I was suffering in my work suit. I often wondered why I wore a two-piece given the scrapes and dirty corners I was exposed to daily. Still, it was my I.D, I was never challenged to verify who I was in my suit. If the criminal fraternity got down to BHS and kitted themselves out in a pin stripe number it would be a matter of grave concern for the authorities. Height of summer in the city was unpleasant. Downright nasty for the rest of the year. I felt uncomfortable in my off the peg shirt. It's mass production in some sweat shop had scrimped on the length of shirt tails so that any vertical movement, a stretch up, lean down or slight rotation such as that from abusing a bus driver, taking a magazine off the top shelf or reaching over the Starbucks counter for extra sugar caused my midriff to be exposed. Not as toned as it could be or svelt smooth either. My feet ached in my tight brogues. They were cheap from the shoe clearance place, seconds probably and also half a size too small for me, an explanation for their reasonable price. My overall demeanour was hot and sweaty. My belt was straining from too many lattes and biscottis from too many surrenders to snacking.
I remained, however, determined to keep my necktie in place, a solid knot against my hot collar. Many colleagues and street acquaintances had succumbed to loosening their ties to half mast or dispensing with them altogether in an all too casual look for my liking. In a few minutes of staring vacantly into the oscillating fan on my desk, a freebie and sweetener from an office supplies rep I felt a bit cooler and more composed. I could take off my wool mix winter jacket now that my sweat patches had faded to just damp. There is no more a social pariah than someone with sweaty 'pits.
The phone rang, a female voice, husky from too many high tar non filters. "Mr Thomson- I need your services" she said eagerly.
Within an hour I was on the road in response to the call. The city and its deeply engrained grime fell away as I got to the eastern suburbs. The traffic was crawling, like my skin. A heat haze shimmered over the red tarmac of the bus lane. Bicycle tyres squelched and ripped through the softening tarmac. Car windows, wound down, gave a straw poll of what music was "in". Thumpy bass, twangy depressing country and western, Engelburt. Male drivers were being distracted from their sight of the road ahead road by female pedestrians exceeding a reasonable ratio of bare flesh to clothing. At least two shunts could be attributed to a girl at a bus stop in a halter top. The pubs along the high road were heaving out onto the forecourts. I envied the participants in casual chit-chat and high spirits but had to speculate on what job they held down to allow them this recreation. The gates, as I passed the city park were crowded with young mothers and infants at the ice cream van. As an indictment of lifestyles there was a bigger queue at the mobile burger van.
I reached the address provided by my caller. The car straddled the pavement and double yellows. There was just enough room for two saloon cars to pass at speed but the frequent coming together in opposite directions of buses to town and juggernauts from the docks caused a few snarl-ups.
The damsel in distress was standing on her doorstep before I had reached the wrought iron footgate. Her voice was 60 years or so younger than her physical appearance. Slight and grey looking but with a quiet determination lurking beneath. As we went indoors she glanced around nervously. The net curtain of two bungalows opposite floated down to their normal position but not from any breeze on a stifling becalmed day.
She briefed me on the problem which warranted my expertise. Her neighbour was slowly but surely stealing her land. It had started on her return from a holiday a few years before. Her south boundary, as straight as a centre court tramline was now bulbous. A large section, previously in her ownership was now fenced in and had been claimed by the neighbour. She had, she said, been prepared to be reasonable but her polite approach ,giving the benefit of any doubt ,had only been seen as a weakness by the neighbour. He was now more determined to grow his plot at her expense. He was now looking to annexe the driveway. They had faced up over the fence and played involuntary footsie under it. Fingers had been pointed and stabbed agressively in the air. Hurtful things, of no relevance to the boundary dispute had been thrown around like a seeded dandelion head. It was a job for the lawyers evidently. The respective legal representatives were reluctant to take the case but the prospect of good fees made it tolerable and profitable.
No reasonable or amicable compromise was possible. The fledgling lawyers had seen the depiction of an intervention on a Channel 4 comedy show and thought about it to resolve this issue. A single joint expert would be appointed. Where they had sourced him from I could not begin to speculate.A classified ad in a fantasy magazine perhaps. He arrived with a bag of tricks. Laser-satellite-total station- technology or something using that combination of words. The boundary was measured, then deconstructed and re-engineered. Science ruled the day. Unfortunately, the crew of the Enterprise as I labelled them, had forgotton their primary tools of common sense, observation and interpretation of facts. Reality on stun.
The conclusion, some 100 pages on from the title page, was akin to re-writing the Bible as he saw it.The boundary by their reckoning, ceterus parabus, was a little to the south of the existing. This would mean a very happy and unbearably justified neighbour and a driveway of now no practical use to my client. It was illogical.
I pored over the bundle of documents in her possession while she poured me a cuppa. The file was meticulously ordered, logical and to anyone with an ounce of common sense, self explanatory in defining the boundary of some 50 years standing. Title Plans, correspondence, affidavits from previous owner occupiers all told the truth. I took the papers away and by 1am I had confirmed my view. It was too late to call her up so I just basked in imagining her happy and reassured that she was not going doo-lally.
I would be firm and resolute in my reporting. After all, I always liked to champion the down trodden and the underdog and in this case someone had definitely crossed a line.
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