Display At All Times - Tuesday

‘I’ve just realised something.’ Announces borderline retard trainee F, gazing out of the window at a scene bleak enough for a Dickens novel. Fingers lift from keyboards, a call is curtailed and the photocopier conveniently comes to the end of a run.

‘What?’ Asks F alarmed at the sudden wave of attention.

‘Enlighten us.’ Says assistant manager T, smirk barely suppressed.

‘Is it that you’re not cut out for estate agency?’ Suggests lettings lush B rather brutally. I give her a stern look but she’s screwed over harder men than me.

‘No, not that.’ Says F gamely.

‘Tell us then.’ Suggests negotiator S gently.

‘Well,’ replies F. ‘When the weather is rubbish, you never see any traffic wardens.’

The communal groan sounds like an amplified death rattle.

‘They’re all in a café somewhere.’ T tells him dismissively. ‘They only penalise local business when the sun is shining.’

‘Is that true?’ Asks F turning towards me for confirmation.

‘Yes and no.’ I answer enigmatically.

‘What does that mean?’ Quizzes F.

‘Mostly yes.’ I tell him, ditching the veneer of mystery.

A brief and pointless discussion flares about local authorities throttling the lifeblood from already endangered high streets, with punitive business rates, draconian parking penalties and absurd waste collection regulations. It won’t be long before the only units open in most British towns will be charity shops on rent-free leases and…oh estate agents.

‘You should use your Doctor On Call badge a bit more.’ Says F with a girlish chuckle. S looks at me judgementally. She doesn’t approve, but then she doesn’t have to try and park for viewings and valuations where visitors’ spaces are forever occupied, cowboy clampers are waiting round the corner whatever the weather, and a residents permit is a lot harder to obtain since a few foolhardy property people got caught using empty homes as a drop address.

‘You never did say where you got that On Call badge from, says mountainous mortgage man M as he waddles past, puffing like a leaky steam train. ‘And you never let me borrow it.’ He adds sourly. As if M would ever convince a parking Nazi he was a doctor.

‘It was in an empty house years ago.’ I tell the assembly to a disapproving intake of breath. The community noises are beginning to become almost orchestrated.

‘Like another repossession?’ Asks F unhelpfully.

‘Nothing like a repossession.’ I counter defensively - at least not that kind. ‘It had been cleared, it was left in the bottom of a wardrobe.’

‘Still not right though is it?’ Posits S sanctimoniously. One could go off her if she didn’t have the most monumental tits.

‘So he never, like, asked for the badge back then?’ Continues F doggedly. The group moan is a mixture of bass and soprano in what I think might be a minor key, but the guitar is still in the shop window and those aborted piano lessons were half a lifetime ago.

‘He’d have been self-medicating pretty impressively.’ Says T.

‘Huh?’ Asks F.

‘He’d have come back from the dead.’ I enlighten F, as I wonder how I’ll ever resurrect my career with dullards like him on my team.

‘Could we maybe photocopy it?’ Questions B. ‘So we could all have one.’

‘I’m not even sure it’s still a current type.’ I tell her, wishing I’d had the gumption to throw it away, something I’ve considered numerous times – until I spot another traffic restriction or a warden working on their suntan.

‘Yeh but if you can beat the system that’s pretty cool isn’t it?’ Says F.

The long buried – much longer then the dead doctor – punk rock ethos flickers somewhere inside, unless it’s that acid reflux again. They do say there’s nothing in socialism that a higher-rate tax code, a company-funded pension and a mortgage won’t cure. Still working on the full set and Babylon is still burning…

‘Aye, aye.’ Says T gazing out the window. ‘Here comes the warden must be clearing up out there.’

‘Does he know you’ve got the hooky On Call badge?’ Asks M on his way back from the kitchen.

I hesitate but some opportunities are too good to miss.

‘I only use it in an emergency.’

Ahem.

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Golden Duck - Friday

‘This should be a good craic.’ Says massive mortgage man M, using the Irish term that has mushroomed everywhere, along with faux-pubs sporting shamrocks and a pissed bloke at the bar wanting a free pint of Guinness because he’s down on his luck. He usually is when he taps me up.

‘All you can eat and drink and it’s free gratis.’ Continues M rubbing his chubby hands with glutinous glee. It isn’t exactly, I think sourly, as I wonder if I’ve done the right thing by accepting the corporate-jolly ticket, which became available with a late withdrawal by somebody higher up the greasy promotion pole. The latent lefty in me hasn’t entirely withered, even after twenty years of mortgage and pension payments. I sometimes hear a retro punk rock track on the radio and think I could still pogo, until I look in the mirror or try to tie my shoelace without bending my knees.

‘If you get asked any questions about current rates or lending criteria.’ Suggests M leaning towards me conspiratorially and giving me a blast of garlic-breath that would clear a colony of vampires. ‘Just refer them to me, or act dumb.’ I can do the latter easily enough, it think, as the train comes to a halt at a crowded platform and the jostling for position, I’m about to experience at a linen-clothed round table, begins early.

I hate public transport with a passion. Another reason my dwindling man-of-the- people credentials don’t stand close inspection. I’ve driven a company car for longer than my two sons have been alive and apart from reluctantly allowing punters in the back when I’m ferrying them to viewings, I prefer not to mix with the public. Windows up, music and air-conditioning on is now my default mode. Which is pretty incongruous, as I’m en-route to a venue where thousands will be milling and drinking with no central locking.

The invite is from a big lender with labyrinthine corporate ties, kickbacks for introduced business and glamorous sponsorship deals giving access to prime sporting events the likes of me don’t often get to. M’s immediate boss had a better offer at an event he clearly preferred. I recognised at an early age - after standing next to the fat kid, looking like a junior M, in the school football team selection process - that I wasn’t ever going to be first choice. It was a theme that continued at awkward school discos and job interviews. I was always somewhere down the batting order, but this day at the cricket was too enticing to miss.

‘Here’s your invite in case we get separated.’ Says M as we sit in our seats and the crowded carriage sways back and forth, standing room only passengers towering over us and looking daggers. I was taught to give my seat up for ladies but the only woman I can see is too far down the aisle, and after that awkward time when a rotund woman refused prissily and I realised she was probably not pregnant - just greedy - I’ve become wary.

I take the golden ticket like a wrinkled Charlie, en-route to the Chocolate Factory. The goodies will be of a more adult theme. A bag of bribes paid for by borrowers, limitless alcohol, a welcome buffet and a three-course lunch with high tea, but I’ll still be mixing with “Wonkas”

‘What part of the organisation are you from?’ Asks some plum-in-the-mouth voiced hooray as he leans towards me clutching a glass of bubbly. I’m still stunned by the greenness of the grass below our lofty eerie of a private box with balcony, and feel - as I often do in homes I’m valuing but could never afford - like an impostor.

I give a puffed up version of my role with the sort of sales hyperbole I’m no longer allowed to use since the Property Misdescription Act. He turns to the guy in the other seat. Fine by me, I think, as the bubbles start to take effect and the pretty girl in a short skirt and access to a free bar, comes to top up. So easily corrupted.

I didn’t score.

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Fascist Regime - Sunday

I don’t know half these people.’ I tell my wife, as we turn up at the Jubilee street party to celebrate 60 years of the Queen’s reign. In 1977 I bought The Sex Pistols, God Save The Queen, convinced anarchy would be a good thing for the UK. Now a load of royalists in 1950’s frocks they bought from one of countless charity shops in the blighted High Street, are singing rather engaging patriotic songs. Time and bags of equity in your home can soften the angriest of left-wingers.

I’m expecting some wag to buttonhole me and complain about property prices after a few glasses of punch. The old feisty attitude I wore, along with numerous lapel badges when punk rock was at its height, has been submerged for much of my working life. Hidden behind a sales’ smile and the slow leeching of establishment values into a philosophy that looks more and more flawed the farther into mortgages, pensions and savings you get sucked. I haven’t gobbed at anyone for thirty years.

Several drinks in and after three plays of a Vera Lynn compilation on the PA system, I start to loosen up. ‘This isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.’ I slur to my wife when she detaches herself from a gaggle of middle-aged women with dyed hair and vein-lined legs.

‘See,’ she admonishes gently. ‘These are really nice people. They’re the same as you.’

And the uncomfortable realisation I normally get in the shaving mirror, washes over me and replaces the light-headed rush of alcohol. With unwelcome clarity, I see I’m not the idealist with a full head of hair and a 32-inch waist any longer. I’m the same as them – just with better legs.

‘You’re the estate agent right?’ Questions the bloke from several doors up who washes his Audi TT as if it’s his penis. I don’t know his name and have decided he’s a knob, at least until he wants a valuation. I give a cautious affirmative and paste on the smile that used to be a snarl when I played Neat Neat Neat by The Damned, at full volume. I’m expecting some one-sided diatribe about prices and parasites, but he surprises me just as the Glen Miller album replaces Vera.

‘So what do you reckon on these solar roof panels then?’ The man asks eagerly, gleaming eyes of a zealot as bright as his motor’s metallic blue paintwork.

Now I have a tricky decision to make. One not helped by several glasses of disarmingly fruity punch and the bouncy beat of a big band I used to hate with a passion. I have to quickly remember if his roof has succumbed to the ugly panels, I’m convinced will turn out to be as big a miss-selling scandal as Endowments and Payment Protection Insurance, in time. It hasn’t. So I tell him what I think, in an uncharacteristic – in public – rush of honesty. There’s an uncomfortable silence then he laughs and says.

‘Yep, me too, I reckon they’re a bloody eyesore. Bunch of Polar Bear loving Greens with more money than sense buy them just to sop their conscience. It’ll take decades to get the money back and I’m betting the panels won’t still be working.’

‘Some nice people here.’ I slur to my wife as I start to feel semi-detached. Then the royalist versus republican argument breaks out from nowhere, as someone plays the National Anthem. While the temperature rises and storm clouds gather, a lairy bloke - who must be renting - starts to bad-mouth the Queen and I find myself reluctantly defending her. Obviously I can’t do the same for Charles, his tree hugging and his hangers on. It’s only thirty-five years since the bondage trousers and The Buzzcocks, after all.

‘That wasn’t helpful.’ Hisses my wife as the party disperses and the rain starts to fall. She has a point. I thought I’d defuse the situation by posing the Diana v Camilla question and asking who would shag Camilla?

But it got ugly.

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