“Had fun, you mean,” said Ket Hau.
It was true their life in London over the past three years had held little space for fun. They had not come here via the usual pathways of schooling or work or marriage. They hadn’t originally been planning on leaving Malaysia at all. It had been hard to believe that flight would be necessary, until the fact was forced upon them.
As a result, they’d had to start from scratch, with very little preparation, practical or emotional, for what proved to be a new life in the UK. Navigating the bureaucratic complexities of the immigration system, gaining employment, and finding a place to live had absorbed all their energy at first.
It had taken years to achieve the relative stability they enjoyed now. But Ket Hau had yearnings for more.
Not for himself. He claimed to be content with his job as aparalegal at a City law firm, spending his days putting together court bundles and reviewing stupefyingly boring documents.
“You forget the conditions I worked in back home,” he told Ket Siong. “I kept asking for a new office chair because mine was killing my back and they kept saying, no budget. Now I can have as many Herman Miller Aerons as I can sit on. I could line up three and sleep on them if I wanted.”
Admittedly, paralegalling didn’t pay much relative to the cost of living in London. Ket Hau earned just enough to enable them to live in a cramped flat and feel constantly stressed about it. But he was studying to pass the SQE, and his earning power would be improved once he qualified as a solicitor. The fact that he hated what he was doing was, he said, irrelevant.
For Ket Siong, though, Ket Hau demanded more than a decent job with as many expensive office chairs as his heart could desire. He wanted nothing less than that Ket Siong should be happy.
That wasn’t something Ket Siong had been able to give his brother for some years now.
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t go,” said Ket Hau. “How much would it cost if you had to buy a ticket, twenty quid? Do it, Siong. You can come back and tell us about the canapés.”
So here Ket Siong was, with that name on the list of donors burnt into the back of his mind.
Alicia had been next to him during the speeches, nursing her glass of champagne and eyeing up the other guests. She must have wandered off after.
Looking for her, he passed mannequins in wasp-waisted cocktail dresses, extravagant satin evening gowns, and impeccably tailored coats. One room recalled the grandeur of a stately home, with mannequins posed in various attitudes in a Grecian gazebo. Another room was overhung with a profusion of trailing artificial foliage, illuminated by shifting multicoloured lights. The dresses on display shimmered and glowed.
It was all somewhat lost on Ket Siong. It was the people there who interested him, not the exhibits. It wasn’t just Alicia he was looking out for.
He rounded the corner into another gallery—a relatively small room, dominated by a ballgown in a column of glass in the centre. Scanning the crowd, Ket Siong’s eyes caught on a man’s profile.
It was as though someone had poured freezing water down his back. He stiffened.
The man was talking to a white woman. From this distance, Ket Siong could only make out a few distinguishing features. A stout, prosperous figure, shorter than most of the other men there, with salt-and-pepper hair. He was in a dark suit—nothing particularly fashionable, to Ket Siong’s untrained eye. He could have been anyone.
But then the woman moved away and the man turned. Ket Siong saw his face. The skin on his forearms prickled, excitement sour in his gut.
Ket Siong had never met the man before, but he knew who he was. Tan Sri Low Teck Wee, chairman of Freshview Industries.
Low was no celebrity. He only happened to control vast swathes of the state of Sarawak in Malaysia, through the conglomerate his father had founded and he had piloted to its present dominance.
Ket Siong had never particularly followed business news. Five years ago, he wouldn’t have known to distinguish Low Teck Wee from any other middle-aged Chinese man. But he’d spent the night before reading articles about Low, and he recognised the face from the photos—a round, weathered, bespectacled face, deceptively jovial, with shrewdness lurking in the narrow eyes.
“Tan Sri,” said Ket Siong.
Low Teck Wee was looking at his phone. He started.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” said Ket Siong. He could feel his pulse fluttering in his throat. His face felt stiff, but he was glad to hear his voice was even.
He glanced at the exhibits ranked behind Low: faceless mannequins in gowns of red and cream and black, trapped behind glass. “Are you a fan of Dior?”
Low laughed. “No, no. My daughter wanted to come. She’s here somewhere.” The way the man spoke—the rise and fall on each syllable so different from the British accent—gave Ket Siong an unexpected pang. It was an accent he associated with home. He didn’t hear it much these days, outside the confines of the flat where he lived with his family.
Low had identified a fellow countryman in Ket Siong, too. He peered at Ket Siong above his glasses. “You’re Charmaine’s friend? You must forgive me. I am getting old, cannot remember names already.”
“You don’t know me, Tan Sri,” said Ket Siong. “But most people have heard of Freshview. I sawThe Edgereported record profits for the company this year.”
Low nodded. “You’re from Malaysia? Interested in business?” He didn’t seem surprised at having a stranger accost him. Perhaps he was used to being approached by young men on the make.
“The Ensengei venture must have been lucrative,” said Ket Siong. He’d curled his hand into a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm. He loosened his grip with an effort.
