‘We’ll drive you in,’ Selina said quickly. ‘Or Mark can drive you in. I’ll stay here and help Jonny with the cleaning up.’
Aunty Lee saw Beth’s eyes go from Selina to Jonny and back to Selina. She thought Beth probably understood Selina better than Selina herself did. But then she had probably watched Patty go through more than her share of adolescent crushes and passions.
‘If you and your husband stay here and start on the cleaning up, Jonny can drive me.’
‘If you’re going to see the ECDA people, I should come with you,’ Selina said. ‘I’m part of this, after all. Aunty Lee and Nina can start on the cleaning.’
‘I have to get back to my shop!’ Aunty Lee said firmly. ‘Nina will come back with me until you get time to talk about who pays Nina’s salary while she is working here. She can still come back and sleep in my house at night.’
Beth looked surprised. She turned to Selina and started to say: ‘Aren’t you the one who pays—?’
‘We can discuss this later!’ Selina seized Aunty Lee by the elbow and hissed: ‘You mustn’t spoil this for us! You know that it is actually illegal for Nina to be working at your shop, right? If we report you, you’ll be fined and your café closed down and Nina sent home and never allowed to come back! But if she helps us get through this then she can go back to you after.’
Aunty Lee was taken aback to hear Selina put it that way, but not as taken aback as Mark was … though Selina was only repeating what he had told her. Mark looked shocked. Beth looked interested. Jonny Ho looked beautiful. He was also watching Selina with more interest than he had shown before.
‘Dear … ’ Mark said in alarm but nobody paid any attention.
‘Well?’ Selina’s attention was fixed on Aunty Lee.
A combination of Peranakan pride and mission school upbringing meant Aunty Lee did not scratch herself in public whether the pain in her pants was due to bugs or blackmail. Instead she turned to Beth and said conversationally: ‘What is Fabian doing now, by the way? The last I heard he was still in America.’
‘Oh, Fabian is back in Singapore,’ Beth said quietly, matching Aunty Lee’s tone and turning away from Selina. ‘Last time he was here, he barely talked to me. He spent most of his time talking to Julietta outside.’
‘He knew her?’
‘Of course. She was working for his parents for years, since before he left Singapore.’
A helper who had been working for one family for years didn’t sound like one who would run away without warning. ‘You think he told her something that made her run away?’ Aunty Lee asked with interest.
‘Poor Fabian has always been excitable, high strung. He was upset about us setting up the school here. But Patty knew that I’d always dreamt of having a little school of my own. When we were children, Patty would always play at getting married. She was always the bride. I would play at being a schoolteacher. Setting up a school is a big dream for me. I know it’s what Patty would want.’
Selina was furious. The woman she had tried to manipulate and the woman she wanted to impress were talking together like old friends and ignoring her.
‘About your helper,’ Aunty Lee said to Beth, ‘you didn’t report Julietta missing because you think she ran off with her boyfriend and you don’t want to get her into trouble. What are you going to do with her if she comes back?’
Beth looked taken aback then hugely relieved. ‘That depends what she says. I spent so long as a teacher I know how stupid young girls can be. You are so brave to go into the café business on your own, Rosie. I wouldn’t dare to if I didn’t have a partner who understands how these things work.’ Aunty Lee sensed some gentle criticism there, as though it wasn’t quite ladylike of her to be running a business, far less making a success of it. But having come from the same mission school as Beth she understood where she was coming from. And though Beth would have thought it presumptuous, Aunty Lee felt a little sorry for her. Starting a new business was terrifying as well as exciting, all the more so when you were using your own money but putting your confidence in someone else.
So somehow she agreed that Nina would start immediately on a trial month, helping Beth with the cleaning and supervising renovations.
‘Mark can drive Jonny and me to town in his car for the meeting. And Selina and Nina can get started on the clean up here and wait for the workers to get back,’ Beth decided in her flat, decisive schoolteacher voice, conveniently not hearing Selina object that it would make more sense for her to drive Beth, and Jonny and attend the meeting with them.
‘And I will take taxi back to the house and pack up some clothes for you,’ Aunty Lee told Nina.
Aunty Lee tried to hail the apparently free taxi at the end of the road, but was ignored by the driver. She could see him there, behind the wheel. She was thinking of photographing the taxi’s licence plate with her phone so she could report the driver for ignoring an old lady when Beth said that Jonny Ho would drive Aunty Lee home to collect Nina’s things.
‘I will go with Jonny and get Nina’s things,’ Selina said quickly. ‘Aunty Lee is better at cleaning.’
But Beth was even more used to getting her own way than Selina. Beth had also seen at once that the threat Selina used against Aunty Lee could easily be turned against her and her school. Besides, Beth did not like the way Selina was looking at Jonny Ho.
‘Don’t forget you are pregnant, Selina. You shouldn’t be driving around in sports cars in your condition. I’m sure your husband wouldn’t like it.’ Beth smiled at Mark. ‘Shall we go?’
Jonny Ho had a bright blue low, flat Subaru. It was a shiny, flashy car and Aunty Lee saw he was as proud of it as a woman with her first pair of Jimmy Choos. When it came to plump elderly ladies, designer cars were as uncomfortable as designer shoes. But when Jonny carefully helped her into the low front seat and leaned across her to lock in her seatbelt Aunty Lee couldn’t help being flattered. Like dried lotus leaf soaked in warm water she felt herself relaxing. No wonder rich old men liked to go to massage parlours to be pampered by pretty young women. There ought to be spas specially for rich old women to be pampered by pretty young boys.
‘So, where is this shop house of yours? You live above it, right? Selina told us you run a little cake shop. You will never get rich by making cakes. You should learn to cook real Chinese food. It is impossible to get good Chinese food in Singapore. You should let me take a look at your business. I am very good at turning businesses around. Give me six months and I can give you a profit!’
‘No, not to the shop.’ Aunty Lee decided, remembering Cherril and the curry potato crisis. ‘Take me back to my house.’ She directed him deeper into Binjai Park and told him he could leave his car on the grass verge outside.
‘You want to come in and wait while I pack some things for you to take back for Nina?’
Jonny Ho was impressed by Aunty Lee’s Binjai Park house, especially by its size and location. He had studied the wealthier housing districts in Singapore and could sum up its market value pretty accurately. Aunty Lee might look and sound like a low class, uneducated peasant, but she had obviously married into money. Jonny looked at the photo portraits of her dead husband while waiting for her to pack some things for Nina.
‘You have a lot of pictures of your dead husband,’ he said when she reappeared wheeling a cabin bag with a large plastic bag balanced on top. ‘He has been dead for some time, right? Don’t you think it is time to be moving on?’
People expect beautiful people to be sensitive, just like they expect beautiful cakes to be delicious, Aunty Lee thought. It was not true. ‘I have moved on,’ she said evenly. ‘I have my shop and my business.’
‘I don’t understand why you need to work in a shop when you have a house this size. If you need the money, you can rent out rooms. Even better, you can convert this place