5
Fort Canning Park
•
SINGAPORE
As the wedding guests began filtering into the park behind First Methodist Church for the reception, more gasps of astonishment could be heard.
“What now?” Victoria grumbled. “I’m so tired of all this ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘aiyahing’—I keep thinking somebody is going into cardiac arrest!” But as Victoria passed through the gates at Canning Rise, even she was momentarily silenced by the sight of the great lawn. In stark contrast to the church, the wedding reception looked like an atomic explosion of flowers. Thirty-foot-tall topiaries in gigantic pots and colossal spirals of pink roses encircled the field, where dozens of whimsical gazebos festooned in striped pastel taffeta had been built. In the center, an immense teapot spouted a waterfall of bubbly champagne into a cup the size of a small swimming pool, and a full string ensemble performed on what appeared to be a giant revolving Wedgwood plate. The scale of everything made the guests feel as if they had been transported to a tea party for giants.
“Alamak, someone pinch me!” Puan Sri Mavis Oon exclaimed as she caught sight of the food pavilions, where waiters in powdered white wigs and Tiffany-blue frock coats stood at tables piled mountain-high with sweets and savories.
Oliver escorted Rachel and Cassandra onto the great lawn. “I’m a bit confused—is this supposed to be the Mad Hatter’s tea party or Marie Antoinette on a bad acid trip?”
“Looks like a combination of both,” Rachel remarked.
“Now what do you suppose they’re going to do with all these flowers once the reception ends?” Oliver wondered.
Cassandra stared up at the towering cascade of roses. “In this heat, they will all be rotten within three hours! I’m told the price of roses spiked to an all-time high this week at the Aalsmeer Flower Auction. Annabel bought up all the roses on the world market and had them flown in from Holland on a 747 freighter.”
Rachel looked around at the guests parading the floral wonderland in their festive hats, their jewels glinting in the afternoon sun, and shook her head in disbelief.
“Ollie, how much did you say these Mainlanders spent?” Cassandra asked.
“Forty million, and for heaven’s sake, Cassandra, the Lees have lived in Singapore for decades now. You need to stop calling them Mainlanders.”
“Well, they still behave like Mainlanders, as this ridiculous reception proves. Forty million—I just don’t see where all the money went.”
“Well I’ve been keeping a tally, and I’m only up to five or six million so far. God help us, I think the motherlode is being spent on tonight’s ball,” Oliver surmised.
“I can’t imagine how they’re going to top this,” Rachel said.
“Refreshments, anyone?” a voice behind her said. Rachel turned around to see Nick holding two glasses of champagne.
“Nick!” she cried excitedly.
“What did you all think of the wedding ceremony?” Nick asked, gallantly handing drinks to the ladies.
“Wedding? I could have sworn it was a coronation,” Oliver retorted. “Anyway, who cares about the ceremony? The important question is: What did everyone think of Araminta’s dress?”
“It was lovely. It looked deceptively simple, but the longer you stared at it, the more you noticed the details,” Rachel offered.
“Ugh. It was awful. She looked like some kind of medieval bride,” Cassandra sniggered.
“That was the point, Cassandra. I thought the dress was a triumph. Valentino at his best, channeling Botticelli’s Primavera and Marie de’ Medici’s arrival in Marseilles.”
“I have no idea what you just said, Ollie, but I agree.” Nick laughed.
“You looked so serious up there at the altar,” Rachel remarked.
“It was very serious business! Speaking of which, I’m going to steal Rachel away for a moment,” Nick said to his cousins, grasping Rachel’s hand.
“Hey—there are children around. No hanky-panky in the bushes!” Oliver warned.
“Alamak, Ollie, with Kitty Pong here, I don’t think Nicky’s the one we need to worry about,” Cassandra said drily.
Kitty stood in the middle of the great lawn, staring in wonder at everything around her. Here at last was something worth getting excited about! Her trip to Singapore so far had been nothing but a series of disappointments. First of all, they were staying at that cool new hotel with the huge park on the roof, but all the suites were booked up and they were stuck in a lousy regular room. And then there was Alistair’s family, who clearly weren’t as rich as she had been led to believe. Alistair’s auntie Felicity lived in an old wooden house with old Chinese furniture that wasn’t even polished properly. They were nothing compared to the rich families she knew in China, who lived in huge newly built mansions decorated by the top designers from Paris France. Then there was Alistair’s mother, who looked like one of those dowdy Family Planning Commission workers who used to come to her village in Qinghai to give advice about birth control. At last they were finally at this fairy-tale wedding reception, where she could be surrounded by the crème de la crème of society.
“Isn’t that fellow in the bow tie the chief executive of Hong Kong?” Kitty whispered loudly to Alistair.
“Yes, I believe it is,” Alistair answered.
“Do you know him?”
“I’ve met him once or twice—my parents know him.”
“Really? Where are your parents, by the way? They disappeared so quickly after the wedding, I didn’t even get a chance to say hi,” Kitty said with a little pout.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. My dad’s right there piling his plate with langoustines, and my mum is over in that purple-striped gazebo with my grandmother.”
“Oh, your Ah Ma is here?” Kitty said, peering at the gazebo. “There are so many old ladies in there—which one is she?”
Alistair pointed her out.
“Who is that woman talking to her right now? The one in the yellow head scarf, covered head to toe in diamonds!”
“Oh, that’s one of my Ah Ma’s old friends. I think she’s some sort of Malay princess.”
“Oooh, a princess? Take me to meet her now!” Kitty insisted, dragging Alistair away from the dessert tent.
In the gazebo, Alexandra noticed her son and that strumpet (she refused to call her his fiancée) walking intently toward her. Hiyah, were they actually on their way here? Did Alistair not have the sense to keep Kitty away from his grandmother, especially when she was receiving Mrs. Lee Yong Chien and the Sultana of Borneo?
“Astrid, it’s getting a bit crowded. Will you please tell the sultana’s bodyguards to make sure no one else is allowed in?” she whispered to her niece, her eyes darting frantically at Alistair and Kitty.
“Of course, Auntie Alix,” Astrid said.
As Alistair and Kitty approached the gazebo, three guards in crisp military dress uniforms blocked the steps in front of it. “Sorry, no more people allowed in,” a guard announced.
“Oh, but my family’s in there. That’s my mother and grandmother.” Alistair pointed, peering over the guard’s shoulder. He tried to catch his mother’s eye, but she seemed to be engrossed in conversation with her cousin Cassandra.
“Yoohoo!” Kitty cried out. She took off her huge polka-dotted straw hat and began waving it excitedly, jumping up and down. “Yoohoo, Mrs. Cheng!”
Alistair’s grandmother peered out and asked, “Who is that girl jumping about?”
Alexandra wished at that moment she had put an end to her son’s ridiculous romance when she’d had the chance.
“It’s nobody. Just someone trying to get a glimpse of Her Royal Highness,” Astrid cut in, gesturing toward the sultana.
“Is that Alistair with the jumping girl?” Su Yi asked, squinting her eyes.
“Trust me, Mummy, just ignore them,” Alexandra whispered nervously.
Cassandra decided that it would be far more amusing to throw a wrench into this little charade. “Aiyah, Koo Por, that’s Alistair’s new girlfriend,” she said mischievously, as Alexandra glared at her in exasperation.
“The Hong Kong starlet you were telling me about, Cassandra? Let her in—I want to meet her,” Su Yi said. She turned to Mrs. Lee Yong Chien with a gleam in her eye. “My youngest grandson is dating some Hong Kong soap-opera actress.”
“An actress?” Mrs. Lee made a face, as Alistair and Kitty were allowed into the gazebo.
“Ah Ma, I want you to meet my fiancée, Kitty Pong,” Alistair boldly announced in Cantonese.
“Your fiancée? Nobody told me you got engaged,” Su Yi said, shooting her daughter a look of surprise. Alexandra couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her mother.
“So nice to meet you,” Kitty said in a perfunctory tone, utterly disinterested in Alistair’s elderly grandma. She turned to the sultana and dipped into a deep curtsey. “Your Honor, it is such a privilege to meet you!”
Cassandra turned away, trying to keep a straight face, while the other ladies glowered at Kitty.
“Wait a minute, are you the youngest sister in Many Splendid Things?” the sultana suddenly asked.
“Yes, she is,” Alistair proudly answered for her.
“Alamaaaaak, I love your show!” the sultana exclaimed. “My God, you’re so eeeeee-vil! Tell me, you didn’t really die in that tsunami, did you?”
Kitty grinned. “I’m not telling you—you’ll just have to wait for next season. Your Gracefulness, your jewels are magnificent. Is that diamond brooch real? It’s bigger than a golf ball!”
The sultana nodded her head in amusement. “It’s called the Star of Malaya.”
“Ooooh, can I touch it, Your Highness?” Kitty asked. Mrs. Lee Yong Chien was about to protest, but the sultana eagerly leaned forward.
“My God, feel the weight!” Kitty sighed, cupping the diamond in her palm. “How many carats?”
“One hundred and eighteen,” the sultana declared.
“One day, you’ll buy me something just like this, won’t you?” Kitty said to Alistair unabashedly. The other ladies were aghast.
The sultana reached for her bejeweled handbag and pulled out an embroidered lace handkerchief. “Will you please autograph this?” she asked Kitty expectantly.
“Your Majesticness, it would be my pleasure!” Kitty beamed.
The sultana turned to Shang Su Yi, who had been surveying the whole exchange with bemused interest. “This is your grandson’s fiancée? How delightful. Be sure you invite me to the wedding!” The sultana began to wiggle off one of the three humongous diamond rings on her left hand and handed it to Kitty, as the ladies looked on in horror. “Congratulations on your engagement—this is for you. Taniah dan semoga kamu gembira selalu.”
The farther Nick and Rachel walked from the great lawn, the more the park began to change. The strains of the string ensemble gave way to birds with strangely hypnotic chirps as they entered a pathway shaded by the sprawling branches of two-hundred-year-old Angsana trees. “I love it over here—it’s like we’re on a whole other island,” Rachel said, savoring the cool relief underneath the lush canopy.
“I love it here too. We’re in the oldest part of the park, an area that’s sacred to the Malays,” Nick explained quietly. “You know, back when the island was called Singapura and was part of the ancient Majapahit empire, this is where they built a shrine to the last king.”
“ ‘The Last King of Singapura.’ Sounds like a movie. Why don’t you write the screenplay?” Rachel remarked.
“Ha! I think it’ll draw an audience of about four,” Nick replied.
They reached a clearing in the pathway, and a small colonial-era structure covered in moss came into view. “Whoa—is this the shrine?” Rachel asked, lowering her voice.
“No, this is the gatehouse. When the British came in the nineteenth century, they built a fort here,” Nick explained as they approached the structure and the pair of massive iron doors under the archway. The doors were wide open, flush against the inner wall of the tunnel-like gatehouse, and Nick slowly pulled on one of the heavy doors, revealing a dark narrow entrance cut into the thick stonework, and beyond it the steps leading to the roof of the gatehouse.
“Welcome to my hideout,” Nick whispered, his voice echoing in the tight stairway.
“Is it safe to go up?” Rachel asked, assessing steps that looked like they hadn’t been treaded on in decades.
“Of course. I used to come up here all the time,” Nick said, bounding up the steps eagerly. “Come on!”
Rachel followed gingerly, taking care not to rub any part of her pristine dress against the dirt-caked stairway. The roof was covered in freshly fallen leaves, gnarled tree branches, and the remnants of an old cannon. “Pretty cool, isn’t it? At one point, there were more than sixty cannons lining the battlements of the fort. Come take a look at this!” Nick said excitedly as he disappeared around the corner. Rachel could hear the schoolboy adventurer in his voice. Along the south wall, someone had scrawled long vertical lines of Chinese characters in what looked like a muddy-brown color. “Written with blood,” Nick said in a hushed voice.
Rachel stared at the characters in amazement. “I can’t make them out . . . it’s so faded, and it’s that old form of Chinese. What do you think happened?”
“We used to make up theories about it. The one I came up with was that some poor prisoner was chained here and left to die by Japanese soldiers.”
“I’m getting sort of creeped out,” Rachel said, shaking off a sudden chill.
“Well, you wanted to see the proverbial ‘sacred cave.’ This is as close to it as you’re going to get. I used to bring my girlfriends up here to make out after Sunday school. This is where I had my first kiss,” Nick announced brightly.
“Of course it is. I couldn’t imagine a more eerily romantic hideout,” Rachel said.
Nick pulled Rachel closer. She thought they were about to kiss, but Nick’s expression seemed to shift into a more serious mode. He thought of the way she looked earlier that morning, with the light streaming in through the stained-glass windows and glinting on her hair.
“You know, when I saw you in the church today sitting with my family, do you know what I thought?”
Rachel could feel her heart suddenly begin to race. “Whh . . . what?”
Nick paused, gazing deeply into her eyes. “This feeling came over me, and I just knew tha—”
The sound of someone coming up the stairs suddenly interrupted them, and they broke away from their embrace. A ravishing girl with a short-cropped Jean Seberg hairstyle appeared at the top of the stairs, and behind her shuffled a portly Caucasian man. Rachel immediately recognized the hand-painted Dries Van Noten dress from Patric’s atelier that the girl was wearing.
“Mandy!” Nick gasped in surprise.
“Nico!” the girl replied with a smile.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you think I’m doing here, silly rabbit? I had to escape from that taaaaacky reception. Did you see that ghastly giant teapot? I half expected it to get up and start singing in Angela Lansbury’s voice,” she said, shifting her gaze onto Rachel.
Great. Another Singapore girl with a posh English accent, Rachel thought.
“Where are my manners?” Nick quickly recovered. “Rachel, this is Amanda Ling. You might remember meeting her mum, Jacqueline, the other night at Ah Ma’s.”
Rachel smiled and extended her hand.
“And this is Zvi Goldberg,” Mandy reciprocated. Zvi nodded quickly, still trying to catch his breath. “Well, I came up here to show Zvi the place where I received my first kiss. And would you believe it, Zvi, the boy who kissed me is standing right before us,” Mandy said, looking straight at Nick.
Rachel turned to Nick with a raised eyebrow. His cheeks were bright red.
“You gotta be kidding! You guys plan this reunion or something?” Zvi cracked.
“Swear to God we didn’t. This is a complete coincidence,” Mandy declared.
“Yes, I thought you were dead set against coming to the wedding,” Nick said.
“Well, I changed my mind at the last minute. Especially since Zvi has this fabulous new plane that can zip around so quickly—our flight from New York only took fifteen hours!”
“Oh, you live in New York too?” Rachel inquired.
“Yes, I do. What, has Nico never mentioned me to you? Nico, I’m so hurt,” Mandy said in mock outrage. She turned to Rachel with a placid smile. “I feel like I have an unfair advantage, since I’ve heard loads about you.”
“You have?” Rachel couldn’t hide her look of surprise. Why had Nick never once mentioned this friend of his, this beautiful girl who inexplicably kept calling him Nico? Rachel gave Nick a measured look, but he simply smiled back, oblivious to the nagging thoughts filling her mind.
“Well, I suppose we ought to get back to the reception,” Mandy suggested. As the foursome made their way toward the stairs, Mandy halted abruptly. “Oh look, Nico. I can’t believe it—it’s still here!” She traced her fingers over a section of the wall right beside the staircase.
Rachel peered at the wall and saw the names Nico and Mandi carved into the rock, joined together by an infinity symbol.