Briefly Legal
The “interesting developments” that Jane referenced in relation to The Campanile—did I mention I was having shutters installed?—required a meeting at Chartwell, Bidmore & Cope. Once again we were ushered into a quiet boardroom, offered refreshments, and politely informed that “Mr Cope would be with us” shortly, a comment that made me think we were attending a séance in the hopes of communicating with the dead, and not awaiting a lawyer to arrive.
Ardie stretched and wandered over to look out the window, pointing out various city landmarks from our aerie, so many floors up. Miss Cousins was silent and Jane sat across from her, almost hidden behind a stack of file folders she unpacked from her shoulder bag.
Mr Andrew Cope, Jr., arrived and I was struck by how his wan appearance. He looked like he hadn’t seen daylight in years; pale skin, dun-coloured hair and light-coloured eyes left him with an almost unhealthy pallor. He greeted Miss Cousins first as she outranked the rest of us in age, gender, tenure as a client and wealth.
Both Ardie and Miss Cousins were smoking, using a saucer as an ashtray.
For the uninitiated, professional bad news—whether delivered by a lawyer, a judge or a doctor—is never delivered slowly. The same principle that applies to removing bandages is followed by professionals eager to drop a bomb: Do it quickly and it will all be over soon.
The long-standing property-line dispute between The Campanile and the condominium next door had been settled, and not to our advantage. We were being sued for damages and Mr Andrew Cope, Jr., advised us that settling soon might mitigate some of the damages, but we would also be on the hook for costs and other, assorted fees from lawyers, engineers, property surveyors and an architect.
The new property assessment provided by the City of Toronto indicated we were in arrears with our property taxes and a work order from City Hall demanded that we “upgrade terraces, roof-top spaces and all balconies” within a strict timeline or face penalties for failing to meet new building code requirements.
The only good news—such as it was—was in reference to the parking garage. We might be able to go another two years before extensive reparations would be required. This work would require several months to complete, and was estimated to cost several hundred thousand dollars.
The room was silent while we absorbed the news. Jane reviewed some spreadsheets and noted that we were “solvent” but that the repairs demanded by the city would deplete our cash reserves and “the small contingency fund” she had been building. (We had a contingency fund?)
She also made it clear, however, that legal damages owed to our neighbours the condo were beyond what we could afford. Anticipating this problem she silently handed out mortgage options for us to consider.
Ardie lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply, stopping only to cough.
Miss Cousins scanned the numbers, her eyes flicking past the rows of columns, before looking at Jane and raising her eyebrows in question. “How bad is it, Jane?” she asked, her voice calm. Her voice displayed no trace of just having heard bad news.
“It’s bad. We’re broke.” Jane also delivered her professional news without fanfare. We were going to take our medicine whether we wanted to or not.
Ardie insisted that we could “reason and negotiate” with the condominium board and “come to a sensible solution.” At this point the senior partner of Chartwell, Bidmore & Cope coughed discreetly—unlike the rumbling hacks Ardie had been serenading us with—and pointed out that this was not the case. The condominium board of directors wanted money, half of our front lawn, all of the side garden and expedited action. The dispute over the property line has lasted for the better part of a decade and our neighbours were in no mood to wait longer for resolution.
We had arrived separately but left together; I took the wheel of Miss Cousins’ car, who rode shotgun, while Ardie and Jane sat together in the back. Miss Cousins lit a cigarette which was interpreted by Ardie as an invitation to light one of his own. I lowered my window a crack and felt the tingle of fresh air—this was back when Toronto had lots of fresh air—slip into the cabin.
We were on Avenue Road, crossing Davenport, when Miss Cousins pointed out Jack Grade, dashing out of the Avenue Road Gourmet Shop, toting a large bag of goodies and hopping into the passenger seat of Leesa Mitzvah’s double-parked car. Leesa leaned over and gave his hair a good-natured rumple, before quickly entering traffic.
Ardie just smiled and said that the day seemed to be going from bad to worse and then asked to be let off first; he was having supper with Beebe and Ted and he didn’t want to be late. We rode home in relative quiet, the silence disturbed only by the discreet sound of the motor and the flicking of Ardie’s lighter as he tried—desperately—to light another cigarette.
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