He even forgot it was Thursday and a squash night until Celia walked into his office and pointed at his squash kit in the corner and then at her watch.
*
When Gareth arrives home after squash, having played worse than he has for years, he pushes open his front door to hear loud laughter coming from the kitchen. He finds something of a party going on there. All of his children and Grace are seated round the table and Rachel, too, who has a virtually empty bottle of red wine in front of her. There is a strange young man sitting at his kitchen table, sitting as close to Eloise as is physically possible without actually sitting on her lap and grinning from ear to ear.
“There you are, at last!” Rachel says. “We’ve all eaten but there’s plenty left in the pan. Might need a minute in the microwave. Do you want a glass of wine? I’ll hunt down another bottle, this one’s almost done.”
“You sound like you’ve had one glass too many already!” Gareth says as he heaps spaghetti and meatballs into a bowl and shoves it into the microwave. “Who’s this?”
“This is Liam. A friend of Eloise’s. He was taking her out for a drink but I persuaded them to stay and have a drink with me instead.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr Maddox.” Liam gets to his feet.
“Hello Liam. Now if those of you who have finished eating could clear out, I’d like to eat my dinner in peace.”
“Of course, shall we go for that drink now, Eloise?”
“It’s far too late for her to be going out,” Gareth says, tetchily. “She has school tomorrow, you know.” He stresses the word school heavily. “And she’s not old enough to drink.”
Eloise glares at her father and Liam grins. “Fair enough. I’ll catch up with you again, Eloise. Goodbye everyone.”
As Eloise leaves the table she bends down and whispers in her father’s ear.
“You’re a total arse, Dad.”
“I know. It’s what dads do. Now go see Liam out.”
“Yes, why are you being such a dick, Gareth?” Rachel asks when the other children are all out of earshot.
“The term Eloise used was actually arse.”
“Arse. Dick. Ordinarily the difference between those two things is rather important but on this occasion there is no distinction.”
“Stop talking like a lawyer at me Rachel. It’s been a long day. I didn’t want to have to make small talk with some spotty faced kid that my eldest daughter is clearly lusting after.”
“Are you for real Gareth? It’s Thursday! You’ve played squash. It doesn’t count as a long day if it’s only long because you’ve been out playing squash. You’ve no need to be so grumpy. Liam is a nice kid. Courteous and well spoken but fun, too.”
“Perhaps it’s you not Eloise that’s lusting after him.”
“Now you’re just being childish. Anyway, it’s about time Eloise fell in love. She’s ready for it.”
“She may be ready for it but I most certainly am not.”
“And so we arrive at the true cause of your being a dick. Or an arse. Take your pick.”
“Yes! Maybe! I don’t know. Yes I do. I’ve been a 19 year old boy. I know the sorts of things he’s thinking. I don’t want him thinking those things about my baby girl.”
“But she’s not a baby Gareth. She’s 17. And I’ve been a 17 year old girl and believe me, she’s thinking much the same sort of things he is and has been thinking them for some time by now.”
“Well that’s made me feel a whole lot better. I’ll have that glass of wine now.”
“Certainly dear. I’ll get it for you now, dear.”
Gareth applies himself to his bowl of pasta. Rachel puts a glass of wine down in front of him and kisses the top of his head.
“Better?” she asks
“Sort of,” he grunts.
“How was the rest of your day? Pre-squash?”
“Fine. Busy. Tons of drafting.”
“On the Perfect deal?”
“Mostly.”
“Have they decided on the factory site yet?”
“Not yet. Cassandra Taylor is doing a site visit in the Rhondda on Monday. Maybe there’ll be a decision after that.”
“Isn’t she one of the directors?”
Gareth hesitates. He realises just in time that he has not up until now ever referred to Cassandra by name when talking about Perfect. “Yes, she is.”
“Then they must be seriously considering it then, mustn’t they. Are you going on the site visit with her?”
“Maybe.”
“Well if you go, do the Rhondda a favour and hold back on filling her in on all the sacrifices the miners made.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Don’t go all Arthur Scargill on her the minute you hit Llantrisant roundabout and start telling her about all the injustices heaped on the struggling workers. Don’t try to guilt her into opening her factory in the Rhondda by talking about the past. Focus on the positives of the Valleys and how they can help her business for the future.”
“It’s not my job to choose the factory site or to try to influence that decision. It would be wholly unprofessional for me to allow my personal interests to cloud my judgement.”
“I know that. You know that. But don’t delude yourself by thinking you won’t try anyway. I’d like to meet her sometime. We could ask her over here to dinner. It’s never any fun staying in hotels and eating on your own.”
“That would be weird, Rachel!”
“Why? We’ve invited clients over for dinner plenty of times.”
“Only clients we’ve known for years and who have become friends. Not ones we’ve only just started working for.”
“I was just being nice.”
“Well there’s no need. Cassandra Taylor doesn’t strike me as the type who’s the least bit fazed about eating on her own in hotels anyway.”
“How would you know? Have you even met her yet?”
“I’ve spoken on the phone to her numerous times. Right, that’s enough talking about work. You go check on the kids. I’ll do the dishes. “
“Deal.”
As he clears the plates and stacks the dishwasher, Gareth shakes his head at his own stupidity. He could have explained to Rachel any number of times this evening that he had met with Cassandra Taylor twice already. Cassandra is one of the bosses of the company and the person driving this project – of course he has met with her, why would he not have?
He hears in his own head the way Rachel would have applied her trained mind to reply to such questions if posed by anyone else.
You’re being coy because you feel guilty and don’t want that guilt to show. You’re avoiding referring to her in case your body language somehow reveals that you are attracted to her. Doubling back now and admitting to me you’ve been dealing with Cassandra Taylor all along will cause suspicion because why would you not have put me right on this seemingly unimportant point long before, unless of course there’s something to hide.
Rachel has a fine mind and a lawyer’s tenacity and she’d be right.
Chapter 18
“Liam is lovely, isn’t he?” Grace says. She and Eloise are lying in their beds. They turned the light off thirty minutes ago but neither is asleep yet.
“I don’t know if he’s lovely or not yet, I’ve only just met him.”
“Yes you do Eloise, you know already he’s lovely. He’s good looking and he’s funny and he’s nice to everyone and smiles all the time.”
“Sounds as if you fancy him!”
“Well put it like this, if you don’t fancy him, let me know.”
“Ha ha. Thing is, I do fancy him. A lot. How is that possible? I only met him this afternoon. At the butcher’s! This morning when I woke up Liam Williams was absolutely nowhere in my head. And now the only thing in my head is Liam Williams. That’s just mad!”
“You didn’t only just meet him. You knew him at school.”
“Not really, I knew who he was, that’s different
.”
“Did you think he was good looking then?”
“No! Not at all. Never even noticed him.”
“Well, you’re noticing him now! When are you seeing him again?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. After he’s finished work, we’re going sailing.”
“I didn’t know you sailed.”
“I don’t. But Liam’s family are all members at Penarth Yacht Club. He says it’s good fun.”
“Shame.”
“What do you mean, shame?”
“Not going to be much snogging action in a boat is there?”
“Shut up Grace and go to sleep.”
*
Actually Grace is right. There is no snogging action in the boat. It is great fun though. Liam has been sailing since he was seven, and all Eloise has to do is concentrate on not falling out of the boat.
“It’s actually called a dinghy,” Liam explains.
“Really? A dinghy is what my father calls the inflatable boats he buys every summer on holiday in Tresaith. A new one every year cos they always spring a leak by the end of the holiday.”
“Yep, those are dinghies too. Just a different type. I can tell you why they have the same name if you promise not to call me nerdy.”
“Go on then.”
“Dinghy is a borrowed word, from similar words in Bengali, Hindu and Urdu, for boat. Lots of Indian words got absorbed into the English language during British rule in India. There’s loads of others we use all the time now without realising their origin, like pyjamas and chutney and pundit.”
“Hmm, interesting,” Eloise says, “if a bit nerdy.”
“Oi,” Liam says leaning over and cupping seawater in his hand to splash at Eloise. “You promised.”
Liam expertly sails the boat from Penarth over into Cardiff Bay. It is a beautiful summer’s evening, still sunny, and the water is flat and calm.
“I’ve never seen the Bay from the water before!” Eloise is thrilled.
“Looks great, doesn’t it?”
“Amazing.”
Really it is Liam that Eloise thinks looks great. It is fascinating to watch him calmly sailing as if it’s second nature, his arms tanned and muscled, his eyes crinkling in the sun.
He catches Eloise looking at him and he smiles at her and the happiness she feels inside spills out of her until she is laughing out loud. Liam starts to laugh too.
“What are we laughing about?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Eloise says. “And everything.”
The snogging comes later. After the dinghy is put away. After they’ve had a pint of cider each in the dated Yacht Club Bar which has a red carpet and lots of shiny mahogany furniture and where no one asks Eloise for ID.
“Do you want another drink?” Liam asks.
Eloise shakes her head.
“Want to go for a walk on the beach?”
“Sure.”
Liam takes her hand as they stumble along Penarth’s loose pebbly beach. He does it in an easy, comfortable way as if they have been holding hands for years. He steers her towards the esplanade wall and they sit down and lean their backs against the wall. Without saying anything he turns his face towards her and kisses her and they carry on kissing until it grows too cold to sit on a windy, pebbly beach any longer.
*
Cassandra Taylor is not someone who stops working at weekends. While Gareth is out running on Saturday morning and Rachel is sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a rare opportunity to read the papers, because Grace has taken Jake to the park, Gareth’s phone out in the hallway pings repeatedly.
“Cassandra Taylor is after you love,” she calls to him when he gets home. Standing in the hallway, damp with sweat, Gareth feels his skin prickle cold.
He gathers himself. “What does she want?”
“How should I know? I don’t read your emails. Got enough of my own to read. I could just see it was her name popping up.”
“I’m sorry, love,” he apologises.
“Doesn’t bother me,” she says, not lifting her head, “occupational hazard of this job. Next time I’ve got a big deal on over a weekend and my phone goes all the time perhaps you won’t be so grumpy with me about it.”
“I’m going to go jump in the shower and then I need to do a bit of work.”
“Okey doke. Make sure you’re done by two. I’ve got to take Nora to a birthday party and Iris needs picking up from football at two-thirty.”
Gareth sits on the edge of their bed and scrolls through the emails that Cassandra has sent. Queries about the site visit on Monday, documents from the Welsh government concerning the possible grant funding, terms and conditions from a fabric manufacturer based in Lancashire. The emails keep coming. The last email she sends causes Gareth’s heart to pound.
“I’ve decided I need to come to Cardiff on Sunday if I’m to be sure of being ready for the site visit on Monday. I have so many questions I need answered before then Gareth that I really do think I need a meeting with you before we go to site. I suggest we meet in the Park Plaza at 4pm. I can’t imagine it will take longer than a few hours. I will arrange a conference room. Please be ready to respond to all the points raised in my recent emails.”
In the shower, Gareth lets the hot water drum on his head and shoulders and thinks about how he should respond to Cassandra. He doesn’t have an issue with working at weekends. It is as Rachel noted an occupational hazard of choosing law as a profession and happens all the time. What he does have an issue with is being in a hotel on his own with Cassandra. Just thinking about meeting her, stood here in the shower, he feels excitement tingling through him.
But she is right that they could do with a meeting before the site visit.
By the time Gareth is out of the shower and dressed, he has made up his mind about what he needs to do.
“Hello handsome,” Rachel says when he walks into the kitchen. “Want to make some coffee for me?”
Gareth fills the kettle, flicks on the switch. “Cassandra Taylor is coming to Cardiff tomorrow and wants me to meet her tomorrow afternoon before the site meeting on Monday.”
“OK. Bit of a pain on a Sunday afternoon, but makes sense.”
“And I was thinking, you know you mentioned asking her round for something to eat?”
“Yes. You pooh-poohed it.”
“Did I? Well I don’t much fancy having to spend my Sunday evening in a hotel conference room. If it’s OK with you, I’m going to suggest we have the meeting here and then she can join us for something to eat if she wants.”
“Really Gareth? It’s chaos here on the weekend. It’s not really quiet enough for a meeting is it?”
“It’ll be fine. It should keep the meeting short having it here, in the bosom of the family. She and I can sit here at the kitchen table or go into the living room.”
“That means I need to tidy-up though. I could do without that.”
“Eloise can do the tidying up. She hasn’t got out of bed yet after her date with lover boy last night and if she wants to see him again this afternoon, she can bloody well earn it by helping out a bit round the house.”
“Don’t take it out on Eloise just because you have to work at the weekend and don’t like her having a boyfriend.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are and you know it. But fine, Eloise can tidy up the living room a bit and you can spruce up the downstairs loo which isn’t that bad anyway because I only just cleaned it for book club. We’re having roast chicken and roast potatoes tomorrow and I was doing two chickens anyway so there’ll be enough. Grace has already offered to make a big crumble. So go ahead and invite her. Do you think she drinks? Maybe I’ll call into Majestic on the way back from Iris’ party. Ooh, I’m quite excited to meet her now. Do you think I ought to wear one of my Perfect shirts?”
“No Rachel, that’s just weird.”
*
Gareth had wondered how Cassandra would take the invite to attend a meeting at his home. The last time he�
��d seen her they’d kissed. Or at least she’d kissed him and he’d kissed her back. And now here he was playing the devoted family man and inviting her round to meet everyone. When he’d telephoned her on Saturday afternoon to arrange for their meeting to be at his house, she’d agreed with such good grace and enthusiasm it dawned on Gareth that when she’d said their relationship would be entirely professional from now on, she’d actually meant it. Perhaps the kiss had not had the same impact on her as it had had on him.
He insists on picking her up at Cardiff Central from the London train.
“That’s very kind Gareth but there’s no need. I can hop in a cab.”
“Yes you could, of course, but we’re a hospitable lot in Wales. I’ll pick you up. You can get a cab back from our house to your hotel if you like, that way I can have a glass or two of wine with dinner.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you.”
“It’s nothing but I do have a favour to ask of you in return?”
“Fire away.”
“Would you be able to pretend on Sunday that when I pick you up is the first time we meet in person and that Rupert has sent my wife and I a gift of two Perfect shirts each?”
“Errm, yes, sure, if that’s what you need.”
“It is.”
“You got it.”
After he puts the phone down, Gareth thinks that this particular exchange is the most pathetic conversation he may have ever had with anyone in his life, let alone a client.
*
Gareth spots her straight away when he pulls up outside Cardiff station on Sunday afternoon. Cassandra is wearing jeans and an emerald green T-shirt made out of some silky material and her blonde curly hair is tied up in a loose knot on the top of her head. She looks younger than usual. She waves at him and he opens the car door for her to climb in.
“Great timing,” she grins at him. “I just this minute arrived.”
She smells of something light and fruity. Bits of blonde hair have escaped from the knot and one of them is caught in the corner of her mouth. He feels a sudden urge to reach over and brush it away.
“Do you mind if we get started straight away, while you drive? I’ve got such a lot to get through.”
“Fine with me but you do realise Cardiff is small and we’ll be at the house in 20 minutes?”
Thicker Than Water Page 17