The Butterfly of Love

By Jim Coso

A book about the changeable nature of humans. About the road to finding happiness, pleasure, a sublime love. A young female doctor, who is dating one of her managers in a Liverpool hospital, decides that she wants to finish her studies at a university in Chicago. While away from England for two years, she meets a young rich kid, an Anthropology student, with whom she falls in love. Although the guy offers her almost everything; a future with the descendent of a family of millionaires, a sumptuous villa for a home, exclusive vacations, the opportunity of a first-rate job, on the background of some family problems, but also with a certain unhappiness in love, the girl decides to return to Liverpool. Within a short space of time, following overwhelming gestures of love from her ex-boyfriend in her hometown, she returns to her old relationship, one which is clearly also advantageous at a financial level; her lover offers her a pleasant and well-remunerated work position in the department which he heads, she moves into his expensive modern house and things seem to be heading towards a happy ending and a marriage for love. But the story does not end here. At some point, the girl inherits a cottage in a village close to Liverpool, which she then extends with the aid of a construction company. While supervising the construction work, the girl discovers that the engineer foreman directing the workers is a really great guy. This man, of good breeding and with a leaning towards culture, has a part-time job as an actor in a theater company and seduces the girl after a play which he has invited her to see him in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Coso
• Release date: Jun 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466006522

Jim Coso

I am forty years old and I write with pleasure about the beautiful world around me, about dreams fulfilled and those who strive to fulfil them. I look for love in its banal forms, hidden or extraordinary. I look for lovers to bring them to you in all their splendor.I love nature in equal measure and would not be able to live without running between my sporting hobbies and my everyday work. I really feel the freezing winters and the scorching heat of July and August, but delight in spring and fall with their clement temperatures, nature reborn and the splendid landscapes of October and November.

Book preview

Chapter 1

A sixteen-ton truck eased into position to tip its load of rubble into the footprint of what would one day be the house of a bank official. Behind it, the engineer Mayer was trying to guide the driver towards a deeper part of the site which would swallow up the load of earth, concrete and stone fragments.Dressed in a khaki jacket, the engineer was trying to impose an air of seriousness on his site management, so the four laborers were doing their best to please him and pick up their pace. Two unkempt guys were struggling to haul a grading roller over the town side of the strip of land where the house was due to go up. A man of few words, the older of the two, Johnny, fixed his gaze on a rock which was obstructing work on the foundations. It had occurred to him that, in the absence of other heavy equipment, the truck, once unloaded, might be used to shift the large and jagged boulder.

The region’s most beautiful birds had just left their nests to brighten the sky with their coloured plumage. They were uncharacteristically active for a torpid summer day such as this. Catching sight of them, Johnny’s face lit up and he called one of the guys to measure the perimeter of the foundations, as an excavator was arriving the following day to assist operations. Reluctantly, Pitt came over with the measuring tape and drew it between two rows of stakes hammered into the ground to mark out the lines that the excavator would be following the next day.

Slowly, slowly the sun left the city sky to give way to the cool of the evening and bringing comfort to the small team struggling all day against sweat, midges and the pretensions of their foreman.Before heading home, Mayer himself examined the site, seeming pleased that the guys had generally respected his urgings. He climbed into his green off-road vehicle to drive homeward.

Several days after the foundations had been poured, torrential rain fell, breaking – if only temporarily - the spell of drowsiness brought about by the seemingly unending weeks of summer. Life on the site became more animated than usual with the addition of music from a portable radio.No gift could have been more valued during those days than the rain which interrupted operations, leaving them time to dream of beautiful, far-off, fanciful things.

If the dreams of Johnny, Pitt and the other laborers were filled with drink, beautiful girls and easier jobs for better money, during this period those of the engineer arrived from another project delayed by rain were of only one girl; his most important project, harder to achieve than the highest skyscraper. He had had numerous relationships but something had always been missing. Never had all the qualities he sought been found in one woman, namely beauty, common sense and open-mindedness. He had hopes which were quite at odds with his scientific background and awareness of the theory of probabilities.Here in this field full of dwarf elder and thistles, only a lost painter would have been able to incorporate him into her canvas. He had never been a pessimist and so even now, it seemed, he forced the things in his head to happen the way he would have liked.

The sun’s rapid rise into a clear blue sky did not disturb him, for the time being, when he received a telephone call from his present girlfriend, Violet, who wanted to say that she would like to go for a kebab; she was in fact trying subtly to convince him that they should have a picnic next weekend, somewhere far from the city. Mildly unhappy to have been disturbed in his reverie, Mayer avoided committing to the young woman’s invitation.

Construction work, perceived by many as a profession involving plenty of filth, noise and opportunities to become depressed by too much time spent staring at walls, also has its good parts. However sad one might feel coming from such a workplace, it is impossible not to feel satisfaction when watching the rise of a new house from a wasteland of weeds, hitherto home to untold mounds of garbage, snake holes and mosquitoes. The house upon which Mayer and his team from Green Concrete were working had been just such a fetid and hostile location prior to construction, to which would be added a stunning garden with ornamental plants. The laborers had finished the foundations and were now busy trying to remove the casings from the cement piers destined to support the second floor. The house was to be on two levels, first and second floors, five rooms plus kitchen, bathroom with WC and an additional WC. Construction was in rendered brick, roofed with colored cement tiles. The dwelling was to be the home of a family with two children, who needed well-lit spaces, room to play, greenery, intimacy and security, all of which was the responsibility of Green Concrete from start to finish: planting the shrubs, mounting the smoke alarms, motion sensors, and the automatic garden watering system. Only the selection of furniture was the responsibility of other architecture or design companies.

Every house that he built gave Mayer the sensation of having brought another child into the world, a sentiment felt only by those in his field. It is no small thing to raise something as complex as a liveable dwelling from a few truckloads of diverse materials, and to the standards of the last years of the 20th century. Not least with the ever-present pressure from the client to advance the completion deadline, or in countries like England the capriciousness of the weather, which threatens any initial promise you may make.

First begun two weeks ago, the house which Green Concrete was currently working on was scheduled for completion in another six weeks. At the same time, other teams of four to six laborers apiece were constructing other dwellings, gardens or other works necessitating renovation or demolition, in seven more locations. Three engineers including Mayer supervised operations, each having responsibility for two or three projects. In addition, some installation work was undertaken in collaboration with subcontractors. Contact with suppliers of concrete, adhesives, flagstones, roof tiles and other materials was the responsibility of another department of the company which had signed contracts for materials, transport and logistics. Their planning, a week ahead, ensured the efficiency of operations except on those days when rain, wind or other inclement weather hampered workers’ efforts.

The firm for which Mayer worked, and in which he was also a shareholder, operated in Northwest England, mainly Merseyside, a county of 1,355,900 inhabitants centered on the city of Liverpool.

Competition in the construction industry is quite remarkable in such places, but step by step the firm’s shareholders, two civil engineers and an economist, had successfully read the marketplace and adapted to its demands. Low prices were not the client’s main priority as much as construction time, professionalism, workmanship, care regarding the immediate environment and other apparently small details which sometimes proved to be highly significant.

Involved in the construction industry since childhood, Tom Mayer had, in his 39 years, done all the jobs on the site right up to foreman and company director. He had served his time as grunt, bricklayer, reinforced concrete pourer, joiner, tiler, plumber and electrician, and was an endless source of advice and guidance as much for his clients as for his workers. This professional proximity to those whose houses he raised had accounted for a good part of his firm’s success.

At a personal level, he had neglected his love life, mainly due to the absence of free time available to him following long days on the sites. Precisely because he had neglected to start a family at a more tender age, he now had an entirely different approach to this matter. He had dated pretty enough girls, some better educated than others, following ambiguous criteria and without weighing up the various factors too attentively. Perhaps this was the reason he had failed to lay more solid foundations in this area of endeavour. There was a streak of superficiality there, he admitted openly to those close to him. Nor could it have been otherwise, with a killer schedule like his. Now that he was free of the major financial trouble that he had suffered ten to fifteen years ago, he had bought himself a parcel of land six miles outside Liverpool where he was building himself a house. His plan was to find the love of his life and, this achieved, withdraw progressively from the obligations of the company in order to rejoice in new projects: marriage, kids one day, house, garden and travel. He understood, after fifteen years of hard labor on construction sites that there was more to life than how much you worked and how much money you could accumulate. He had already begun to frequent, with greater interest, cultural centers such as theaters, libraries, exhibitions and concerts; things which he had always wanted to do but which had always taken second place due to the straitened financial circumstances which forced him to be that much more dedicated to his work.

Chapter 2

Four thousand miles away, on the campus of Chicago’s Northwestern University, Dana was preparing to take her examination with Professor John Isaac of Biomedical Informatics. She passed along one of the alleys between the buildings of the Feinberg School of Medicine, accompanied by a light wind blowing off nearby Lake Michigan. Her hastening legs swept along with them a well-proportioned body clad in a pale yellow dress surmounted by a face with finely-chiseled, slightly severe features and two dark eyes caressed by the afternoon sun. The gently sloping sidewalk appeared to help the brunette student to arrive a little later; breathing space in which to better organise her thoughts before the examination with Professor Isaac, which was on research into the monitoring of infections with potential for exploitation in bioterrorism.

Several hours later, Dana, visibly more relaxed, was hanging out in the noisily talkative company of her group colleagues at a nearby bar, The Keg of Evanston. Russians, Serbians, Belgians etc., all at Northwestern to complete their studies whilst soaking up the American way of life in a city once shaped by the notorious reign of Al Capone.

Amid cigarette smoke and gulps of coffee and juice, her colleagues were absorbed in discussions about the upcoming vacation.These young folks, graduates of faculties of medicine or related fields, came across the ocean for placements of one or two years at the Feinberg school of medicine, motivated by diverse interests. Some wanted to build on the knowledge they had acquired at universities in their countries of origin, others had followed parents whose short-term work commitments found them in Chicago. The Russians, rich kids mostly, were sent over by their parents to distance them from the wave of criminality sweeping the country following the fall of communism. Dana, who had arrived from England, was among those who regarded the FSM strictly as a chance to upgrade her knowledge of psychology and psychiatry, familiarize herself with the best organizational methodology for such departments in terms of computerization, resource management and patient service, areas in which the American university excelled. She participated with interest in the course lectures, seminars and research projects and despite the busy schedule did not resist the temptation to explore the city minutely with all it had to offer in terms of free-time attractions.

Dana Swanson came to Chicago in August 1999 and within two weeks of arrival had found herself an apartment which she shared with two other female students, one from Spain and another from Russia. The costs of university, accommodation and other expenses were supported partially by her parents and partly by a personal credit she had taken out, which possibly explained why she was very careful about her spending. She was even thinking of taking a job in one of the city’s hospitals, which would have made for an even more stressful schedule.

She and her Spanish housemate, Gloria, together daily combed the job sections in the free papers, online and wherever else they appeared.She eventually found two jobs for which she attended interviews. The first interview was for receptionist at the emergency room, a relatively convenient work situation compared to waiting on tables in restaurants to make ends meet, as many of her colleagues did. She learned however that it was pretty tough work. She had to stay on her feet for four hours a day, in other words for the entirety of the part-time hours she had opted for; she had to speak more or less non-stop to keep new arrivals informed, and all for under 800 dollars a month. Another job was as a supervisor in a theme park, where she had to stare at a monitor and communicate, via a two-way radio from her glass and metal cabin, with the three youths responsible for the rides. This too was a lot of stress for too little money. It was also seasonal work and there were maximum two and a half months left of the season.After these two experiences she took a break from job interviews. She wanted to find something more decent and with a more flexible program, ideally in the medical field.

Classes sometimes filled a whole day, and research papers and reading in the campus library were the Liverpool student’s only other preoccupations during the first two months of school. She sometimes thought that the further study had not been worth the effort, after finishing university - and having already found a job as psychiatrist - in her home town of Liverpool. She had plenty of moments in which her decision to return to further education and relocate to this far from cheap or easy new life in the metropolis on the shore of Lake Michigan seemed whimsical. As with any new beginning, the downsides are often clearer to see. It was difficult adapting: throughout university in Liverpool, as well as for the further three years working at the Walton Centre hospital in the same town, Dana had lived with her parents, who had covered all expenses, or at least accommodation and food. Later, having found herself a well-placed boyfriend, she had still never really understood the value of money;

that so much depends on it, a fact which is clearest to those who don’t have any.

Three months after her arrival in Chicago, Dana and her Russian and Spanish housemates were preparing to go to a party at the University of Chicago, which had been organized for first-year students in the faculty of anthropology. On the ground floor of the building, in a pastel yellow dress showing off her bronzed shoulders, accessorized with a string of lilac beads, Dana was talking on the phone with an acquaintance and waiting for girlfriends who needed a touch more powder or make-up, or who were still matching shoes with outfits. Fashionably late, Gloria and Raisa accompanied Dana, heading towards a subway station. Forty-five minutes later, they were on the Chicago University campus.

In a building which appeared to be a sports hall, tens of students hunted friends or relatives of similar age to yarn with about student life. The relaxed atmosphere was broken from time to time as the DJ called the youngsters to the dance floor, an expanse of parquet marked with the lines of a tennis court. Initially timid, the three girls from Northwestern had located, with the aid of a cellphone, the friends who had invited them and with whom they were to go to the party. Dana, Gloria and Raisa had been called by colleagues from Russia and Spain. Before letting herself be carried away by music and the friendly faces of her colleagues, Dana took a detour through the campus to take a look at the university which was in a way rival to her own. The University of Chicago had a proud history behind it and numerous celebrity alumni. Many graduates had gone on to hold key positions in politics, the economy, etc.

She returned to the partying students to find her friends once more and dance a spell, for the first time in maybe a year. Gloria and Raisa were on the dance floor, where once there had been a tennis net, gyrating to a South-American rhythm in the somewhat clumsy hands of some colleagues from the University of Chicago. At this point, a young man who had probably arrived late sought to engage Dana in conversation, asking her about a particular group of students at the UC, of whom Dana knew nothing at all. Slowly but surely they found common ground for conversation, not least because Dana was personally curious about the University of Chicago.

A while later, the young man, whose name was Ray, invited her for a coffee at a nearby stand where they drew parallels between their faculties. They were not tempted to approach the dance floor because neither was particularly talented, but the arrival of Gloria and Raisa, accompanied by colleagues from Russia, persuaded the two to follow their companions into the limelight.

Had Michael Bolton been singing that piece live rather than via a CD, he would have smiled at the numerous hesitations which accompanied Dana’s dance with Ray. Embarrassment however had no place here, since with smiles and jokes they excused themselves from staying on for the next song, citing tiredness. Dana would discover that Ray, an American from Chicago, was in the final year of his Master’s in anthropology, a subject which he had chosen in order to better understand human behavior.

In almost everything you do, you need to interpret human behaviour, he explained to Dana in politics, where the voter has to be targeted with the appropriate message; in business, where you can never afford to permit partners or rivals to surprise you; even in raising your own children, you always need anthropology.

You’re right. answered Dana, captivated. And which of those areas you mentioned would you like to work in?

Right now, I work in real estate sales and rentals. It’s a family business. I live right here in Chicago and I intend to get more seriously involved in that line of work as soon as I graduate. The lectures and exams are kinda stopping me from being as involved as I would like to.

Ray seemed interesting to Dana and she stayed a while in conversation with him. Meanwhile, Gloria and Raisa were being spun around the floor by a couple of energetic young guys for the