The Builders' Report (chapters 1 & 2)

Chapter 1
May 2010

“Amanda, would you please get me a list of reputable builders in the Enfield area. I want to add an office extension to my house. Thank you.”

“Of course, Cleo. It may take a while to verify their viability, though.”

“Take a week if you need it. I just want someone competent and trustworthy.”

This was why Amanda loved her job. There was something different to do each day. The time passed quickly and in the two years that she had been Cleo’s assistant, she hadn’t yet had time to be bored. Well, maybe mailings weren’t particularly exciting, but the other girls were always called in to help, and it usually turned into a bit of a laugh.

She’d seen a programme quite recently about ‘cowboy builders’ and had picked up some tips for sussing them. For a start, any builder that was any good was never available immediately. They never asked for money up-front, and they weren’t cheap. She would ask around too and might even take an afternoon or two off to go and inspect the builders’ premises. That would add a notch to their seriousness. A bit of detective work might be fun.

Although she knew Cleo had a flat near to ‘The Lord’s Ground’, holy ground for cricketers, she knew that she was hoping to spend more time in her house in Enfield Town. It was a relatively new acquisition, which is why she wanted work done before encumbering the place with furnishings. Amanda would have given her eye teeth for the London flat, which she had visited once. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live out of town and have the bother of commuting when one already had a cosy flat so centrally placed. It was in one of those posh ‘serviced’ blocks of flats with its own concierge. It was the next best thing, in Amanda’s mind, to having a servant. How the other half lived!

Amanda had begun to scrupulously scour the Enfield vicinity for the best builder she could find. She had gone to the area and casually questioned local businesses and even shoppers waiting at bus stops. When a builder was recommended more than once, she put him on her list. Having collected a half a dozen names, she then proceeded to make the rounds to check each of the builder’s yard while taking a photo of it. Once back in the office, she methodically telephoned each one to quiz them on their capabilities, availabilities and prices and to get them to send a brochure if they had one. The final report placed on Cleo’s desk was very comprehensive and Amanda was pleased with the results, but it was only a few days later that Cleo mentioned it.

“Thank you for the builders’ report, Amanda.”

Amanda had been a little disappointed with Cleo’s lack of enthusiasm over the report that had used a good bit of her shoe leather and some of her personal time to make but had then consoled herself with the idea that Cleo never effused over anything. She was a cold fish. Everyone said so. Never mind. A well-paid, interesting job was worth the odd disappointment, she decided. Her mind shifted easily to the coming three day weekend. She was going to Great Yarmouth with Kate, John and Phillip. She went all dreamy as she remembered the evening she had spent with Phillip. What a darling he was! She hadn’t slept with him yet but the weekend at the seaside resort promised to be passionate.

Cleo’s bank holiday weekend was going to be quiet. There was nothing pending that needed her attention. She had just had closure on a very successful advertising campaign that had lasted a year. She was meeting with new potential clients the following week. The on-going advertising drives were running smoothly, showing the predicted results. The talk she would be giving at the local college on Tuesday was just her way of keeping in touch with the real world but as she had given similar talks before, she only needed to look at her notes.

There had never been any question of spending three restless days in the confines of her London flat. So Friday night, she had driven to her virtually empty house in Enfield Town wanting to enjoy the atmosphere of its early Victorian era. It would be little more than camping but as she also planned to walk about the area to familiarise herself with her future neighbourhood, she wasn’t bothered. Her job deprived her of spending much time outdoors, which had been her principle motivation for buying the house in that part of North London. With a ten minute drive she could be surrounded by fields. She could retrace paths that Elizabeth I had taken when out hunting or visit a pub where the hounds had been kept in between hunts. She loved all the old manor houses dating from the seventeenth century and she loved her Victorian house that had been built in 1842. One day, when she had enough money to leave city life behind, she would get a dog. The idea of sharing her life with another person was just a little too far-fetched for her to contemplate, so a dog was the limit to which she could consider devoting herself. It would have to be one with an easy-going nature, like a Labrador, a Dogue de Bordeaux, or why not an Irish Wolfhound? She smiled at the thought of owning one of the largest dogs that existed as an exterior proof of her success in life. Like men who needed a fast, flash car or gold jewellery, it would be her status symbol. She’d get two! Sadly, she admitted that for practical reasons Wolfhounds couldn’t really be one of her choices.

Although her house was built in the first years of Victoria’s reign, it still had a Georgian look to it. The windows let in a lot of light and the general appearance inside was that of spaciousness. The staircase was a lot wider than later constructions and was graced with a mahogany banister. Of course, the uncarpeted house echoed and smelt of fresh paint now but it imbued her with a sense of tranquillity. From the very first, she had felt at home, in spite of the barrenness of the rooms.

The new flagstone kitchen was the only room in the house that had been completed. As one entered the room, it gave the illusion of stepping back a hundred and fifty years, at least. Although it had been entirely refitted with the most sophisticated equipment on the market, everything either deceptively resembled its Victorian counterpart or was hidden away, including the large fridge/freezer that looked like an ordinary cupboard door. A big, black, gas cooker that looked every inch like a coal-fuelled Victorian stove made a statement, and a deep ‘butler’s sink with a hardwood draining board had been installed rather than the usual stainless steel. The only concession that had been made in the sink's case had been that a brass tap delivered both hot and cold water and that the sink had been raised to a higher level than it would have been in the original household. People had been shorter in those days. A square oak table had pride of place in the centre of the room and it was on this that Cleo placed the carton she had carried in. It contained a couple of plates, cups, and cutlery, plus staples of tea, instant coffee, coffee whitener, sugar, digestive biscuits and some snacks. The kitchen might be fitted but the cupboards were bare! She had only grabbed what had come to hand in her London flat! As for the food she would need to tide her over on the weekend, she planned on shopping the next morning.

It had been an automatic gesture to take Amanda’s report about the builders with her. She was going to have time to put all the builders into perspective in relation to her home. The report was very thorough, she had to admit, because there was even a map with the different builders’ yards pinpointed on it. There were a couple that were an easy distance from her road, so she thought she might cast an eye on them tomorrow while she was out and about. When she got back to the office, she must remember to tell Amanda that she had done a good job.

For the duration of her stay, she would sleep on the divan in her sleeping bag. The divan was in the morning room which looked out onto the back garden. If she were lucky, there might be some flowers in bloom for her to see through the French doors when she woke. It really would be like camping or staying in a hostel as she had in her youth and the idea shed years from her weary mind. Before settling down for the night, Cleo began a slow tour of the rooms just so that she could gloat. This was hers. She loved it! She had only herself to thank. But a wry, almost sad smile brushed her lips as she acknowledged that her alcoholic parents and the taunting kids at school had been her incentive, the push that had got her on her way.

When finally she had bedded down, she had been too exhausted to linger over thoughts of past, present or future. The complete silence in the house had been a balm to her very being and she slept almost immediately, oblivious to the world.

Chapter 2
1996 – fourteen years earlier

As soon as she had been old enough, Mary Murphy had changed her name. Then, she had moved to London. The combination had been an exhilarating, liberating experience. She was a ‘born again’ eighteen year old. She didn’t consider that the name change had turned a caterpillar into a butterfly but rather a larva into a beetle. Her metamorphosis into Cleo Kingsley had left her encased in a hard shell which not only protected a sturdy pair of wings for getting ahead in life but which also armoured her very essence, against any battles that would ensue. The move to London had assured her of anonymity in a teeming city. She could be as she liked without having a finger pointed at her.

Against all odds, she had risen above her humble social beginnings and escaped the ineffectual parents who had sucked her dry in their never-ending quest for their next bottle or packet of fags. The higher she rose, the lower they seemed to sink but, she realised, that that wasn’t really true. They had always been scraping the bottom. For some unknown reason, she had not been cast in the same mould and had, from her earliest recollection, tried to distance herself from the ‘Murphy stigma’.

School had been a nightmare. If she had had a brother or sister, it might have been more tolerable knowing that she wasn’t on her own but her parents had only been sober long enough to produce her. Social Services had made sure that she was clothed and had a hot meal each day at the canteen; blatant charity which had been hard to accept, even as a child. It was just a shame that it was so obvious that she was a ‘social case’ because she had been ostracized by all the other pupils. How many times had she overheard whispering about the Murphys or giggling at her expense? Other social cases, who might have had things in common and provided moral support for fellow sufferers, had shied away from each other, perhaps afraid of compounding their misery.

Years later, she wondered why Social Services hadn’t taken her away and put her into care but, as unhappy as she had been, it seemed that there had been cases even worse than her own which had had to take priority. At least her parents had been happy drunks who had never lifted a hand to her. ‘Perhaps it had been better to be neglected, living in near squalor, than to have had to submit to foul treatment before being put into care,’ she was now able to rationalize.

Her father had finished by killing himself on a building site where he’d been hired by some unsuspecting foreman. Although it was doubtful that the company was responsible in any way for the death, they had paid a small amount of compensation to her mother, little suspecting that it would be the knell for her own death.

The money left over after the funeral had paid for a brief reprieve while Bridgette Murphy had splurged on some new clothes and evenings out, but it had been short lived. She had been found in an alley in a coma. It was never determined whether the blow to the head had been accidental or if she had been ‘mugged’. It was, however, alcoholic poisoning that had finished her – because she had been blind drunk. Neither parent had reached forty-five.

Guilt had been mixed with relief. Mary had not let any of it show. Many years of neglect had taught her to keep her feelings to herself and even alone in the confines of her own small bed-sit, she had successfully buried any she had. Any feeling might lead to hurting. She was definitely on her own and she had always known that if she were to get anywhere in this world she could only count on herself, the new Cleo Kingsley. Mary Murphy was a thing of the past, a nasty taste in the mouth, a bad dream, a skin shed that took her old identity with it. Her first eighteen years and the miserable memories were left behind as Cleo’s ambition took firm hold. It had meant sacrificing any social life for that of work, but Cleo had long ago realised that she had survived without ‘friends’ in her school years and so wasn’t about to burden herself with the superficiality of them at any time in the near future. All her energy would be going into advancing herself. It had begun by attending night school straight from her job at the store. No, there wouldn’t have been a lot of energy to spare for socializing anyway, because every ounce had gone into her rise in the world and especially her rise above all those kids at school who had made her life so desolate.