Rachel had found it relatively easy to leave Eloise at childcare, handing her over to cheerful women dressed in primary coloured tunics whose names she did not know and rushing off to work. Gareth however could not bear it.
“It’s not right Rachel. She’s half asleep when we put her in there in the morning and half asleep when we pick her up again at night.”
“You make it sound like something from a Charles Dickens novel. They don’t dose the babies with laudanum in there to keep them quiet you know! It’s a highly recommended nursery with a price tag to match. They take better care of her in there than we would. She’s fine Gareth.”
“Well she may be fine but I’m not. Let’s move home to Wales, Rachel. Mam has offered to help out with Eloise some days. We can get jobs at a firm in Cardiff, have less of a commute into work. Hire a nanny for the other days.”
“Wales isn’t my home though is it? It’s yours. And who’s to say my mother wouldn’t help out with Eloise if we asked?”
“Your mother, that’s who! She spends most of the year out in France doing up her git.” Gareth knew very well it was pronounced “gîte”. He enjoyed dumbing up to annoy Rachel from time to time.
“There’s no way I’m moving to the Valleys, Gareth. Sorry. I don’t wish to be rude.”
“You are being rude, but I’m not suggesting we live in the Valleys, Rachel. Cardiff. I’m suggesting Cardiff. Metropolitan city. Lots going on. Mam will come down on the train to help with Eloise. Plenty of opportunities for good lawyers.”
“But I like being a good lawyer right here in London, thank you very much.”
In the end it was the house that Gareth found that persuaded Rachel to move to Wales. A semi-detached Victorian villa on three floors, with views over the Bristol Channel from the front and a long garden at the back with a dilapidated greenhouse and some ancient apple trees. With four bedrooms it was bigger than they needed and required a ton of work – a new roof, re-wiring, redecorating throughout – which they did not have the money for. But it had high ceilings and lots of original features including the tiled floor in the hallway, draughty sash windows and fireplaces in every room. When Rachel put her hand flat against the red brick walls of the house, she could feel the warmth of the sun and of happy families who’d previously lived in it. She managed to contain herself until they’d said goodbye to the estate agent and then had flung her arms around Gareth and muttered fiercely into his neck,
“We’ll be able to lie in bed and listen to the sea. I couldn’t possibly live anywhere else now other than that house.”
“No pressure then,” he’d said, smiling at her.
Thanks to a surge in London prices, the sale of their second floor flat in Kentish Town just about put the purchase price of the house within their budget.
They both got jobs at good Cardiff firms relatively easily, although having a baby seemed to adversely impact on Rachel’s career while have no bearing on Gareth’s whatsoever. However many late nights she worked, however many early mornings she spent at her computer in her bathrobe while Gareth and Eloise slept, the view of her firm was that Rachel did not have the same commitment to her career as a man simply because she had a child. But then when Iris came along and she went back to work after just three months she was surprised to find that her dedication to her job made her bosses distrustful of her. As if she were some sort of she-wolf who would eat her own children if they got in the way of her job.
When she became pregnant with Nora, thoroughly hacked off with not being able to win either way and thinking this would be her last baby, Rachel had figuratively stuck two fingers up at her bosses and taken a full year off.
The rest of the family remember this year with fondness. So does Rachel, up to a point. Nora had been an easy baby who slept well, and it was the only time the house had ever run smoothly – when they ate dinner together every night, something Rachel had cooked rather than takeaway or pizza; when there was always clean school uniform and bedtime stories every night and Play-Doh was no longer banned because it was just too much work and caused far too much mess.
Rachel had enjoyed the time with her daughters and new baby, walking to and from school pushing a buggy, the slow rhythm of days that involved going to the park or taking the girls swimming while casseroles simmered in the oven ready for when Gareth got home from work. It had reminded Rachel of the feeling she’d had as a child during the long school holidays – lots of lovely time stretching ahead. But as each day of sweet domesticity slid past, she also felt herself diminish a little more. She missed being a lawyer; the cut and thrust of negotiations, the juggling of client demands and billing targets. She didn’t enjoy not earning her own money. And she hated the fact that almost from the very outset of that year, Gareth stopped talking to her about his day at work or asking her opinion on legal issues and instead asked her only how her day had been and what had she and the girls been up to.
When her year was up, Rachel had been glad to go back to work. Putting on her suit on her first morning back felt like being whole again. Like an important part of herself had been hung away in the cupboard and neglected for a year.
Finally, after years of being passed over for partnership, and after two consecutive years of being the firm’s biggest biller, she got equity partnership. And with her career finally back on track she’d been suddenly hijacked by hormones. Swept off her feet by broodiness. All she wanted was another baby. Now. Right now. This minute. Before it was too late.
Gareth had not taken any persuading. Though he had never said anything, Rachel had always suspected that he would like a son. And anyway, Rachel reasoned with herself, at her age she probably had only a slim chance of getting pregnant again so there was nothing to lose by giving it a go.
But, being a girl with focus and dedication, Rachel gave it more than a go. Three months of sex every other night and bingo. And the baby had arrived safe and sound and with a willy at that and she loved Jake, she really loved him. But she had felt compelled by her equity partnership to go back to work after just twelve weeks and she had forgotten how much hard work babies involved and just how early they woke up. And what lame excuses Gareth could come up with to avoid changing nappies.
Chapter 2
Eloise doesn’t like changing nappies any more than her father does. She barges into her parents’ bedroom, her arms rigid in front of her, holding Jake as far away from her as is physically possible without actually dropping him.
“You have got to do something about this, Mum. Now! He smells disgusting! And he’s been wriggling about in it for so long it’s starting to ooze out the top of his nappy. Gross!”
Rachel surveys her first born. Sixth formers are still required to wear school uniform at Eloise’s school but Eloise’s interpretation of it is part goth, part tart. Her black skirt is so short it barely covers her bottom and she has a run in her black tights that Rachel is fairly certain will have been intentionally made, earlier that morning when Eloise put the tights on fresh from the packet. All of Rachel’s children have red hair of some hue, even Jake who barely has any hair at all is clearly going to be ginger, but Eloise is the most red of all, a deep copper colour that Gareth says reminds him of a red setter. Eloise hates it which is why she dyes it jet black and then crimps it to within an inch of its life. It makes her blue eyes, heavily lined with black eyeliner, seem even bluer. She wears black Dr. Marten lace up boots, three silver hoops in each ear and her arms jangle with dozens of shiny, silver bangles. To Rachel she looks like a very pissed off, very beautiful, baby crow.
She reaches out to relieve Eloise of Jake. When Eloise was a baby she’d had a special changing table and plastic mat, with a colourful mobile hanging from the ceiling to keep Eloise amused during nappy changing. Rachel had used floral scented nappy sacs and had a special bin for dirty nappies. Now she just lays Jake straight on her bed and with just a few wet wipes he is done. She expertly tucks the nappy into itself and plops it straight into the bathroom bin. Even a
s vile a nappy as this is no challenge for a mother of four. She scoops Jake up off the bed and cuddles him.
“Didn’t think to be nice to your brother and change him yourself Eloise? Not much more work than bringing him up to me.”
“Oh please Mother. It’s bad enough that people think I’m his teenage mum every time you force me to take him out. Bad enough that he is living proof that my parents are still having actual sex. I’m not changing his bum too. Ew.”
“You should count yourself lucky my girl. Felix is living proof that my mother is still having sex.”
After many lonely years of being a widow, Rachel’s mother Francesca has in the past few years taken up with a Frenchman and moved permanently to her place in France to be near him.
“Gross Mum! Please don’t make me think about Granny and Felix having sex as well.”
Rachel laughs. “What’s the difference between actual sex and non-actual sex anyway?” she asks.
Eloise just stares at her.
“I’m not being clever. I’m just wondering.”
Eloise thinks for a moment, probably taking her time to come up with the answer she judges most likely to irk her mother.
“You can get pregnant from actual sex. With non-actual sex you can have a lot of fun but not get pregnant. I’m going to my room now.”
Jake has long since got bored of cuddling and struggles in Rachel’s arms. She puts him down on the bed and plays peekaboo with him for a while, listening to Eloise striding around her room above in her heavy boots.
In the early days of living in this house, it had seemed enormous to Rachel and Gareth. Far too much house for the number of people they were and for the amount of furniture they owned. They had set up one entire bedroom devoted to ironing, where they could leave the ironing board up on a permanent basis. They never imagined that one day all the rooms would be full and they would need an attic conversion to provide a bedroom for their eldest daughter because they were pushing her out of her existing bedroom to make room for her brand new baby brother. About the only thing that Eloise likes about the arrival of Jake is the fact she got a spanking brand new bedroom out of it, complete with her own shower and toilet.
*
Gareth likes getting to work early. It avoids the final mad panic of his family’s morning routine – the really stressful bit after the nanny arrives and she and Rachel are doing a pincer movement to get everyone out the door. There is always someone crying and someone shouting and someone who can’t find their shoes/sports kit/homework (delete as appropriate). Gareth will gladly stack any number of dishwashers and pack endless school lunches to avoid this bit of the day.
His drive to work is short – he could walk it in forty minutes – but he has dedicated parking under his office and he likes the drive to Cardiff Bay, past clinking sailing boats and the sun shining on the water, accompanied by a cheerful blast of Radio 2. Even though it’s been over fifteen years since they lived in London, he still congratulates himself for having escaped daily commuting by tube; the misery of being squashed in an overfull, overwarm, carriage on sunny days like this one; sweaty shirts and salty lips.
Just four years ago, his journey to work was slightly longer, right into the centre of Cardiff. He worked for a huge law firm then, a global one with offices all over the UK and the rest of the world. The building he worked in had been fifteen floors high, stuffed to the gills with lawyers and support staff and gleamingly full of glass and chrome and money. It had been a good place to work – top quality clients and high level work, and as good as anything to be had in the City of London. Even though Gareth’s lawyer friends working in the City of London looked down their noses when he said this.
“Yes, but it’s not the City is it, Gareth,” they said, smugly.
“Er, no, it’s not. Which is precisely the point. It’s Cardiff. In Wales.”
“QED, Gareth. Quod Erat Demonstrandum. The very thing it was meant to have shown.”
VSK, Gareth thought. Vos Sunt Knobs. He decided not to invite these friends to visit him and Rachel in Penarth again. They seemed not to notice.
Gareth had liked his firm and the people who worked there. And it wasn’t that he was a wage slave or anything, he’d been made a partner quickly, earned well and was given a great deal of autonomy as to how he did his work. But he was only one small cog in a very large wheel. The firm was run by a management team, mostly based in London and the partners themselves had very little say in decision making. What Gareth really wanted was to be his own boss.
Finally the right time came for him to achieve that. Their family was complete – or so he thought – Nora had started school and Rachel had got partnership. With some careful budgeting they could cover the essential family finances on her earnings alone if absolutely required. It was a big risk but if he didn’t do it then, Gareth figured he never would.
His old firm’s managing partner had not taken the news kindly and had made immediate threats of restrictive covenants and injunctions and damages.
“Whoa, hold your horses!” Gareth had said to him, calmly. “I don’t want to fall out with you or anyone else. I’ve enjoyed working here. You’ve been good to me. And I’ve been good to you too. I’ve been one of the best billers in the corporate department across the whole of the UK for the past ten years. Let’s not get heavy handed here. Sure, some of the clients may want to follow me. My secretary definitely will. Contractually you can stop that from happening, if you really want to take that step. But when the covenants have expired, the clients will come then anyway and we will have fallen out for good and I won’t be recommending my clients come to you for all the services I can’t offer. So let’s be grown up shall we and talk about the ways in which we are going to work together in the future, rather than you flinging court action at me.”
In the end, his old firm had been persuaded to be sensible about things. Just a few months later and with a blessing of sorts, Gareth had opened his own small office in what had once been Tiger Bay and is now known as Cardiff Bay.
Gareth enjoys being based here rather than in Cardiff City centre. He likes the faded glamour of the old, Grade I and Grade II listed Georgian-style commercial buildings built in the heyday of Tiger Bay, when top quality coal from the South Wales valleys where Gareth grew up would arrive here before being exported by steamship all over the world. He likes the echo of that time that he sees in the faces of many of the people who still live here, the mix of nationalities that arrived from the 1830s onwards for work – Irish, Somali, Yemeni, Norwegian. And he likes the view from his office over the wide body of freshwater created by damming the tidal waters of the rivers Ely and Taff to regenerate the area. Tiger Bay started to decline after the 1926 general strike and was derelict within a few years of the end of the Second World War. In the late 1980s, the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was set up to regenerate the area. Now, the past and the future stand shoulder to shoulder here, the legacy of old industrial businesses that first made Cardiff wealthy and the establishment and growth of new businesses, like Gareth’s law firm, helping make the city successful again. Coal dug out of the ground by men like his grandfather and his great-grandfather is what used to be exported from here. Now Gareth exports his legal services – via the internet – to large and small companies in Wales and all across the UK.
His firm, Maddox Legal, has grown a little but he has purposefully kept it small. There are now five partners and seven assistants. This is about right as far as Gareth is concerned – enough people to be profitable, not enough to divert the partners away from being lawyers and into being managers and rainmakers. They deal only in corporate law – transactions involving buying and selling companies and businesses. The firm has a fearsome reputation for being excellent, not only in Cardiff but in London too. Gareth is particularly well known not just for his legal skills but for how good he is at negotiating and solving the commercial angles, not just legal issues. He is known amongst the legal fraternity as Gareth Fly Half be
cause of his deal conversion rates.
At the office he makes himself a quick cup of coffee, checks his diary and gets on with drafting the agreement. At 11am his PA, Celia, brings him another cup of coffee. She has been at work since 8.45am sharp but she knows better than to disturb him before then if he is in drafting mode.
“There you go Gareth,” she says, putting the coffee at his elbow. “Black, hot, two sweeteners.” She says this in a fresh, perky way, as if it is not something she has said most mornings for the past fifteen years. “Ready for me to work on the document now?”
“Just about. I think I’ve saved it in the right place. Half an hour and it’s all yours.”
Gareth does most of his typing himself. He hasn’t dictated for years. But he remains useless at formatting. Page breaks, indents, headings and the like are beyond him. This is where Celia comes in. Celia is 60 this year but she loves technology. She has thrown her arms around the digital revolution and given it a big kiss. There is nothing she cannot do on a computer but Gareth is always rather proud when he asks her to accompany him to meetings because she can also take the meeting notes in shorthand. She eats nothing but four kiwi fruits for lunch most days and is a keen line dancer because “she likes to keep trim.” Gareth has never seen her wear a pair of trousers or anything less than a 2.5 inch heel in her life. Next to his family, Celia is the most important woman in Gareth’s life.
“Don’t forget you’ve got a lunch. New prospect. I’ve booked the Park Plaza for you, usual table, 12.30pm.”
“I haven’t forgotten but I could really do without it.”
“Very important meeting at 5.30pm?” Celia smiled.
“Yep, very important.” Gareth has a very important meeting every Tuesday and Thursday evening with his squash club ladder. “Have you done the research for me?”
Thicker Than Water Page 2