The Money-Go-Round by C.J. Neill

Author:C.J. Neill [Neill, C.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-16T16:00:00+00:00

23

Max

2009

He wasn`t always a drunk.

“Your father was a good man. Do you honestly think I`d have married him if he wasn`t?”

I never doubted anything my mother and father said. Their love for me was an absolute given. I remember how he would come home from the office with a smile on his face to be greeted with aromas of freshly baked bread and cakes, casseroles and stews all cooked up by my mother. And garlic, there was always garlic in the air. He would rush through the front door, drop his briefcase, scoop me up in his arms and say, “Hey Tiger, what`s been going on today?” He always called me Tiger.

He was an exceptional lawyer but driven by a need to prove himself in an environment he had grown to dislike. He loved the Law but hated the lawyers. The avarice appalled him. That was his roots calling, the working-class background that he held on to firmly. He was immensely proud that his father had dug coal down the Derbyshire mines. “He did that so that I didn`t have to”, he often said, holding out his arms to show soft hands and clean, unbroken nails.

He was made a partner in the firm in `76, the year I was born. That`s when it all began.

With ten partners and a hundred staff it wasn`t a small firm. The discussions at partners` meetings about how to handle all those people, whether to discipline someone or whether they deserved a pay rise were often acrimonious. According to my father at least half the partners couldn`t give a damn about the staff, they were simply seen as a necessary evil and should be exploited as much as possible.

I remember after one particular meeting he came home in a dismal mood. He gave me a simple pat on the head and said ”Hi” before disappearing into his study. He didn`t come out for about two hours. When he emerged I could smell the alcohol on him.

As the pressures continued, he spent more and more time in his study when he came home. One night he didn`t come home at all and we received a call to say he was in a nearby pub and could we collect him.

I never heard any discussions or arguments about it but dad was now on a downhill slope and matters would only get worse. Over the next few years he would have an increasing number of study days and there were more calls from the local pub.

I think the hardest day was when mum had a visit from one of dad`s partners at the firm. He had called first to make arrangements and as I`d long since left home Mum asked me to be there. At first, his words hung in the air as though they had been said, heard, understood, formed like concrete blocks but floating balloon-like, reluctant to hit the deck; “Contract; Terminate; Pension.” Looking back it shouldn`t have been a surprise that they were prepared to dump him.

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