My phone begins to vibrate in my pocket. I’m perplexed by the sight of my boss Graham’s name in the caller ID. I hope he’s not calling me about the Beale job.
I used to work at a cool young practice in Clerkenwell and the projects I ran were interesting and varied: an interior fit-out of a riverside apartment, for example, or a conversion of an old warehouse into a bar and restaurant.
My practice in Bury St. Edmunds is comparatively prosaic.
After spending ten months working on boring school-roof details and hospital-door schedules, I begged my boss for a residential job. Earlier this year, he gave me the Beale house, a renovation and extension. But Lucinda Beale is a client on a total power trip and with no imagination. She shuts down my design suggestions at every turn and treats me like a lackey who’s at her beck and call. I hate working with her.
Planning permission has now been granted for her house and the work is due to begin on-site the week after I get back. I’m absolutely dreading it. She’ll be making changes left, right, and center, causing no end of contractual disputes. It’s going to be a total nightmare and I have no one to blame but myself because I asked for a residential job.
I love being an architect, getting paid to design pieces of art that people live and work in. But architecture has its downsides, just like any other profession.
I answer Graham’s call. “Hello?”
“Wren, hi!” he replies. “How are you?”
“Good, thanks. How are you?”
“I’m very well. Listen, I’m ever so sorry to bother you on holiday, but something’s come up and I thought I should run it by you.”
“Okay.”
“Freddie has had to deal with a couple of things on Mrs. Beale’s job while you’ve been away and she’s taken a bit of a liking to him.”
I bet she has. It’d be just like Lucinda Beale to fawn over a hot, young, not-yet-fully-qualified male architect rather than defer to me, a more experienced female.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” Graham continues. “She’sasked if he can be the site architect and take over running the job.”
“Oh!”What the hell?
“Obviously, I can tell her that Freddie isn’t available, but I got the impression you weren’t that happy.”
I prickle with embarrassment. He’s not wrong, but I hadn’t realized I was being transparent.
“I do find her a bit difficult to work with,” I admit.
“So you wouldn’t mind if Freddie took over?” he asks hopefully, seeking an easy solution.
Iwouldmind, but more because of the principle.
“What would I do instead?” I ask, trying to convince myself that this is a positive outcome—she would have been a proper devil once the work started on her home.
“Well, now that Raj has gone, you could do the tender drawings for the Heathfield Primary School extension,” Graham suggests. “And then we’d need the construction drawing package after that.”
My heart sinks. This is exactly the sort of thing I was trying to move away from. There’s absolutely no design involved, just a whole bunch of tedious technical drawings showing everything from roof and window details to sewer pipes and every single socket and light switch that an electrician will need to put in. The tender drawings will go out to five contractors who will cost them up and submit their quotes, and then I’ll need to go into more detail still for the winning contractor. This will keep me busy for two to three months, possibly longer.
Dad comes back into the barn with the tools we need. “Sheryl’s almost done in the kitchen so I’ll help you fix these.”
I waggle my phone at him to show that I’m on a call and he mouths an apology.
“Have a think about it,” Graham says. “You can let me know on Monday.”
“Okay, thanks,” I reply.
“Everything all right?” Dad asks as I sigh and put my phone away.
“Yep, fine.” I hop down from the counter. “Are you sure you’ve got time to help?”
“Absolutely. This was a great idea of yours,” Dad says with a smile as we fix the first row of lights. “I can tell you’re a designer.”
