‘The Pygmalion effect.’
Celeste raised her eyebrows.
‘What you just described is a common phenomenon. That’s what it’s called, when you live up to someone else’s expectations.’
‘Hmm.’
‘You just mentioned that sometimes Alex made you feel small. Tell me about that?’
‘Insignificant is the correct term. I don’t know. He’d laugh at me if I brought up the idea that he could be cheating. Told me he wasn’t going to have this conversation again. Said I was just picking fights with him because my job was a waste of time.’
Elaine frowned.
‘He didn’t value my job at Cross. It didn’t make any money. Not the kind of money Alex made, so he didn’t respect that. He kept it hidden for a long time, but soon the snide comments about my work, my designs, would slip out of his mouth. He always knew more than I told him. I should have known then what he’d done.’
‘And what had he done?’
Celeste shrugged.
‘But you said that he would have been happier if you didn’t work.’
‘His control over me would have been total then.’
‘Would you say that in 2011 Alex was not the man you married?’
‘We had both changed. My head was in the sand. When I did find out what Alex had done, was doing…Well, we all know what happened then.’
‘Tell me, Celeste.’
Celeste looked up at the ceiling. ‘After that trip to London, when I returned to Hong Kong it was the beginning of the end for me. I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. Looking back on that time is painful for me.’ She held the gold bumblebee tightly in her fist.
Elaine turned the page of her notebook and wrote something on a blank page. She looked at the clock. ‘What happened?’
‘I missed Alex. Even when he was around I was still lonely. I worked hard, but I also began drinking to fill the emptiness. I cried a lot.’
‘How did Alex react?’
‘He tried to appease me with words. He told me the kind of pressure he was under to pull off this new venture in Shanghai. I felt guilty. He assured me that he would try and make time for our marriage. He was temperamental though. Sometimes he ran me a bath or cooked me dinner. Sometimes he bought my happiness with jewellery, or he would send Lada to the international store to get me marmite or something else from England that I missed. Perhaps he thought it was some sort of delayed homesickness. But more often than not he would just stay out late and come home drunk without an excuse. Sometimes he wouldn’t even come home – instead he would stay with Bill. Bill would call and tell me that my husband had passed out on his sofa. That way at least I didn’t have to sit up all night, worrying.
‘I started to drink more and more. Then one day I thought to myself, I just can’t do this anymore. I was about to confront him. I realised I was better off without him than being trapped in what had become a miserable marriage. But then something happened which made me think that things were going to change.’
‘What happened?’ Elaine asked. She looked up her pen poised.
‘Alex took me back to Thailand.’
40
26th February 2012
Krabi, Thailand
Celeste sipped on her second Mai Tai as she lazed on the pool lounger. Alex walked up to her with the top two buttons of his shirt undone, his sunglasses on. She had rehearsed what she was going to say to him. Accuse him of not prioritising their relationship, let alone her. Surely, for their first holiday together in years Renshaw could have waited, but no, on the day of their flight out, Alex had called her to say that something had come up. He couldn’t leave the office. Could she take the flight out and he would meet her a couple of days later? She had reluctantly agreed, but her anger had been bubbling ever since. But now, as he sat on the edge of her recliner, with that same cheeky grin that had first attracted her all those years ago, her heart melted. She play punched him on his arm and he leaned over to kiss her.
‘Heaven isn’t it?’
‘We haven’t done this since…’
‘I know,’ Alex said, holding his hands up. ‘My fault. Let me make it up to you.’
She stood up and let her sarong slip to the floor. Then she plunged into the swimming pool. Surfacing, she said, ‘If you mean it, put that off.’ She pointed to the mobile phone in his hand.
Alex nodded and put the device back in his pocket.
She swam up to the edge of the pool. ‘Did it go okay?’
‘What?’
‘Shanghai. The big emergency.’
Alex smiled. ‘Oh that, yeah, completed yesterday. Left the rest to Warwick and whatever Graham can manage.’
‘So you’re winning?’
‘I’m always winning, hon. But when we get back, work is going to be intense. This is one last fling!’
Celeste frowned. This wasn’t going to be a last fling. This was the beginning. They were going to put the last few years behind them and be a proper couple once again. Weekends away, dinners just the two of them and perhaps even a trip to the cinema if that wasn’t too much to ask. They would talk, tell each other how they really felt and just spend time together. Once Shanghai was sorted things would return to normal and that was imminent, Alex had said so himself. Thailand was the perfect place for them to get their marriage back on track. After all, Thailand was where they had met, and coming out here had been Alex’s idea. She watched him as he disappeared past the palm trees to their whitewashed villa.
41
26th February 2012
Clapham, South West London
Rachel lay in bed watching a spider making its way to the window. She pulled the duvet over her head wondering how long she could stay under the covers without thinking of what had happened. It was impossible. She had no choice. Three months had passed and still the memory of that God-awful day was etched in her mind. How happy Sophia must have been to break the news to her and then leave her to her own demise.
What had she been thinking? How had she not seen that William was married? She had been to his country house in Staffordshire, yes. But her visits had been fleeting only accompanying him when he had to pick something or the other up. She had told Sophia that she had been in his house, and she had been, but it had been just the entrance. Neat and tidy – no trace of a wife or family. And of course, whilst she was staying in his London apartment he had another much larger property a few streets away, a property his wife knew about. The apartment she stayed in was just for her. She didn’t want to think about how many other women he had brought back to that flat. What a sick bastard, she thought, even though she still loved him.
She had heard of girls who spent a lifetime as a mistress. They usually got a holiday in the sun once a year, and the occasional weekend here and there. Never Christmas. Definitely late night booty calls and jewellery. Jewellery was always part of the deal. She looked back on her time with William – the designer handbags, expensive meals and yes, late night calls. How had she not seen it before? Now she knew what Sophia meant when she showed admiration for Rachel for putting up with his baggage. Well, she wasn’t going to be a mistress all her life. She shook her head. No she wasn’t.
It was Sophia’s fault. The stupid bitch had known about William’s wife all along but hadn’t said anything. She thought it was curious, the first time she was introduced to William, when Sophia had double-checked his name. It must have been a secret code between them. Of course Sophia had known about his wife. She knew every sordid little secret of The Emerald Rooms’ members. No wonder they were all so nice to her. It must have been bloody good entertainment for her over the years. Would William have ever told her? Maybe he wouldn’t have, keeping her dangling for years until she was well and truly trapped in his web.
Fragments of that whole sorry episode came to her. Sophia had plied her with drink after casually pointing out William’s wife.
‘That’s your lover’s wife. She calls him Bill.’ Sophia said, as casually as
picking her dinner from a menu. Rachel hadn’t quite caught it the first time. By the time it had sunk in, Sophia had ordered a vodka martini and a shot of something thick and syrupy and encouraged Rachel to down them both, promising her it would take the edge off. ‘It’s either that or coke darling, and I’m all out.’
As her vision blurred, Sophia promptly left The Emerald Rooms for the evening. Of course she didn’t want to stay for the fall out and tarnish herself with the same brush. She would rather hear what had happened the following afternoon from the bar men and the usual gossips – their lives so empty they had to laugh at other people’s misery.
Rachel remembered approaching the woman, telling her that she was in love with William and that they were going to be married. What had she been thinking? Before she knew what was happening, two staff were showing her the door. They had known! That part had stung the most. The waiters, the security, every employee and probably every member of The Emerald Rooms knew that William was married and no one had had the decency to tell her.
What must they have thought of her, following William around, telling everyone she was his girlfriend? How smug she had been. She must have been the butt of all their jokes. And to think she had believed that he was her true love. She had told him he was the one! And he had let her believe it. What kind of man would do that?
She had tried calling him frantically as she stumbled to his apartment that night. No answer. His wife had got to him first. What would she have said? That she had been accosted in the club by a drunk claiming to be his lover. Would William admit his adultery? Would he tell her he was going to leave her? She could only imagine. But it was more than likely that he would deny all knowledge and the bar staff would back him. Why wouldn’t they? The stupidly large tips he paid out now made sense.
After a week with still no contact from William, Rachel had started to worry. Had something happened? She had asked the doorman at his apartment block, but when that didn’t prove fruitful she knew she would have to go back to The Emerald Rooms as Sophia had predicted. She was refused entry and walked home cloaked in humiliation. A humiliation, which was only deepened when she returned later to their apartment to find that the locks had been changed and her possessions boxed up and waiting for her outside the front door.
Rachel’s hands had felt numb as they reached for the hand-scribbled note stuck to one of the boxes, tears pricking the back of her eyes. ‘Sorry’ was all it said. No explanation, no excuse. Nothing. It wasn’t even signed by William. But she knew his hand, the same way she knew that he liked a brandy nightcap before bed, plenty of water in the morning – usually to combat his hangover – and his eggs sunny side up. She thought she knew everything about him. Everything, except that he had a wife, and now she knew he had no heart either.
42
2nd March – 14th May 2012
Mid-Levels, Central and Western District, Hong Kong
‘Why didn’t you tell Lada to get some food in? It’s late and I’m bloody hungry,’ Alex said, as they opened the front door to their apartment. It was as if he had transformed somewhere over the South China Sea. She had tried with him, she really had, but with every kind gesture, Alex made it his mission to put her down. He had done nothing but snap at her from the time they landed at Chek Lap Kok and she had spent the entire journey home looking out of the taxi window as rain washed Hong Kong’s dusty streets, sending hawkers running for cover and blurring the city lights.
‘It’s her day off,’ Celeste muttered trying not to lose her patience.
‘Day off? The day we land. You don’t know how to run a house.’ Alex took his phone out of his pocket. ‘You could have asked Charlie. What’s the point of having staff if you don’t use them?’
She took a step back and dropped her case at the door. She had a headache. She wanted to leave Alex to call Kealana and retreat to the bedroom, but she had promised that she was going to make more of an effort. They both had to try if they wanted their marriage to work. Alex wasn’t making it easy though. What had happened to the man who, only a couple of days ago, had held her hand as they climbed up to the temple in the Tiger Caves and had massaged her aching legs later that evening?
‘We can manage. I’ll make something.’
‘You can’t bloody cook!’
Celeste took a deep breath. ‘Delivery?’
Alex opened his mouth to say something, but the phone in his hand rang. He answered it and walked down to his office. Celeste breathed a sigh of relief and retrieved the folder of takeaway menus that Alex had, typically, filed alphabetically. She wondered if she too was now just one of his possessions that had a fixed place in his life. She studied the menus. Alex would want roast duck and rice, and vegetables of some sort. She would have normally just ordered for him without hesitation, but these days he was difficult to read, and the last thing she wanted was to get the order wrong. He would just snap at her again.
She left the folder on the table in the lounge and made her way up to their bedroom with a glass of water. She wanted to be angry with him. Was it the pressures of work that had put him in a foul mood or was she just making excuses for his awful behaviour? Warwick had called as they were waiting for their luggage. She hadn’t heard what had been said and Alex had walked away from her when he saw that she was trying to listen in. He told her that it had something to do with Shanghai. He had cursed himself for taking the time off, and she knew by the way he looked at her with his steely blue eyes that he blamed her. She wanted to point out that Thailand had been his idea, but she bit her tongue. Instead, she let him complain, like a broken record, about Graham and his inefficiencies.
*
The next morning she woke to find that Alex had already left. She had slept so soundly she wasn’t even sure if he had slept next to her that night, let alone eaten. She dragged herself to Cross at Causeway Bay and threw herself into her work.
‘Get me Mr Harris,’ she said to Jinny as she walked in through the office. For months now there had been rumours that Cross Hong Kong was going to be closing its doors, and that her team was going to be one of the first to be cut. Her staff were worried and Toby was being as vague as ever. If she didn’t get to the bottom of this soon she could lose some of her best designers. She drummed her fingers on her desk. Jinny and Mo Li were the best she had. She was lucky she had hung on to them for so long.
‘I have Toby Cain,’ Jinny said. Celeste rolled her eyes, but took the call and put her questions to Toby.
He avoided answering them in that snake-like manner, which he no doubt must have picked up from Harris over the years. She put the phone down and scrunched her face. She had to tell her staff something. So she gathered them and told a half-truth. Cross was doing better, and if they continued to make steady progress then they would continue trading. She needed a hundred and ten per cent from everyone and they would review the future of Cross Hong Kong after the next collection. It seemed to work. Jinny and Mo Li left her office somewhat happier, but she knew they would still be looking for similar positions coming up with other designers and she couldn’t blame them.
Celeste was going to lead by example. She rekindled her old relationships with merchandisers in Italy and managed to get some rare pieces for their autumn collection. She ensured weekly design meetings were attended by all staff – no excuses. And though she had been working long hours she had kept her promise to make things work with Alex. But it had been difficult. He wasn’t around much, his promise to leave Shanghai alone once the branch was set up turned out to be an empty one. Most of his time was spent either there or in London. And lately she felt anxious, a feeling that she couldn’t shake. At night she worried if Alex was safe, irrationally thinking about car accidents and emergency rooms; she worried whether her designs were good enough for Cross and she worried about her health that seemed to be deteriorating. She hadn’t been feeling well for some time now and seemed to pick up a cold every other week. She needed Alex with her. She wanted to tell him that the travelling
had to stop if they were going to make it work, but she could never find the right moment or find the courage to initiate the conversation. It wasn’t until Lada had announced that she had saved enough money to go back home to the Philippines, and Kealana had moved in, whist she tried to find them a replacement maid, that she was pushed to say something.
‘You’re not eating much?’ Kealana said to Celeste one day when she was helping tidy away after lunch.
Celeste smiled without responding. The woman got on her nerves, commenting on every little thing she did or didn’t do.
‘Everything okay?’ Kealana asked with that butter-wouldn’t-melt look.
‘It’s fine.’ It was a lie. She felt nauseous. She hadn’t felt right since Kealana had moved in. The very presence of the woman was making her feel ill. She had never liked her and now she was growing suspicious of her.
She hated the way Kealana watched her every move, constantly asking her if she was all right and refusing to take time off when Alex wasn’t around. She had even started cooking for her. ‘You can’t eat takeaway all the time. I will cook,’ she had said and ever since then there was a meal waiting for her no matter what time Celeste returned home from work. The food had been good, tasty and nutritious, but there was something about Kealana’s manner that put her on edge. Kealana disliked her, she knew that, and only yesterday she had seen a movie where a man was slowly poisoning his wife’s food with selenium, which had made her think. Her nauseous feeling had only arrived when Kealana had, and the woman insisted on cooking for her. Having no girlfriends that she could trust, she confided in Alex the next time she spoke to him.
Of course he had laughed at her. She had expected that. ‘Why would Kealana want you dead?’
‘I don’t know. She loves you Renshaws. Maybe she doesn’t think I’m good enough for Mr Alex.’
‘You’re being a hysterical.’
‘Maybe if you were here more often things would be better between us and she wouldn’t see the need to bump me off. She probably thinks I’m ruining your life.’
Poison in the Water Page 17