Chapter 1: Analysis

I’m Bob Costain, an engineer at present on holiday on a beautiful Greek island. I am with my wife, Helen, without the children for the first time since our honeymoon almost twenty-six years ago. Helen’s mum called the holiday a second honeymoon, but Helen shot her down. “Certainly not! It’s more of a renewal, a reassessment of where we are now that the children have left the nest.”

My company builds and supplies machinery to the manufacturing industry. My particular job is to keep these machines running. When you spend quarter of a million you expect after-sales service in perpetuity. Like most engineers my mantra is ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ In practice, that means that I do nothing unless I must. I discovered that raising children was a lot like keeping machines running. Most of the problems they presented went away if you gave them a little time.

Helen is a solicitor who believes that early intervention is best. The little Dutch boy saving the dyke by pushing his little thumb into a hole, is her role model. The difference in our characters has worked to our advantage as a family. When we arrive at a holiday destination, for instance, we divide our forces.

Helen finds a pharmacy and then a supermarket where we can buy water and snacks at a fraction of what the hotel charges. I take the kids while she is exploring, and we saunter onto the beach checking out the best places to swim and sunbathe. For the remainder of the holiday, Helen sits at base camp reading and sunbathing while the rest of us explore. She often misses excursions with us to finish her novel.

This holiday without the kids has followed the same pattern so far. We arrived in the late afternoon, freshened up and checked the hotel amenities. We settled by the pool with a drink, remaining there to eat a bar snack since neither of us felt up to a full dinner. We talked mostly about the hotel and the village beside it. On the way back to the room we briefly touched on the children, wondering how they were coping.

Mavis is twenty-five, a lawyer like her mother but working in the legal department of my company. Robin is lost in contemplation of a photograph of two invisibly small particles that collided below the Alps a couple of years ago. The result will be a doctorate in theoretical physics. He is twenty-four and knows much more than me – in fact, I’m more than halfway back to a caveman compared to Robin. Skylark (we were running out of bird names) was a very welcome surprise, arriving five years after her brother.

Helen’s scathing dismissal of the second honeymoon idea set me thinking. Today, we settled on a secluded beach about a mile from the hotel. I had found it while Helen explored the village shops on the previous day. At breakfast, she was dissuaded from taking a packed lunch since it would be less than appetizing after three or four hours in the sun. Just over an hour ago, she ordered me to walk back to get lunch. I think it was the first time I noticed that it really was an order without even the pretense of a request.

On our first night in the hotel, we had fallen into separate beds. Last night, I used the bathroom first emerging in boxers and getting into bed. Helen, as usual, took forever in the bathroom, eventually emerging in a nightgown with a high neck that almost reached the floor. She got into the other bed, announcing that she ws going to read for a while. I was beginning to think that we were here to ring down the curtain on our marriage. There was certainly no sign of reconciliation.

Since we had no kids to worry about, we had picked an out-of-season holiday. The little beach I had found was probably packed in high season, but most visitors had settled closer to the hotel and concession stands. I was preoccupied on my walk to the hotel. It may be my nature not to look for faults, but when I detect one, I face it and seek an early solution. My marriage appears to be in trouble, and I must deal with that reality.

I was in a similar position at work about eight years ago. I joined the company the same day as Fred, and we became friendly during the three induction days. He was in another division, so we lost touch until he had kids. His two bracketed Sky in age so I ran into him from time-to-time at school functions. Helen actually saw more of him. She was the swimmer in our family, and he took his kids to the pool every Saturday morning.

By that time, Mavis and Robin belonged to the swimming club and reported for training at seven on Saturday morning before the pool opened to the public. As they left, Helen and Sky arrived. One Saturday, shortly after nine, Sky was playing in the pool with friends, including Fred’s pair. Helen was doing laps in the swimmers’ lane. Fred was crouched at the edge of the pool chatting to a couple standing waist deep in the water.

Suddenly, Fred fell into the pool almost hitting the woman below him. The couple helped him upright and the lifeguard was there in seconds, but Fred was already beyond help. There was no water in his lungs so he must have died before he entered the water. He was a year older than me. Sky was with his kids when their daddy died – she never went to the pool again.

When things settled down, I took stock of my life. Up until then, I had worked hard, obedient to the orders of senior staff. There was a clear career path to success, and I slavishly followed it. Fred’s death forced me to look again. I had been promoted several times, but I was now at the level where politics played almost as much a part as engineering ability. I realized that there was a promotion window; you had to be old enough but not too old. I had been four years at my present level, and I was running out of time if I was to make further progress.

I was well paid – Helen’s wages were nice to have but our life wouldn’t be altered if she retired. Then I looked at the people on the next rung up the corporate ladder. They earned more than me, it was true, but they worked longer hours and carried a greater load. Fred’s death wasn’t due to stress, but he had, apparently, worked very hard and was expecting a promotion in months. I loved my present job and had no desire to drop out, but I stepped out of the promotion race, devoting extra effort to my family. I have never regretted that decision.

As my career stalled, Helen’s took off. Antibiotics in her final year at university resulted in her becoming pregnant. I had a good job lined up, so we hastened our wedding plans, with much financial support from her mum and dad. Helen stayed off the pill until Robin was born – she did not want Mavis to be an only child. When he was four, she got out her law books. She had a degree but needed to pass some bar examination to practice as a solicitor. The plan was to study while he was in the last year in nursery and start work when he entered year one.

We moved house that summer into what is still the family home. The stress of moving house is second only to bereavement, I’m told. Somehow that stress allowed sperm through. Skylark was born the following year, spoiling Helen’s plans. We were both surprised but delighted by this turn of events, although I now have some doubt about just how happy it made Helen. When Sky began school, Helen finally began her career.

She was employed by a long-established firm in a market town only ten miles from the house but in the opposite direction to my workplace. She moved from department to department for the first few years, learning divorce, property, tax, and whatever other law services her firm offered. After about four years, she emerged as their court specialist. Three or four days a week she would power dress and enter the magistrates’ court to represent her clients. I had become more involved with the kids since I gave up on promotion, so Helen could concentrate on her belated career.

Mavis followed her mum into law, while Robin soared high above me in science. Sky was different. She was clever and popular, but she danced to her own music. Mavis and Robin had both belonged to school teams as well as representing the swimming club. Sky was every bit as popular as her siblings, but she was not a joiner. She found her special niche in art. It began with photography and grew from there.

I had the time to work with her, so we became very close. We spent most weekends somewhere off the beaten track photographing nature. On weekday evenings she would use the snaps to inspire paintings in water colours and oils, or acrylics. She encouraged me to have a go. Much to everyone’s surprise, especially mine, I proved to be a moderately good miniaturist. It was an art that required the same sort of precision as engineering. When the weather was too bad to go outdoors, Sky and I attended craft fairs. We didn’t earn enough to pay for our hobby, but we had great fun.

I assumed that Helen had the same attitude to work as me until about two years ago. Peter, the grandson of an old and trusted client was arrested with two friends and charged with dangerous driving. All three lads were seventeen and had been driving for less than six months. Granddad begged Helen to take the case, even though it would be tried in crown court where she had no experience. Helen leaped at the opportunity.

Roderick Graham was chosen as counsel (QC at that time) and my wife was to prepare his brief. It was a really big deal not just for Helen but for the rest of the office. She worked long hours consulting with all the senior partners. She spent little time and even less attention on her family. Graham was invited to our home for dinner. Mavis, who was living in her own flat, came along to grovel at the feet of the legal giant. The best I could say of him is that he is pompous and arrogant.

Sky and I prepared and served the meal so that the legal trio could talk shop. Roderick spent the evening ignoring everyone but my wife. He treated her to heavy-handed compliments all evening. It reached a climax when we went to the living room for coffee. He sat on the middle of the couch and patted the seat next to him, instructing Helen to sit beside him. She didn’t seem to notice the breaches of etiquette, but Mavis did, not bothering to hide her disgust from our guest.

Sky saw the funny side. Mavis looks like a younger version of her mum and Sky couldn’t understand why the QC was ignoring the young version to pursue the old. I was relaxed about things: the man was so blatant that I was sure Helen was remaining polite with difficulty. It came as a shock when she accused Sky and me of rudeness, upsetting our visitor who had done nothing wrong. Mavis laughed at her mum, detailing the many seductive words and actions aimed at her. Helen pronounced herself baffled at our interpretation of events.

Mavis was quickly forgiven, but Sky and I were in the doghouse for weeks. From then on, Helen did not talk about her work to the family. I suppose Roderick must have been good at his job, since Peter was found guilty of the lesser charge of careless driving and got off with community service. Since then, Helen has been involved in more crown court cases, working with Graham. Mavis tells me that her mum is in line for a partnership.

As my career has stagnated, Helen’s has blossomed. Perhaps the years she lost raising children has warped her judgment. We certainly don’t need the money she brings in. We each have incomes far above the national average, although I must admit that, in the last year, Helen outearned me by fifteen grand. I am happy enough for her to claw her way to the top, but I have been feeling recently that she holds something of a grudge towards Sky for delaying the start of her meteoric rise.