by Kevin Kwan
“Astrid! The world you left behind has changed so much. Can I please tell you what’s been happening? I think it will help,” Charlie pleaded.
Astrid took a deep breath. “Okay, tell me what you want to tell me.”
“Well first of all, Isabel is out of her coma, and it looks like she’s on her way to a great recovery. She’s suffered quite a bit of memory loss, and she has no clue what happened to her that night, but she’s going to be okay.”
“Thank God,” Astrid muttered, closing her eyes.
“The other big thing that you need to know is that Michael has signed your divorce papers with no contest.”
“What?” Astrid sat up in her chair, completely shocked. “How did this happen?”
“Well, it’s quite a tangled story, but let’s start with the leaked video. It turns out that Isabel was the one who had the video first, not Michael. She had us under surveillance all along. The paparazzi tailing us in India, the video of us in my bedroom, that was all her doing.”
Astrid shook her head in disbelief. “How did she do all this?”
Charlie smiled. “You’re never going to believe it. You know that raggy old stuffed giraffe that Delphine has?”
“Yes! The one she can’t sleep without every night?”
“It was a gift from Isabel, and it turns out there was a very sophisticated camera and recording device implanted inside.”
“Oh my God…”
“Delphine would drag the damn stuffed animal with her between both houses, so Isabel always knew my every move. And she got the footage of us completely by accident, because Delphine had slept in my room the night before you came over and left the giraffe on the chest at the foot of my bed.”
“No wonder the footage was shot from such a weird angle!” Astrid said with a little laugh. “But how in the world did she get this sophisticated nanny cam made?”
“Michael helped her. They were in cahoots all along. It came out after Isabel’s suicide attempt, and the police got involved investigating the source of the video clip on her phone.”
Astrid shook her head sadly. “So they ganged up…the two bitter ex-spouses.”
“Yep. But their little partnership is also the silver lining in all this. I flew to Singapore a few weeks ago and had a nice long chat with Michael. I told him he could withdraw the lawsuit, sign the divorce papers, and go on enjoying his life as a billionaire bachelor, or he could do the following: First, he could go to jail for aiding and abetting Isabel in her illegal surveillance. Second, he could go to jail for extortion, since he stupidly sent you the video with that text message demanding $5 billion. And third, he could go to jail for being linked to the malicious leak of the video. By the time the Singapore court system is done with all the charges that I would bring against him, he could very well spend the rest of his life in Changi Prison, or worse, he could be extradited to Hong Kong and then sent to a prison camp in Northeast China, near the Russian border, where guys that look as pretty as he does end up having a very sore time.”
Astrid leaned back into her chair, taking it all in.
Charlie grinned. “Michael has promised to never be of any trouble to you or Cassian. Ever again. So the minute you put your name on those divorce papers, you’ll be a free woman.”
“A free woman,” Astrid said the words softly to herself. “Charlie, I love you, and I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me over the past few weeks. If I’m being true to myself—to the new me—and if I’m being completely honest with you, I just don’t know if I really want to get married again right now. I’m not sure I’m ready to return to Singapore yet. I’ve been exploring these islands quite a bit, getting to know the locals, and I am really connecting to this place. I think there’s a great deal I could do right here to help the indigenous people. I could really use more time here, and what I really want is to send for Cassian. I’ve seen how happy the kids are in these islands…their lives are so integrated with nature, they’re so free and adventurous. They run along the narrow little prows of wooden boats like sailors, they climb the trees like acrobats and knock down all the ripe coconuts. They laugh and they laugh. It reminds me a little of the kind of childhood I had at Tyersall Park. Cassian’s whole life these days is about homework and exams and Chinese lessons and tennis lessons and piano competitions, and then when he’s not doing that he’s just glued to his computer screen playing those violent games. I can’t remember the last time I saw him laugh. If I’m going to live a new life of true freedom, I want the same freedom for him too.”
Charlie peered deep into Astrid’s eyes. “Listen, I want you to have exactly the kind of life you’ve dreamed about, for yourself and for Cassian. My only question to you is: In this new life, is there a place for me?”
Astrid looked at Charlie, not sure what to say.
* * *
* Fresh caught jumbo prawns in coconut milk, a Palawan delicacy.
CHAPTER TEN
ANTWERP, BELGIUM
Kitty stood in the middle of the space, staring at the exquisite alchemy of furnishings, objets, nature, and light. There was an elegant purity to the way everything was arranged, and the room emanated a calm and quietly invigorating energy. “This is what I want! This is how I want Tyersall Park to be,” she told Oliver. They were in the midst of wandering through Kanaal, a nineteenth-century complex of industrial spaces next to a former grain silo on the Albert Canal that had been breathtakingly transformed into the atelier and private showroom of Axel Vervoordt, one of the world’s most esteemed interior designers.
“We’re already halfway there, Kitty. Tyersall Park has amazing bones, and it’s got that perfect patina of age that no amount of money can buy. We wouldn’t have to import any new floors or create new walls that look like they came from the seventeenth century. But look how this bronze ax from the Neolithic period changes the whole vibe of the room. And these simple ferns wilting beautifully on this refectory table. It’s all about placement, and Axel is the master of all this.”
“I want to meet him right now!” Kitty said.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be here very soon. Didn’t you hear what his assistant said? He’s having lunch with Queen Mathilde of Belgium right now,” Oliver whispered.
“Oh, I couldn’t understand his accent. I thought he said he was in the middle of reading Matilda. I was thinking, why is this man reading a children’s book when I’ve flown all the way here to meet him?”
“Axel’s work is held in such high esteem, his clients include many of the world’s crowned heads,” Oliver informed Kitty as they wandered into a dramatically lit chamber that was, coincidentally enough, filled with nothing but ancient Buddha heads carved out of stone.
“Can we do this somewhere in the garden? I think it would be so cool to wander through the forest and just find a bunch of Buddha heads everywhere,” Kitty suggested.
Oliver chuckled to himself, trying to imagine how Victoria Young might react to the sight of dozens of Buddhas scattered around Tyersall Park. Still, Kitty’s idea wasn’t half bad. Maybe the way to really launch Kitty into the social stratosphere would be to style her as Singapore’s answer to Peggy Guggenheim, and have the grounds of Tyersall Park become a venue for contemporary art like Storm King in New York or the Chinati Foundation in Marfa. They could have the world’s greatest artists in residence to create site-specific installations. Christo could wrap the entire house in silver fabric, James Turrell could create a light projection in the conservatory, and maybe Ai Weiwei could do something controversial with the lily pond.
In the midst of his reverie, there was a sudden flurry of activity as Axel Vervoordt entered the room, impeccably dressed in a gray suit with a black turtleneck, and surrounded by a monastic entourage of assistants. “Oliver T’sien, what a pleasure to see you again!” the legendary antiquarian said.
“Axel, the pleasure is all mine. May I introduce Mrs. Jack Bing.”
“Welcome to Kanaal,” Axel said, giving Kitty a courtly b
ow.
“Thank you. Axel, I am in awe of your creations! I’ve never seen anything quite like this before, and I feel like I just want to move in here right now,” Kitty effused.
“Thank you. Mrs. Bing, if you enjoy what you see here, perhaps I can invite you to visit me at my private residence Kasteel van’s-Gravenwezel while you are with us in Antwerp.”
“You won’t want to miss this, Kitty. Kasteel van’s-Gravenwezel is one of the most beautiful castles in the world,” Oliver explained.
Kitty batted her eyelashes at Axel. “I’d love to!”
“If I had known earlier that the two of you were coming today, I would have invited you to lunch. Her Majesty the Queen honored us with her presence today, and she brought along a most delightful couple.”
“I hope you had a lovely time,” Oliver said.
“We did, we did. This young couple have just acquired the most magnificent property in Singapour. It is apparently the largest private estate on the island.”
Kitty’s face went pale.
Axel continued. “Wait a minute—it completely escaped my mind. You’re from Singapour, aren’t you, Oliver?”
“Indeed I am,” Oliver said, forcing a smile.
“Have you heard of this property? Apparently it’s quite an architectural folly—a mixture of styles and periods, but set on sixty-four acres. Tivoli Park, I think it is called.” Axel cocked his head.
Kitty calmly walked out onto the balcony of the showroom and could be seen jabbing her iPhone screen frantically.
“Actually, I believe you mean Tyersall Park,” Oliver corrected him.
“Yes, that’s the place! Apparently, the lady’s father has given her the property as a wedding present, and she wants me to help her with the redo. It will be quite the commission.”
Oliver looked out the window, where Kitty was screaming in Mandarin and gesticulating wildly into her phone. “I know you never discuss your clients, but I’m going to guess that the couple were an English lord and his Chinese wife?”
Axel smiled. “Nothing escapes you, does it? I haven’t attempted anything on this scale before in Asia, and I do believe I’m going to be calling on you for some help.”
“Congratulations, Axel. It would be a pleasure,” Oliver managed to utter as he felt like he was going to throw up.
“Now, what can I do for you and Mrs. Bing?”
Oliver watched Kitty fling her cell phone off the balcony into the canal far below. “Oh we were just in the neighborhood. I’m about to take her to meet Dries at Het Modepaleis, so I figured we should stop by.”
···
“He said Colette was a new woman. That she had transformed her life and he was proud of her for wanting to do something good in the world. That’s why she needed a proper house in Singapore. How gullible can you be?” Kitty cried.
“Yes, let it out. Let it all out,” a soothing voice above her said.
“He said that Colette had made a secret trip to see him in Shanghai. She had prostrated herself at his feet and begged for his forgiveness. Can you fucking believe it?” Kitty was lying on the massage table, her head in the face cradle, as her massage therapist Elenya placed a row of hot stones along her spine.
“Good, good. As I place this stone on your lower back, I want you to really feel it burn into your second chakra, and I want you to go deeper into your anger and release it,” Elenya encouraged.
“He said, ‘Do not make me choose between you and my daughter, because you will lose. I only have one daughter, and I can always get another wife.’ I hate him I hate him I hate him!” Kitty screamed, tears flowing freely and dripping on the tatami-matted floor.
Suddenly the floor trembled violently, and a couple of the stones rolled off her back onto the side of the table. Oliver, sitting in an armchair next to the massage table, pulled his seat belt tighter.
“That wasn’t turbulence, Kitty. That was your anger releasing into the universe. How does it feel?” Elenya asked, as she began to rub Kitty’s feet with a steaming hot towel.
“It feels fucking great! I want to tell the pilots to steer this plane and crash it right into his fucking face!” Kitty screamed again, before breaking into loud heaving sobs.
Oliver sighed as he looked out the window of the spa on the second floor of Kitty’s Boeing 747-81 VIP. They were over the English Channel now, and soon they would be landing in London. “I don’t know if a quick revenge is the answer, Kitty. I think you need to be playing a long game here. Look at the life Jack has given you. You’ve got three airplanes at your disposal, wonderful Elenya here to give you hot-stone massage treatments when you need it most, and all your other beautiful homes around the world. And let’s not forget about Harvard. You’ve given Jack a son, and as he grows up, he will begin to eclipse Colette in importance. Kitty, do you know the story of the Empress Dowager Cixi?”
“She was the old lady that died in the opening scene of that Last Emperor movie, wasn’t she?” Kitty said in a quiet voice.
“Yes, the Empress Dowager Cixi was one of the concubines of Emperor Xianfeng, and after he died she launched a palace coup and became the true force of power in China. Cixi had a greater impact than possibly any other emperor in the country’s history—she transformed it from a medieval empire into a modern nation, opened the country up to the West, and abolished foot-binding for girls. And she did all this, Kitty, even though she technically had no power at all because she was a woman.”
“So how did she do it?” Kitty asked.
“She ruled indirectly through her five-year-old son, who succeeded to the throne as emperor. And after he died as a teenager, she adopted another boy and put him on the throne so she could rule through him. As the Empress Dowager, court etiquette decreed that she wasn’t even allowed to be seen by men, so she took all her meetings with her ministers from behind a silk screen. You could learn a great deal from Cixi, you know. You need to bide your time and solidify your position by being the best mother to Harvard that you can possibly be. You need to be the most influential person in his life, and in time, he’ll come to rule the Bing empire and you will be the power behind the throne. Throughout history, Kitty, the people who wielded the most power weren’t always the ones who were in the spotlight. Dowager Empress Cixi, Cardinal Richelieu, Cosimo de’ Medici. These are the people who flew under the radar in their own time, but they amassed all the power and influence through patience, intelligence, and stealth.”
“Patience, intelligence, and stealth,” Kitty repeated. Suddenly she rolled over and sat up on the massage bed, the hot stones rolling off her back and scattering onto the floor as Elenya scurried to pick them up. “Has the contract to buy Tyersall Park been signed yet?”
“I think the lawyers are still drafting the agreement.”
“So it’s not a done deal?”
“No. There’s a gentleman’s agreement, but it won’t be official until the contracts are actually signed.” Oliver wondered where she was going with all this.
“Didn’t you tell me that there were other interested parties in Tyersall Park before Jack bought it?”
“Well yes, my cousin Nick was trying to buy it, but he never managed to scrape up enough money to match Jack’s offer.”
“How much did he need?”
“I think he was short about four billion dollars.”
Kitty’s eyes gleamed. “What if I became a secret investor in the house? What if I put in the money and stole this house away from Jack?”
Oliver stared at her in surprise. “Kitty, do you have that kind of money on your own?”
“I got two billion in my divorce settlement from Bernard, and I invested all that money in Amazon. Do you know how much those shares have gone up in the past year? I have more than five billion dollars, and it’s just all sitting there in an account managed by the Liechtenburg Group,” Kitty proudly announced.
Oliver leaned forward in his armchair. “You’d really be willing to invest all that money in a deal with my cou
sin?”
“You’d still get your commission either way, wouldn’t you?”
“I would, but I’d just be concerned about you putting so much of your own money into one venture.”
Kitty went quiet for a moment, touched that Oliver cared for her beyond her money. “It will be worth every last cent just to know that Colette doesn’t get her hands on that house!”
“Well, let me make a few calls.” Oliver unbuckled his seat belt and left the spa cabin. Five minutes later, he returned with a smirk on his face. “Kitty, there’s been the most interesting development. I just spoke to my cousin Nicky. It turns out that Tyersall Park has been deemed a national historic landmark, and he and a group of partners are putting together a radical new proposal to challenge Jack Bing’s offer.”
“Does this mean Colette won’t get it either?”
“Well, that’s very likely. However, they are desperate for one more investor. They’re short three billion dollars.”
“Only three billion? Sounds like a deal.”
“Should I call the cockpit and get them to turn this plane around?”
“Why not?”
Oliver picked up the phone by the console. “There’s been a change of plans. We need to get to Singapore, and fast.”
“Not too fast. I want to get back to my hot-stone massage,” Kitty purred, as she stretched languidly onto her massage bed again.
EPILOGUE
TYERSALL PARK, SINGAPORE
ONE YEAR LATER…
“I can’t wait to see the bride. I wonder which designer she chose to do her gown?” Jacqueline Ling said to Oliver T’sien at the reception before the intimate wedding ceremony. Two hundred guests invited by the happy couple’s families milled about the Andalusian Cloister, enjoying cocktails and canapés while admiring the mesmerizing light installation created by artist James Turrell in the columned arcades surrounding the courtyard.
“Let’s make a bet,” Oliver ventured.