Page 10 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Kriya

The work experience students made me feel about a million years old. They reminded me of what I’d been at their age. Ignorant and insecure, but also idealistic, full of hope and promise.

Had I made good on that promise? Best not to ask. I could look after myself and my parents, and I didn’t have to do anything more strenuous than sit at a desk to do it. My Thaatha would have thought I’d got it made. He’d supported seven children on a rubber tapper’s wages. Who was I to complain?

Only around half of the programme cohort ended up coming with me and Charles to the pub. They clumped together, chatting about coursework, tutors, and friend drama—nothing we aged senior associates could comment on.

I’d been on all evening and I didn’t mind taking the move as an excuse to relax, too. I cast up next to the bar with Charles, a little way away from the rest of the group.

“I liked what you said to Razia, about how our work contributes to the rule of law,” I said. “I’ve never seen it in that light before.”

Charles blushed right up to his hairline. “Oh, I don’t know. It was a bit earnest.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being earnest.”

“No. I suppose not.”

I looked down at my G he was having a beer.

“I know what you mean, though,” I said. “I think it’s easier to be cynical about what we do.

It’s that or trotting out the approved corporate lines, right?

” I shook my head, rueful. “You know, Razia asked me what I was working on and I told her about this corporate acquisition we’re supporting.

I said, ‘It’s very interesting.’ Which, if I’d said that to anyone in the firm, they would have nodded along, right?

Razia looked at me, astonished, and said, ‘ Really? ’”

Charles joined in the laugh with me. He had a nice laugh.

“She’s going to have to improve her poker face if she wants a job in the City,” I said.

Charles nodded. “To be fair, it does sound interesting, the matter you’re working on.”

“It is,” I said judiciously, “compared to some of my other matters. But I don’t think I’ve got your passion for the work.”

Charles blinked, as though taken aback at being accused of being passionate about anything. “I don’t know if I would call it that.”

“But you’re really interested in what you do, right?

” I looked at him wistfully. I’d drunk enough to sand off the rough edges of the world.

I felt loose-jointed, relaxed. “I don’t know that I have that.

I applied for a training contract because I needed a stable job that would pay me well and meant I could stay in the UK.

I like some things about it—the intellectual challenge, and some of my clients, like Rosalind.

But there are a lot of things I could do without. ”

Charles looked thoughtful. “What else would you have done? If money and the rest weren’t a consideration.”

He’d abandoned his jacket and pushed up his sleeves. My eyes skipped from his forearms to the line of his collarbone, visible through the open collar of his shirt. I swallowed and looked away.

“I would have liked to do something that was more about helping people,” I said. “I pick up pro bono work when I can, but it’s hard to juggle with the billable stuff.”

Plus, Arthur got shirty if I filled up my time with too much do-gooding. But I didn’t mention that, out of an obscure sense of loyalty.

“What would you do, if you could do anything else?” I said.

“Well…” Charles hesitated.

Was he about to reveal dreams of running away to the circus? Maybe he secretly yearned to be a Zumba instructor, or an oncologist?

“I did a seat in Tax Law as a trainee,” he said. “It might have been interesting to specialise in that. But there were no jobs when I qualified, and I found Litigation equally stimulating.”

I laughed despite myself.

Charles ran a hand through his hair, sheepish. “Not a very imaginative answer, I know.”

“No, it’s good,” I said. “There are so many miserable lawyers. It’s refreshing to meet someone who loves it. What do you do outside of work?”

“I, uh, I go to the gym.”

I waited, until Charles’s expression turned from sheepish to hangdog. I realised he didn’t have anything else to add.

“That’s cool,” I said encouragingly. “I’d like to get back into working out. I was doing pretty well for a while, but I fell off the wagon.” When Tom dumped me and my life went down the toilet. But that was too much to disclose, less than two weeks into sharing an office.

“Do you have any hobbies?” said Charles.

“Hmm, they mostly revolve around food.” I laughed.

“I like cooking, baking, trying out new restaurants with friends. I was experimenting with making kaya from scratch for a while, doing different flavours, like salted caramel and coffee—oh, kaya’s this spread we have in Malaysia. It’s made from coconut milk and eggs.”

“I know kaya,” said Charles. “My dad’s from Malaysia.”

My eyes widened. “Really? I’m from Malaysia. Where’s your dad from? My parents are in Ipoh.”

“Kuala Lumpur. He moved to Hong Kong before I was born, but I’m familiar with the cuisine,” said Charles. “My dad used to take me to the JW Marriott in Hong Kong for nasi lemak.”

I opened my mouth to remark on going to a five-star hotel to eat nasi lemak —that humblest and most everyday of Malaysian meals—then closed it.

It was hardly a revelation that Charles came from money.

His public school accent gave that away.

I didn’t want to disrupt the nice conversation we were having, if it turned out he was sensitive about it.

“I think Arthur and I are staying at the JW Marriott,” I said instead. “You know we’re going to Hong Kong for a conference next week? I didn’t realise you were from there, or I would have asked for food recommendations.”

Up till now, Charles hadn’t struck me as being particularly Asian. I’d pegged him as being British-born and fairly assimilated. But now he straightened up, a new light coming into his eyes.

“You should go to Yat Lok and have roast goose and lai fun, that’s noodles.

Dim sum, of course—Luk Yu is not bad, that’s also in Central.

If you like milk tea, Lan Fong Yuen is famous.

It’s a cha chaan teng. You could have French toast, or a pork chop bun, those are classics.

Though it’s probably not worth waiting, if there’s a queue. ”

“Hold on. Give me a second,” I said, laughing. “I need to take notes. What was the first one, Yat…?”

“‘Y,’ ‘A,’ ‘T’… If you give me your phone, I can type it out for you.”

His fingers brushed mine as I passed him the phone. There was a jump in my stomach, fierce and unexpected.

I whipped away my hand like I’d been scalded, cheeks warming. Was I really so touch-starved that any encounter with a man in a remotely appropriate age range would get me going?

Admittedly, it had been six months since I’d had a boyfriend, and a year since I’d seen him in person. But I hadn’t noticed missing sex. I’d been too busy missing my life with Tom, the future I’d thought we were going to have together.

At least Charles didn’t seem to have clocked anything. He was scowling down at my phone as though it had stolen a priceless family heirloom from him.

After a week and a half of sitting opposite Charles while he worked, I knew this was the default expression his face assumed when he was concentrating. I was even starting to find it charming.

“You miss Hong Kong, huh,” I said.

“The food,” said Charles, with feeling.

“Would you ever go back? Is your dad still there?”

Charles handed my phone back to me. This time we didn’t touch, to my relief.

Though if I were being honest with myself, that relief had a distinct undertone of disappointment to it.

I had to get back on the dating apps. Clearly my body was waking up again, after six months of being too sad to have a libido.

It was a natural development, the blurring effect of the passage of time.

Nothing to do with Charles himself. I probably would have responded like that to being touched by any reasonably attractive man.

“Most of my family lives there, yes,” Charles was saying. “I might go back some day. I came over here when I was eleven, for school, so it’s comfortable. But my mum’s back in Hong Kong, and she’s getting older.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know what you mean.”

Though it wasn’t likely I’d ever go home, much as I worried about my parents.

Amma and Appa would have a fit. I worked so hard to get a good degree and a good job in UK, what for did I want to go back to Malaysia?

So I could have estate agents turn me down for being Indian when I wanted to rent a place?

So I could be passed over for promotions at work, in favour of my Malay (if government) or Chinese (if private sector) colleagues?

Hong Kong had its own problems, but any issues Charles had with Hong Kong were going to be very different from my animus against Malaysia. Or, more accurately, Malaysia’s animus against me.

Charles’s eyes flicked to a point above my shoulder. One of the students had come up to us.

“We’re going to head off, but thanks for speaking to us. It was really helpful,” she said. “Um, we put our drinks on the tab. What do we owe you?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Are you guys all right to get home? OK. Enjoy the rest of your time with the firm. We’ll try to make it to the closing drinks.”

When we’d waved them off, I turned to Charles. “Can I have the firm credit card? They needed a card behind the bar to set up a tab, so I gave them mine. The bill comes to around ￡ 180.”

I hadn’t expected this to be controversial, but Charles hesitated.

“Farah said it was just for the wine bar. I don’t think she meant for the firm to cover us if we went on anywhere else.”

“Oh. OK.” I supposed it was consistent that Kawan Baik should be scrupulous about the firm’s budget. It fit with everything I’d seen of him so far—the surprising idealism about his work, the tendency towards rigidity. “Fair enough. Shall we split it, then?”

Charles wouldn’t meet my eyes. A bad feeling unfolded in the pit of my stomach—a harbinger of disappointment.

“I assumed everyone was going to cover their own drinks,” he said.

Charles had to be on at least ￡ 150,000 a year, same as me, not including bonuses.

He was probably on more, given he’d been with the firm for longer and he was a man.

He was single, with no dependents; he’d gone to boarding school; and his father used to take him to the JW Marriott for nasi lemak.

Ninety pounds was nothing to him. Small change.

I was the one who’d told everyone we’d cover their drinks, I reminded myself. I hadn’t given Charles the chance to disagree.

But it was the accepted convention at social occasions like these that the most senior person paid.

Partners and senior associates covered the drinks of trainees, who were on what were, by any measure, healthy salaries.

The rule had to apply all the more to university students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.

To be fair, I could afford to drop ￡ 180 on everyone’s drinks. It wasn’t about the money.

“OK,” I said. “I misunderstood. I’ll cover it.”

Charles looked wretched. “Sorry.”

I half expected him to row it back, or offer to cover some of the bill, even if he wasn’t up for splitting it fifty-fifty. But he didn’t.

“No worries,” I said.

There was no reason to feel upset about it. I’d volunteered us to pay the bill. Charles didn’t want to. That was his prerogative. Just because he was rich didn’t mean he couldn’t be stingy. That was how rich people hung on to their money, by refusing to share it with anyone else.

But I’d been starting to like Charles.

I thought wistfully of Tom. Money had never been an issue with him. Sure, I’d paid for both of us most of the time, when we ate out and went travelling. But then, he’d earned a fraction of what I did. It simply hadn’t mattered.

Or so I’d thought. When Tom moved to California, it had been for a six-figure salary—a huge step up for him. Maybe he’d no longer wanted me, once he was earning that kind of money himself.

Wow, thanks, brain. That was super helpful.

“I’ll go settle up,” I said.

At least Kawan Baik and I were going to have a break from each other after this evening. I worked from home Thursdays and Fridays, and I was flying to Hong Kong on Sunday. I was going to be away for two weeks: four days in Hong Kong, then the rest of the time on leave in Malaysia.

I’d be over this by the time I saw Charles again, in a better place to make nice. I was going to be sharing an office with him for the foreseeable future, after all. I needed to keep things civil.

I’d tried to keep my tone pleasant, but something of my real feelings must have filtered through. Charles’s face fell.

I felt bad for him, despite my irritation. Poor Kawan Baik. It was like he couldn’t even help himself.

“Good night, Charles,” I said, more gently.

“Good night,” he said.