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.

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Open All Hours - Thursday

I’m alone in the office with just imbecilic trainee F for company, as we cover the lunch shift. It’s not a lunch hour; such as you might get working in public service, or a heavily unionised environment. Here you grab some sustenance on the run, in between appointments. Spend too much time scoffing rather than selling and one of the, far too many for every town, opposition agents will be gobbling up your commission opportunities. It’s dog eat dog out there…

F takes a call from an abrupt, just short of rude, man wanting property in a road his wallet won’t stretch to. F frowns as he holsters the phone. I watch the rudimentary cogs grinding in his skull. You can almost hear the base material on base material friction.

You’ve been doing this for, like, ages.’ Announces F eventually, with not the most flattering of openings. I nod warily, as he continues. ‘So, did people always hate estate agents?’

‘Pretty much.’ I tell him, remembering my first sale as if it were yesterday and the fact that the buyer thought they’d paid too much and the seller thought we’d sold too cheaply - and not justified our commission.

‘What you have to understand,’ I tell F wondering if it’s worth the effort enlightening him when I’m trying to engineer a second written warning from a reluctant Human Resources department, who do take lunch hours but don’t like Industrial tribunals. ‘Is property is adversarial,’ I continue. ‘Each party is looking to stiff the other. Add in idiotic surveyors, incompetent solicitors, nervous lenders and a chain longer than on the Titanic’s anchor and you can see why people hate the process.’

‘Yes but why hate us?’ Asks F naively.

‘Because we’re the conduit.’ I tell him, instantly regretting it.

F’s face screws up painfully. Finally he asks.

‘Isn’t that some sort of internet scam?’

Still no entry exam for estate agency.

‘Anything happening?’ Asks fat mortgage man M as he waddles back into the office, face buried in something greasy from Greggs the bakers. He doesn’t need an hour to consume more calories than I eat in a day. I tell him the stark truth.

‘No leads for me then?’ Complains M, spitting flakes on to the carpet, that – unless I do it again - won’t be vacuumed for another 48 hours, after the bean counter’s cleaning cut backs.

‘You could chase up some of your back catalogue of non-written business.’ I suggest sourly. M looks at me with distain. He wants fresh meat – and two veg all wrapped in pastry, if he can get it. He certainly doesn’t see keen on foraging for scraps.

‘Bunch of piss-heads coming up the road.’ Says M nodding his chubby face towards the window and doubtless hoping to change the focus away from his non-performance. M only pulls his weight when he gets on the scales.

‘I don’t know how people can afford to get drunk during the day.’ I pontificate, knowing the answer is probably, ironically, in lettings’ lush B’s copy of the Daily Mail on her desk.

‘You might want to lock the door.’ Suggests M retreating to his office, leaving an aroma laced with processed onions.

It wouldn’t be the first time a bunch of drunkards came into the office to abuse an easy target. I dodged the flying chair last time, but I’m not as agile as I used to be.

Before I can decide, the group of Neanderthals are glaring through the glass making rigorous jerking gestures with cupped forefinger and thumb, while one of their number bangs on the window. The last two times I called the police we were closing for the day before the squad car arrived. I’m guessing there are more than a few constables who can’t get on the housing ladder.

The door spills open and the boldest, drunkest, low-life leers in and grunts.

‘You f***ers are the reason we can’t get no place to live.’

Not the fact you aren’t working and are spending all your benefits on cheap cider then, I ache to say - if it wasn’t for the fear of anaesthetic and more emergency surgery.

The spit will come off the carpet in a couple of days.

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Key To Another Door - Tuesday

‘Don’t you get spooked by dead people’s homes?’ Asks dopey trainee F nervously, as we pull up outside a ramshackle semi-detached house with the look of a decade or two’s neglect clinging to the elevation. I have the keys nestling in my pocket and the covering letter from the probate department of a local solicitor, is in my briefcase. It gives me a nice warm feeling.

‘Death, debt and divorce.’ I remind F as we open a rusting iron gate to a groaning accompaniment. ‘I’ve told you, they are the estate agent’s best friend no matter how the economy is doing.’

‘Yeh but it’s a bit…’ Begins F, tailing off as we dodge round a wild looking buddleia that’s trying to reclaim the crumbling path.

‘A bit what?’ I snap, as a thorny runner from something low-lying snags my trousers and I stoop to unpick it warily. I can’t afford to lose another suit to wear and tear.

‘A bit like grave robbing?’ Ventures F uncertainly.

I tell F curtly that we are providing a service, as I fumble with the tarnished brass keys and try to find the right one for the peeling front door. Remind him, with both debt and divorce we are putting people out of their misery and that with death it’s already been done. He doesn’t look convinced.

‘The deceased don’t grumble about the price and fee.’ I tell F sagely as I finally find the right key and the lock turns with a throaty rasp reminiscent of a death rattle. Bit creepy.

‘Yes but the beneficiaries still do.’ Replies F with unusual accuracy. Perhaps he is learning something.

The door gives after a couple of shoves, but stops after a foot or so as I encounter a few months worth of junk mail. At least I hope I do. I wouldn’t be the first estate agent to find a dead owner. A colleague bustled in a few years ago, viewer on their heels, to find a note on the stairs warning them not to go to the bedroom and to call the police. The man hoping to view the home grumbled that his time had been wasted even as the ambulance crew shook their heads and prepared the body bag.

‘Smells stale in here.’ Says F unnecessarily as I kick the free papers, take away menus and final demands to one side and we enter the hall. A locked house starts to feel musty after a week on holiday, if a stiff has been swinging from the loft hatch for a month or so, the stench will linger for months no matter how many times you try to gloss over it…

‘People like to know what happened to the owner before they buy don’t they?’ States F semi-rhetorically, as I feel a cobweb cling to my face while we move into the kitchen. ‘Best to keep the detail to a minimum.’ I advice F, adding. ‘Act dumb.’ He looks a little hurt, but he’ll get used to it.

A stack of unwashed plates is cultivating some sort of mushroom-style culture, as a tap drips mournfully behind.

‘I wonder what his last meal was?’ Questions F as he peers at the detritus. Probably something pureed I think glumly, as I glance down the jungle-like back garden and wonder who we’ll get to clear the shrubs.

In the cramped sitting room the remains of a real fire sits coldly in the grate. Ashes to ashes. The room is dark, with the threadbare curtains pulled against the daylight.

‘We’re going to need someone in to clear this lot.’ I say to F. ‘Not a lot of value here. Might have to pay to get it taken away.’

‘That’s wrong isn’t it?’ Says F morosely. ‘You live all your life and your stuff just ends up in the council tip.’

I glance round the room and spot the spaces where ornaments, a clock or two and some photographs must have sat, judging by the dust patterns. ‘Relatives have been in and taken all they want.’ I tell F as I open my brief case.

The second professional to measure-up recently.

-------------------------------

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Intruder Alert - Tuesday

Disturbed sleep is something that comes with age, young children and too many years selling. I’m tossing and turning through another turbulent dream, involving S my buxom negotiator and more worryingly the bean counter boss waving a virtual spreadsheet with numbers and equations floating from translucent pages. Then F, my idiot trainee swims in to view wearing a horse’s head and striped boxer shorts. Any sexual excitement subsides immediately, just as I hear my wife’s voice shouting. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing down there?’

I’m awake now and confused. The room is dark and as far as I can tell there’s nobody else in bed with me. Guiltily, I check both hands and fumble down below, nothing out of the ordinary.

‘Where are you?’ I ask drowsily.

‘Here by the window.’ Comes my wife’s hissed reply. ‘There’s someone in the garden.’

Great. Now the number of people wishing to do harm to an estate agent is legion. But normally they don’t know where you live. If someone has tracked me down and is bearing a grudge over a gazumping or contract race, I don’t want to fight them off in just my pyjama bottoms. If they’re wielding one of my for sale boards, like that angry owner who tried to insert one through the office letter box, it’s going to get really messy.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask, joining her at the window. And as I say the words, hoping her dreams are as troubled as mine, a flashlight flickers below us and I jump back in alarm. A rather girly shriek emits in stereo, before my wife follows it up with a more robust.

‘Get out of there. My husband is coming down!’

Really? Not the police? Or maybe ring that busybody woman who runs the neighbourhood watch? Actually go out there and confront some smackhead, with a knife and a grudge about being evicted?

‘Be careful.’ Says my wife belatedly, once I’ve donned a t-shirt and a fleece and am exiting the house wearing slippers.

I can hear movement by the garage as I creep cautiously through the gloom, heart pounding, near wet dream just a clammy memory now. Absurdly I find myself wondering why I didn’t take out that extra death in service insurance M the fat mortgage man was trying to flog me last month, to make up his figures. I realise belatedly I don’t have a weapon, other than my bludgeoning wit. I’m guessing a gag about being available for property problems 24/7 isn’t going to reduce a coked-up burglar to harmless giggles.

Then I see a dark form leap the fence in one single bound. Momentarily I make to follow him, until I remember the bad back and the slightly too snug bottoms I’m wearing. Pathetically I open the side gate and find myself in the road, just as the figure emerges from the bushes.

‘Come here.’ I shout unconvincingly and to my horror the figure rushes towards me fists swinging.

The smack in the teeth, stings unexpectedly, as I wonder which aggrieved punter this is attacking me. And then a couple of decades of anger explode in my head and I grab my assailant with the immortal words.

‘You’re nicked.’

As we wrestle on the soaking ground, I realise the gangly figure is no more than my youngest son’s age - late teens at best. Lettings customer? I think absurdly, as he lunges at me and I wonder if I’m about to feel something sharp, other than regret, stabbing in my chest cavity. Then I have him in a stranglehold as he begins screaming obscenities and all the neighbours’ lights start to come on like the end credits of The Flintstones.

‘Call the police.’ I shout breathlessly at my wife who’s appeared clutching the phone and incongruously, a rolling pin.

‘999 or the other number?’ She replies uncertainly as the struggling lad tries to reverse head butt me then yells he’ll be suing for false imprisonment.

Never thought I’d hear myself utter the words: ‘This is a citizen’s arrest.’ Twenty minute later, sat on the wet grass arms aching, prisoner still struggling, the police finally arrive.

Just waiting to see whom they charge.