‘And did it strengthen Owen’s defences?’
Joanna held a thick paintbrush up to the light and fanned the bristles out with her fingernail.
‘Tian told me that you were together,’ Yoyo added quickly. ‘Before you got married.’
‘Yes, we were together.’
‘Okay. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s fine.’ She put the paintbrush down and gave her a beaming smile. ‘We had a great time.’
‘So why did you break up? I mean, he’s a really nice guy.’
Yoyo was surprised by her own words. Did she think Owen Jericho was nice? So far he had only come up in connection with firearms, death and severe bodily harm. On the other hand, he had saved her life. Do you automatically think someone is nice because they save your life?
‘Relationships are contracts that can be terminated at any time, my dear,’ said Joanna, picking up the second brush. ‘Without notice. You don’t quit sexual relations six weeks before the end of the quarter. If it’s not working any more, you have to go.’
‘And what wasn’t working?’
‘Everything. The Owen who came with me to Shanghai bore no resemblance to the one I had met in London.’
‘You were in London?’
‘Is this an interview?’ Joanna raised her eyebrows. ‘If it is I’d like to see the article for authorisation later.’
‘No, I’m genuinely interested. I mean, we haven’t known each other for that long, right? You and Tian, you’ve been together now for – how many years?’
‘Four.’
‘Exactly. And we haven’t had much of a chance to talk.’
‘Woman to woman, you mean?’
‘No, not all that rubbish, it’s just, I’ve known Tian for ever, my whole life, but you—’
‘You don’t know anything about me.’ Joanna smirked mockingly. ‘And now you’re worried about good old Tian, because you can’t imagine what a beautiful and spoilt woman would want from a bald-headed, sloppy, overweight old sack who, despite having money coming out of his ears, still fixes his glasses with sticky-tape and wears the seat of his trousers around the backs of his knees.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ replied Yoyo angrily.
‘But you thought it. And so did Owen. Fine, I’ll tell you a story. It’s a lesson about the economics of love. It begins in London, where I moved in 2017 to study English Literature, Western Art and Painting; something for which you need to be either crazy, an idealist or from a rich background. My father was Pan Zemin—’
‘The Environment Minister?’
‘Deputy Environment Minister.’
‘Hey!’ cried Yoyo. ‘We always admired your father.’
‘He’d have liked that.’
‘He publicly addressed a number of problems.’ Warming enthusiasm flooded through Yoyo. ‘He was really brave. And the way he pushed to put more money into solar research, to increase the energy yield—’
‘Yes, generally speaking he was pretty salubrious,’ said Joanna drily, ‘but it didn’t hurt that one of the companies which made the breakthrough belonged to him. As I said, crazy, idealistic or from a rich background. In London, the Chinese community had long since outgrown Gerrard Street by then. There were a lot of good clubs in Soho that were popular with Chinese and Europeans. I met Owen in one of them. That was 2019, and I liked him. Oh, I liked him a lot!’
‘Yes, well, he’s very good-looking.’
‘He’s easy on the eye, let’s say. But the great thing about him wasn’t the way he looked, but the fact that he wasn’t afraid of me. It was awful, how all the men were instantly afraid of me: such losers; I used to eat them for breakfast.’ She smiled maliciously and twirled another brush through the turpentine. ‘But Owen seemed determined not to let himself be influenced by my undeniably dazzling looks or my financial independence, and for two whole hours he managed not to look at my tits. That spoke volumes. He also respected my intelligence; I could tell by the way he contradicted me. He was a cyber-cop at Scotland Yard, where they don’t exactly shower you in gold, but then I wasn’t interested in money. Owen could have slept under London Bridge and I would have lain down next to him.’ She paused. ‘Well, let’s say I would have bought it and then lain down. We were very much in love.’
‘So how could that go wrong?’
‘Yes, how?’ Joanna gave a melodious little sigh. ‘In 2020, my father suffered a stroke and was considerate enough not to wake up again. He left behind a respectable fortune, a wife whose patience had been tested and who endured his passing as unquestioningly as she had endured him, and also three children, of whom I am the eldest. Mum was often lonely, and with the unhoped-for inheritance I’d just received, I felt there was no need for me to keep clogging up the lecture theatres in London. So I decided to go back. I asked Owen what he thought of us moving to Shanghai, and he said, without giving it much thought: Sure, let’s move to Shanghai. And you know, that was strange in itself.’
‘Why? That was exactly what you wanted.’
‘Of course, but he didn’t have even the slightest objection. And we’d only been together for half a year. But that’s the problem. If men do what you tell them to, they’re suspect, and if they oppose us we think they’re ridiculous. Back then I thought, well, it’s because he loves me so much, which was a good thing in itself, because as long as he loved me, he would only betray himself and not me. But back then I was already beginning to ask myself which one of us loved the other more.’
‘And he loved you too much.’
‘No, he loved himself too little. But I only realised that after we arrived in Shanghai. To start with, everything was great. He knew his way around, liked the city, and had been there numerous times during bilateral investigations. At New Scotland Yard he was a kind of in-house Sinologist, and I should mention that Owen doesn’t learn languages laboriously like other people do; he simply swallows them down and then brings them back up in well-worded formulations. I suggested he take a job with the Shanghai Department for Cybercrime, because they already knew and valued him there—’
‘Cypol,’ snorted Yoyo.
‘Yes, your good friends. We moved into an apartment in Pudong and planned a lifetime of happiness. And that’s when it started. Little things. His gaze started to waver when he spoke to me. He started to suck up to me. Sure, we were living in my country, meeting my people, including politicians, intellectuals and all kinds of representatives of society, every one of whom sucked up to me. In my circle, greatness is the result of the degradation of others, but Owen’s knees became weaker and weaker. His wonderful self-confidence melted like butter in the sun, he seemed to degenerate, get pimples again, and after a while he asked me, full of timidity, if I loved him. I was totally gobsmacked! It was like he’d just asked me, right in front of a bright blue sky, if the sun was shining.’
‘Perhaps he sensed you didn’t love him as much as you had before.’
‘It’s the other way around, sweetheart. The doubts came with the doubter. Owen didn’t have the slightest reason to mistrust me, even though he probably thought he did. He had stopped trusting himself; that was the problem! You can only fall in love when you’re on an equal standing, but if your partner is bowed over in front of you, you have no choice but to look down on him.’
‘Did he get jealous?’
‘Jealousy’s such an ugly addiction. Nothing makes you smaller or less attractive.’ Joanna walked over to an open store cupboard, in which dozens of tubes lay next to one another. ‘Yes, he did. He was possessed by some old insecurity. Our relationship lost its equilibrium. I’m a positive person, sweetie, and I don’t know how to be any other way, which meant that next to me Owen looked increasingly like a pot plant someone had forgotten to water. My optimism left him to wither. The worse he felt, the more I enjoyed my life, or that’s what he thought anyway. That was complete nonsense of course! I had always enjoyed life, but before that we used to enjoy it together.’ She took out a tube of vermilion and squeezed a small splodge of it onto a palette. ‘I left him so that he could finally find himself.’