The box in the wardrobe is wooden, very large and inlaid with mother of pearl. It has different compartments inside that Gareth is familiar with as it is the box in which his grandmother kept precious things, like birthday cards he’d made for her but also her Co-op dividend stamps. As Gareth places the box in front of his grandfather, he can taste the evil, metallic taste of the stamps, feel the thrill of filling an entire book and being allowed to go to the Co-op and spend the divi on sweets.
“All our family history is in this box,” Davey says as he rifles through it. “Certificates for births and deaths and marriages. The deeds to this house which have been in the family since 1913, and the amended deeds after Gareth got us our squatters’ rights.”
Rachel smiles at Gareth. She loves the squatters rights’ story, told often by Davey, of how Gwen had gardened the mountainside all around their end of terrace garden for years and years until one night Gwen’s husband and son – Davey’s father Tommy and grandfather Tom – had gone out in the middle of the night and fenced it all in. Gareth’s legal career was launched aged 17, when he discovered that the deeds showed only the original garden and not the additional stolen bits. He had researched adverse possession and drafted all the paperwork needed to acquire title to the land.
Davey finds what he is looking for and pulls out a couple of old black and white photos.
“Right, here we go. This is me with Nana Gwen and Taid.”
The photograph shows a couple in their late forties at most. Taid is broad with a chest like a barrel and a quarter of an inch shorter than Gwen who was tall for women of that time. She is wearing a flowered apron and a beaming smile as she holds the baby Davey up to the camera.
“And this, this is my mother Maggie and my dad Tommy and his brother Idris, just before Idris left for Canada.”
No one is smiling in this photo. Maggie stands tall and broad shouldered between the two identical men. All three look sullen, unhappy at having their photograph taken.
“Which one is which?” Rachel asks.
Davey consults the back of the photo. “Dad is on the left, Idris on the right.”
“You really would not have been able to tell them apart.”
“They had very different personalities, my father told me once. Idris was the one who talked back. My father liked a quiet life, hated confrontation, I barely ever heard him raise his voice. My mother is the one I remember shouting at me when I misbehaved as a kid.”
“Is that it for Idris?” Gareth asks.
“There’s just one more.”
This one shows an older Idris, wearing a very dapper three-piece suit and a hat, a Fedora maybe or a Trilby. He has his arm round a pretty blonde lady, a baby in her arms, about the same age as Jake is now from the look of it. It is difficult to tell from the photo whether the child is male or female. They are standing in a garden, in front of a long row of runner bean canes, squinting into the sunshine.
“This must be Idris’ wife and child then?” Rachel says.
“I should imagine so, although I don’t know for absolute certain. It’s definitely Idris because there are photos of my father about this age and he looked just like that, but there’s no information about who the woman is or the child.”
“And the letters he wrote before losing touch?”
“Must have been thrown away, I imagine.”
“But if that is Idris’ child that makes him or her your…”
“First cousin.”
“And Idris is your great uncle, Gareth, our children’s great, great uncle. How weird to think of a Maddox family somewhere in Canada closely related by blood to us, that we know nothing about.”
“Like I said…” Davey collects the photos up and puts them back in the box. “It was easy for families to lose touch in those days. To just sort of forget about each other and end up total strangers.”
*
Sunday evening is chaotic in the Maddox household, especially when they’ve been to the Rhondda for lunch. There is a flurry of last minute homework and of locating sports kit that should have been put in the wash but instead has spent the weekend festering in a bag, joyfully abandoned in the hall on Friday evening when Sunday evening seemed such a lovely long time away.
Sunday evening also brings with it the chore of bath time and washing of hair for the younger children. And doing nits.
“You have nits in this family?” Grace looks horrified. The girls of the family are all sitting on Rachel’s bed. Rachel is combing Iris’ hair with a nit comb and Eloise is doing Nora’s hair.
“Non-stop nits. We’ve had them constantly. Since at least 2001.” Rachel says, cheerfully. “I’ve long since stopped feeling ashamed about it.”
“But I thought people with dirty hair got nits.”
“Oh they do, and people with clean hair too. It goes round the school like a Mexican wave. As soon as you get rid of them, hello – back round again they come.”
“And worse than that, Grace,” Eloise says sourly, wiping conditioner flecked with the bodies of lice from the nit comb she is using on Nora, “when they get them, so do I sometimes.”
“And so do I,” says Rachel. “And a solicitor scratching her head is really not a good look.”
“You can shave my hair off if you like, Mum,” pipes up Iris. “I would love a number 1 all over.”
“I know Iris. One day, maybe.”
“I’m never cutting my hair,” Nora says, defiantly. “I want it to grow till it reaches my bum. And I want it to turn blonde. Like Saffron Bennett in my class.”
Grace shudders. “No one at my school has ever had nits.”
“Don’t you believe it Grace. Nits aren’t classist. They like fee-paying hair just as much as they like state educated hair. It’s just that no one will have dared admit to having nits in your school. Anyone ever suddenly get their hair cut short?”
“Yes, now you come to mention it. Pixie cuts were all the rage for a while.”
“Ah Ha! There you go! Those pixie cuts? Let me tell you. That was because of nits. Nits!”
“I’ve had worms too.” Iris adds helpfully. “Twice.”
Grace goes a little pale and absentmindedly lifts her hand to scratch her hair, revealing thin silver scars on her forearms.
“Do you think you might have nits, Gracie?” Eloise teases. “Want me to check? I’m really good with a nit comb.”
Grace smiles. “No thanks! I don’t think I’ve got nits but I’ve seen with my own eyes that Nora definitely does so I’d prefer to avoid any of your nit combs. I’m going off to bed now. It’s been an interesting day, thank you.”
“I’ll be up soon,” says Eloise. “I’ll try to not to make any noise if you’re already asleep. Right then my little sisters. Toenails and then teeth!”
While Nora and Iris are down the hall in the family bathroom, their electric toothbrushes whining noisily, Rachel pats the bed next to her and invites her eldest daughter to sit down.
“What now, Mum? No I’m not going to have any more piercings in my ears. Yes I really do like my hair this black. No I don’t think playing loud music while I’m studying stops me concentrating,”
“It’s none of those things.”
“Oh, what is it then?”
“Grace.”
“What about her.”
“I saw the marks on her arms earlier. Cut marks.”
“Oh, those.”
“You’ve seen them then?”
“Uh huh.”
“Has she talked to you about them?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you think she will?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I think I should talk to Grace.”
“No Mum, no! That is absolutely not the cool thing to do. And don’t talk to Aunty Jocelyn either. “
“Jocelyn is my sister, Grace is her daughter. She has a right to know what her daughter is doing to herself.”
“For fuck’s sake, Mum, even though Grace wears long sleeves
all the time, you’ve spotted those marks in two days, I saw them on the first night. Either Aunty Jocelyn has already seen them or if she hasn’t it’s because she isn’t looking at Grace at all. I told Dad you’d say you need to talk to Jocelyn.”
“You’ve already discussed this with your father?”
“Yes, Friday night when everyone else was in bed.”
“He never said anything to me…”
“Because he’s cooler than you.”
“Right.”
“So, please Mum, don’t make a fuss, not just yet. Grace is having a good time with us, she looks way more relaxed than she did. She loves Jake, dunno why, because I think he’s a monumental pain in the arse, but she does. I’ve done loads of research online this weekend. The advice all the websites give is to talk with people who are self-harming and be open and honest about it and show that you care about them but we really don’t know Grace well enough yet. We’ve got to help her trust us first – show her we love her – and then we can talk to her about it. I don’t think she’s cut herself while she’s been here. I’ve been keeping an eye on her. Actually, talking about keeping an eye on her, I’d better go up to bed now.”
“OK.”
“Really? You’re actually going to do what I ask for once?”
“Yes. For now.
“Wow, Mum!”
“Wow indeed. Two more things, Eloise…”
“Yes?”
“You’re being an amazing cousin to Grace. And don’t use the word fuck in front of me again.”
“Fuck off, Mum.”
“I love you too Ellie-bellie.”
*
With the children all in bed, Rachel hunts around the kitchen till she finds a bottle of wine and carries it and two glasses to the living room where Gareth is collapsed in front of the telly, Oscar spreadeagled on his chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Grace self-harming and the chat you’d had with Eloise?” she asks, setting the wine and the glasses down on the coffee table and sitting down on the other end of the sofa.
“Don’t sound so pissed off Rachel. It’s Sunday night. Grace only got here on Friday. We’ve had a houseful of guests and children round us at all times since. Well apart from a brief, very enjoyable time on Saturday morning when I had other things on my mind. I was going to tell you about it right now but you beat me to it.”
“I’m worried about her.”
“So am I, but I don’t think we should ambush her and start trying to talk about it. Like Eloise says, the best thing we can do for her right now is let her hang with Eloise and with the rest of us. And then we’ll take it from there.”
“Isn’t our daughter wise?”
“Yes, very, just like her mother.” Gareth pushes Oscar off his chest so he can pour them a glass of wine each.
Rachel takes a sip. “Kind of makes me feel even sorrier for Idris and Tommy. Losing each other like that. Such a sad story.”
“Not really. Brother emigrates and loses touch with family left behind. It was the 1920s. No phones, no internet, no Skype, no Facebook. It must have happened all the time.”
“You’re right. I’m sure it did. Maybe we should get onto one of those genealogy sites and try to find the Canadian Maddoxes.”
“Like we haven’t got enough on our hands already, worrying about family members that are alive, let alone dead ones. Like we’ve got time to research family trees. While we’re at it maybe we could get round to emptying the garage of fifteen years’ worth of broken bikes and rusty barbecues and all the stuff from the loft that we shoved in there to make room for Eloise’s conversion.”
“OK, I’ll add it to the list of things we’re going to do after the kids leave home.”
“We’ll be about 70 by then Rachel. We can just leave all the crap in the garage and let the kids sort it out when we die.”
“I’m glad we didn’t have twins. It must be really weird growing up with someone who looks exactly like you. Do you think that Maggie fancied them both?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well if she fancied one, she must have fancied the other, mustn’t she? They had exactly the same face.”
“It’s not all about looks though is it? Did you and I get together just because of the way I looked?”
“Pretty much, actually.” Rachel smiles. “You like to think it was because you were clever and witty but actually it was because you made me go phwoar inside.”
“You still make me go phwoar inside.” Gareth smiles.
Rachel scoots across the sofa to be closer to him. He lifts his arm so she can wedge herself beneath it and rest her head on his shoulder.
“Who’s this new client from Canada that got you asking Gramps about your family history anyway?”
“It’s a company called Perfect.”
“That makes the shirts?”
“That’s the one.”
“Oh I love Perfect shirts. They’re my favourite. I’ve got three of them. I only buy them in the sales though. They’re ridiculously expensive.”
“I’ve never heard you mention liking Perfect clothes.”
“Yes, you have. That white shirt you like so much? That’s a Perfect shirt.”
“That’s a great shirt. You look like that woman from The Good Wife in that shirt.”
“Alicia Florrick. I feel like her in that shirt! But I also love the story behind the brand. They are good employers and care for the environment. The shirts cost a lot because they pay a fair price to their employees and they last forever. What are you doing for them?”
“They’re thinking of establishing a factory in the Rhondda.”
“That would be amazing! Brilliant for Wales and for your beloved Valleys if they did.”
“It would be, but we’ll see. Early days yet.”
“I envy you. That work is so much more interesting than Mr Cole and Mr Lapthorne and their fabricators and welders. Wish I had the Perfect job instead.”
“I don’t know if I’ve even got the job yet. I may have to go to London this week to meet with them. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“Don’t worry about keeping me in the loop. Just remember that if they’re handing out any freebies I’m a size 12. “
*
Rachel falls asleep instantly, like she does most nights. Sometimes she even does it mid-sentence. It’s a skill that Gareth envies. He has a tendency to run through in his head each night, to a soundtrack of Rachel’s snoring, the things he needs to do the following day. The things he should have done that day but has not. But tonight what keeps him awake is a queasy feeling in his stomach. A knot of guilt for having purposefully misled Rachel about the meeting in London, omitting any specific mention of Cassandra Taylor and making out it is only a possibility and not already fixed for Tuesday.
Why did I do that? Gareth asks himself. I’ve had lots of female clients in the past. It never bothers Rachel, she’s not the jealous type.
Just before he finally falls asleep, he realises that it is himself he is misleading. Because along with the guilt knotting his stomach, there is excitement at the prospect of seeing Cassandra Taylor again in just a few days.
Chapter 11
The 6.24am from Cardiff Central is the train you need to take if you want to be in London in time for a 9.30am meeting. Gareth has meetings in London about once a fortnight, sometimes more, and he has the journey timed to perfection.
He has a shower the night before, lays his clothes out ready on the landing and cleans his teeth downstairs, leaving the house without so much as a cup of tea. This is meant to avoid the rest of the family getting woken up, in particular Jake. Sometimes it works, often it doesn’t. Today it does. Gareth shuts the front door behind him very quietly and walks briskly to Penarth train station to get the 6.02am to Cardiff Central. It arrives at 6.13am, giving him plenty of time to cross platforms for the train to London.
He has a first class ticket, costing almost £200. His parents would expect a return flight to M
alaga for that but it’s an unspoken rule amongst lawyers and accountants taking the train from Cardiff to London that you get a first class ticket. Being spotted in second class is professional suicide – evidence that you must be going bust. This particular train is popular with Welsh business people and Gareth sees a number of people he vaguely knows already seated in the first class carriage.
It’s a Pullman service and he fancies a full Welsh breakfast but then he remembers the time he missed his mouth and got egg on his suit trousers. He had had to position his brief case strategically on his lap at all his meetings to conceal the greasy stain. Instead he accepts a complimentary cup of tea from the trolley. Polystyrene cup, hot water, milk in plastic pods, fish out your own tea bag. He recalls that Nora went through a phase of hiding the granola bars from her packed lunch, which she hates, in the various pockets of his brief case. He locates two and a very elderly, brown tangerine, desiccated and rock hard. The granola bars are dry and tasteless and he contemplates dipping them into his tea but decides better of it. He surreptitiously picks oats out of his teeth for the next ten minutes.
The meeting is at Perfect’s offices in Bathurst Mews, near Hyde Park. It is not an area of London that Gareth knows very well and he has to check an online map to locate it. He could take the Tube from Paddington – Circle Line two stops to Notting Hill Gate, change to the Central Line and then another two stops to Lancaster Gate – but at this time of year and in the morning rush hour it is quicker and more pleasant to walk.
Mews houses used to be the servants quarters and horses’ stables for the grander houses of London. Gareth is delighted to find that in Bathurst Mews there is still a functioning horse stable. Despite the large number of young girls wearing jodhpurs and navy polo shirts hard at work clearing up, the unmistakeable whiff of manure perfumes the air. He walks along the cobbled lane and the pretty brick houses that line it, their front doors are painted shades of sage green, turquoise blue and dove grey. There are no front gardens as such but the owners of these houses have created small garden areas for themselves, with tables and chairs, gas barbecues subtly chained to outside walls, terracotta pots filled with tall purple and white alliums, like pom poms, and stargazer lilies in shades of pink and cream. One or two of the houses even have small trees outside, housed in enormous tubs, festooned with bird feeders.
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