‘So you won’t have to. Leave it to me.’
‘You’re going to pack for me?’
‘Someone will. It’ll all be here for you by the time you get back from work tomorrow.’
Celeste smiled. This, she could get used to.
28
7th August 2010
Mid-Levels, Central and Western District, Hong Kong
Celeste waved frantically through the glass doors.
‘Mrs Renshaw, where is your key card?’ Charlie, the doorman at the apartment building, asked as he let her in.
‘I’ve left it at work. Could I borrow another one for a couple of days?’
Charlie made a face. ‘My computer has just crashed. I need to restart it.’
In a high security residential building where some of Hong Kong’s richest lived there was paperwork even to borrow a spare key card, and Charlie had the slowest computer she had ever encountered.
She rubbed her temples. Today had been trying. She had lost one of her designers and a supplier had let them down at the last minute. She and Jinny had spent three hours in the afternoon sun, traipsing round the trims market in Tsim Sha Po looking for the perfect clasp for a new line in ladies’ purses. ‘I have a splitting headache and need to get to bed. What if I promise to return it on Monday evening?’
‘I’m on leave next week. I’m going home.’
‘To see your wife? How lovely.’ In the year and a half she had lived in Hong Kong she had grown fond of Charlie and knew just how much he longed to go home to visit his wife. She also knew he was a bit of a pedant when it came to security. She assumed he’d had his fingers burnt before by his manager who had a reputation for being a bit of an ogre. ‘I’ll keep the card safe and I won’t tell a soul until you are back,’ she said, making a motion of locking her mouth with an invisible key.
Charlie hesitated. He went into the back room and returned with a plastic white card. He handed it to her. ‘This is a spare, but be sure to return it when I get back. It’s not registered. I’ll get into trouble.’
‘I promise Charlie. I won’t forget. It’s white unlike the black residents card. I’ll know to return it.’ Celeste tucked the card into her wallet and walked towards the lift.
‘Oh, I almost forgot, Mrs Renshaw, a package for you.’ Charlie went into the back room and returned with a brown package, which he handed to her before he called the lift.
As the lift ascended the thirty-nine floors, Celeste made a tear in the parcel and pulled out a note on lilac paper. She instantly recognised Alicia’s signature lavender scented paper, and a smile touched her lips.
She read her friend’s news and then she read it again. The shop was doing well, and Alicia had a lovely wedding day. She had married her boyfriend, Tom, in an intimate ceremony in Tuscany with only their immediate families present. She winced as she read this. At one time she would never have thought that she would miss Alicia’s wedding, but the oceans between them seemed to have kept them apart. She was meant to fly out for the week to celebrate with Alicia but at the last minute Alex had been violently ill for no apparent reason, and she couldn’t leave him. It was only later that they found out it was a stomach ulcer. By the time he was better, Alicia was on her honeymoon.
It was odd thinking that her one-time best friend, who after a night out drinking declared that she would never marry anyone unless Celeste and Bonnie approved, was now married to a man she hardly knew. When they were in university, life had seemed so simple. They had promised each other that they wouldn’t miss each other’s weddings for the world. But life had got in the way and they had all moved on, not bothering to take each other along.
Now, she blinked back the tears knowing that she wouldn’t be seeing Alicia anytime soon thanks to bloody Mr Harris. Twice now Alicia had booked flights to Hong Kong only to cancel them because of Celeste and her unpredictable and demanding boss. Both times he had ordered her to attend design conferences in China on the same days that Alicia had planned her visits, and both times he was unwavering. She had never met the man but he was stubborn, and, she assumed, a fat pig. She had loved the South African accent before hearing Harris speak. Now it made her shudder. She had no intention of wanting to meet him face to face, especially as those conferences had been an epic waste of time. She had complained bitterly to Alex, but he was unsympathetic. All he could say was, ‘If you don’t like it, quit.’ That was no good to her – she needed to keep her job, for her independence, if nothing else.
Reading Alicia’s words made her realise just how much she missed her friend. She missed sitting in her front room eating ice cream straight from the tub, talking about men and watching box sets of Sex and the City. She scanned the letter, looking for news of Bonnie, but there was nothing. A part of her was desperate to know what her old friend was doing, but too much time had passed now, and her pride would never allow her to make contact first.
Stepping out of the lift, she let herself into their apartment and realised her dad had been right. ‘Time goes by faster with each year that passes,’ he always said to her. It was true. And since moving to the Mid-Levels her work and social life had gone up a couple of notches. The days were filled with long hours at Cross, tending to the needs from the ever absent but demanding Harris, and the evenings were filled with cocktails and champagne in order to keep up with the glitterati among their new circle of friends.
As the Renshaw empire established itself in Hong Kong, it became Celeste’s duty to attend the lavish cocktail parties and business dinners with Hong Kong’s wealthiest. The expats flashed their diamonds and drank champagne endlessly. None of them cared to work, but Celeste kept at it.
She looked at the four-carat diamond ring on her finger – the engagement ring that Alex had only recently upgraded from its original two carats. She couldn’t deny that she did enjoy the sneaky glances it received from the other wives when they thought she wasn’t looking. The diamond was beautiful, she had to admit it – it represented everything she ever wanted growing up in East Row. But it also made her feel uneasy sometimes. She often had to turn the stone towards her palm when there were no cabs and she was forced to use the MTR. And she always lied and said it was a fake when young shop assistants asked her if it was real. She didn’t want people to know that she had such wealth. It felt wrong when there seemed to be such a divide between the rich and the poor in Hong Kong. The Filipino ladies on their cardboard mats were just one example. Like Charlie and Lada they were just saving up to send money home, but one day they would have enough to go back for good.
Coming back to Alicia’s letter, she couldn’t help but wonder when she had last done something for herself. Over the last eight months she had been busy getting the design team at Cross Hong Kong off the ground and making sure she spent time with Alex whenever she could. She had to be flexible, because Alex certainly wasn’t. Bloody Renshaw always came first. Alex had been flying non-stop over the last six months, ‘chasing money.’ Most recently a new project in Shanghai was being talked about incessantly. She had asked Alex several times what it was about, but so far she had only gleaned that a new branch of Renshaw was opening over there, and with government red tape it was even more complicated than they had first envisioned. The standard trip of a month was turning into three.
Celeste sometimes felt like she was losing him, and that always made her feel restless and nervous. She had broached the subject of Graham taking on some of the work, but that hadn’t gone down well. She had even threatened to speak to Warwick herself, but Alex would have none of it. ‘Graham’ll screw it up,’ he had screamed so loudly she feared that the neighbours would complain – like they had the last time they had a fight – over what, she couldn’t quite remember. ‘You don’t want to stop living this life because of my incompetent brother, do you?’ He had asked her this same question so many times now, she had lost count. It was at times like these that she would look at the rock on her finger and know that she would sacrifice it just to spend more time
with Alex. To be able to lay her head on his lap and watch an old movie like they used to, or go for a simple Chinese meal at a local restaurant without the interruption of mobile phones and emails that always required an immediate response. Only last week had she said this to Alex , but he had ignored her. Ignored her! He would never have done that a couple of years ago. Now she felt like she had no choice but to let him carry on running himself into the ground.
‘Our marriage is strong, it will survive,’ she kept telling herself each time Alex went out to some late night business dinner or boarded a plane. It couldn’t fail. Life without Alex was unfathomable. Those brilliant blue eyes and his cheeky grin that made her smile no matter what her mood. He still kissed her in the mornings, bought her gifts every time he went away and occasionally sent lunch to her office. She was on his mind as much as he was on hers. He was busy, that was all.
She greeted Lada outside the kitchen who was putting empty bottles of champagne into a recycling bag – remnants from their impromptu party last night, which reminded Celeste of her splitting headache. She wasn’t sure how much of it was a hangover and how much of it was working for Harris. And Bill was a bad influence. He had pretty much moved to Hong Kong and was staying in another apartment building in the Mid-Levels. With his wife Angela and the kids back in England, and business keeping him in Hong Kong for weeks on end, he was pushing their already hedonistic lifestyle over the edge. It was never too early to start drinking in Bill’s eyes.
Walking upstairs to their bedroom, she pulled a silk top out from the brown parcel Alicia had sent. She held it against her body. It suited her. She put the top on a pile of clothes on the armchair that she had recently bought. She would give them to Lada later for ironing and hanging in her closet. She still felt guilty about leaving all her ironing for Lada, but not as guilty as she would have felt six months ago. And as Alex kept reminding her, she was keeping Lada in a job.
Celeste poured herself a glass of the water Lada had put on her bedside table and took two paracetamol from the drawer. She swallowed the tablets, finishing the contents of the glass. Her phone beeped. She looked at the screen. Bill was trying to convince her to join him and Alex at the club in Repulse Bay so Alex would agree to go. It was hard to say no to Bill. He always had such a convincing argument, and when Bill was around Alex never needed much convincing. She stood up and opened her wardrobe to decide what to wear for the party. Picking out a black dress she glanced around her bedroom decorated in whites and blues. Her bedroom wasn’t to her taste. But Kealana had spent so much time on it, or so Alex had said when she mentioned changing the décor, that she felt she ought to leave it. After all they wouldn’t want to hurt Kealana’s feelings.
Kealana was a thorn in Celeste’s side – someone she needed to discuss with Alicia. To everyone else, this woman was a saint. Whether it was London or Hong Kong, Kealana was always hanging around, bringing fresh flowers to their home and no doubt reporting back to her beloved Warwick whatever she noticed. Since they had moved to Hong Kong, it seemed that Kealana had moved there too.
‘Delivering the flowers yourself? I thought you would get one of the office hands to do that?’ Celeste had one day asked.
Kealana hesitated. ‘Oh, I like to keep on top of things. Make sure everyone is doing their job.’ She narrowed her eyes and nodded towards Lada’s door. A shiver ran down Celeste’s spine. There was something about the woman that put her on edge, especially after she had caught her snooping around when she had returned home early from work one day. Kealana had been looking in the trash for an old bill, she said, which was not exactly a crime, but suspicious nevertheless.
After that, Celeste was sure that she was being spied on. But who had asked her to? Warwick? He didn’t strike her as the type of man who could be bothered with spying on his daughter-in-law. Surely it was beneath him. Although she was sure he didn’t get to where he was without being underhand. And what would Kealana report back? It wasn’t like she was siphoning money from Renshaws or having an affair. It didn’t make sense. Perhaps Warwick, like Alex, was a control freak. And she knew after being with Alex for so long that knowledge equalled power. How many times had Alex told her what exactly was going on with Graham – information he had learned, not from Graham, but from other Renshaw staff. He always seemed delighted that he knew what his brother was doing, even though it was rarely scandalous or anything untoward. Perhaps Warwick too had to know what was going on with his son and his daughter-in-law at all times. Or perhaps, and this she knew was most likely, she was just being paranoid.
29
Barnet, North London
‘Alicia’s letter made me realise that I needed to talk to a good friend. I should have stood up to Harris. I’ve never been a person with plenty of friends – just a few good ones. In Hong Kong I had no one.’
‘What about the expats?’
‘Jackie and Melanie? People who would talk about me the minute my back was turned. That was Hong Kong for you. In London I would have stayed away from such socialites. But in Hong Kong we were friends, in a superficial sort of way. We talked about watches and clothes, new spas and shopping, that sort of thing – never anything meaningful. Everything changed in Hong Kong. I changed in Hong Kong. Money does that to you. Growing up in East Row I dreamed of having money, but in Hong Kong I had more money than I knew what to do with. I bought my shoes from Peddar Red and dresses from Lane Crawford, when I wasn’t wearing my own designs. I never wore the same outfit twice, and when Alex was around we were out almost every night. Either sipping martinis in Lang Kwai Fong or picking at sushi in some expensive restaurant like Nobu or Zuma. Looking back, I can see it for what it was, but at the time we didn’t seem to bore of it. We thought that eating thin slivers of raw fish at extortionate prices was bloody marvellous.’
‘Do you miss that now?’
Did she miss that life? Her mother hadn’t yet asked her this – probably afraid of her answer. Scared it would point to an obsession with her past, her old life. Her mother had used that word – obsessed. She wasn’t obsessed or so she had said. But he was still the first thing she thought of when she woke every morning and the last person she thought of when her eyelids closed at night. She had it all planned. She closed her eyes. Yes, she knew what she would do if she could see him one last time, just one last time.
Elaine, with her curly hair and floaty skirt, was the first person to ask her if she missed her old life. Would she go back to that life? Could she go back to that life? It was a shallow existence – where friends wore Cartier and Chanel and met at the club in Repulse Bay to eat shrimp and drink white wine, where she wore strings of pearls and flawless diamonds to black tie events, and went to yacht parties where champagne was chilled to perfection, and Michelin starred chefs cooked something rare and exquisite. She was living a life straight out of those lifestyle magazines. Women looked at her with envy. And they were brazen, these women – often disregarding her and eyeing Alex, looking past her as if she didn’t exist. They only had eyes for her husband. They didn’t seem to care that he was married or that his wife was standing next to him. So it felt pretty good when Alex would put his arm around her, like his most precious possession, and kiss her madly on the lips for all to see. It felt even better when she noticed their eyes glancing over to her ears or neckline to see the glittering jewels Alex had bought her: a five-carat aquamarine, a ruby brooch, a rock of emerald. She could see the envy then. But as the years passed by, that feeling of triumph began to fade. These women who wanted to snare a millionaire didn’t realise what was happening behind the glamour. The escorts who accompanied some of the men in their group were even worse, wanting a glamorous lifestyle, no matter the cost. ‘Those money-grabbers wouldn’t know the difference between Laurent Perrier and Cava,’ Alex had said, ridiculing their unnatural breasts and button noses. The moral standards that she had set so high for Bonnie had started to slip. Slip? They were positively in the gutter. Bonnie – another friend she had lost. The mem
ory of when Bonnie first met Alex suddenly came to her mind. The way his jaw had dropped when he saw her. Her bee stung lips, her glossy dark hair. Her beauty was certainly natural. She missed Bonnie. She missed Alex.
‘So?’ Elaine interrupted her thoughts. ‘Do you miss that life?’
‘Hmm,’ Celeste mumbled, coming back to the present. ‘Occasionally, I miss that life – the parties and the luxury. But I suppose it was all a lie. So I guess I could never go back, unless I wanted the lies again. Plus, what Alex did…’
‘What did Alex do?’
Celeste looked at the clock and pressed her lips together.
‘Can you picture that sort of life without Alex in it?’
Elaine, she was so naïve. Alex was the embodiment of that life – the fast cars and the flash meals out. Alex had been her rock in a changing climate and he was thoughtful – he dropped her to meet friends and he always messaged her to check she had got home safe after work, even when he was hundreds of miles away. He was always checking to see if she was okay. She missed that. She bloody missed that. Celeste touched her bumblebee pendant again, and shrugged. ‘I don’t know that life without Alex. He showed me how to live it.’
‘But you were enjoying Hong Kong, no?’
‘I was having a great time, but things had started to turn sour. The alcohol fuelled late nights – you can only do that for so long. Alex was away more than ever and that was hard to get used to. My thought process had warped. I wanted to discuss it with someone. I wanted to talk to a true friend.’
‘Alicia?’
Celeste nodded. ‘Her letter made me realise that.’
‘So you went to see her. You reached out to her.’
‘Eventually, I booked a ticket. But before I got on that plane something happened that changed things.’
‘What happened?’
‘Like I said before, Bill was pretty much living in Hong Kong. He had rented an apartment and was almost a permanent fixture in the Mid-Levels party scene. His wife came and went but was mostly in England.’
Poison in the Water Page 12
