Chapter 13. Now
13
Now
The day after his visit to the Rembrandt exhibition, Ket Siong went to Richmond, to teach Alicia Tan’s brother Jasper the piano.
Ket Siong was off his game, preoccupied. It took a particularly discordant muddling of chords to stir him from his reverie. He came to himself to see Jasper gazing at him, wide-eyed and penitent.
“Sorry,” said Jasper.
Jasper was not one of his keener students. Jasper’s mother, a former hedge fund manager who had quit to focus on her kid, worked off her considerable energy by endeavouring to cultivate genius in him. The piano lessons were part of this uphill effort. Jasper would rather have learnt to play the harmonica.
“It’s all right,” said Ket Siong, with a twinge of guilt. “Just needs more practice. Let’s take it again from the top.”
He hadn’t slept well. He’d lain awake for a long time after going to bed, replaying the events of the day in his head. Imagining hauling off and punching Jason Tsai, as he’d so dearly wanted to do in reality. It was a natural next step to imagine Renee flinging herself in his arms, and from there his fantasies had devolved into scenes not at all suited to the platonic footing they’d agreed to be on.
Ket Siong often missed having his own room. He’d definitely felt the lack of privacy the night before.
Jasper—never the most focused student—was taking his cues from Ket Siong’s distraction.
“Ket,” he said, “did you want to be a piano teacher when you were a kid? Was that your dream?”
Jasper’s current dream was to drive a Tube train and run a dim sum restaurant on the side, the two ruling passions of his life being the intricacies of the London Underground, and siu mai. Ket Siong and Jasper’s mother had attempted to persuade him that being proficient at the piano would help him achieve these goals, but this had so far had no visible effect on Jasper.
“No,” said Ket Siong, after a moment. “I like doing it, though.”
Jasper wasn’t buying this. “What was your dream?”
Ket Siong stared at the score propped on the piano. Petzold’s Minuet in G major, commonly attributed to Bach. It was one of the earliest pieces he remembered learning as a child—an old friend, as familiar as the mole on the underside of his mother’s chin. “I wanted to be a concert pianist.”
“Like Lang Lang?” Jasper’s mother occasionally suggested that he might like to be like Lang Lang when he grew up.
Ket Siong smiled. “A bit like Lang Lang.”
Jasper was frowning, dissatisfied. “Why didn’t you become a concert pianist?”
“I did,” said Ket Siong.
He’d had a career in KL. Not exactly the career he’d dreamt of when he was studying at the Royal Academy of Music, but one he could be proud of nonetheless, combining performance, touring, and teaching at a somewhat higher level than he was doing now.
Jasper asked the obvious question. “Why’d you stop?”
I left home and it was too dangerous was one answer. It had served Ket Siong well for years. It had been useful to have an excuse that was true, so it could obscure the real answer: I stopped caring.
He’d assumed his indifference to music was a fixed principle of the nightmarish new world he lived in now. But for the first time, Ket Siong found himself wondering if that was correct. Gazing unseeing at Petzold’s minuet, he saw in his mind’s eye Renee, standing by Rembrandt’s The Jewish Bride , her face alight.
With the image came music. It took him a moment to recognise it. Mozart, the second movement of the D minor concerto.
“Ket?” said Jasper.
Ket Siong cleared his throat, tapping the score. “Come on. Petzold.”
Alicia ambushed Ket Siong after the lesson, coming down the stairs as he was putting his shoes on in the hall.
“How’s Jasper doing?” she said.
“He’ll pass if he practises,” said Ket Siong.
“It’s not looking good, you mean. I’m glad Maje’s only my stepmum. She’s great, but I would’ve been shit at being hothoused.” Alicia leaned against the banister, giving him a sidelong glance. “So how did it go the other night? With your ‘old friend’?” She did the quotes with her fingers.
Ket Siong undid his shoelaces so he could retie them, giving them more attention than had been necessary since he turned five. “Fine. Did you get home safe?”
“Yes,” said Alicia, but there was something on her mind. “Ket…”
Ket Siong looked up at her, inquiring.
“My parents don’t know about…” Alicia cleared her throat. “About the person I was with. I think Dad would be OK with it, but he’d feel he should tell Mum, and she’s pretty conservative. I don’t think she’s ready.”
It hadn’t occurred to Ket Siong that Alicia might be worrying about this. He should have thought to reassure her. “I won’t say anything.”
Alicia looked relieved. “Thanks. I mean, I didn’t think you would, but… thanks.” She sighed. “I had no idea meeting up with Rachel at that stupid event would be so risky. We were almost seen by someone else I know.”
Ket Siong had another lesson to get to, forty minutes away in Ealing. He got up, about to make his excuses, when Alicia said:
“A girl called Charmaine. I almost died when she called out to me. Good thing Rachel was in the loo, or Charmaine would have been right on WhatsApp, telling people about her. She’s the biggest gossip I know.”
“You know Charmaine Low?” said Ket Siong.
“Do you know her? Oh, of course, she’s Malaysian,” said Alicia. Her eyes widened. “Oh shit, are you guys friends?”
“No,” said Ket Siong. “I met her father at the event.”
“Phew,” said Alicia. Reassured, she went on, “Small world! It’s her sister I’m close to. Do you know Clarissa? Charmaine’s whatever—just another rich kid who wants to be an influencer—but Clarissa’s cool. She’s studying a master’s in art history. We met volunteering at Kew Gardens, their family’s got a place near here.”
Ket Siong’s investigation into Stephen’s disappearance, such as it was, had come to a standstill. There was no word from the Hornbill Gazette, a week after he’d messaged them.
He’d contacted a few other people, connections from his family’s old civil society circles, though he’d had to be cautious. He could trust the people he’d reached out to wouldn’t dob him in to Low Teck Wee and his ilk, but they might well mention it to his brother. He didn’t want Ket Hau to know he was asking around about Stephen—not until he’d made better progress on getting answers.
At least it was unlikely that Ket Hau was in touch with any of these people. After what had happened to Stephen, he’d become as hypervigilant as Ma had ever been. Before their move to the UK, he’d deleted his social media accounts and insisted that none of them tell their various friends, neighbours, distant relatives, church acquaintances, or ex-co-workers where they were going. To this day Ket Hau had friends from school who believed he’d migrated to Australia.
The conversations Ket Siong had initiated were unpromising. Almost everyone replied, but they were surprised to be asked.
Would have thought you’d know better than anybody else, said a retired journalist, a former colleague of his father’s.
Ket Siong didn’t. But he knew who might.
He had not had much to do with God, in recent years. But he still viewed the world as one ordered by a greater power, and he saw this power at work now.
“Can you introduce me to Clarissa Low?” he said.
Alicia blinked. “I—why do you ask?”
How much could Ket Siong safely tell her? He could invent a story. But once he was face-to-face with the Low daughter, he would have to reveal his objective, and knowing he’d lied to get the meeting would hardly incline her to be cooperative.
If Clarissa Low knew what he wanted and who he was, so would Low Teck Wee. It would put a name and a face to what, for Low, had been an anonymous encounter, one he’d perhaps even forgotten by now.
Ket Siong thought of that vigil for Stephen—the attendees’ grave faces in the amber glow of candlelight. There were people working to ensure Stephen wasn’t forgotten. The least Ket Siong could do was take what leads came his way.
He sat back down on the lowest step of the stairs.
“The Low family own a company called Freshview Industries,” said Ket Siong. “A few years ago, they were accused of illicit logging on native customary land in Sarawak, where I’m from. An activist leading the campaign to hold Freshview accountable subsequently disappeared.” Ket Siong’s mouth was dry. He swallowed. “He was a family friend. Nobody knows what happened to him. Whether he’s alive. Or not.”
His voice broke on the last syllable, but otherwise he sounded like a news report, or a Wikipedia article. Stephen would have found that funny.
Or maybe not. There wasn’t really anything funny about it. Ket Siong drew his arm across his face, drying his eyes on his sleeve.
“OK. Wow,” said Alicia. She went red. “Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
There was nothing to say. Ket Siong waited while Alicia hesitated.
“I can talk to Clarissa,” she said finally. “But do you want me to tell her the reason why you want to meet her?”
“She’s your friend,” said Ket Siong. “I rely on your judgment.”
“Clarissa would never—she would be horrified, if she thought—I mean, she’s really into social justice and human rights and all that stuff.” Alicia paused. “She’s pretty close to her family.”
“I’m not looking to blame anybody,” said Ket Siong, though this was not quite the truth. “I just want to know what happened to my friend.”
“I can’t promise she’ll agree to talk,” said Alicia. “But I’ll ask. And… I’m really sorry about your friend.”
Ket Siong understood, now, why Ket Hau never mentioned Stephen. Nothing anyone could say about it helped. Talking about it only served to bring up all the worst of the sorrow and anger and futility of losing him in such a way.
It was the cruelty and injustice of it that would poison Stephen’s memory for the many people who’d loved him—that would make their grief fester unhealed, for the rest of their lives.
Stephen’s suffering could not be reversed or made good. But to obtain justice might still be possible. Ket Siong had to believe that, or there would be no point in anything, nothing left to believe in.
“Thank you,” he said.