by Ann Massey
‘Yes, we’re fortunate to have him,’ Xiang answered, picking up the tile from Wen’s discards to complete her hand. ‘I win,’ she crowed, scooping up her winnings.
Chapter 21
‘YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE,’ exclaimed the secretary, barring the boardroom door. ‘The chairman’s in a meeting.’
‘Get out of my way, you stupid bitch. I won’t forget this. I’ll make sure he fires you.’
Rubiah glared malevolently at her lover’s frightened secretary and burst into the boardroom with the unhappy secretary in her wake, just as Joseph Ling raised his glass of Chivas Regal Royal Salute to toast the chief. The tribal elder had just agreed to sell eighty hectares of rainforest to the Baram Hardwood Timber Company at well below its true value and without going through an intermediary. There was no need for Joe to bribe greedy politicians who could sign away the natives’ land with the stroke of a pen. As expected, the deal was struck on his terms. After all, the destruction of a rebellious village was still fresh in the headman’s mind.
The entire village had been caught up in the preparations for the wedding. The resonant sound of brass gongs and the thud of drums had echoed across the pineapple plantation, drowning out the squeals of the fatted pig the excited children were poking with sharpened sticks. When the groom and his family arrived the tormented beast would be butchered outside the longhouse, in front of the bride’s door.
The bride’s mother was putting the finishing touches to the feast when she heard a lorry coming up the jungle track. She frowned. The guests were early and there was still much to do. Laughing happily, the children abandoned their victim and, anticipating lollies, raced off to welcome the guests from the groom’s longhouse. Without warning armed men had erupted from the vehicle, shooting their rifles wildly, trampling the bridal feast spread out on mats in front of each longhouse door and driving the frightened families into the jungle. The men’s orders were to burn down the longhouse, but the gasoline-fed flames spread to the adjacent jungle.
The fire burned for three days and destroyed all the valuable old-growth forest the villagers had refused to sell. Along with the precious timber, thirty-three lives were lost, including that of the teenage bride who’d run barefoot into the jungle to escape the men intent on raping every girl they could catch. It was an open secret that the arsonists worked for Joseph Ling.
‘Rubiah, I’m so glad you could make it after all,’ Joseph said silkily, his arm heavy on her shoulders, his eyes steely as he propelled her into the room. ‘That will be all,’ he said, dismissing his secretary.
He smiled at the chief. ‘I’d like to introduce you to Rubiah, my second wife. Her family has a longhouse on the upper Pangup, close to the Indonesian border.’ He pressed his unwelcome visitor down into a rosewood chair with a grip of iron. ‘As you can see, I chose my beloved second wife from your people and she has taught me to value the Dayak culture. I invited you here today to meet her so you can understand why I’m so interested in forming partnerships with the indigenous tribes.’ His fingernails dug brutally into the flesh of Rubiah’s upper arm, a warning not to countermand his words and not to cause a scene.
Rubiah put on an amazing performance and the old chief never guessed that she hadn’t been invited to the meeting. You have to hand it to her, Joe thought as she flattered the tribal elder, winning him over completely. As it happened, her unexpected arrival had been a masterstroke, more effective than a ten-thousand-dollar bottle of scotch, but it could have turned out differently, and he seethed inwardly while he smiled effusively at his wilful mistress and his gullible guest.
It was late when the contract was finally signed and the driver had taken the befuddled chief back to his hotel. Tipsy, Joe and Rubiah retired to the small company apartment he used when he worked late.
‘What’s got you so riled up?’ he snarled as he took off his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt. ‘You nearly queered my deal.’
‘I’ve just found out you’re going to England without me, what do you expect?’ she spat.
Joe couldn’t believe she’d found out about the trip so soon. He’d only confirmed the arrangements with Xiang that morning. He didn’t know that Mei Li had phoned Rubiah as soon as she’d heard that she was to accompany the family to England, ignorant of the storm she’d stirred up. Rubiah had stewed over the news all morning and had worked herself into a rage. I hate the bastard, she thought. I wish he were dead. He always said she was the one he loved yet she would be the only one left behind. Even that useless Mei Li got to go. When Mei Li told her, she had been too angry to cry. By the time she had marched into Joseph’s office she’d been totally out of control. With difficulty, she’d kept her temper in check in front of the chieftain, but now her anger came back, twice as strong.
‘When the hell were you going to tell me?’ She let fly at him with sharp red talons.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ Joe said, looking at the droplets beading on his shoulder. He slapped her with the palm of his hand, hard enough to leave an imprint on her cheek. He meant to let her off easily, but she flew straight back at him and grabbed him by the throat. He prised her fingers from his neck, captured both hands and pinned her down on the bed. She spat and scratched in her fury. He released her, only to tear his belt out of his trousers and wind it round his hand.
‘No, Joe!’ she screamed.
Later, he raised his head to look at her. Why did the grasping bitch have such power over him? It wasn’t just her pretty face and lush body that stirred his desire; it was the odd combination of violence and vulnerability, naivety and depravity that intrigued and bound him to her as tightly as a wedding band. Rubiah turned away, embarrassed that he knew she’d felt desire mingled with the pain. They lay beside each other on the bare boards, spent by the fury of their passion.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rubiah finally. “I don’t know what gets into me. You’re right, I shouldn’t have gone to your office. But you’re all I have, and sometimes … I feel like I mean nothing to you.’
‘I look after you, don’t I?’
‘Leave Xiang.’
‘Xiang’s my wife,’ Joe said impatiently.
Rubiah searched his face. There was no indecision, only steely resolve. ‘I want to go to England with you.’
‘We’d have to travel separately and stay in different hotels, and I wouldn’t be with you for most of the time.’
‘Just as long as we can be together sometimes.’
‘Come to bed.’ Joe was watching her, his eyes like slits of granite, his lips compressed into a hard straight line.
As she struggled to remove the wooden beads she always wore they got caught up in her hair. We’ll be here all night at this rate, he thought, and he grabbed hold and yanked them free, pulling out a hank of her long flowing hair.
‘Owww, you just about scalped me.’
‘Be nice to me, babe, and I’ll get you something nicer to wear than this old thing.’ With a snort of derision he dropped the sacred Dayak icon on the floor.
Chapter 22
TUFF ANSWERED THE DOOR IN UNDERWEAR from her newly released Bondage range, clutching a Bloody Mary. She seemed tipsy, and the young reporter from Vanity Fair raised her eyebrows at her colleague as they followed the stumbling rock queen through the magnificent great hall and into the baroque courtyard. The photographer was impressed by the setup. He thought the courtyard wouldn’t have looked out of place in a palazzo in Rome and immediately started to snap establishment shots of the Olympic-sized pool and formal gardens.
‘Floyd, bring us another jug and some more glasses, and don’t forget the Tabasco sauce this time,’ snapped Tuff.
A powerfully built youth in a fluorescent green g-string and cut-off T-shirt who was diffidently vacuuming the pool obediently loped off to the house. The young female reporter tried not to gape.
‘Buns of steel,’ commented Tuff with a knowing smile.
‘This is all so grand and opulent. Quite a change from your to
ur of Somalia.’
‘The plight of children in that war-ravaged country keeps me awake at night, but I was willing to put up with hardship and danger for their sake. It was very hard for me to leave them behind, but I couldn’t adopt them all.’ Inexplicably, Tuff had turned down the first child her agent had shown her, an enchanting baby girl, in favour of twin brothers Hari and Rashni. ‘I’ve connected with them,’ she had told her astounded agent, who thought the little girl was more appealing than the unremarkable, gangly boys. ‘I feel I can do more to help the others with my Tuff on Poverty world tour.’
‘Over two-point-five billion people watched your television special Tuff Love,’ said the journalist. ‘How does that make you feel?’
‘Awed. It’s been quite a journey.’ Where’s Floyd got to, Tuff wondered idly as she adroitly fielded the reporter’s questions.
‘It’s quite a change from rock icon to crusader for children’s rights.’
‘Not really. Who wouldn’t be concerned about starving children? As an idol to millions of people all over the world, I’m fortunate to be in a position to use my celebrity to publicise their plight.’ Tuff swirled the melting ice cubes in her empty glass and looked around for the tardy pool boy. It wasn’t fair that a superstar like her couldn’t get decent help.
‘You seem so different in the special from the rebellious chick that shocked the establishment when you burst on the scene seventeen years ago.’
‘Times change, and I’ve changed and grown with them, obviously. I’m a still a wild, aggressive rock chick when I’m performing, but at heart I’m a soft sell, especially when it comes to babies and children. Excuse me.’ She picked up her mobile phone.
The reporter got up politely and walked over to talk to the photographer, then returned to the table after Tuff had put the phone down.
‘That was a reporter from the Sun asking me if I’d like to comment on Josh Chadwick’s knighthood.’
‘And?’
‘I told him I was so delighted. Sir Josh, da bomb!’ she said, hamming it up to hide her bitterness from the reporter.
‘Weren’t you a member of his group Speed in the early days?’ The reporter was grateful to have been given an opportunity to direct the conversation to the rivalry between the country’s two greatest male and female performers. Neither of them had ever been drawn into revealing the facts behind the feud and it would be a real coup for her if she could get Tuff to open up.
‘Only briefly. He’s a great artist and I couldn’t be more pleased that he’s been honoured in this way. How much longer is this going to take?’ She tapped her fingers on the glass table impatiently and looked at her watch. ‘Cartier,’ she said, catching the reporter’s envious look. ‘My agent has prepared this release. It’s got all the dates and venues for the Tuff on Poverty concerts.’ She stood up to indicate the interview was at an end.
‘My colleague would like to get some photographs of you with your two adopted children,’ the reporter responded, realising Tuff was not going to be drawn into talking about her relationship with ‘the nice guy of rock’. Josh Chadwick was the nation’s favourite musician, and the sobriquet, first used by a reporter from Rolling Stone, had entered into the British public’s collective consciousness.
‘They’re both at boarding school. Naturally I’d like nothing more than have them live here with me all the time, but it just doesn’t work with me being on tour for most of the year.’ She shrugged. ‘There are some pics of me with Hari and Rashni in the press kit, but I think my fans would rather see me in my new lingerie line. Don’t you agree? I’ll just go and round up the hired help. It can’t hurt to have some eye candy in the pictures.’
She really is incredible, thought the reporter as the muscled beauty, looking erotic in a black leather steel-boned corset and thigh-high, metal-studded suede boots, posed beside the pool with a near-naked trio of brooding male models that doubled as her handymen.
Stupid cow, thought Tuff after they’d left. She had no liking for the media and thought of them as ravaging jackals waiting to pounce if ever she let down her guard.
It had been seventeen years since Tom and Willie had taken the Kongs’ money and run out on her without any explanation. She had loved Tom. When she realised she’d been used something had died inside her, and she resolved never to let anyone get close to her again. Salvation had come in the form of the elderly chief executive of a minor British recording company who discovered her singing at a sleazy nightclub in Miri. He bought her a ticket to London, put her up in his apartment, paid for a sexy new wardrobe and helped launch her career, even coming up with the name that defined her image. She moved out of the randy old goat’s bed when her very first single went platinum, signing a contract with his biggest rival.
Not long after, Josh Chadwick burst on the scene and landed a contract with the same recording company. His compositions were a daring mix of vitality, speed and youthful impetuosity, but it wasn’t just his talent that propelled him to the top: his cleancut, nice-guy personality made him a hit with male and female fans, both young and old. Over the last decade he had changed gear and his music was now more mainstream. Just about every singer in the business had had a big hit with one of his songs, with Tuff the one glaring exception.
Seventeen years on, Josh’s feeling of contempt for the girl he had once loved was just as strong, even though he was now a happily married family man. No amount of pressure from the record company could persuade him to do an album with her. It didn’t make sense to his agent – an album from the two biggest rock stars was a guaranteed money-spinner – but Josh wouldn’t even consider it. It was rumoured that he had even turned down an offer of a million dollars and a share of the profits to appear on her forthcoming concert tour.
At first Tuff had been scared that the media would find out about her sordid past, but they never had and she’d stopped worrying long ago that Josh would talk. He’d returned to England before she found out about the baby and he never knew she’d had his child. Now she felt uneasy and she wondered if it had been wise to adopt the twins from Somalia. It had been her publicity manager’s suggestion to sponsor a charity to improve her image and boost ticket sales. The syrupy television special that had Tuff tenderly weeping over abandoned babies, and ended with a surprise announcement she was adopting the boys, had also been a bonanza for the charity. Donations to the fund went through the roof and Tuff’s flagging career was revived.
The Tuff on Poverty concert tour was already sold out in Britain. It was reported that scalpers were getting three hundred pounds for a ticket to her opening concert at Wembley, and tickets for the charity dinner, where guests got the opportunity to talk to Tuff in person, were heavily subscribed despite costing two thousand pounds apiece.
Marisa, her industrious agent, had come up with the idea so she could also find them a boarding school, Tuff decided. What did she pay her for anyway? Marisa had located a prestigious boarding school in the Highlands of Scotland that had a history of taking foreign students, particularly from Africa, and would keep them during the holidays so Tuff would never be inconvenienced.
‘I travel so much. It wouldn’t be fair to leave them in that lonely big barn with just the hired help,’ she had told the headmaster, disparaging the Elizabethan mansion house she’d bought for a reported £3.25 million, and she dabbed her eyes with a corner of her Swiss cotton handkerchief as she handed over the non-English-speaking seven year olds into the care of the formidable matron.
Tuff sighed. Meeting with the media always made her tense. It wasn’t fair that she had to work so hard. She poured herself another drink. The fact that Floyd was still idling by the pool irritated her.
‘What am I paying you for? Bring over the massage oil,’ she snapped and began undoing the leather thongs on her skin-tight corset.
Chapter 23
JOSEPH LING, HIS THREE CHILDREN AND RUBIAH arrived for the cocktail reception in the London Living Room at City Hall at four-thirty pm. Ever si
nce Adele had watched the Tuff Love special on TV she’d badgered her mother to let her go to the concert at Wembley. Lady Entwistle agreed with Madame Ling that it wasn’t a suitable event for a young lady. To pacify Adele, Lady Entwistle had asked her husband to use his contacts in the City to obtain tickets to Tuff’s gala charity dinner. The dinner had been sold out for weeks and it had taken all Sir Roland’s charm to obtain five tickets. At the last minute Madame Ling had had one of her migraines and Joe, already bored by long days in his ageing wife’s company, thought it would be amusing to take his sexy mistress in her place.
The holiday hadn’t turned out to be as much fun as Rubiah had hoped. For over a fortnight she’d been sulking in her suite at the Dorchester while Joe spent all his time with his family, attending all the parties and social events the Entwistles had organised for their important client, culminating in a cocktail party to celebrate Pau’s graduation. So she was ecstatic when Joe told her to get dolled up because he was taking her to Tuff’s charity dinner and her mind started working overtime. Why was he taking her to a fancy dinner if he wasn’t ready to show her off to the world? Why was he introducing her to his children if he hadn’t finally decided to divorce their mother?
She’d pulled out all the stops getting dressed and Joe thought she’d never looked more alluring. Even though the cream of the fashion and music world had turned out in Dolce and Gabbana, Versace and Dior, the eyes of the male celebrities were drawn irresistibly to the pocket Venus in the skin-tight red satin dress, run up on a trestle sewing machine in a sweatshop in Miri.
Their table was the centre of attention and Joe was proud to be seen sitting beside his beautiful concubine. The elegance and sophistication of his surroundings infected his mood. The air was rich with insider gossip, their table was excellent, the food was superb and below him the Pool of London sparkled enticingly. The big time beckoned. He felt powerful, ready to jump right in. It was a perfect evening, apart from the behaviour of his sons. Both of them were scowling at their plates, as if they’d been served rotten fish instead of lobster thermidor. Joe was angry that they were spoiling the evening.
