxicab, displaying incongruous “Air-con” signs,  was disgorging grey suits.  A fearsome, bearded and turbaned doorman, pristine in white Raj uniform, bowed us in, directing the suits to the left to join the late lunchers in the Tiffin Room.  We went right to the bar.

I ordered the beer from a hovering steward but my companion chipped in: “The Classic!”  I made to chide her at over-familiarity with the island’s renowned Tiger Gold Medal lager but she was shaking the rain from her thick, black Oriental hair and chattered on: “This is the famous Writers Bar.  It’s heard some pretty high-powered literary debates, and intrigues, I should think.   They all sat here  -  Joseph Conrad, Kipling, Somerset Maugham and the Master.”  My eyebrows raised the question. “Coward, Noel Coward,” she laughed, smug at my irritated grunt of recollection.

She dug a little cheroot from her ersatz Armani “sack” but before I moved, an alert bell-boy, cheerful in white uniform and cap, flicked a lighter for her.  They exchanged formal salutations in Mandarin.

The steward set our tall, chilled glasses and salted nuts on the occasional table beside our leather lounger.  The rain fell thunderously on the roof high above us in afternoon steam bath Singapore but in the cool, air-conditioned bar it was not just convention that made a jacket necessary.

A group of immense German tourists clattered into the bar, swooping on all the barstools except the two occupied by an elderly couple of ex-pat Brits, leathery and tanned, who edged further round the counter with their Singapore Sling cocktails.

Our beer was poured and I noticed the bottles for the first time,  bright new labels, not the glowing “London, Geneva and Paris” Gold Medal badges. She wished me: “Kung hay fat choi!”  I returned the blithe New Year blessing with a stilted: “Cheers!”

She inquired: “Like it?  It’s a fairly new Tiger brew made for the New Year.  Mustn’t have too much, it’s very strong.”  Hmmmm,  very smooth, too, delicate amber hue, firm head, a little more malt than the Gold Medal, but still nicely dry on the tongue and cool in the throat.  Comfortable for the soul, I decided.  She went on: “Asian Pacific brewed it first about five years ago.  Just goes with a thunder storm, don’t you think?  They also began a Raffles Light ale.  I don’t care for it, but some of the girls prefer it for long drinking occasions”

We watched, comfortably remote, as the Germans settled rowdily to their beer, oblivious to the cool appraisal of the ex-pats who began to gather up their belongings. A sympathetic steward fussed over their account.  My companion remarked: “Oh, did you know, it’s your year!”  My year?

“Yes, goodbye to the pig, welcome to the Year of the Rat.  Weren’t you born in September nineteen …”  Yes, yes, yes, that’s right!  My year, eh?  “Yes, the 12 animals in the Chinese Zodiac start with the Rat.  He’s not the sinister, rapacious animal as in your culture. To the Chinese he’s gregarious, cunning and likes his own patch.”

You’d think differently if you knew how the rat had nearly wiped out the kiwi.  Swiftly protective, she argued: “Oh, you cannot blame the rat for that.  You took him to New Zealand.  He didn’t want to go, did he!”

Concentrated pouring of another Tiger Classic  – the third, was it?  -  halted the vermin vein of our murmurings.   Very delicate nose, a touch of green almonds but more flowery than that, one of the tarter plums, perhaps.  The bottles glowed with the colour of Chinese good luck like the miles of reds streamers and bunting that bestrewed the city and most of the Chinese world.

Weren’t the dragon dancers marvellous, I ventured. “Lion!” she corrected. “Lion dancers.  Didn’t you see the manes?”  Oh, and the firecrackers were ear-splitting.  “Almost as noisy as the storm”, she remembered delightedly.  Ah, the storm …  it was leaving the city, rolling North to wreak more havoc with the celebrations on the Malaysian Peninsular.  The ex-pats were leaving, too.  She, apprehensive of squeezing past the rumbustious drinkers, held back. He opened a path between the tourists, claiming passage with his outstretched umbrella.  The bucolic Berlin wall crunched shut behind them, scarcely aware of the crossing.

Another New Year flier? “Oh, no!” She was getting giggly. “We’ve got an edition to get out. They’ll be thinking I’ve gone …”  She used a dirty word for a naughty Mandarin maiden.  “Tell you what, there’s a festival on the river this evening.  If we got down to the Boat Quay early, we could grab a table, try the regular Tiger and watch the dragon boats.”   We left the coolth of the Writers Bar, its leviathans and literary ghosts, and drifted back into sauna Singapore.  Her delinquent laughter hardened my wavering resolve to get those few remaining damned page make-ups done and out of the way, a.s.a.p.

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Tags: ale, humour