loved relation but because of his expertise in catering to the needs of his more privileged cousins. Over the past two decades, Ah Tock had smartly leveraged his family connections and founded FiveStarLobang.com, an exclusive luxury concierge service that serviced the most spoiled Singaporeans—from procuring that Beluga black Bentley Bentayga months before it hit the market to arranging covert Brazilian butt-lifts for bored mistresses.
Crossing the quadrangle that separated the servants’ wing from the main house, they passed the kitchen garden, which was meticulously planted with rows of fresh herbs and vegetables. “Oh my. Look at those little red chilli padis—I’m sure they must be extra hot!” Ah Tock exclaimed.
“Yes. Burn-your-mouth hot. Let’s not forget to pluck some for your mother. We also have too much basil right now—it’s just gone wild. Do you want some of that too?”
“I’m not sure what Mama would do with that. Isn’t it an ang mor*3 herb?”
“We use it here for the Thai dishes. The Thais use basil a lot in their cooking. And also sometimes Her Imperial Highness demands fancy ang mor food. She likes this disgusting sauce called ‘pesto.’ It takes so many of these basil leaves just to make one little batch of pesto sauce, and then she eats one tiny plate of linguine with pesto and the rest gets thrown out.”
A young maid walked past them, and switching to Mandarin, Ah Ling ordered, “Lan Lan, can you pluck a big packet of the chilli padis for Mr. Tay to take home?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl replied shyly before darting off.
“Very cute. She’s new?” Ah Tock asked.
“Yes, and she’s not going to last long. Spends too much time staring into her phone when she knows she’s not allowed. All these young China girls don’t have the same work ethic as my generation did,” Ah Ling complained, as she led Ah Tock through the kitchen, where half a dozen cooks sat around the enormous wooden worktable, deep in concentration as they meticulously folded little bits of pastry.
“Shiok!*4 You’re making pineapple tarts!” Ah Tock said.
“Yes—we always make a huge batch whenever Alfred Shang comes to town.”
“But didn’t I hear that Alfred brought over his own Singaporean chef to England? Some Hainanese hotshot?”
“Yes, but Alfred still prefers our pineapple tarts. He complains that it’s not the same when Marcus tries to make it in England…something about the flour and water being different.”
Crazy rich bastard, Ah Tock thought to himself. Even though he had been coming here for as long as he could remember, he never ceased to be awed by Tyersall Park. He had of course been into many homes of the high and mighty, but nothing else came close to this. Even the kitchen was impressive beyond belief—a series of cavernous spaces with vaulted ceilings, walls covered in beautiful majolica tiles, and rows of shimmering copper pans and perfectly seasoned woks hanging over the gigantic Aga stoves. It looked like the kitchen of some historic resort hotel in the south of France. Ah Tock remembered a story his father had told him: Back in the old days before the war, Gong Gong*5 loved entertaining—there used to be parties for three hundred people every month at Tyersall Park, and we lesser children weren’t allowed to attend, so we used to peer down at the guests from the upstairs balcony in our pajamas.
Taking a service staircase to the second floor, they walked down another hallway leading into the east wing. There, Ah Tock found his cousin Victoria Young on the sofa of the study room adjoining her bedroom, going through stacks of old papers with one of her personal maids. Victoria was the only one of Su Yi’s children who still lived at Tyersall Park, and in many ways she was even more imperious than her mother, hence “Her Imperial Highness,” the nickname Ah Tock and Ah Ling used behind her back. Ah Tock stood in the room for several minutes, seemingly ignored. By now, he should be used to this kind of dismissive treatment, since his entire family had for three generations basically served as glorified help to these cousins, but he nevertheless felt a bit insulted.
“Lincoln, you’re early.” Victoria finally looked up for a moment to acknowledge his presence, calling Ah Tock by his English name as she riffled through a set of blue aerogram letters. “These can be shredded,” she said, handing them off to the maid, who immediately fed them into the paper shredder.
Victoria’s severe chin-length bobbed hair was looking frizzier and grayer than ever. Ah Tock wondered if she had ever heard of hair conditioner. She was wearing a white lab coat stained with paint marks over a polyester leopard-print blouse and what appeared to be white silk pajama pants. If she wasn’t born a Young, everyone would think she’s an escapee from Woodbridge.*6 Fed up with waiting, Ah Tock tried to break the silence. “That looks like a ton of paperwork!”
“Mummy’s personal papers. She wants everything destroyed.”
“Er…are you sure you should be doing this? Wouldn’t some historians be interested in Great-auntie Su Yi’s letters?”
Victoria frowned at Ah Tock. “Precisely why I’m going through all of them. Some we’ll save for the National Archives or the museums if there’s anything relevant. But anything personal Mummy wants gone before she dies.”
Ah Tock was taken aback by how matter-of-factly Victoria put it. He tried to change the subject to more pleasant matters. “You’ll be pleased…everything is on schedule to be delivered. The seafood supplier is sending a big truck tomorrow. They promised me the very best lobsters, jumbo prawns, and Dungeness crabs. They’ve never gotten such a large private order before.”
“Good.” Victoria nodded.
Ah Tock was pleased with the huge kickback he was getting from the seafood supplier, but he still found it hard to believe that the two Thai daughters-in-law of his cousin Catherine Young Aakara—Su Yi’s second-eldest child—subsisted on a diet of shellfish and nothing else.
“And I managed to track down that mineral-water bottler in Adelboden,” Ah Tock said.
“So they can have all the water here in time?”
“Well, it’s coming from Switzerland, so it will take about a week—”
“Cat and her family arrive on Thursday. Can’t you have it airfreighted?”
“It is being airfreighted.”
“Well Lincoln, get them to put a rush on it. Or have some courier service do it if these people can’t get it here fast enough.”
“It’s going to cost a fortune to have five hundred gallons of bottled water flown overnight!” Ah Tock exclaimed.