Writing for Fun
February 2024
The Open Window - Marie Day
Sitting here I’ve got plenty of time to think. No gazing out of the window as it’s too high up for me to enjoy the view whatever it is. Just lately my thoughts have retreated to times long gone but clear as yesterday. Times that made me smile and times that made me .... well, let’s go right back to the beginning.
As I grew up, I spent my spare time reading anything I could lay my hands on that taught me anything about buildings. Especially the magnificent skyscrapers growing up beside the ancient buildings in London. It fascinated me that so many of these giants were covered in glass so that when the sun shone, they radiated heat and light across the skyline in all directions of the compass.
My family, I know, didn’t take me seriously. In fact, they were sure it was a phase I would grow out of when other topics invaded my head and pushed these thoughts of sparkling towers in the air from my brain. They underestimated my determination to progress along the road to being … an architect. The person to design and then see these stupendous structures rise before my eyes. Time moved on and I worked hard to gain the qualifications I needed to claim a place where I could make this dream come true. I had to gain the highest grades as there were so few openings for me to study and be able to take my place in the only place I wanted to be. I saw myself one day looking upwards at a gleaming, glass edifice of my own design rising skyward in the centre of our capital city.
When I passed all my exams with flying colours, I finally convinced my sceptical family, almost, that it wasn’t a day dream but could be a reality someday. And when I did secure a place at university they waved me off I think in the hope that if I did ‘come down with a bump’, as my father put it, they were happy in the knowledge that I had at least ‘tried my best’ and could then return to a job that kept my head ‘out of the clouds’. I spent the next couple of years studying hard and perfecting my ability to sketch as well as all the other more mathematical work involved. And then came the year I’d really looked forward to. Practical experience with a real firm of architects who I hoped would nurture and develop my skills. And so, I joined the firm of ‘Fakeman and Son’. Perhaps I should have taken more notice of the name but my excitement at being hands on after all the years of theory blinded me just like the reflection of light from one of my beloved glass buildings.
Fakeman Senior was a small round gentleman who seemed to me to be as broad as he was high. He had a propensity for regaling us with his homespun thoughts on life as he saw it. A favourite was ‘the window of opportunity is open to those who work hard’. I’m afraid to say this never really helped a trainee become a better architect. For the only thing I ever saw him draw was on the fat cigar he seemed to have permanently clamped between his teeth.
The ‘and Son’ of the firm was no better. Junior going by the name of Farley, or ‘double F’ as he tended to call himself, was certainly good at finding opportunities. Mainly to avoid any kind of work at all costs, to take early lunch which could last 3 hours and usually all afternoon and having to leave for home early meaning the nearest public house.
One thing Fakeman Snr. was very good at was being hands on when a prospective client or someone from the university made an appearance. He’d recently entertained a group who wanted an office block designed and built on the river. The design had to be unique to make their business stand out. No easy matter considering the competition already out there on the banks of the Thames.
After they’d gone Fakeman Snr. put us all to work, intimating that whoever’s design was chosen could be taken on permanently once their training was over. Then of course we got the window of opportunity speech again! The only problem was he had decided to leave Farley in charge of operations. He said he had other commitments to follow up. That usually meant a leisurely and expensive lunch at his club followed by a round of golf with one or other of his cronies.
Farley as usual led from the front. Well, his desk was at the front of the outer office. His contributions towards excellence included lobbing screwed up pieces of paper into my bin while leaning back on his chair with his feet up on the desk, trying to master, without success, the art of throwing peanuts in the air and catching them in his mouth and occasionally wandering aimlessly around the office being rude about our work.
At one point he stopped behind me. I braced myself for the usual nasty comments accompanied by a curled lip sneer. This time there was silence.
‘That’s not bad pip squeak.’ He never bothered to learn names. He grabbed the edge of my drawing, held it close to his face and stared at it. I could almost hear his brain grinding in an effort to escape its usual lack of use. Then he threw the paper down and headed off to his father’s office pulling his mobile out of his pocket. I carried on with my work giving him no more thought. I was used to low pay, a lack of interest from above and taking nothing personally as we were all treated in the same shoddy way. At the end of the day, I put my sketch in my folder and left for home.
I was back at work early the next morning. At my desk I reached for my folder and met fresh air. I was certain I had left it leaning against my desk. When I looked down it was leaning but on the left not the right side of my work station. I opened the folder to continue with my design. It wasn’t there! Farley sauntered in ignoring everyone else’s surprise to see him in so early. He clicked his fingers at me and said in his surliest voice, ‘Dad wants you in his office.’ I was naïve enough to be still looking for my unfinished design when it should have been obvious to me where it was.
He greeted me, cigar between teeth, and pointed to my design laying on his desk. Too late I realised what was going on. He left me no illusions as to what he was going to do. He and junior may have been lazy, second-rate architects but they recognised a good thing when they saw it.
‘No hard feelings. When I see a window of opportunity I take it.’
I nodded, realising he was going to steal my precious, beautiful building from me. Then he made a mistake. He put out his hand, thinking I would shake it. So, what was I to do? I saw my own window of opportunity. Except mine was wide open and he was standing right in front of it. I wonder if he thought about that as he plummeted twenty floors to ground below?
I looked at the window above me. This one has metal bars running from top to bottom. I turn in my uncomfortable, plastic chair as the door opens. I see a uniformed officer walk in.
‘Come along now Miss Wren. The judge is ready to hand down your sentence,’
Where I’m going, I don’t suppose I’ll be allowed near any open windows from now on.