Page 44 of Behind Frenemy Lines

Charles

Inbox was teeming with unread emails when I got back to my desk. Instead of catching up on them, I grabbed my personal phone.

Nipped downstairs and out the back entrance to the alley where I talk to Ma when she insists on calling me during the working day. Stepped over an abandoned coffee cup, the cardboard dissolving in a pool of cold latte, and scrolled down the contacts list on my phone.

Hadn’t rung the number in a while. Wasn’t sure he’d pick up. But he did.

Ba: “Wai. Son?”

Didn’t blame him for being surprised. Couldn’t recall the last time we’d spoken on the phone.

CG: “Hello, Ba. Can you talk?”

Ba: “What do you want to talk about?” Sounded apprehensive.

Probably thought I was about to tell him I wasn’t going to come up with the outstanding ￡ 25,000, so he’d have to pay off his debts himself. In other words, he might have to face a single consequence of his behaviour, for once in his life.

Unfair of me. Ba faced consequences before, e.g., when he went to jail.

This was why I avoided talking to him. Didn’t like who I was when I had to interact with Ba.

CG: “Have you spoken to Boey Kah Seng recently? Shaw Boey’s dad.”

Ba, perking up: “Ah, you heard? Not Boey Kah Seng, but the son contacted me. Polite boy. He’s a big deal now, but he still knows how to respect his father’s old friend.

You know, whether you agree or not, this Shaw Boey knows how to get ahead.

Most people only wish. They don’t do. This boy, he does things. ”

CG: “When you say he ‘does things,’ you mean the allegations that he’s embezzled billions from a sovereign wealth fund?”

Ba: “Most people, it’s not that they don’t want to do like him. They just don’t have the guts.”

I disagreed, but didn’t want to be arguing about this. Had a bigger fight to pick.

Until my bizarre conversation with Shaw, I’d accepted that it fundamentally wasn’t my job to decide whether or not Helen Daley’s Guardian article was accurate. That was for a court to determine, based on the evidence adduced by each side.

But in light of the past hour or so, I was compelled to conclude that what Ms. Daley had reported was basically true. Clearly there was sufficient proof of the allegations out there as to cause Shaw concern.

It would have been more effective if he’d offered to bribe Farah and the entire risk management committee. But perhaps he viewed the ￡ 200 million Blackmount deal we were advising on in that light. Robert Anderson certainly wouldn’t be happy to alienate the man who’d given him that instruction.

That was a fight for Farah to have. In the meantime, I had to sort myself out.

CG: “Did Shaw offer you a job?”

Ba: “Yes, at Boey Kah Seng’s company. Haven’t confirmed the package yet.

Once they confirmed, I was going to tell the family.

” Sighed. “Back then, Boey Kah Seng and I were equals. I was better off, my salary was good. His father only gave him a small allowance. I used to pay when we went out for dinner. Now I’m supposed to call him ‘boss.’ Well, we don’t all have the same luck, in this world. ”

CG: “If they come back to you, you’ve got to tell them you can’t accept the job, Ba. They were only offering it to you as a bribe. My firm’s acting for Shaw Boey’s company and there are some irregularities he wants us to ignore. That’s the reason he approached you.”

Ba: “Who told you that?” Before I could answer, he went on: “Just because I’ve had some bad luck, you think nobody wants me to work with them? You don’t know, your father has a lot of experience in business. People used to fight to get a meeting with me.”

CG: “Well, what’s the job description? What are your duties going to be?”

Ba: “That’s not confirmed yet. We will discuss all that.”

CG: “Ba, it’s not normal to be approached for a job where you haven’t even been told what you’re going to do. They’ve promised you a lot of money, I assume. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?”

Ba: “You don’t know how things work here. In Asia, it’s about who you know, not just what you know. Boey Kah Seng is my old friend from back then, so he knows I can add value to his company. But my own son doesn’t think anyone would want to give me a job!”

CG: “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Did not, in fact, think that a man in his sixties with a fraud conviction, who hadn’t been in regular employment for years, would be viewed as a catch by most employers. But I wasn’t about to say so. May have problems with my bedside manner, but I’m not that tactless.

I said: “The problem is with this particular job offer. Shaw Boey made it because he wants a hold on me, and by extension, the firm. He wants to make it so, if I become aware of information to his disadvantage, I won’t feel able to act on it as I should.”

Ba: “So what?”

CG: “What?”

Ba: “You young people, you only think about yourself. You’re lucky. You don’t know what it’s like to have people chase you for money while you have children to feed.”

Could have pointed out I had an intimate knowledge of what it was like to be chased for money, thanks to him.

But I could hear Ma’s voice in my head: “Your father is getting older. Old people are very sensitive. If you scold him, you may feel good, but then what will happen? He will get angry, maybe he will stop talking to you. He has other children, but you only have one father.”

It wasn’t her argument I found persuasive, so much as the subtext: You’re strong. He’s weak.

Ba needed looking after. Had always been true. He wasn’t good at it himself.

CG: “It’s not just about me. You can’t trust Shaw Boey. He’s going to get in trouble. He’s probably got the money to wriggle out of it, but if you get caught up in it, you won’t.”

Ba wasn’t listening. “I told your mother she gave you too much face. She never listened. Now, see, it’s made you selfish. You don’t care about your own father, your own siblings. Don’t you want us to have a comfortable life?”

Had been the subject of Ba’s diatribes before, but it hadn’t happened in a while. Had forgotten how confusing it was, as well as unpleasant. Like being bashed over the head by a screaming toddler, except the toddler was in his sixties.

CG: “I do. Of course I do. That’s why I sent you twenty-five grand.”

Ba: “Compared to what we need, that’s nothing. Now I have a chance to help the family, and you’re trying to tell me not to take it. We are in this situation, even one million would be just enough to pay off our debt, and you want to lecture me—”

CG: “Wait, one million?” Chill ran down my back. “Are you saying you’re in debt for a hundred thousand pounds? Ma said it was fifty.”

Ba, grandly: “Better not tell your mother. She’s had enough stress in her life.” As though he weren’t the chief source of Ma’s stress. “You already know I’m in a bad situation. Whether it’s five hundred thousand or one million, what difference does it make?”

CG: “Of course it makes a difference. Coming up with a hundred thousand pounds is a much bigger deal than coming up with fifty thousand.”

Ba: “Who’s asking you to come up with anything?

I didn’t ask you to give me money. Once I have this job, I’ll be able to help myself.

I won’t have to put up with you ordering me around.

You are the son and you are acting as though you are the father!

You’re telling me I must suffer, because if I work for Boey Kah Seng, it will make problems at your job.

What’s the point of being a lawyer, if not to help your family? ”

CG: “The point of being a lawyer is being a good one. It’s meaningless if you decide the rules governing the profession can be ignored for self-interest.”

Ba: “Nonsense. Who matters more than your family? What are you following all these rules for?”

CG: “For myself.”

And for society, I might have added, but Ba wasn’t about to listen to an account of how my work contributed to the rule of law. He was too busy working himself up into a tantrum.

Ba: “You think you’re a big man, because you sent me some money. You think I don’t know it’s pocket change to you? With your salary, you should be saving, investing. It’s not like you have a wife or children. Where has all your money gone?”

Could have said: on living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, financially supporting Ma since it wasn’t like she had a pension or had been able to save any of the money she’d worked so hard to earn over the years, and also, bailing Ba out of all his previous emergencies.

But Ba didn’t give me the chance to reel it off.

He said: “If you’re going to be like this, I don’t need your help.

Ha! You think I have no pride? You expect your father to kowtow to you, is it?

Even if you offered me one million, I wouldn’t take it.

Don’t bother sending me the rest of the money. I will handle it myself.”

Opened my mouth to reason with him. Shut it.

What was I going to say? Don’t be angry, Ba. I’ll go and kill myself raising another ￡ 75,000 for you, so you can berate me the next time I try to warn you off yet another terrible decision.

I could do what I’d been doing all along: take the drubbing, and keep giving Ba whatever he needed, when he needed it. It was what I was supposed to do. According to my parents.

But if this conversation with Ba had shown anything, it was that his judgment wasn’t to be relied on. I couldn’t stop Ba from working with Shaw Boey and his family, if Shaw gave him the job—which seemed unlikely, after what I’d done this morning. I couldn’t save Ba from his choices.

But I could opt out of being involved.

CG: “All right.”

Shocked silence on the line.

Ba: “What?”

Almost laughed, he sounded so taken aback.

CG: “I won’t send you the rest of the money.”

Ba: “What are you talking about? Because I am lecturing you, you want to throw a tantrum? Don’t you know it’s my responsibility as your father to teach you? Who are you to threaten me?”

Wouldn’t have said I had any respect for Ba left to lose. Little had I known.