Jiayi, the young Chinese scullery maid, flinched in terror. “Oh my God! Did he just hit her? It sounds like she landed on the floor! Someone do something! Ah Ling, what should we do?”
Ah Ling just sighed. “We should stay out of it! Remember, Jiayi, we don’t see anything and we don’t hear anything. That’s what we do. Now, let’s get the first five courses out to the dining room. Quickly! The animals are hungry.”
As the rest of the kitchen maids sprang into action, Jiayi instead made a dash up to Eddie’s bedroom. Fiona had been so sweet to her, she wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her. She crept up the stairs to the hallway where the guest bedrooms were, and as she came to their bedroom, she could hear someone moaning in anguish. Jiayi opened the door slowly and whispered, “Ma’am, are you okay?” She looked in and saw Eddie lying on the floor in a fetal position, his head in Fiona’s lap. Fiona sat on the floor, calm as a pietà, stroking his hair as he sobbed uncontrollably like a little boy. She looked up at Jiayi, and the maid quickly closed the door.
—
In the family dining room of Tyersall Park, everyone had gathered around the massive round mahogany dining table designed by the great Shanghai artist Huang Pao Fan. Anticipating that this was going to be a contentious meal, Ah Ling and Ah Ching devised a lunch that consisted of the favorite dishes of the Young siblings when they were children—pumpkin and prawn noodle soup (Catherine’s favorite), fried rice with lap cheong*1 and extra eggs (Philip’s favorite), steamed pomfret in ginger sauce (Felicity’s favorite), lor mai kai*2 (Alix’s favorite), and Yorkshire pudding (Victoria’s favorite). If it made for a slightly schizophrenic menu, no one noticed except the in-laws.
Victoria threw out the opening salvo as she savored her first forkful of pudding. “Philip, surely you weren’t serious when you said we should sell Tyersall Park?”
“I don’t see any other choice,” Philip answered.
“Why don’t you buy us all out? You have the majority stake, and we’ll sell you our shares at a family discount. This way we all can keep our rooms, and Tyersall Park can be like our private family hotel.”
Alix looked up from her aromatic chicken rice. What on earth was Victoria suggesting? She had no intention of selling her share at a discount.
Philip shook his head as he swallowed a mouthful of fried rice. “First of all, I can’t afford to buy you all out, but that’s beside the point. What would I do with this house? I live in Sydney most of the year—I can’t be bothered to maintain this white elephant.”
“Cat, wouldn’t you like to have Tyersall Park? You can afford it, can’t you?” Victoria asked her sister hopefully.
“Everything about this place reminds me of Mummy, and I’d be too sad,” Catherine mused, picking at her noodles without much of an appetite.
Alix spoke up. “Cat’s right. This house just isn’t the same now that Mummy’s gone. Look, Mummy clearly wanted us to sell it. She knew none of us would really want to take it on.”
Victoria looked distressed. “Then what happens to me? Am I supposed to move in to a flat? Goodness gracious, I’d feel like I’m suddenly part of the ‘new poor’!”
“Victoria, no one cares anymore,” Alix argued. “Look at all our friends, our cousins—the T’siens, the Tans, the Shangs. No one we know still lives in their original houses. Buitenzorg, Eu Villa, 38 Newton Road, the House of Jade. All the great estates are long gone. Even Command House is now part of bloody UBS. I’ve lived in a three-bedroom condo for decades and I love it.”
Harry nodded in agreement. “I dream of the luxury of living someplace small, like one of those HDB flats! Why, I hear that most of them even have elevators these days!”*3
Alix looked around the table at each of her siblings. “A property of this size has not come on the market in almost a century—this is like Central Park going up for sale in New York. In this neighborhood, the going rate is $1,000 per square foot. We have more than 2.8 million square feet here, and that adds up to $2.8 billion. But I think developers would pay even more, and there’s going to be a bidding war. Trust me, I’ve been flipping properties in Hong Kong for years. We have to orchestrate this very methodically, because this is our one chance to make an absolute killing.”
Victoria gave a dramatic sigh, although secretly she was already thinking of the cute topiaries she would put on the doorstep of her town house in London. “Okay, so let’s sell the house. But we can’t appear to want to sell it anytime soon. That would be unseemly.”
“I think we should wait at least six months. We wouldn’t want to look like greedy pigs,” Felicity stated as she sucked on a fish bone.
Philip took a sip of his coffee and winced. “All right then, I’m heading back to Sydney tonight—I can’t stand another day without a proper flat white. I’ll be back in six months and we can officially put the house on the market.”
Just then, Ah Ling entered the dining room with an announcement: “Something just arrived that I think you all should see.”
Two Gurkha guards wheeled a large flatbed dolly into the room. Piled on it was a mountain of colorful ribboned boxes, all from Ladurée in Paris. There were boxes upon boxes of chocolates and truffles, macaroons and cakes—all manner of delicious confections from the legendary dessert maker. Crowning this elaborate display was a croquembouche, with a large embossed gold card affixed to the front. Ah Ling took the card and handed it to Philip. He tore it open and began to laugh.
“What is it?” Eleanor asked excitedly.
Philip read the card aloud. “Bright Star Properties wishes the Young family prosperity and good tidings in the coming Year of the Goat. May we respectfully extend an all-cash tender offer of $1.88 billion for the purchase of Tyersall Park.”
Felicity gasped, while Alix turned to Victoria with a smirk. “I don’t think we have to worry about looking like greedy pigs.”
* * *
*1 Chinese sausage.
*2 Steamed glutinous rice with chicken in a lotus leaf wrap, my dim sum favorite.
*3 Harry Leong has obviously never set foot in a Housing and Development Board flat in his entire life, but like so many oblivious one-percenters is always fantasizing about downsizing and moving in to an HDB flat “since I am entitled to one.”
CHAPTER TEN
28 CLUNY PARK ROAD, SINGAPORE
Kitty was floating on an inflatable lounger in the middle of her pool in an alluring one-shoulder cutout Araks swimsuit when she heard the car returning to the house. She had been waiting impatiently for the past hour, after sending a maid to the bookstore to buy a whole stack of the new issue of Tattle, which had just been released this morning.