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 Malaga 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.

He finds the number he is looking for. The house has a doorbell not an entry buzzer and when he rings it Cassandra herself opens the door. She is wearing a black trouser suit, high black boots and a bright white shirt. Gareth is flustered to see her.

“Oh hello, I didn’t expect that you would open the door!”

“Well I did,” she smiles. “Come on in. Rupert who does our PR and marketing in Toronto is already here and the London team should be here any minute. Coffee?”

The entire ground floor of the property is one large, light, open space with floor to ceiling windows. It has oak floorboards, a boardroom table big enough to sit 12 people, and a small fitted galley kitchen along one wall with shiny chrome kitchen appliances and a shiny chrome worktop. At the far end of the room is an informal seating area, with two large wheat-coloured sofas, some woollen throws, bookshelves and a small television. On a nest of coffee table next to the sofas Gareth spots a paperback, an empty cup and plate, a tube of Crabtree & Evelyn La Source hand cream.

Cassandra sees him looking.

“We use this place for meetings when we are in London but there are bedrooms upstairs so we stay here too. It’s really very comfortable. We bought it ten years ago for what seemed like a fortune at the time but it has turned out to be one of our better investments. Rupert will be down now, he’s just getting dressed.”

So there it is. Gareth need not have worried. Cassandra has a bloke, he’s called Rupert, he does PR and marketing for Perfect in Toronto, and she wasn’t flirting with him after all. He feels relief that he is not, after all, going to have to resist temptation. And a disappointment so strong he can taste it in his mouth, like apple seeds when you chew them. Cyanide and marzipan.

“I’m glad you’re here a little early as I have a favour to ask of you,” Cassandra says as she pours him a coffee from the cafétière already set up at one end of the table. “Would you mind wearing one of our shirts?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not saying your shirt isn’t a decent shirt, it’s just that our shirts are better and I like Perfect’s team to be wearing Perfect’s product.” She hands him a large white box tied with black ribbon and stamped with the Perfect logo. Inside there are three shirts – white, blue and pale pink.

“Collar size 16. Was I right?”

Gareth nods.

“I thought so. I can tell a collar size from ten paces. Hurry up then, pop into the downstairs bathroom and change before the others get here.”

As Gareth had suspected and Adrian Matthews had long known, the shirts you wear without ties are not the same as the shirts you used to wear with ties, before ties became unnecessary. He chooses the white and checks himself out in the small mirror above the sink. He looks pretty good. The shirt is far more fitted than his normal ones but he must have lost weight during his morning runs and he is pleased to note that the faint hint of man boob he’d had a few months ago has subsided.

“Look at you!” says a man who must be Rupert as Gareth emerges from the toilet.

“Erm, thank you. And thank you to Perfect. This shirt is way better than mine.”

Rupert claps his hands. “Love a duck!” he says in a terrible attempt at a Cockney accent. “I do hope we can come up with a better marketing campaign than that! Buy Perfect shirts. They’re way better than yours.”

Gareth feels something shift inside his chest, a lightening. On reflection, maybe Rupert is not Cassandra’s bloke after all.

The rest of the day is one long round of meetings. PR, marketing, media buyers talking social media campaigns, managed media spend and air time. After a sandwich lunch they meet with buyers from Liberty, John Lewis, and Selfridges. Gareth listens to the pitches, helps with the negotiations, drafts the heads of terms that follow. Cassandra has given him no previous inkling of how she negotiates but he soon works out that she gets what she wants by burying in a long list of demands the thing she really wants. The trick is working out what she is burying and after a while Gareth works out that it’s the item she identifies in discussions as “not material.” She reluctantly concedes things she never really wanted which makes people feel like they have secured a great deal and hurry to sign off quickly, before she changes her mind.

He starts to play along with her strategy. When she starts to give in on something she doesn’t want, he starts interjecting.

“I really can’t advise you to accept this amendment, Ms Taylor,” he says in his best lawyer’s voice. “It is normal commercial practice to include this sort of requirement. Frankly, striking it out puts you in a compromised position.”

She instantly twigs what he is doing and plays along too.

“I thank you for your advice Mr Maddox but I choose to ignore it. This is an important deal for us and if compromise is what it takes to make it happen, we’ll do it.”

When the last meeting finishes it is after 7pm.

“Right, good to meet you Gareth, it was fun to watch you work, but if you’ll excuse me I’m out of here.” Rupert grabs his jacket. “I’m meeting someone in a bar in Soho. I don’t know his name because I haven’t met him yet but I just know when I do he’s going to be gorgeous. Don’t wait up!”

“I won’t,” Cassandra calls after him but Rupert has already slammed the door behind him.

“Charming! Fancy a quick drink? Just to the pub round the corner. Only one because I’ve got a dinner engagement later. I’m parched after such a long day.”

Gareth doesn’t really hesitate. It’s been an exhilarating day watching Cassandra Taylor in top speed action. “Just the one then.”

“I’m honoured.”

“So you should be. It’s Tuesday. I normally play squash Tuesday evenings.”

They step out of the mews house into a warm July evening that is still sunny. Other residents of Bathurst Mews are home from work and sitting in their garden chairs, suit jackets discarded, bottles of beer in hand. People nod and smile and Gareth and Cassandra nod and smile back.

“Do you know all your neighbours?” he says under his breath.

“Not a soul,” she whispers back.

The pub is packed with people, some of whom spill out onto the street to smoke and drink. The sunshine has brought a jaunty feel to the evening, like it’s a bank holiday. It is an old fashioned London boozer gussied up a bit for a younger crowd. There’s the original long, high, dark mahogany bar with stools, and the original shelves along the back wall lined with optics but the wooden floors have been stripped, the tables and chairs are modern and white and the price list is on an oversized blackboard and lists things as costing 13.5 or 8.5 rather than £13.50 or £8.50. Gareth and Cassandra fight their way to the bar.

“What will you have?” he asks before she can ask him.

“I’ll have a Molson if they have it, otherwise any sort of lager. A pint. Those people are leaving right there, I’ll go grab their table.”

They don’t have Molson and so Gareth gets them both a pint of Peroni.

“Well it’s not Canadian beer but it’s good and cold so will do,” says Cassandra, taking a big gulp. “Actually, not bad, thank you.”

They are both thirsty after a long day and they drink quickly.

“You were good today,” Cassandra congratulates him. “I like the way you understand the sort of person you are dealing with very quickly and change the way you talk to people to get the best out of them.”

“I do?”

“Yes you do. Your Welsh accent went up three notches at least when you were talking to the buyer from John Lewis who also had a strong regional accent I couldn’t place.”

“The Geordie?”

“He was called Jordy? I thought he said his name was Jonathan?”

“He did. He was from Newcastle, in the north east of England. People from there are referred to as Geordies.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really know. Something to do with King George I think. I know my accent gets stronger when I speak to Valleys people. Didn’t know I did it with Geordies too.”

“Conversely, when you were talking with Hugo from Liberty you had no accent whatsoever and used a lot of really long words.”

“He was their in-house lawyer. He understood those long words!”

“As I said, you matched how you spoke to the person you were speaking to.”

“That makes me sound shallow.”

“It’s not shallow. It’s a skill. All the best negotiators do it. And you’re one of the best negotiators I’ve seen in action.”

“Flattery won’t get you a lower bill, you know.”

“Worth a try though! So you said when we met in Cardiff that you and your wife had been having children for years. How many children do you actually have?”

“Four.”

“Four! More than one wife? Or are you Catholic too?”

“One wife only, and not Catholic, no, although you are not the first person to ask that. They just sort of came along. “

“What flavour?”

“Flavour? Oh, three girls and a boy.”

“The boy the last?”

“You got it. Jake – he’s just turned one and I’ve got the bags under my eyes to prove it. But I would have been happy with another girl, they’re great and every one is different. I’ve got a stroppy goth, a tomboy footballer and a soft toy fanatic who wants blonde hair down to her bum.”

“They sound fun.”

“They are. Rachel and I are very lucky.”

“Is that your wife’s name, Rachel?”

“Yes. She’s a lawyer too.”

“Family arguments must be a whole new ball game in your house!”

“It’s never dull, shall we say. Do you have children yourself Cassandra?”

She sighs. “No. Lots of long distance travel for work and long-term relationships don’t go together very well. Children didn’t come my way and I’m having to come to terms with the fact it’s probably too late.”

She looks down at her glass which is empty, as is his.

“Shall I get us another? One more for the road, as you Brits say?” she asks

He really doesn’t want to go. He wants to stay here in this pub near Hyde Park on a summer July evening with a woman he finds fascinating and who is now looking sad. He wants to have another pint of Peroni with her. And then go on somewhere else, somewhere where there is live music playing where they can sit together at a small round table and drink red wine and talk till the sun comes up again.

“I really need to go, I’m sorry Cassandra. Got to catch my train.”

“OK, no worries. Another time. I just need to go to the bathroom quickly. Will you wait for me?”

“Of course. I’ll be outside.”

It’s growing dark outside now and it’s cooler, quieter, the air a soft blue. Gareth leans on a wall to wait for Cassandra. He feels like a teenager, awkward and needy and excited. Then her face suddenly swings in front of his. He can smell her perfume, see her chest rise and fall as she breathes.

“You know, I thought Rupert was your other half when I arrived this morning,” he confesses.

“I know you did. I did that on purpose, to see how you reacted.”

“And how did I react?”

“Exactly as I hoped you would.”

And she leans in and kisses him. Her mouth is open and her lips are soft and with a speed he has not experienced in a while his cock jumps immediately to attention. He could kiss like this all night. But he’s not going to.

He breaks away from the kiss, puts his hand on her shoulder, eases her away gently.

“Good night Cassandra. I’ve got to go.”

“Don’t go. Stay for just one more drink. If you do, I’ll cancel my dinner engagement tonight. Which is with the charming Adrian Matthews, by the way.”

“Don’t go for dinner with Adrian, please.”

“Why not? It’s just a business dinner.”

“Tell him something cropped up and you can’t make it.”

“It felt to me like something already cropped up,” she smiles and drops her eyes to look at his crotch. “Stay for just one more and I promise I won’t go out for dinner with Adrian Matthews.”

“I can’t Cassandra. I really can’t.”

The smile drops from her face. “Suit yourself”, she says, briskly. “He’s taking me to the Shard. Wants to show me the London skyline. Breathtaking apparently.”

Gareth hesitates for a second but she dismisses him with a wave of her hand.

“It’s OK, run along home now. There’s a good boy.”

He texts Rachel from the train.

Sorry not been in touch, hectic day, only now on train, will be late, don’t wait up, love you 5.

She texts straight back.

Us 5 love you too x x

Gareth resolves on the journey home not to do any more work for Perfect. He will make some excuse and allocate another lawyer from Maddox Legal to take over from him. Cassandra Taylor stirs feelings in him he’d forgotten. He loves Rachel and he fancies her too and there is no way he is going to put what they have at risk for anything or anyone.

It is at this point that he realises he is going home wearing a brand new Perfect shirt and that the shirt he left home wearing has been left behind at Bathurst Mews.