Biting Back The Tears - Thursday

‘Wish me luck.’ I say to my wife as she leans in for the traditional peck on the cheek, pre work departure.

‘Expecting problems today?’ She asks. She’s clearly not been paying attention for a couple of decades. I’m an estate agent, problems come with the job.

‘The dentist.’ I tell her, pointing to the lost filling.

‘Oh don’t be such a softy.’ She chides. ‘Maybe they’ll give you a lollipop, if you’re a good boy.’

That’s kind of how the problems started, as it happens. 

Obviously my parents’ generation all had false teeth by the time they were in their forties, my generation had endless fillings before we reached senior school and the current bunch squeal if they need treatment before they get their driving licence. I still think that ghastly old dentist I had as a child was some sort of pervert who got off on children’s screams, drilling teeth without anaesthetic.

‘You on any drugs of any kind?’ Asks the bored-looking receptionist, when I arrive. Only alcohol, which I self medicate after bad days - most days. I answer in the negative, don’t think they cross-check with the local Majestic wholesaler.

‘There’s a form to fill out.’ Says the girl yawning and displaying a mouth devoid of amalgam. Of course there is.

‘And they’ll buzz you when there are ready.’ It turns out, much to my surprise, the Polish lady is still practicing dentistry in the UK - she still doesn’t have any vowels in her name though. I’m hoping she doesn’t feel too alienated by the political climate, as the ability to inflict pain is very much in her hands.

‘Are you still the estate agent?’ She asks, when I’m prone in the chair, light in my eyes. I’m an estate agent, I want to correct, but appropriately, I bite my tongue. Pedantry and dentistry are probably not a good mix. It should be fairly obvious I’m selling something anyway, as nobody else is daft enough to wear a suit and tie in this weather.

‘Hmm.’ Mutters the woman as her assistant peers into my open mouth and mimics her boss. I know it’s not a pretty sight, but I do a lot of grinding.

‘This might hurt.’ Says the dentist, prodding with a steel implement. My yelp of distress comes out at least an octave higher than I’d have liked.

‘Two options.’ Concludes the black widow of Gdansk.

‘Mmmm?’

‘The nerve is exposed, so I can’t fill it in case you get a serious infection. So I recommend extraction.’

Surely that’s one option. I press.

‘Well I could do a temporary filling but it will come out again.’

Still one option.

‘Can you do it now?’ I say, not sure which answer I want.

‘Yes, but it’s a wisdom tooth, they can be difficult. If it doesn’t come cleanly, I’ll have to refer you to hospital.’

F**k. The only thing I hate more than the dentist, is A & E.

‘Crack on.’ I instruct, with as it turns out, unfortunate prescience.

Two injections later and wielding the sort of medieval instruments the Spanish Inquisition would have been familiar with, I’m in squirming agony. I can hear the tooth moving and ripping at the base, inside my head. And with a gut-wrenching crunch, it breaks off at the gum. Not much wisdom left, I think, grimly. But as it turns out the root is still keen to hang in there.

‘Not good.’ Says the dentist, and her assistant agrees as she enthusiastically vacuums out blood like a vampire at an abattoir.

‘One more try and it’s the hospital.’ She says, leaning in. Now I’m sure there’s a website out there for those who favour eastern European women in uniform, squatting on their chest. But I just want my credit card details back.

With one final wrench, I can still hear and feel now, the shattered tooth comes free.

‘Are you a vegetarian or vegan?’ Enquires the dentist. And my head spins. What the f**k?

‘I have gelatine to stop the bleeding, but it has animal product.’

Stick a whole leg of lamb in there, wool and all. Just stop me from drowning in my own plasma, lady.

‘Good day?’  Asks my wife.

I’ve had better.

Tea And No Sympathy - Thursday

The phone rings and I look straight to the main office - my door is always open. Negotiator S is already on a call and nobody else is in sight.

I lunge for my handset. Three rings is the optimum, any less and you appear desperate, any more and people start to think they’re ringing an on-line agent - or call centre as we like to name them.

I trill out the corporate greeting, it’s cheesy but at least it’s consistent and gives an air of efficiency. My professional veneer soon strips away though, as I hear idiot savant trainee F’s, nasally whine.

‘Oh, I didn’t expect to hear you.’ Begins F hesitantly.

The choices for arsenic-laced sarcasm are endless but I remember he’s on a string of viewings and might be with a buyer.

‘How can I help?’ I ask pleasantly. That obviously throws the fool.

‘Err, you’re not going to like this.’ Replies F, as my goodwill vanishes faster than biscuits at a Weight Watchers’ end of term party.

‘What is it?’ I say curtly, realising he’s not with punters, or one of our vendors.

‘I’m a bit lost.’

I realised that months ago, but like a hopelessly over-committed gambling addict I need to keep playing. I’ve invested so much so far and training up new staff is….well… a bit of a lottery.

‘Where are you.’ I demand. I know where he should be, he’s got the keys and two sets of property particulars. I checked before he left the office.

‘That’s just it.’ Says F. ‘I don’t know. My sat nav has dropped out.’

Now can call me old fashioned - plenty do - but I never trust some random ex-military piece of hardware orbiting the earth. My old school A to Z of the office area is as well-fingered as a porn mag at a boarding school. Of course, like London taxi drivers made redundant by Uber and the circulating circuity 36,000km above me, I have the knowledge in my head. I know my patch more intimately than a one-eyed pirate. F is due to walk the plank.

‘Wow that sounded angry.’ Says S once I’ve ended my barked directions to the house, where a cash buyer with a deadline might still be waiting for  a jerk in a badly-fitted jacket.

‘He’s lost.’ I tell S curtly. Teeth grinding again. The dentist will be rubbing her latex-gloved hands with glee. I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for a small Polish village to be rebuilt over the last few years.

‘How can he be lost?’ Asks S. She’s trying to remain neutral and doesn’t want to bury her colleague, but I’ve already dug a metaphorical hole that will be challenging Melbourne soon.

‘His sat nav isn’t working.’ I say, as what feels like a lump of amalgam crunches to the back of my throat. Terrific.

‘Hasn’t he got…’ Begins S.

‘A map?’ I interject caustically. ‘ No, it appears those are for old fools with a fear of the future.’

‘I’m fearing for his future.’ Says S, with a disarming smile.

God, she’s good. I’m going to hate it when she gets pregnant.

‘The point of difference between us and some numpties behind a website and a multitiered switchboard in Mumbai, is we should know our area intimately.’ I rant towards S. She just keeps smiling coyly and I can feel myself faltering.

‘If we haven’t got a personal service, with local knowledge and experience we have nothing.’ I tell her, running out of anger as she just smiles back knowingly. If I could bear to lose her, they should drop her into the latest world conflict zone, she’d soon have them all bonding and drinking green tea.

‘Rant over?’ She finally asks gently.

‘For now.’ I answer as gruffly as I can manage. I can feel myself smiling and it’s not a good look with the state of my teeth.

‘Cuppa?’

Yes, she’s good.

‘You’re not going to bollock him when he gets back, are you?’ Asks S, as I sip on the brew.

I try and raise a scowl.

‘Because I know you’re a softy at heart.’ She says grinning.

I’m lost.

-------

Away - using a map - for two weeks. Any Stateside realtors who spot a Brit looking in their window, say hello. It might be me.

Mystery Dance - Friday

H my vertically-challenged, rival manager rings. It won’t be a social call. He only makes contact to gloat over his office’s superior sales figure, or because he wants something. If he’s run out of stationery again he can twist. Just because I have supplies of A4 paper, printer cartridges and compliment slips that could stock a Government Department for a year, I’m not about to help him out again. Bad enough I have to applaud every time he gets the quarterly performance cup. Apart from my dentist, he’s the only one smiling every time he gets that prize.

‘How are things?’ Asks H flatly. He couldn’t give a toss, so he needs to cut to the chase before the truant officer asks for some ID. Unless the circus is in town and he’s running away to perform with Snow White and six other short arses, H won’t be be leaving  - he’ll be taking.

‘Not too bad.’ I lie.

‘Many sales in the bin?’ Persists H unconvincingly. He’s clearly on for a bumper week. Gloating is such an appropriately small trait.

‘I’m holding my own.’ I say, thinking that’s what he’s probably doing. If I wanted telephone sex I’d dial a premium number, or at least I would if the bean counter boss hadn’t put call-barring on the office phones. Still not sure who the biggest wanker is in my office, but my money is on F the hapless trainee - although with his timekeeping he wouldn’t come early…

The silence becomes uncomfortable.

‘What is it you’re after?’ I say, cracking first. H chuckles.

‘Am I that transparent?’

Plastic tends to be.

‘The thing is,’ says H. ‘Word on the street is there’s a mystery shopper doing the rounds. I shrug and there’s another long silence, until I realise visual clues don’t work so well over the telephone.

‘So?’ I reply. I don’t get bothered unduly by mystery shoppers - individuals employed by head office to test the performance of  staff - as I hope everybody gets treated with courtesy no mater how banal their enquiry. The bitching starts once they’ve been identified as time-wasters - and once they are out of earshot.

‘So, we need to get the jungle drums beating.’ Continues H, urgently. ‘Identify the tosser and circulate their description. Get some photos if we can.’

I can understand H wanting to avoid steep steps but does he really need to cut so many corners? He sails closer to the wind then Sir Ben Ainslie, but as long as he keeps delivering top sales figures -  to continue the nascent nautical analogy - the bean counter boss, makes like Lord Nelson.

‘I’ll put the word out.’ I tell H, tiring of the conversation. He doesn’t know he’s born. Not for the first time I start fantasising that if only I had his office, with it’s superior catchment area, prime position and less than effective competitors, I could…. well… I could be a contender….

‘Make sure you ring me if they come to your office first.’ Urges H.

‘Worried about how your team will perform?’ I goad. Like a bunch of in-bred central London estate agents, his staff are fat on commission and complacency - just without the double-barrelled surnames.

‘We’re too busy to faff about with pretend applicants.’ Snaps back H. ‘If they don’t want to buy, rent or take out a policy, on to the next mug punter.’

You can see why the industry engenders so much love.

‘What makes you think we’ll spot them any more than you will?’ I ask tetchily.

‘Well your lot are…’

‘Are what?’ I snap.

‘Well you’ve got more time on your hands..’

It’s not getting any better.

‘If they get good service you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ I tell H. I may not be able to hear it, but I can feel my head banging against another wall.

‘Do you realise the number of tossers that come through my office door?’ Demands H.

Excluding staff members? I think sourly. Actually I do know, I see the weekly sales data - and that’s after H has sanitised it to make his conversion rates look better.

It’s a game, a numbers game.

-------

Off for some late summer sun. Download the ebook and check the Twitter feed for your poolside property news fix.

Flying High - Thursday

A scruffily dressed man in his twenties peers in the office window. I’m sat at assistant manger T’s desk, as he’s out lunchtime shopping. He’ll come back with something else unnecessary on his credit card, no doubt.

‘Lettings customer?’ I whisper conspiratorially, to negotiator S. She looks up discretely and clocks the guy, who is shielding his eyes and looking in, grinning slightly insanely.

‘Bit judgemental isn’t it.’ Says S, looking towards lettings’s lush B’s vacant desk.B’s been out for over an hour, supposedly helping a landlord with a tricky check-out. Not sure who is checking who out, with B you never know.

‘More about his age than dress sense.’ I hiss, as the man starts chuckling to himself. Terrific, all I need is another nutter coming in. I often wonder if they bus them in for a day out from the padded cells.

‘Is he laughing at us, or himself?’ Whispers S.

‘Probably the asking prices.’ I reply, as the man moves away from the window and towards the door.

I sometimes wish there was a remote controlled deadlock I could activate, to stop the drunks and deadbeats coming in. I only just managed to get the keys in the barrel and the door secured, that time an angry evicted tenant turned up intent on breaking heads or furniture. Twenty minutes for the police to arrive - you’d have thought they didn’t like estate agents…

‘He’s coming in.’ Says S between a forced smile. ‘You want him, or me?’

I’d rather she spoke to the man if I’m honest, but then if it turns awkward I’m going have to go across anyway.

‘Me.’ I tell her and she visibly relaxes. Quite pleasingly, as it happens.

‘You lot trying to hurt the locals again?’ Cries the man, by way of a greeting. Wonderful. If I wanted an argument I could post something provocative on Twitter. I don’t need some grinning gonad with no job, and no prospect of any commission for me.

‘I’m sorry.’ I say neutrally.

‘I bet you are,’ continues the idiot. ‘You must love it every time prices go up.’

He couldn’t be more wrong.

‘No chance for local people to get on the housing ladder with your prices. We just have to buzz off!’

My back isn’t what it was and this bell-end has a couple of decades on me. I’m not sure I can throw him out on the street without embarrassing myself and with the time the constabulary take to arrive, I could be at the emergency dentist by then. And yet, I’m not sure this guy is a complete lunatic, nor can I smell any alcohol.

I rise and an awkward Mexican stand-off begins. I can see S has her hand poised over the fast-dial button but a pizza would get here before any help does. I need to deal with this myself. The man looks at me, then at S before turning back to me.

‘It’s a joke.’ He says, hands held wide.

‘The prices are dictated by the market.’ I tell him robotically.

‘No.’ Says the man raising his eyebrows as if I’m the shabbily dressed wastrel with no job and housing prospects. ‘In your window…’

‘In my window what?’ I snap.

‘There’s a wasp.’

‘That was awkward,’ I say to S after the man has left. ‘I thought he wanted a fight.’

‘Why did he bother to come in?’ Asks S bemused.

‘Some people just think they’re funny.’ I tell her, as I remember the number of times I’ve wanted to go into a baker’s shop and ask how much for the wasps buzzing around the pastries?

‘Could you get it for me?’ Asks S, as I locate the errant flying menace. Fittingly it has landed on an over-priced apartment with a short lease. Someone is going to get stung.

‘How stupid are these creatures?’ I ask exasperated, as the wasp refuses to be guided out the door by a copy of the local free paper. The angry insect just keeps banging it’s dozy head against the glass.

I know how it feels.

----------

Grinning And Baring - Thursday

I’m outside the dentist’s surgery before 8.00am. So early in fact, that I don’t need to pay parking charges for the first ten minutes. That ticket I received when that filling took longer than expected still grates a few years down the line. The irritation lasted longer than the filling, as it happens.

Driver gouging rate for parking on the streets - both I and the office pay rates for - paid, parking ticket displayed on the dashboard, I walk to the surgery door then nearly smash my face against the glass. The door is locked.

‘Oh for f**ks sake.’ I exclaim, louder than I meant to.

A passing woman on a bicycle looks back at me with disdain and a pretty young student type, ignores me and carries on talking to an unseen friend on a hidden mobile phone. She must have one of those concealed microphone and ear piece combos - or she’s another nutter. Tough call.

I rattle the door again, anger swelling as I pull the appointment slip from my wallet and double check I have the right time, day, month and year. You have to book a long way in advance if you want an NHS dentist, and woe betide you if you miss an appointment. You’ll be moved on faster than a single mother on the council waiting list.

A scruffy man in jeans and a grubby t-shirt joins me. I feel out of place in suit and tie and momentarily wonder if he’s about to mug me. If he hits me in the face, as the door just tried to, I’ll be in the right place for reconstructive surgery. Although that will probably be non-essential cosmetic treatment and only available privately. Same dentist, just better mood music at four times the price.

‘They not open yet?’ Asks the man gruffly, stating the sodding obvious.

A cascade of sarcasm aches, like a dying tooth, to flow the man’s way, but sometimes it’s better to keep your mouth shut.

‘Eight o’clock.’ I tell him sagely, pointing at the opening hours which escaped my notice earlier.

‘It is eight o’clock.’ Counters the man, tapping at a cheap digital watch like a hen at a seed bowl.

Great, bad enough I’m about to be probed by a surgical steel implement and told I don’t floss often enough, now some chav with no dress sense wants a pre-breakfast argument. 

‘All bloody foreigners you know.’ Continues the man. pointing past the opening hours to a set of plaques showing the dentists currently practicing. I don’t recognise the woman I had a year ago, but they all seem to have an excess of Z’s andY’s in their names and to have qualified somewhere in eastern Europe.

‘Taking our jobs this lot.’ Adds the man with a yellowy snarl. The choices for a pithy retort are endless. I don’t like casual racism, particularly when it is so spectacularly misplaced. Fortunately the door mechanism rattles as a key is inserted from the inside and we both gain entry.

The receptionist looks bored already and scans my name in to the computer.

‘That’ll be £18.50 before you go in.’ She says challengingly. What’s this? I’ve always paid after the treatment. I’m tempted to argue, but I find it’s best not to upset an organisation that can inflict pain so readily

‘Any new medicines taking?’ Asks the dentist in halting English. She’s not the same woman I had last time - on maternity leave it transpires. God, that must have been a dark night. I answer in the negative and the prodding and tutting begins.

‘Grind together.’ instructs the dentist. Causing  momentary confusion until I realise it’s an instruction, not a request.

‘You have stressful job, no?’ Enquires the woman from behind her surgical mask. Yes, actually. I deal with idiots, liars and time-wasters most days, I want to say. But I just nod. I read somewhere dentists have one of the highest levels of depression and suicide. No sign of estate agents - yet.

‘Have you ever considered wearing a mouth guard?’ Asks the dentist, as I feel more expense coming.

In the end, I just take the hit and keep smiling.

---------

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Rain On My Parade - Friday

‘They’ve got to be having a laugh.’ Announces assistant manager T dryly, as I hurry in to the office damply. My umbrella wasn’t in the car boot where I left it, but I can see it now, all primary coloured, golfy, sponsory and fashion-free, as it sits in the corner mocking me.

‘Who used my umbrella?’ I demand testily, but I know even as I say it. F the trainee with the single-figure IQ, is looking the colour of the rain-protecting freebie even as I scan the appointments diary and realise he was the last one to use my company car.

‘You used it to walk back from the car park earlier didn’t you?’ I state rhetorically.

F blushes a deeper shade of crimson, then nods sheepishly.

‘Why didn’t you put it back?’ I demands, vaguely aware I’ve gone off topic, but too soggy to see sense.

‘Uh, it was raining.’ Responds F.

No shit, Sherlock? Seems like a viable option, but if he cries again it will mean more paperwork and the involvement of Human Resources – the only sustainable boom in housing, or any other industry, from my experience.

‘To be fair,’ soothes S my negotiator, a woman who could pacify for a living – only without the giant dummies and over-sized nappies, that would just be weird. ‘How would he have got back from the car himself without being soaked.’

Sometimes you don’t need logic, even from someone as uplifting as S.

‘You need two umbrellas,’ slurs lettings lush from her cluttered desk. She sounds like she’s been daytime drinking again. ‘One to leave in the office and one to leave in the car.’

Everyone ponders that one for a while. After multiple furrowed brows, F begins to raise his hand.

‘Don’t.’ I tell him, as gently as I can.  After the last trip to the dentist I’ve got to cut down on the teeth gnashing.

‘I’m on a corporate jolly next week,’ Says rotund finance-fiddler M as he waddles across the office towards the kitchen. ‘I could see if I might snaffle a few of their golfing brollies.’

Who is it?’ I ask, still thinking I should be addressing something other than clunky rain protection, which inevitably inverts catastrophically the moment a breeze wafts above 1 on the Beaufort scale.

M tells me the lender’s name and I bristle.

‘There’s no way I’m advertising that bunch of shitesters,’ I snarl back, still remembering the mortgage offer they withdrew at the eleventh hour, on a chain of three sales. ‘I’d rather drown.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Says M unperturbed. ‘You won’t be wanting any of their goody bags with the free pens and pads either.’

‘No I won’t.’ I fire back primly. To be honest I’ve a cupboard full at home and now the boys are at university….

Finally it clicks.

‘Who is having a laugh?’ I ask T, turning to face him and feeling the crotch of my trousers sticking damply as I move. My shoes are soaked; the leather soles are slipperier than a politician on Question Time and my jacket shoulders appear to be gently steaming in the office warmth.

But my mind is already running through an Interpol-like suspects list: buyers pulling out, vendors wanting more money as the neighbour has just gone on the market for £20k more than they’ve agree a sale for, bad employers references, a 100% mortgage retention pending re-building works – the list is endless.

‘The buyers of flat 7 want a £15,000 reduction or they are pulling out.’ Says T wearily.

S shakes her head and her breasts go back and forth doing that well-upholstered Newton’s cradle thing again.

‘Remind me.’ I ask T witheringly. ‘Is this the same couple who pleaded with us to take it off the market and not show anyone else round?’ T nods. ‘And said it was their dream home and promised they wouldn’t let us down, that their word was their bond?’

‘That’ll be them.’ Confirms T.

‘Bastards.’

‘Any luck?’ I ask T after he’s spent the rest of the afternoon, trying to save the dying sale.

‘Owner won’t drop a penny,’ answers T, face drawn with fatigue. ‘Say they might take the flat off the market now.’

It never rains but it pours.

----

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Once Bitten Twice Shy - Thursday

I’m on my way back to the Polish dentist again, teeth deteriorating in tandem with my career. I know I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb in the waiting room once more as the only man in a suit. Last time it felt like the Job Centre Plus-Size, with a motley collection of gap-toothed, overweight, in-bred unemployables all incongruously wearing tracksuits and sports apparel. 

It’s early enough, pre-work hours, for the traffic wardens to still be in bed but the memory of my last botched root canal treatment with both hands gripping the dentist’s chair and both eyes on the clock, is still fresh. Staggering out twenty minutes later than calculated with shirt collar bloodied, temporary filling already loosening and a mouth so numb I sounded like Jonathan Ross, wasn’t enhanced by the sight of a dark-suited fascist with a ticket machine, appending the fine to my windscreen.

The, ‘I’ve started so I’ll have to finish,’ conversation wasn’t improved by my lisping vitriol splattering the man in sputum as I raged about a slightly spurious medical emergency. The written appeal didn’t go too well either.

As I approach the meter, headache building, a rotund woman in an ill-advised trouser-suit waddles from one of those not too cleverly named Smart cars, the springs still rocking in protest. She looks slightly like I remember my mother before it all went horribly wrong.

I wait, just stopping short of tapping my foot while she fumbles fin her purse and dithers. I’m now within a minute of being late, something I detest with a passion, even if it’s for a cavity inspection by a dubiously qualified Eastern European with limited English language skills.

‘I’m not sure how long to pay for.’ States the woman, turning to me with an apologetic shrug. I really don’t want small talk and I already have my own small change. I smile neutrally.

‘I’ll do forty minutes.’ She announces. I’m not engaging. I talk to people I don’t want to converse with only on the business clock.

‘It’s scandalous.’ Says the woman as she taps at the ticket machine and somehow manages to get the instructions to scroll across the screen in French. Sacre bleu.

I nod in what I gauge to be a sympathetic manner, as her ticket finally disgorges. My own ticket – can’t claim that back, the bean counter would spot the time imprint – placed in the company car I cross the road to the dentist only to find the same woman going through the door. Terrific.

‘Not the best way to start the day.’ Says my stalker, as she sits next to me. I look at her with a slightly plaque-stained smile and suddenly wonder if she’s flirting with me? It’s an unpleasant realisation given my earlier likening of her, made worse by the fact that an unhelpful inner-voice tells me she’s probably about my age.

‘I’ve had better.’ I tell her neutrally, fiddling with my phone to try and give off a better signal than the cheap Nokia I bought, despite every staff member telling me to get smart - with all-you-can-eat data.

‘What do you do?’ persists the matronly figure in what is now in borderline need of a restraining order. I assume my revelation will get the usual pantomime hiss and lose an admirer, but I’m wrong.

‘Oh I’d love your job.’ Says the woman wistfully. You wouldn’t.

‘I adore looking at houses.’ She continues, as I think, yep you are pretty much a textbook time-waster.

‘I expect you need all sorts of fancy qualifications.’ Trills my new best friend. I tell her the stark truth and she frowns.

‘Really?’

 Really.

‘Are you on any daily medication?’ Asks the Warsaw woman, distilled through a white facemask and an equally thick accent. Not yet, I want to say but it’s only a matter of time. She pokes around with that unsettlingly sharp surgical implement, while her mono-browed female assistant fails to operate the suction tube effectively and I wait for a filling to collapse. I’m beginning to pine for my agent-loving admirer who gave me a wonky-smile of encouragement when my name was called. Hmm, she has my name…

It might become painful.

-----

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Deadlier Than The Male - Thursday

I’m sitting in my office watching the sales floor. My colleagues hate me lurking and observing but then some agencies monitor their staff remotely with closed circuit cameras, at least I go for a piss regularly. More regularly than I used to unfortunately.

B, the loose lettings lush, has a young hippy-looking couple in front of her and the discussion is getting heated. B isn’t even bothering to try and chat up the male as he has longer, glossier hair than she does and his girlfriend – the one who’d be wearing the trousers if it wasn’t for the flowery maxi skirt – is looking daggers at her. Not a lot of love lost for estate agents.

‘I’ve told you.’ Reiterates B sternly. ‘You won’t be moving anywhere until I get the employers references back and we sort out why you have a bad credit score.’

‘It’s just the man on our case.’ Replies the beta male dreamily. He’d still be smoking something in the office if it weren’t for the legislation. I stifle an audible scoff at his risible, persecuted lefty response just as M our fat mortgage man waddles by, scoffing more visibly.

‘My father will act as guarantor if necessary.’ Responds the flower girl in a cut glass accent that echoes privilege, a horse of her own and a private education. She must be shagging the shaggy-haired-loser just to piss of her parents. The same ones she expects to underpin her rental agreement. Age brings failing eyesight, but 20/20 insight.

‘He hasn’t responded to our correspondence.’ Snipes B, forgetting half a dozen customer service courses and countless reminders from me, to treat people she’s not screwing with a bit more courtesy. I hear a grinding noise in my head and realise it’s my molars again. A trip to the Polish dentist can only be days away.

Without consciously deciding to, I’m out of my seat and in the main office. If a complaint is coming I’d like to nip matters in the bud. The last thing I need is the bean counter and head office requesting reams of written reports on why someone wants to speak to the Property Ombudsman. You usually subscribe to an organisation for a benefit or two, but I get the feeling the Ombudsman’s office hate agents as much as everyone else does.

The straight A* girl is out of her chair and on her iPhone, moving towards the window imperiously while her slumming it f**k buddy looks pretty vacant and plugs in his MP3 headphones. B is visibly coming to the boil. I try to attract her attention, with a calming signal that makes me look - on reflection in the window glass - like a pianist with an invisible keyboard. The girl is speaking haughtily, her boyfriend tapping his fingers on B’s desk, while B shuffles paper at a speed that might cause combustion.

‘Daddy,’ urges the girl in a voice that has dropped a decade in age. ‘These beastly people are giving Virgil and me a hard time. You need to sign some silly undertaking before we can have our flat.’ I sense an overworked man, in an office grander than mine, trying to swallow his pride and an obligation to pay six months rent about five months after his daughter has dumped slacker boy and run home for mummy’s cooking and cleaning - and the chance to ride Dusky the gelding more regularly than Virgil.

‘Please.’ Inveigles the girl persuasively. ‘I just must have this place Daddy. I’ll die if we miss it.’

I sense but can’t hear another beaten man, on the end of the phone. Women are the decision makers where most property transactions are concerned. B is not even bothering to disguise her distaste but then she’s shafted plenty of men too. The boyfriend is oblivious to the drama, sat engrossed in his own audio-cocooned world, longhaired head nodding rhythmically. He’ll be bald and on the council accommodation list before his thirtieth birthday.

‘You could have been more understanding.’ I coax gently after they leave. B bites, as she’s rumoured to do out of hours.

‘I hate bitches like that.’ She snaps. ‘Manipulating, conniving, using.’

Put pot, kettle and black on the inventory.

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