The White Amah (20 page)

Not long after, Josh Chadwick burst on the scene and landed a contract with the same recording company. His compositions were a daring mix of vitality, speed and youthful impetuosity, but it wasn’t just his talent that propelled him to the top: his cleancut, nice-guy personality made him a hit with male and female fans, both young and old. Over the last decade he had changed gear and his music was now more mainstream. Just about every singer in the business had had a big hit with one of his songs, with Tuff the one glaring exception.

Seventeen years on, Josh’s feeling of contempt for the girl he
had once loved was just as strong, even though he was now a happily married family man. No amount of pressure from the record company could persuade him to do an album with her. It didn’t make sense to his agent – an album from the two biggest rock stars was a guaranteed money-spinner – but Josh wouldn’t even consider it. It was rumoured that he had even turned down an offer of a million dollars and a share of the profits to appear on her forthcoming concert tour.

At first Tuff had been scared that the media would find out about her sordid past, but they never had and she’d stopped worrying long ago that Josh would talk. He’d returned to England before she found out about the baby and he never knew she’d had his child. Now she felt uneasy and she wondered if it had been wise to adopt the twins from Somalia. It had been her publicity manager’s suggestion to sponsor a charity to improve her image and boost ticket sales. The syrupy television special that had Tuff tenderly weeping over abandoned babies, and ended with a surprise announcement she was adopting the boys, had also been a bonanza for the charity. Donations to the fund went through the roof and Tuff’s flagging career was revived.

The Tuff on Poverty concert tour was already sold out in Britain. It was reported that scalpers were getting three hundred pounds for a ticket to her opening concert at Wembley, and tickets for the charity dinner, where guests got the opportunity to talk to Tuff in person, were heavily subscribed despite costing two thousand pounds apiece.

Marisa, her industrious agent, had come up with the idea so she could also find them a boarding school, Tuff decided. What did she pay her for anyway? Marisa had located a prestigious boarding school in the Highlands of Scotland that had a
history of taking foreign students, particularly from Africa, and would keep them during the holidays so Tuff would never be inconvenienced.

‘I travel so much. It wouldn’t be fair to leave them in that lonely big barn with just the hired help,’ she had told the headmaster, disparaging the Elizabethan mansion house she’d bought for a reported £3.25 million, and she dabbed her eyes with a corner of her Swiss cotton handkerchief as she handed over the non-English-speaking seven year olds into the care of the formidable matron.

Tuff sighed. Meeting with the media always made her tense. It wasn’t fair that she had to work so hard. She poured herself another drink. The fact that Floyd was still idling by the pool irritated her.

‘What am I paying you for? Bring over the massage oil,’ she snapped and began undoing the leather thongs on her skin-tight corset.

J
OSEPH
L
ING, HIS THREE CHILDREN AND
R
UBIAH
arrived for the cocktail reception in the London Living Room at City Hall at four-thirty pm. Ever since Adele had watched the Tuff Love special on TV she’d badgered her mother to let her go to the concert at Wembley. Lady Entwistle agreed with Madame Ling that it wasn’t a suitable event for a young lady. To pacify Adele, Lady Entwistle had asked her husband to use his contacts in the City to obtain tickets to Tuff’s gala charity dinner. The dinner had been sold out for weeks and it had taken all Sir Roland’s charm to obtain five tickets. At the last minute Madame Ling had had one of her migraines and Joe, already bored by long days in his ageing wife’s company, thought it would be amusing to take his sexy mistress in her place.

The holiday hadn’t turned out to be as much fun as Rubiah had hoped. For over a fortnight she’d been sulking in her suite at the Dorchester while Joe spent all his time with his family, attending all the parties and social events the Entwistles had organised for their important client, culminating in a cocktail party to celebrate Pau’s graduation. So she was ecstatic when Joe told her to get dolled up because he was taking her to Tuff’s charity dinner and her mind started working overtime. Why was he taking her to a fancy dinner if he wasn’t ready to show her off to the world? Why was he introducing her to his children if he hadn’t finally decided to divorce their mother?

She’d pulled out all the stops getting dressed and Joe thought she’d never looked more alluring. Even though the cream of the fashion and music world had turned out in Dolce and Gabbana, Versace and Dior, the eyes of the male celebrities were drawn irresistibly to the pocket Venus in the skin-tight red satin dress, run up on a trestle sewing machine in a sweatshop in Miri.

Their table was the centre of attention and Joe was proud to be seen sitting beside his beautiful concubine. The elegance and sophistication of his surroundings infected his mood. The air was rich with insider gossip, their table was excellent, the food was superb and below him the Pool of London sparkled enticingly. The big time beckoned. He felt powerful, ready to jump right in. It was a perfect evening, apart from the behaviour of his sons. Both of them were scowling at their plates, as if they’d been served rotten fish instead of lobster thermidor. Joe was angry that they were spoiling the evening.

Although Joe kept his two lives separate, Rubiah had caught glimpses of Joe’s children over the years. Pau had really grown up since he left Miri, and Rubiah admired his startling movie star looks and sharp, high-cheek-boned profile. He was so different from his moon-faced brother. That’s how Joe would have looked at the same age, she thought. How she wished she’d met her lover before he’d married his wealthy older wife.

Joe was proud of his eldest son, who had graduated from Oxford with a first in economics. Unlike Clarence and Adele, who took after his dull wife, Pau was clever and ambitious. Now that Pau had his degree Joe was looking forward to educating his son in life’s realities. After dinner wound up, he had planned to drop off Clarence and Adele at the apartment in Belgravia and
then kick on with Rubiah and Pau. It was about time his heir and mistress got to know each other. Some of his gangland associates had told him about Lysander’s, a casino where London’s Triad mafia liked to play, and he had been looking forward to cutting loose. But there was no way he was going to allow his moody son to spoil his fun and he abandoned the idea. Pau could stay in the apartment and look after his brother and sister while he enjoyed a night at the Dorchester.

His desire flared as he looked at Rubiah in her tight red
cheongsam,
so much like the one she had been wearing the night they met. His sons might be sulking, but there was no doubt that his mistress was as dazzled by the lavish surroundings as his daughter. Rubiah and Adele gaped in open-mouthed admiration as a bevy of long-legged models danced down the catwalk in Tuff’s sexy lingerie, but that was only the appetiser to the main course. Wearing S&M-style riding gear and cracking a stock whip, Tuff belted out her new single ‘Fierce Love’ from a massive cage. Six powerful bodybuilders, tanned and oiled, strutted their stuff, defiant as half-trained tigers. The climax of the Vegas-style routine was an action-packed martial arts fight. High flying, fast and furious, Tuff was like an energised Jackie Chan. Using acrobatic kicks and stylised karate moves, she spectacularly despatched all her ‘opponents’.

Joseph Ling was not impressed. A seasoned street fighter, he thought the choreographed fight was absurd. ‘She’d be the one on her back if she ever tangled with me,’ he whispered to Rubiah, his hand possessively caressing the warm golden thigh exposed by the deeply slitted cheongsam. His fingers forced their way beneath the skin-tight satin; underneath she was naked.

‘Just as long as you aren’t on top of her,’ Rubiah said, too
aroused to get mad, and with an expert hand she unzipped his fly.

The brothers glanced at each other and rolled their eyes.

‘What a nerve to flaunt his whore in front of his own children,’ hissed Pau, so low that only Clarence heard. He stalked out to the external walkway and stood brooding, the magnificent view of the London evening skyline ignored.

At the end of her performance Tuff stripped down to a crystalbeaded corset and unfastened her dazzling necklace, its facets dazzling in the reflected light from a giant mirror ball. ‘Be generous. Think about the orphans,’ she said, dimpling at the lord mayor and his A-list guests.

‘Oh, Joe, isn’t it lovely?’

‘If you want it, just say the word, babe,’ said Joe.

The bidding started off briskly, but when the bids reached twenty-five thousand pounds everyone else but Joe dropped out.

‘Nothing’s too good for my lady,’ he boasted when Tuff came over to the table to collect the cheque, fluttering her false eyelashes at Joe and Clarence and ignoring Rubiah. But her beguiling performance was lost on the gangster, who thought the macho singer was repulsive. Dainty, feminine women like Rubiah were more to his taste.

‘Enjoy,’ said Tuff, excusing herself as soon as photographs with the Lings had been taken for the social pages. She didn’t want to waste any more of her time on an Asian nobody. A few minutes later she was laughing and joking with a long-forgotten pop star and his Botoxed bride, unaware that Rubiah had recognised her by her tattoo.

Coming straight to the city from a Dayak longhouse, Rubiah
had been scared out of her wits the first time she’d seen the hooded cobra tattooed on Tuff’s upper body, believing the woman possessed demonic power. She had never forgotten and yet she no longer feared her. She had learned that for Westerners a tattoo was just a fashion statement.

‘This calls for champagne,’ said Joe, thinking Rubiah was dazed by the magnificence of his gift. ‘The Krug, a magnum,’ he told the wine waiter.

‘I feel a little dizzy, Joe,’ said Rubiah. ‘I’ll just go outside and get a little fresh air.’

There was no one else on the walkway except for herself and Pau. ‘Look what your father just bought me. You should have stayed for the auction. It was so exciting. I thought Joe would pull out when that rapper in the big clothes dripping gold bid twenty thousand pounds, but he was determined to get it for me.’

Like his brother, Pau was appalled by his father’s generous gift. Did it mean his father was planning to divorce their mother and put this whore in her place? Pau wouldn’t put anything past him. Still brooding over the insult to his adored mother, he felt like ripping the sparkling choker from the slender neck of his father’s expensive whore. Glowering, he elbowed her aside, too angry to answer.

Jealous, thought Rubiah fleetingly, not giving the insult much attention. She had more important things on her mind than a slight from an ill-mannered youth. Who would have thought it – Tuff, the most famous recording star in Britain, was Mei Li’s mother. Rubiah was certain the singer would pay a lot to keep that piece of information quiet, a lot more than Joe had shelled out for the necklace. She made up her mind to confront the star at the first opportunity.

Like a crystal butterfly in her sequined corset, Tuff was flitting from table to table, alighting for a moment beside the most illustrious star but only until she scented a more successful celebrity. But eventually she tired of table hopping and made her way to the ladies’ room. Rubiah excused herself and followed her in.

‘What a surprise bumping into you in here,’ Tuff said, realising she could hardly pretend she hadn’t recognised the Chinese businessman’s tart.

‘It was no accident. I saw you come in here and I followed you. We’ve met before.’

‘One meets so many people,’ sighed Tuff, turning away and searching for her lipgloss.

‘I think you’ll remember when I remind you of the circumstances.’

As if, thought Tuff dismissively. ‘I have to return to my table now. Final speeches, so boring. The necklace looks good on you, by the way.’ She edged towards the door and escape from this persistent nonentity.

‘You caused me a lot of trouble,’ said Rubiah, barring her way. ‘A
lot
of trouble. And now you’re going to have to pay me back, big time.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Tuff fantasised about kicking the woman in the crotch and then dismissed the idea; another court appearance wouldn’t improve her image.

‘Do you know where we come from?’

Tuff shook her head and shrugged.

‘I thought not.’

‘Okay, for christ’s sake where do you live then?’

‘Does Miri mean anything to you?’

‘Miri!’ Tuff was so startled she dropped the lipgloss.

‘I thought that would get your attention. You gave birth to a baby girl in Doctor Kong’s clinic and you sold her, didn’t you?’

‘No, no I never did that. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble making wild accusations.’

‘Didn’t you ever wonder what had happened to her? Did you think about her on her birthday, wonder if she had enough to eat or if people were being kind to her?
Did
you?’ hissed Rubiah. ‘You’re going out there now to make a speech about orphaned children in Africa. What about poor Mei Li?’

‘Mei Li?’