Chapter 2
2
Renee decided to walk back to her flat instead of getting a cab. It wasn’t that far. She could go through Hyde Park. The fresh air might help clear her head. And it would be slightly less humiliating to be sobbing in a public park, surrounded by Londoners averting their eyes, than in the back seat of a taxi with the driver right there.
She’d always loved her proximity to the vast green oasis of the park. Its very scale was settling, dwarfing the red buses and tourist coaches stopping and starting along the busy roads bordering its perimeter.
But for once the place’s magic failed her. Renee trudged past stately trees decked in autumn colours and tourists arguing over directions, dragging the suitcase she’d filled with date-night dresses and lingerie behind her.
With typical caprice, the weather had turned. The sun had gone in and the sky was a glowing off-white. The light, reflecting off the ruffled slate-grey surface of the Serpentine, made the grass look greener than ever.
The park wasn’t as busy as it would have been on a weekend, but there were people around, as always in London. Families were feeding the ducks while trying to dodge the geese. Couples were out walking their dogs. Roller skaters skimmed along the broad, even paths. Renee felt like the only lonely person in the world.
Tears kept rising to her eyes despite herself. She wiped them away on her sleeve, sick of herself and her stupid feelings. She couldn’t think of that morning without cringing right down to her soul.
Surely she could have foreseen how things would turn out. The signs were all there, in retrospect—Jason’s reluctance to commit, his growing disinterest.
Anyway, wasn’t this always happening to her? Chasing a man’s approval, only to be discarded when it turned out she wasn’t willing to give up enough of herself. Renee had let down pretty much every man in her life in this way, starting with her father.
With one exception. But that had been a bigger disaster than all the rest.
Ten years had passed since then. It seemed she hadn’t learnt anything from the experience.
“You’re back early from your holiday, Miss Goh,” said the concierge, as Renee entered her building.
Renee didn’t respond. Dragan took one look at her face, then discovered something on his computer screen that required urgent attention.
Renee lived in an apartment complex on the southwestern edge of Hyde Park, a severe-looking structure of white stone, black metal, and glass. Inside, the ambience was that of an upscale hotel someone had, for reasons best known to themselves, set up in a warehouse. A good fifty percent of the flats were unoccupied for most of the year, purchased by Russian oligarchs and Middle Eastern oil barons as pieds-à-terre.
It wasn’t exactly where she would have chosen to live despite its amenities—a private gym, swimming pool, and health spa, as well as the right to claim Kensington Palace as a near neighbour. But she knew she was lucky. Though the business was doing well, she could never have afforded somewhere like this on the salary she paid herself.
And she loved her flat itself. The rooms were airy and light-filled, ridiculously spacious by both London and Singaporean standards, with large windows looking out on quiet residential streets. The flat had been a princely graduation gift from her great-aunt, bestowed partly for affection, but mostly as a blow in her baroque years-long quarrel with Renee’s parents.
Over the years Renee had made the place her own, decorating it with vivid batik fabrics sourced from Indonesia, tropical plants whose carbon footprint equalled that of most celebrities, and rattan chairs that sent her Instagram following into joyful spasms of nostalgia. The fact she didn’t spend all that much time in the flat was beside the point. She liked knowing it was there and beautiful, a haven when she needed it.
Right now, though, the flat seemed abandoned, the light filtering through the windows grey and deadening. Renee poured herself a glass of water and drank it standing at the kitchen counter, shivering. She’d told the smart thermostat she wouldn’t be home for two weeks.
By the time she set her glass down on the counter, her mind was made up. She unzipped her suitcase, grabbing her toiletries bag without looking at the sad, hopeful collection of clothes folded under it.
Her face was a mess. Her eyes were puffy, dried tear-tracks tacky on her cheeks, and her nose was an auspicious, but not especially attractive, shade of bright red.
Jason was probably relaxing in his suite, relieved to have got an awkward conversation over with. Renee snatched up a facecloth, burning with humiliation, and set about repairing the damage.
She took a keen professional interest in her appearance. She worked in fashion; it made good business sense to be beautiful. Her features were all right—apart from her jaw, which was becoming as square as her father’s. But getting her skin under control required the help of a dermatologist, as well as the daily application of an elaborate multistep regime, arrived at after years of painstaking experimentation. The regime was nonetheless vulnerable to being undermined at any moment by hormonal variations, atmospheric humidity, pollution, stress, or the random vagaries of fate.
Her skin was a bloody metaphor for her life, Renee thought ruefully. On paper, her life looked perfect—at least, until this morning. But even before then, had she been happy with Jason? How could you be happy with a boyfriend who lived thousands of miles away; who refused to be pinned down for regular calls; who left your messages on read while plastering selfies with gorgeous starlets all over social media?
She’d kept working at their relationship, because everyone knew that was what relationships needed—hard work. Renee had never lost out on anything for lack of trying. And yet here she was.
It would probably be some comfort to the randos who left mean-spirited comments on her Instagram if they knew how miserable she felt. The thought prompted Renee to take a sparkling selfie when she was done with her face and post it.
Can’t WAIT to share what I’ve got in store for you guys. Just one final push from all of us at @VirtuLabel!
And then she went to work.
Louise looked up, startled, with the expression of a PA who was definitely browsing Vinted.
“Oh hey, Renee,” she said. “Did you forget something?”
Renee didn’t talk much about her personal life in the office. Secrecy outside their immediate family circles had been a precondition of her relationship with Jason. Even though most British people had no idea who he was, Louise talked about watching East Asian dramas, and Renee suspected her of being BTS ARMY.
But Renee had said she was going on holiday with her boyfriend and would only be available in the event of an emergency. Her reappearance called for explanation.
“Plans have changed,” she said brightly. “We’ve broken up.”
Louise looked as though she couldn’t decide whether to be more worried or intrigued. “Oh no! Are you OK?”
Renee had to be OK. It was Louise’s job to manage her diary, not her feelings. Besides, she had things to do: bowls to launch, collections to develop. She’d been so preoccupied with Virtu at Home that their Chinese New Year collection was running behind schedule, and that was their biggest season, when people were buying new clothes to visit their families in, generating the bulk of their annual revenue.
“It’s fine. It was mutual,” lied Renee. “I thought I’d take the chance to catch up on stuff, since my diary’s empty for two weeks. Maybe we’ll even be able to roll out Virtu at Home early.”
This summoned up a hollow rictus on Louise’s face. The team were all feeling the strain of gearing up for the launch. Renee reminded herself to give everyone a bonus. It was looking as though the figures would justify it this year.
“Joke,” she added. But before she could escape to her office, Louise said:
“About your diary—are your evenings free now?”
Renee paused at the door to her office. “What is it?”
“You know the Dior exhibition at the V she was only making clothes she wanted to wear herself. Over time she’d built a loyal following of women who recognised in her design aesthetic, with its mix of heritage and modernity, something they hadn’t known they’d been looking for.
Now, besides the two Virtu boutiques in Singapore, the brand was stocked in high-end department stores in Malaysia and Thailand. It hadn’t originally been her plan to tackle Europe so early on; the conquest of Asia would have occupied her for years. But since she was here now, the next goal was a London store.
They weren’t there quite yet. The majority of their revenue came from their established markets in Southeast Asia. It was for those customers that the new homewares line was intended. But cracking London was the next thing on Renee’s list, once she was able to raise the necessary funding.
It was possible her dedication to her business was a tad monomaniacal. Her therapist had had a lot to say about it. All Renee could say in her defence was that work was the only thing that had ever given her back what she put into it.
She spent the majority of her working time running the business rather than doing anything creative. A day free of meetings, like this one, was a luxury. She didn’t mean to waste it.
She was deep in the details of a cheongsam—1920s inspired, with broad sleeves past the elbows—when her personal phone rang.
Tearing herself reluctantly from her sketches, Renee stabbed at the screen with a finger, meaning to cancel the call. It was probably some telemarketer… unless it was Jason?
It was neither.
“Su Ren.” The voice on the line was male, resonant and authoritative, with a clipped Singaporean accent. It would have been immediately familiar to certain specific groups of people in Singapore and Malaysia: the business press, several politicians, a number of charities, and probably, most of the other people who regularly populated the pages of Tatler Asia .
Renee knew it well, too, of course. Her stomach clenched. “Dad. What’s up?”
She hadn’t spoken to her father in a while. She’d rung him in February to wish him a happy Chinese New Year. Dad had told her to come home and Renee had hung up. That was how their conversations usually went.
“Did something happen?” said Renee. “Is everyone OK?” She thought of her brothers, her mind skating uncomfortably over how she might feel if something bad happened to either of them. Her mind went on to her mom, and her nieces and nephews. A chill struck her heart.
Thank goodness. At least she wasn’t a completely terrible human being.
“What if they’re not OK?” said Dad. “There’s nothing you can do over there, isn’t it?”
Renee stayed silent, which was what she should have done in the first place. She should have learnt by now that there was nothing she could say or do that couldn’t somehow be weaponised by her family against her. That was why she’d stopped talking to them.
“I’m calling about business,” said her father. “I’m planning to step down.”
Renee froze. “What?”
Of all the things she’d have guessed Dad might say, that wasn’t on the list. Her father had been the family business, her whole life. Chahaya Group was synonymous with Goh Kheng Tat.
“I told your brothers this morning,” said Dad. “I’m getting old. It’s time for me to stop working so hard. At this age, I should be enjoying life. Spending time with my family, playing with my grandchildren.”
This was pointed. It was Renee’s parents’ view that at her age, only a couple of months short of thirty-one, Renee was overdue providing them with grandchildren, even though they already had six from her brothers.
“Someone is going to have to take charge of the group,” said Dad. “A business like Chahaya, it’s not easy to hand over.”
The joke about Chahaya was that it owned half of Singapore and had built the other half. It wasn’t much of a joke, because it wasn’t far from the truth.
Both of Renee’s brothers and their wives were employed by Chahaya Group, as were innumerable uncles, aunts and cousins, her parents’ many godchildren, and various others more tenuously connected to the family. It could have absorbed a lot more people—including Renee, as her dad had mostly given up on reminding her.
“I can’t simply pass it on to anybody,” Dad went on. “The company needs someone who can do the job. But I worked so long to build it up. It should stay in the family.” He paused. “Can you hear me?”
Renee was clutching the phone so hard her hand hurt. She made herself relax her grip.
“Yes,” she said.
“What would you say,” said Dad, “if I asked you to take over Chahaya?”