“Yes. All the women love you. You had many girlfriends, but you got tired of them. Too much trouble. You took a mistress instead. More convenient and no expectations.”
“Where?”
“You were together a long time, and she wanted to marry you, but Jiao is not the one you love. She is in Shenzen now. You bought her a spa business. You called it a going away present. She wants to come here to see you but Peter said no.”
He’d had a mistress named Jiao, but he sent her away. She didn’t sound blonde, but he suddenly knew she was elegant and regal and swore like a trucker. He saw a grand old house in a gracious tree lined street. He’d lived there. He saw an apartment high above the city. Glass and wood, sky and cloud. He’d lived there too. He smelled leather and felt warmth in his hand and knew Bo had driven a powerful car and brought him strong black coffee. He turned to Bo. His friend wore a wedding ring, but his wife died of cancer a long time ago.
There were images in his head. Disconnected; out of sequence, like scenes from dozens of different movies spliced together.
Hiding in the dark. Dead eyes staring. Spiderman. A pile of books. A steel mill, spooky under moonlight. Black satin sheets in a bedroom opening out onto a lake. Cuffs tight around his wrists. A pocketful of tiny crystals and pearls. A cold steamed dumpling broken in four. Blonde hair and Bruce Lee.
His surname wasn’t Brown.
There was a riverbank, it was night and he itched. He put his hand to his nose, straight now, perfect after surgery, but that night, broken for the second time.
He was starting to remember.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
32. Spin
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius
The suit wardrobe provided was pinstriped. They teamed it with a red camisole. You’d only see a small V of it, a hint of lace, an acceptable suggestion of sex, under the businesslike jacket on camera. It was a nice suit, reminded her of a nicer one.
“You good, Darce? You’ve gone white.”
Darcy shook her head and smiled at Nadia. “I’m good.” She wriggled her toes, looked down at her bare feet, trying to collect herself. It happened less often now, the sudden disorienting flashbacks to Quingpu, but nearly eight months on they could still catch her off guard. “What shoes for this?”
“Red heels. But you’re doing this one in the studio, right, you can wear your Uggs if you want to.”
“Too weird, even though I know as far as the camera is concerned I have no legs.”
Nadia flattened one hand across her curly hair, the other under her chest in a frame. “That’s the reason they call ‘em talking heads.”
Darcy stepped into the heels. Red like red bean soup. Red like Will’s blood coating his side and arm, dripping on the floor. Damn. She needed to get some air, get a grip before she went into the studio.
The counsellor said it was normal to have panic attacks after what she’d been through, but current affairs show hosts didn’t crack up before going on air and expect to keep anchoring the country’s second highest rating news program.
“Eat something, Darce. I know I’m not supposed to believe there’s such a thing as too thin for TV, but you look like you could do with a good feed.”
Darcy studied herself in the mirror. She was thinner than she’d ever been in her life, and it hadn’t been hard to get that way. After Shanghai, food lost its attraction and working hard helped keep her weight down. Of course the station bosses liked her this way, so it was part of the package. Part of what she did to earn her seven figure salary. Being thin was synonymous with successful. It was the perfect accessory for her sky-blue convertible, her beach view apartment and her designer wardrobe. It went well with her public profile, those invitations to opening nights, charity spokesperson roles, and social pages pictures. And it supported her newly acquired professional reputation as cool and collected under fire.
The old Darcy, curvy, slightly untidy, chain store dressed and a fan of food, wouldn’t have gotten to interview the Prime Minister, or attend exhibition openings with pop stars. That Darcy was more at home in shorts than pencil skirts, jeans than evening dresses.
The only thing old Darcy and new Darcy had in common was a disapproving father who thought she’d sold out and lost her integrity, and a brother who was more skilled competitor than sympathetic sibling.
She smoothed her hands down her hips. She missed old Darcy. Old Darcy had friends she went to the pub with, could get excited by hot chips with vinegar, and tortured herself about not achieving enough. This 2.0 model had no friends who weren’t part of the media scene, never ate potato, and knew her career to be a thing totally lacking in substance.
She agreed with Brian, though she’d never tell him. She was a talking head who read the words others wrote for her, and rarely, rarely, got to fashion her own interviews and tell the story her way. There was always a predetermined spin, designed for the ratings. It wasn’t the fact-based journalism she’d grown up with. It wasn’t the search for certainty she’d been dedicated to. It was sensationalism at seven o’clock, designed to attract audience and advertisers with a diet of: scam busting, consumer breakthroughs, nasty neighbours, chased cameramen, miracle cures, celebrity bombshells and whale stories.
But this was the life she’d carved out for herself from the terror that was Shanghai. From the mess she’d made by thinking she was Lois Lane, Bob Woodard and Carl Bernstein rolled into one—a champion of truth and public good, an investigative journalist who could top the Chinese Ministry of Justice.
It was the life she’d made from the horror of what she’d done to Will Parker.
“I’ll bring you a cuppa,” said Nadia.
“You’re a sweetheart. Thank you.”