That startled a laugh out of Renee. She had a pretty laugh, an intensely delighted gurgle that made it impossible not to smile along. “In Dad’s world, there’s no such thing as having enough money.” She drew her feet in, hugging her knees. “Is everyone’s family like this?”
They were less than two months into their friendship, but Ket Siong had already heard all about Renee’s family. She dropped casual references to them into conversation, almost all appalling. Her parents lived on different floors of a good class bungalow in Singapore, communicating exclusively via messages conveyed by the servants. Her father had not spoken to Renee for a year after she started her degree at Central Saint Martins. When she was little, she used to run to her nanny’s room and hide under the bed when she heard her brothers coming back from school.
Ket Siong could not give his real opinion, which was that Renee’s family struck him as cruel and unnatural, more like villains in a drama than actual people you might meet in real life. He settled for saying, “You’re not much like the rest of your family.”
“I guess not.” Renee tilted her head back against the wall, reflecting. There was something pleasingly neat about her: the sweep of her hair over her forehead; the shape of her legs and feet in their black tights; the short polished nails on her fingers.
“I didn’t see a lot of my parents, growing up,” she said. “And my brothers are so much older, you know. And they’re boys, thatmakes a big difference in my family. At meals, my dad and brothers get served first, then Mom and me after. There’s a hierarchy.”
Ket Siong chewed on a prawn. Derek might have been stingy with the salt, but he’d gone all out with the other ingredients. Ket Siong had not seen so many king prawns in one place since he was last home. “It was your nanny who looked after you?”
“That’s right. Auntie Francesca.” Renee brightened. “She was really the one who brought me up. She went back to the Philippines when I was twelve. We chat on Facebook sometimes, but she’s super busy. She has eight grandkids and runs a restaurant.” She looked over at him. “What’s your family like?”
It took Ket Siong a moment to answer. The picture Renee had painted of her childhood was so bleak, he was struggling against an uncharacteristic desire to say something, though he hardly knew what.
He looked at her shining dark hair, with the subtle tint of red winding through its waves (both colour and curl courtesy of an expensive Japanese salon off Tottenham Court Road). Ket Siong knew suddenly that he should not say or do any of the things that were trying to break out of him. His family was a safer topic.
“There’s just the three of us,” he said. “My grandmother passed a few years ago. And my father died when I was young.”
Renee’s eyes were soft. “I’m sorry.”
Ket Siong shrugged. “I don’t remember much about him.”
His grandmother was a different matter. Ah Poh had looked after Ket Siong and his brother while Ma was getting back on her feet, after their father died. There was a picture of her pinned on his noticeboard. Ah Poh looked severe, with her faded samfu and iron-grey curls, but her hands rested on the young Ket Hau and Ket Siong’s shoulders, protective.
“That’s a lot of loss,” said Renee.
Ket Siong had never thought of it that way before. Renee had a knack for casting a fresh light on the world, making him see it anew.
“We’ve learnt to rely on each other,” he said, after a pause.“My mother used to work in human rights, but she switched to corporate law so she could support us.”
“Wow,” said Renee. “Does she miss it? What she used to do, I mean.”
Ma never talked about her career change, much less how she felt about it. Ket Siong had been young enough when it had happened that he only knew about it because his grandmother had told him. Ah Poh had approved of the change: Ma earned significantly more now than she used to.
“She doesn’t talk about it. But it’s not easy.” He paused, but there couldn’t be any harm in telling Renee. It wasn’t like she knew any of the involved parties, or would tell anyone else. “Right now, her firm’s representing this company, she thinks it might be involved in money laundering. She reported it to the managing partner. But the company’s a big client for the firm, and the founder is well-connected. She’s not sure what’s going to happen.”
“It’s brave of her to speak up,” said Renee. “It explains a lot about you, actually.” At Ket Siong’s expression, she added, “How you care about doing the right thing. You care more than most people. That must come from your mom.”
Ket Siong looked down under her gaze. It was easier to talk about his mother than himself, so he said:
“Her job makes it difficult, sometimes. But it would be tough for us, without it. Even with my bursary… My brother’s helping to pay for this as well. We couldn’t make it work, otherwise.” He waved at his room, encompassing in the gesture his presence in one of the most expensive cities in the world, pursuing what most people he knew back home considered a wildly impractical career.
Ket Hau and Ma never mentioned the sacrifices they’d made so Ket Siong could do what he was doing. He would never hear from them what small luxuries they denied themselves, what opportunities they might have pursued if they could. But he knew his freedom came at a cost, paid by the people he loved best.
“I couldn’t be here if not for them,” he said.
“That’s true of all of us, I guess,” said Renee. “I should be grateful.”
Ket Siong did not think Renee owed it to her terrible family to be grateful. He was trying to think of a polite way to say this when she said:
“Do you know why my family hates me?”
She was picking at the hem of her dress—a very un-Renee-ish thing to do. The weight of a revelation hung over her.
Ket Siong did not try to argue that Renee’s family did not hate her. He shook his head.
Renee was finding it hard to speak, for once. Ket Siong kept eating, even though he was no longer really tasting the rice, because he had a sense that would make it easier for her.
