The Closed Circle Read Online Free PDF

least, he was the one who was
footing the bill. The person supervising all the work was his wife, Liz, and the
architect and project manager was called Stefano. Liz didn’t speak any Italian and
Stefano didn’t speak any English and that was where I came in. I was brought in
to do all the translating—in person and on paper—and so for six months Liz
Murray became my employer.
    Now, it’s a slightly alarming feeling, to sign a contract with someone and then
to realize, about two days later, that you’re dealing with the boss from hell. To
describe Liz as having a bad temper and a foul mouth doesn’t even begin to convey
what she was like. She was a stuck-up cow from north London whose basic attitude
towards the people working for her—and, as far as I could see, to the whole of the
human race—was one of absolute contempt. Whether she had ever worked herself
I was never able to find out: certainly she showed no particular talent for anything,
apart from scaring people and bossing them around. Luckily, my job was straightforward, and I was good at it, or at least competent; so although I never received a
gracious word from her, or was made to feel that I was anything other than her
minion, at least I never had her screaming at me. But Stefano had to put up with
the most terrible abuse (which I of course had to translate), as did the builders
themselves. Eventually, it was more than they could take.
    It happened on a Wednesday, I remember, a Wednesday in late August.
There was a site meeting fixed for 5 p.m. Stefano, Liz and I all drove out to
the house separately. The builders’ foreman, Gianni, was already there. He’d
been working all day, with four other men, and they were hot and bothered.
The job had overrun now by several weeks, and they were probably all wishing
that they were on holiday, like everybody else in Italy. The heat was indescribable. Nobody should have to work in that kind of heat. But in the last couple of
weeks they had done (I thought) an extraordinary job. A huge swimming pool
had been dug out, and almost completely tiled. The tiling alone had taken three
days. They had used porcelain tiles in subtly
different  shades of blue, each one
five centimetres square. The
effect was magnificent. But there seemed to be a
problem.
    â€œWhat are these?” Liz snapped at Gianni, pointing at the tiles.
    I translated for him, and he answered: “These are the tiles you asked for.”
    She said: “They’re too big.”
    He said: “No, you asked for five centimetres.”
    Stefano stepped forward, leafing through the thick wedge of papers that made
up his spec.
    â€œThat’s right,” he said. “We placed the order about five weeks ago.”
    To Gianni, Liz said: “But I changed my mind since then. We talked about it.”
    He said: “Yes, we
talked,
but you hadn’t come to a decision. You never came to
a new decision, so we just proceeded.”
    Liz said: “I did come to a decision. I asked for smaller tiles than those. Three
centimetres across.”
    Slowly, as they argued, it must have dawned on Gianni what she was asking
him to do. She wanted his men to strip all the tiles out, order thousands of new,
smaller ones, and start all over again. What’s more, she wanted him to do this at
his own expense, because she was adamant that she had given verbal instructions
to use smaller tiles in the first place.
    â€œNo!” he was saying. “No! It’s impossible! You’ll bankrupt me.”
    I translated this for Liz, and she answered: “I don’t care. It’s your fault. You
didn’t listen to me.”
    â€œBut you didn’t make it
clear
—” Gianni said.
    â€œDon’t argue with me, you fucking idiot. I know what I said.”
    I translated this, without the “fucking.”
    Gianni was still furious. “I’m not an idiot.
You
are the stupid one here. You
keep