First Defence - Thursday

‘Can you squeeze in another valuation before lunch.’ Says negotiator S even before I’ve closed the office door.

‘Really?’ I reply, glancing at the wall clock and looking longingly towards the kitchen where there was just under half a packet of Malted Milk biscuits when I left.

‘She has to see you today.’ Continues S as I see tubby mortgage man M emerging, with a mug of something steaming and a fist full of curiously moorish baked product.

Now it’s a long time since any woman really had to see me at such short notice. But as M has finished all the Malted Milk, and has just as clearly only made himself a drink, it seems I’d be better off pitching for some business than pitching in head first against the morbidly obese finance-fiddler. I’ll sort him later.

‘Give me the details.’ I say to S curtly.

She reals off the  basic information. Address, property type, number of bedrooms, name and contact methods.

‘And reason for wishing to move?’ I say, wanting the most important piece of the puzzle.

‘They’ve outgrown their existing house.’

‘Partner?’ I probe. Hoping to know if I can get both parties together, then find out which one is the decision maker.

‘He’s at his office.’ S shrugs a semi-apology,. ‘I know, but she’s said it was the only time she was available and she’s off work today.’

I nod, look at the clock again, then accede. You can’t afford to turn down chances for business in any market place and valuations are the sharp end of property sales, no mater how many internet start-ups, or badly briefed journalists, tell you different. Without the homes to offer, an estate agent is dead in the water.

‘I don’t suppose she told you why it had to be today?’ I ask S, as I cross-check my brief case for sole agency forms, digital camera, calculator and laser-measure.

She hesitates.

‘What?’ I demand. I could do body language as a degree course after all this time.

‘You’re not going to like it.’ Ventures S timidly.

‘She’s off work sick, isn’t she?’ I state rhetorically.

S nods. Terrific.

I’ve picked up most minor airborne ailments known to man since I began valuing people’s homes. It’s why my desk drawer looks like a Heathrow airside, mini-version of Boots the chemist. I even had one of their loyalty cards for a while and come to think of it there’s a UK to USA plug adaptor in there too.

‘Just don’t get too close to her.’ Says S with a chuckle.

I get colds and throat infections much more regularly than offers of casual sex. Although there was that one time when the divorcee wanted to negotiate a fee reduction - I didn’t really fancy him though…

‘I won’t, don’t worry.’ I tell her, going back to my office and taking two big snorts from the exorbitantly priced - but clinically proven - First Defence bottle. Immediately my eyes water and I start sneezing. God knows if it really helps, you immediately get most of the symptoms of a streaming cold so it’s hard to tell.

‘Don’t stay too long.’ Suggests trainee F unhelpfully. 

‘And perhaps refuse to shake her hand too?’ I counter sarcastically.

‘That’s a good call.’ Answers F.

I sometimes yearn for the days when you could sack someone without months of negotiations with Human Resources.

If I want the business and sense it’s there to be had, I’ll stay the night and clamber in to bed with  both of them if I have to. Anything to stop another agent getting their For Sale board up. It’s dog eat dog out there and a snottily proffered hand, a germ-ridden cup of coffee, or even a dribbly threesome won’t deflect me from signing up a sole agency.

The chances are it won’t be an easy sale. Experience tells me I’m just being called out at the owners’ convenience. Moving home isn’t a snap decision, at least not a successful move. I’m probably just going to be used at a time when someone is at home with a box of tissues and a DVD.

Might as well have another tosser join them.

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Upgrade Available - Thursday

‘F**k it.’

‘Not a chance.’ Mumbles a sleepy voice.

‘Not literally.’ I tell my wife, before adding. ‘Are you awake then?’ Which on sleepy reflection wasn’t the smartest response.

‘I am now.’ She replies sourly.

‘What time is it?’ I ask wearily. I have a good idea, as I’ve woken at the same time three night’s running.

‘It’s nearly half-past two and you have your own watch.’ Comes the testy reply. ‘Now go back to sleep.’

Not a hope in hell, I think, as I sigh and clamber out of bed to the sort of feminine groan that used to signal slightly more success than waking your partner, before making a solitary cup of tea.

If I wanted to be picky, I think drowsily as I stumble down the stairs, I’d have pointed out to my wife that her time check was a tad inaccurate. The moment I woke up, praying it was after 6.30am, was 2.22am precisely. Like one of those endless Paranormal Activity movies I’ve been pinging awake at exactly the same time for several days now, but the only levitation around tends to involve lifting inappropriate nighttime snacks from the fridge. Needless to say the suggestion of a fixed camera in the bedroom received a frosty response.

Despite loony ladies’ claims to have ghosts residing in their home - still not a great sale clincher - the only poltergeist I have found is the malicious one in my head. A spectre that has me fretting over sales figures and management accounts at sparrow-fart o’clock. Paradoxically, the more you crave sleep the more elusive it becomes, no matter how dog tired you are.

Tossing and turning doesn’t work for me - particularly the tossing as my wife is a light sleeper - so I inevitably end up sloping downstairs for a piss and a cup of tea. Sadly the bladder seems to be weakening along with the mind.

At first, with the thrill of smoking a brand new car and visiting luxury homes I could aspire to if I hit my targets year-on-year, the thrill of house sales kept me running on adrenalin. No matter how hard I worked, I slept like a log. But slowly, insidiously, like water eroding a rock, the pressure of ever increasing targets and ever increasing responsibility began to take its toll. Now I wake up head spinning like an elderly hard drive. I have a feeling I’ve reached capacity.

‘Open you bastard.’ I mutter, as the ancient PC spins and splutters to life, while my cup of tea cools alongside me. The house is silent as a grave now my two sons have left for university and unless my wife starts snoring it’s going to remain that way - other than the tip-tap of a keyboard - until the radio alarm goes off.

Dilemma. Do I look at my office sales figures and the management accounts, the reason I was cattle-prodded awake at 2.22am, or do I write a blog entry and Tweet a few times to fellow insomnia sufferers? I might even have an anonymous exchange with my fellow realtors around the world. Intriguing, but not likely to pay the mortgage. I open the management accounts - eventually.

I’ve always had the gift of the gab, it’s the reason good sales people are often born performers, but mathematics has remained a foreign language to me. If the calculator hadn’t been invented I’m sure I’d be stacking shelves in a supermarket store somewhere, with the prospect of ending up like one of those grey-haired old men collecting snaking lines of trollies in the car park, when they should be lunchtime drinking and reminiscing.

Whatever the numerical equivalent of dyslexia is, I think I have it. My bean counter boss is a figure-fiddler par-excellence but couldn’t flog a life-raft to a drowning man. They say the meek shall inherit the earth, well they’ll be dull, with halitosis and an accountancy qualification.

My mind rapidly becomes snow-blinded by the blizzard of figures. My ailing computer spews out columns and lines but I’m running a drowsy Windows 2000 in my head.

It just doesn’t add up.

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A Diary Date - Tuesday

‘Any other business?’ I ask more in hope than expectation, as the morning meeting stumbles to a close. I look at each of my staff members in turn. S, my negotiator, looks pretty - still. F the idiot savant looks blank. T the assistant manager is hard to read as his designer glasses have caught the overhead lights. M the bloated mortgage man chews bovinely and says nothing. And B the lettings lush files her nails.

A vision of my first day at school swishes across my memory, like one of those two-fingered swipes between screens you get on an Apple Mac. In retrospect it started going downhill from there. The kid at the desk next to me soiling himself in fear set the tone for the next ten years, and since then I’ve turned underachievement and missed opportunities into an art form. The stench still lingers.

‘It’s Shrove Tuesday today.’ I blurt out apropos of nothing - sometimes you have to fill a silence.

The blank looks continue as B saws at her cuticles in four-four time. Eventually F speaks haltingly.

‘So I guess I’ll have to ask boss.’ I nod in vague encouragement. ‘What exactly is a Shrove?’

Still no minimum educational standard to enter the property industry…

‘Is it a universal joint on a drive shaft?’ begins M, mockingly. I scowl at him, but it’s water off an elephant’s back.

‘Is it a small mouse-like creature?’ Offers T with a sly grin. Not sure he knows the true answer but he’s smart enough to bluff.

‘That’s a Shrew.’ Says B flatly, before picking up the nail sawing tempo.

‘Is it like the day when it’s supposed to rain a lot?’ Asks S with a disarming smile.

‘That’s St Swithun’s day.’ I answer curtly. ‘And I think we’ve had enough rain already.’

‘Why have a day for rain?’ Asks F.

Give me strength.

‘It’s pancake day.’ I rasp. ‘Pigging pancake day.’ I look at F as he begins to open his mouth and snap. ‘Not pork in a pancake. I don’t mean that.’

‘Why didn’t you just say pancake day then?’ Persists F.

‘Because that’s its proper name.’ I snarl, before stalking to the office diary and saying. ‘Have a look in here it’ll be alongside the date!’

A sinking feeling, not unlike my first attempt at making pancakes, washes over me as I see nothing alongside the date - not even a valuation.

I sometimes forget how old I am - if I haven’t look in a mirror for a while - and how young most of my colleagues are. Granted, M is not much younger than me but he’d be the last person to help a starving man.

I tug my personal diary from an inside jacket pocket, nearly spilling my calculator onto the floor. I clutch at the electronic comfort blanket and silently curse all the inept maths teachers down the years. I may have been around for a while butI’m not immune to the blame culture.

Nothing. No mention of Shrove Tuesday alongside today’s date. I’m beginning to feel like a man out of time. Like those old fossils sat in saggy chairs contemplating their last move before cremation, who are forever cautioning me: ‘Don’t get old will you son. The world is a place I don’t recognise any more.’

Wait ’til you see the sheltered home your family put you in, Granddad.

‘We’re doing pancakes later.’ Explains the grandmotherly owner of a house I’m valuing last thing. She points to a mixing bowl with milk and flour alongside and her ancient partner cracks a gummy smile.

‘Shrove Tuesday son.’ He informs me. ‘Bet you didn’t know that, eh?’

I don’t like to disappoint him, my recommended price has yet to come.

‘We prefer the old established things.’ Says the man when we are sat in the lounge for my presentation. Good, I think, you won’t mind paying a proper fee for a proper service. 

‘How much?’ The pair demand in croaky unison when I reveal. ‘We can get it done for a quarter of that on the internet.’

I leave hungry and empty handed. Feeling as flat as a …..

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