Skypoint - By Phil Ford Page 0,1

planes of molten Aztec gold.

The hoarding alongside the apartment building called it SkyPoint. An exclusive development of two- and three-bedroom apartments for state-of-the-art living.

Gwen wondered what on Earth constituted state-of-the-art living.

If you’re going to be anyone in Cardiff, you’re going to be at SkyPoint!

And that might be true, but she wondered how the hell Rhys thought they could possibly afford to be one of them.

But Rhys was already out of the car, looking up at the building.

‘Just look at it, Gwen. Isn’t it beautiful?’

Over the last ten years, the face of Cardiff had changed so much that, if it had been a kid, its own mother would have passed it by on the street without a second glance. If you took a look out of any high-rise window across the city, you would see almost as many cranes hanging over the place as you would skyscrapers shouldering for prominence. But Gwen had never considered any of the lean sun-flaring steel and glass giants beautiful. Impressive, for sure. Dynamic, no doubt. Welcome, too – Gwen could just remember the drab, emasculated town that had been left by the closure of the valley mines, and the loss of the docks that had distributed that black Welsh gold around the world. When the docks had gone, what had been left had been a bitter and dark spectre of what Cardiff had once been. But that now lay buried beneath these shiny new buildings and Cardiff’s spirit had been resurrected. It was once again a boom town. Perhaps that did make SkyPoint beautiful.

On the other hand, Rhys was the kind of bloke that applied the word to a blood-red six-wheel Freightliner tractor unit kitted out with so much dazzling chrome it had to be a danger to other road users.

‘There’s no way we can afford this, Rhys,’ she said. But she said it with a smile, not wanting to puncture his enthusiasm, not wanting to spoil their first proper week as newlyweds with an argument over money.

‘I’m not talking about the penthouse, love. Just a little two-bedroom apartment. Sixth floor. Doesn’t even have to have a Bay view.’

‘I like where we live now. What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with it. Except that was the old you and me. PM. Pre-Marriage. This is us AM—’

‘After Marriage. Yes I get it, Rhys. I still don’t see the point.’

‘It’s like a statement, isn’t it? Moving on. We’re going forward.’ Then he looked at her, held her hands. ‘Two bedrooms.’

Gwen raised an eyebrow and kinked one corner of her mouth. ‘You’re not talking about when you snore and I kick you out of bed, are you?’

Rhys said nothing, just raised his eyebrows a fraction, and returned her smile.

They were talking in eyebrow semaphore, and they’d only tied the knot two weeks ago. God, they were like an old married couple already. Maybe Rhys was right – they needed a new start.

‘Come on, then,’ she said, tugging him towards the building’s glass doors. ‘But we’re just looking. Maybe get some decorating ideas for our place.’

‘Whatever you say,’ he smiled.

Glass doors the colour of bonfire smoke parted before them, and they stepped into a large reception area that Gwen was surprised to find quite comfortable. She had expected to find more cold steel and glass, somewhere as sterile as Owen’s Autopsy Room back at the Hub. But the SkyPoint reception was furnished with white, greys and blacks that were at once modern and comforting. They crossed a short-pile carpet that muffled their steps and Rhys gave their name to a blonde girl in a short black skirt who sat at a low table in one corner of the reception area decorated with a sweep of colour brochures.

‘Mr and Mrs Williams,’ he said. ‘We’ve got an appointment with Mr Shaw.’

The blonde girl in the short black dress uncurled her legs and smiled at Rhys, and Gwen felt a pang of something. Not so much jealousy as proprietorial supremacy.

Rhys is all mine, love, signed and sealed, so you might as well put those legs away, for all the good they’ll do you.

The blonde whispered into the phone that sat alongside the brochures, and Rhys gave Gwen a smile as he took in the reception. Gwen noted with delight that Rhys barely looked at the girl’s legs. Was that marriage for you, or just excitement over the apartment they were going to see? A part of her wanted to tell him again that, whatever this Mr Shaw showed them, there was no way