Heart To Heart - Thursday

‘Are we doing Valentine’s cards this year?’ I ask my wife in passing, the muesli has just moved and I’d rather not do my ablutions in the office.

‘What sort of question is that?’ Comes the terse reply.

I should know better. I tell my staff daily the phrasing of an enquiry is almost as important as the question itself, but I’ve allowed my lower intestine to override the grey matter.

‘Do you want to do them?’ I ask hurriedly, the en-suite door beckoning me as alluringly as that Victoria’s Secret catalogue fat mortgage man M has left on the windowsill in the gents’ at work. I’m beginning to regret my choice of words - and my water closet venue. The thought of fifteen minutes peace with just my thoughts, some of that soft and smooth tissue I’ve hidden in my desk drawer and a soft and smooth underwear model, is looking more enticing than an argument about overpriced soppy cards.

‘What sort of question is that?’ Carps my wife, disappointment written all over her face. It’s a look I’ve seen before and one I see on buyers and sellers faces alike, most weeks. I’m not doing well today and I’ve not even left the house.

‘If you have to ask if we’re doing cards and then compound it by saying, “do I want to do them?”, you’ve rather missed the point.’ Says my wife sourly. The point of something will definitely be emerging if I don’t make the Armitage Shanks soon. Sanctuary isn’t just for those being persecuted by fanatics, it works for harassed husbands too, as long as there’s a lock on the bathroom door.

I’m feeling relieved on more than one level by the time I’m stuck in traffic on the way to the office. I don’t need full-blown arguments before I get to work, particularly over an exploitative marketing man’s wet dream. The fact is I’ve never really got over the schoolyard trauma of Valentine’s Day. The humiliation of not receiving any cards while the good looking lad who plays for the first eleven football team bags more than the total number of girls in your class, was only surpassed by the year the whole maths lower set recognised my handwriting on the card I sent myself. Awkward.

I can feel my cheeks colouring just thinking about all the Valentine’s Days past, as I crane my neck and try to see if that bloody JCB driver is up ahead causing the tailback, again. It hasn’t been much better in the many years since leaving school, the sciatic-suffering postman repeatedly had no call for concern over his bag weights when he approached my letterbox every February 14th. And as my early morning altercation proved, a card from your partner, one headed: To my lovely wife/husband, doesn’t leave much room for mystery. 

The traffic finally clears, the holdup as bafflingly obtuse as the need to reinforce affection with a supposedly anonymous declaration of love from a stranger - signed by your spouse.

Morning meeting over, not my most rousing oration judging by the yawns-per-targets-missed ratio, I sit back and consider the grease-flecked cooling mug of tea in front of me. Then trainee F raises his hand tentatively. I’ve told him he doesn’t need to do that, but years of conditioning in a minor boarding school have stuck with him, a shame any useful knowledge hasn’t been that adhesive. I just hope he doesn’t expect me to sexually abuse him round the back of the bike sheds….

‘What is it?’ I ask, as everyone looks on.

‘Shall we have a sweepstake as to who gets the most Valentine’s Cards tomorrow.’ replies F, eyes aglow.

My verbal arrow to the heart hit the target. The rebuttal may have been a bit harsh, but negotiator S would win hands down anyway.

I did receive one mystery card a few years ago. Sadly, the long-awaited flush of pride soon evaporated when I realised it was from a pug-ugly woman I’d sold a flat to. Face like a moose and arse to match - although if she’s lost weight and had the antlers shorn….

I’ll wait and see. 

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Village Idiot - Friday

Bunch of pirates.’ I say, as I sit in the back of a car for a change and we wind through ever-smaller communities.

‘Is he always like this?’ Asks the lady driver, my wife’s friend.

‘Pretty much.’ My beloved concedes.

‘What about them?’ Asks the other husband, who is sat alongside me, indicating another for sale board.

‘Shitesters and fee cutters.’ I pronounce decisively.

‘He can never switch off.’ Informs my wife as I glance through the steamy car window at another board, one I don’t recognise. I should keep a record book like those bird-watchers, then start again every January – or maybe not.

‘Local independent.’ I say to the other man. We’ve decided to back female equality with all the vigour of a brace of blokes who can now drink at lunchtimes without having to drive afterwards.

‘Are they better then?’ Quizzes my companion, beery breath in my face.

‘Not necessarily.’ I tell him enigmatically, thinking, buy the book if you want tips on the property game. But then writing anonymously isn’t the best marketing strategy I could have adopted. Didn’t really think that through.

‘You won’t find any estate agents where we’re staying anyway.’ Says my wife as we thump across a cattle grid and move into the sort of desolate moor land where most summers, there will be a wild animal on the loose tale circulating, mainly for the amusement of any American werewolves nowhere near London.

She’s right. We have a long weekend in a converted pigpen where the rental is enough to make me squeal. The small community can just about sustain a weathered pub and the sort of shop-cum-post office that is more endangered than the big cat supposedly roaming after dark, stealing sheep. I’m figuring a couple of swarthy Eastern Europeans with a four-by-four and rudimentary butchering skills are more likely to be the farm animal killers, than an escaped tiger. But what do I know?

‘What do you reckon this place is worth?’ Asks the husband as we unpack enough food and drink to sustain a fortnight snowed in. I give him my best estimate and he whistles.

‘Crikey how do the locals afford that sort of money?’ He asks aghast, as I try to open the firkin of real ale we’ve picked up en-route. Not sure how many pints in the poly-container but I’m intent on finding out.

‘They can’t afford it.’ I tell him. ‘This is second homeowner land. I bet most of the lights will be off when we walk to the pub later - unless it’s another power cut.’

I come across similar dilemmas every day just more densely packed. If you are already on the property ladder and selling, it doesn’t matter how leftwing your ideals are they soon go out the - recently refurbished in keeping with the Grade Two listed elevation yet still featuring discrete double glazed thermal efficient panels - sash windows, once the asking price is floated: “We’re not giving it away Rupert, not after all we’ve done to it”.

‘You were right.’ Agrees my drinking buddy as we make our way through the darkened hamlet, strange braying noises to both sides. He seems a nice bloke. As an estate agent you choose your friends wisely. Invariably I’m a plus one with my wife. The ladies are now two-steps behind us, natural order briefly returned now there’s no driving do be done. They’ll be lagging back at the bar too.

‘Watch where you’re treading.’ I call back, torch flickering ominously. I meant to change the batteries but a last minute survey problem and my list of jobs for the team to remember distracted me. We step round a pile of freshly deposited shit that would take a JCB to scoop and bag, then see the meagre pub lights.

‘They have dead animals on the wall.’ Hisses my wife as we sit in one corner, locals watching us suspiciously. If they find out I’m responsible for their in-bred children not being able to afford to live here, I’m fearing a Wicker Man moment. I couldn’t light the log burner, but I’m guessing I’d combust quite well.

‘It’s a fox.’ I tell my wife witheringly. ‘Why would they mount a camel’s head?’

She got the hump.

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Another Brave New World - Wednesday

The tie is new but everything else is the same – although the suit trousers seem a little snugger. Still not sure about the pattern if I’m honest, there was a time when I thought I’d never succumb to the tyranny of the tie, aside from a brief dalliance with some skinny versions when punk softened to new wave and I bought the first two Jam albums on the spin. But you junk ideology as rapidly as you take on mortgage and overdrafts.

‘You don’t like it do you?’ Asks my wife softly. For a moment I think it’s a general observation, predicated mainly on the mother of all Mondays – the first day back at the start of a fiscal year, when the clocks have yet to change but the targets are all re-set, and a statistical mountain looms ominously. But she’s talking about the tightly knotted present.

‘It’s fine.’ I lie, as I look in the mirror and see someone vaguely familiar, just older and greyer, staring back at me.

‘I have the receipt.’ Says my wife flatly. She knows. She always knows.

The road looks the same, washed in that orange streetlight glow which makes the scene resemble something from Blade Runner, only with high mileage Fords rather than Harrison Ford. The fastidious car cleaner is just leaving for work, his motor gleaming irritatingly. He catches my eye.

‘Happy New Year.’ He trills in a singsong voice. He doesn’t mean it, I don’t want to return it, but we both engage in the meaningless ritual. He’s something in figure-fiddling so probably has the same handshake as my bean counter boss - and he knows what I do, so he can’t really be wishing me well for the next twelve months of property market mayhem. We get blamed when prices go up, chastised when they go down.

I wave him on, as both cars look to leave at the same time. His headlights battle with his paintwork in trying to dazzle me. It’s as bright a start as I’m expecting, judging by previous years. A salesman needs resilience and a hide like a Rhino, but it’s a finite resource. I may have the right skin now; with the wrinkles and furrows deep enough to plant seedlings in, but my patience is wearing thin.

The drive is familiar - and contemptible. Fewer four-by-fours are out and about, as the school run has yet to recommence, but the usual collection of blank-eyed representatives are queuing nose-to-tail and that bastard in the JCB seems to be somewhere up ahead, judging by the orange flashing light moving at five miles an hour above all the exhaust-belching saloons.

‘Happy fortieth Shane.’ I mimic, as the car crawls under a hand-written banner, flapping mournfully from an overhead footbridge. ‘It’s all downhill from here Shaney-boy.’ I pronounce, wondering just when someone named Shane started to reach his fourth decade? Time marches on, I guess. The probate sales tend to be peopled by Arthur, Anthony, Mary and Margaret, so Shane is halfway there.

The car park is filling rapidly and the park itself still littered with takeaway boxes and a couple of early-rising winos. I take a wide route round both sets of detritus and spot the office window. A light has failed over the holiday period and I toy with just leaving it to see how quickly another member of staff spies the, less-than glaring error – but Easter is a long way off. I’ll be on the Diazepam by then if it remains that gloomy.

The answer phone is flashing insistently. I’m not expecting too many more Happy New Year greeting on this tape. I’m not disappointed – but then of course I am.

‘Happy New Year.’ Offers assistant manager T as he becomes the first to arrive, thirty-three seconds before start time. He knows too.

‘How many fall-throughs over the holiday?’ Asks T shrugging off his coat nonchalantly. It doesn’t seem to wound him as deeply as me – but then he’s not on 10%. I tell him.

‘So we’re on a minus figure before we start.’ He concludes accurately.

‘Ah-ha.’ I reply. ‘Everything is less than zero.’

T looks at me quizzically.

‘Elvis Costello.’ I tell him.

‘The dead Elvis?’

Not yet.

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Ice Ice Baby - Thursday

‘You could wear a short-sleeve shirt today.’ Suggests my wife, gazing out the window at unaccustomed morning sunshine. You’d think she’d know me better by now, but they still try to mould you, however mouldy you are.

‘Short-sleeve shirts are for computer engineers and door to door salesmen.’ I tell her snootily.

‘You are sort of a door-to-door salesman.’ She retorts with a twinkle in her eye. She’s not getting me that easily, especially as I’ve already showered and don’t need to get hot under the collar…

It’s a long-running argument. I accept it might be more comfortable to wear casual sports wear on the few days we get any decent weather in this rain-lashed island, but you are just going to look like Alan Partridge or one of those dicks that run their own estate agency as if it’s their front room. Sitting there in slacks and a tank-top jumper, with some wheezing Labrador lolling on the office carpet as if it makes the whole operation homely. And don’t even start me on the knobs that wear designer polo shirts, loafers and artfully battered £200 jeans – it’s just distressing.

‘I just think you’d be more comfortable.’ She persists over breakfast, as youngest son raises his eyes to the heavens. He’s going to get a prematurely wrinkled forehead if he stays at home too long.

‘It’s not about feeling comfortable.’ I tell her absurdly as I pick at the dusty muesli she insist will help my girth and not necessitate that long-delayed move into the next waistband size, and a whole wardrobe full of new suits.

‘What is it about then?’ My wife presses. ‘You don’t want to be turning up in people’s homes hot and sweaty. I wouldn’t instruct an agent that smells of body odour.’

I take a surreptitious sniff under my shirt armpits. My son increases his frown line damage and moves a step nearer to early-application Botox. I’m fresh now, post shower and with the liberal use of under arm deodorant but come mid-afternoon, two sales fall-throughs, a duff survey and my third abortive valuation I might be a bit stale. Not stale enough to look like an antipodean bank manager though. Those television programmes where they follow families thinking of relocating to Australia or New Zealand still make me shake my head in bemusement. I shouldn’t watch them, but anything property related has a masochistic attraction. There’s always one partner driving the move on the back of some drunken gap year when they didn’t have three kids, a heavily mortgaged house to flog and limited career options. You should never go back. Bruce or Sheila have moved on and are probably bald or saggy and property prices are no longer in your favour. If you can’t make it in the UK it’s a fair bet you’ll do no better just because the sun is shining and you can barbecue nine months of the year.

‘It’s all about how you present yourself.’ I tell my wife as I gather my briefcase and pull on my jacket, already too hot, but refusing to compromise.

‘As sweaty and overheated?’ She replies, kissing me on the cheek with about as much enthusiasm as a blunt-beaked woodpecker.

‘I just know what I feel comfortable in.’ I tell her doggedly. Hoping the air con in the car doesn’t need topping up again. Is there a bigger racket than that industry? Apart from estate agency, obviously.

It’s my armour, I think, as I drive in to a slowing traffic queue and see the orange flashing lights of that bastard in a JCB digger who delights in travelling at peak rush hour time. I feel protected in a suit. It gives me that 100% wool carapace to keep the public at bay. To maintain a veneer of professionalism when sometimes I’d like to just tear off my shirt and go toe-to-toe with the latest time-waster, liar, or deal-wrecker that comes across my path. Like an anonymous Blog, the two-piece mix and match from Marks and Spencer keeps me at – long-sleeved – arms length from my life stripped bare. I don’t have to show the real person as long as I remember to do my zip up after pissing.

‘Air conditioning is leaking again.’ Announces assistant manager T when I hurry through the door red faced and damp with perspiration, mid afternoon. I’m not the only thing dripping. A bin sits in the middle of the office collecting the run-off from the overhead unit. T is sat at his desk, sleeves rolled up untidily. B, the lettings lush, is in a vest top and busty S, my comely negotiator, is just about wearing a flimsy blouse. The temperature continues to rise.

And I used to think I was cool.

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