Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks (12 page)

12
Boom, What Makes My House Go Boom?

One of the effects of the house-price spiral and the rush to
buy has been that estate agents no longer find it necessary
to disguise the truth about their properties.

The Observer

I
met him at the gate, as arranged. We looked up at the house together. He glanced at his watch, not unobviously.

‘It's rather nice,' I said. ‘I've always wanted to live in St. Johns Wood.'

‘No point going in, then,' said the agent, taking a cigarette from his packet and deftly avoiding my reaching hand. ‘This is Kilburn.'

‘Oh, surely not! I understood that this area was traditionally described as, well, as St. Johns Wood borders?'

He sucked his teeth. He shook his head.

‘Not even Swiss Cottage,' he said. ‘Not even
West
Swiss Cottage.'

‘Swiss Cottage borders?' I begged.

‘Kilburn.' He put the watch to his ear. ‘If that.'

‘Oh.'

‘What do you expect,' he muttered, ‘for twenty-three-nine-fifty?'

‘Twenty-two-five,' I corrected. I showed him the specification sheet.

He tapped it with a finger.

‘Got yesterday's date on,' he said.

‘I received it this morning,' I said, ‘and surely—'

‘Lucky we sent it express,' he said. ‘Might be out of your range tomorrow.'

‘Could we go in?' I enquired. ‘It's rather chilly here.'

‘What do you think it is inside?' he said. ‘Bermuda?'

‘The central heating must make a—'

‘
Part
central heating,' he said. ‘Plus small boiler, totally inadequate to the job. Especially bearing in mind the lack of double-glazing. The only way to tell if the radiators are on is to put your cheek up against them and wait for a minute or two. Still, at twenty-four-two-fifty, you can't really complain, can you?'

‘I suppose not,' I said, ‘these town houses are at a premium these days.'

‘
Terraced
houses.'

‘I always thought—'

‘Call a spade a spade, that's our motto. When you've got a long line of nondescript jerry-built bogus-regency items leaning on one another to keep from falling down, they're known as terraced houses. Or, in some cases, back-to-backs. If the gardens are as tiny as this one is.' He opened the front door. ‘Don't rush in,' he said, ‘or you'll miss it, ha-ha-ha!'

‘Ha-ha-ha!'

‘See that crack in the hall ceiling? You'd think they'd take a bit more care with a twenty-six-grand property, wouldn't you?'

‘It doesn't look too bad,' I said, ‘probably just a fault in the plastering. A good workman could fill that in in two shakes of—'

‘That's what the previous owner thought,' said the agent, stubbing his cigarette out on the wallpaper. ‘His dog fell through it and broke its neck. Treacherous, these stone floors.'

‘But sound,' I said. ‘No chance of warp, dry rot, that sort of—'

‘You wait till your plumbing packs up,' he said. ‘Main conduit's under there: one day your bath's cold, the next you've got six blokes and a pneumatic drill poking about in your foundations. Want to see the kitchenette?'

‘Thank you.'

‘'Course,' he said over his shoulder as he forced the door, ‘when I say foundations, that's only my little joke. Three inches of builders' rubbish and a couple of two-by-fours, and that's it. I wouldn't like to be here when the motorway goes through – one articulated truck, and you're liable to find yourself with half the roof in the downstairs lav.'

‘Oh, I didn't realise there was a downstairs lavatory,' I said. ‘That's rather encourag—'

‘I wouldn't show it to you,' he said, ‘I wouldn't even talk about it. Not so soon after breakfast. This is the kitchenette.'

‘Kitchen
ette
?' I said. ‘Mind you, I suppose it is a bit on the small side, but—'

‘
Small?
It's lucky there's no mice here, otherwise you'd have to take turns going to the larder.'

‘Well, you wouldn't expect mice in a modern house, would you?'

‘Right. Rats yes, mice no.'

‘Oh. Well, we've got a cat, so—'

‘That's one bedroom out for a start, then,' he said. ‘Big cat, is it?'

‘Neutered tom,' I said.

The agent pursed his lips.

‘Probably have to give him the master suite, in that case,' he said. ‘At least he can shove open the bathroom door and stick his tail in if he starts feeling claustrophobic. Lucky it's on the first floor, really.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘If the cat's on the first floor, you and the family can sleep above it. On the second. You don't want a bloody great moggy stamping around overhead all night, do you? Let alone watching you and the missus through the gaps in the floorboards. Lying on your back listening to the tubes rumbling underneath, with a bloody great green eye staring down at you.'

We left the kitchen, and came back into the hall. He opened another door.

‘I imagine that's the dining-room?' I said.

‘That's what you want to do, squire,' he said. ‘Imagine. Mind you, it'd do for buffet suppers, provided the four of you all had small plates. The other door leads to the integral garage, by the way, if you were wondering what the smell of petrol was. You've got a car, I take it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Don't forget to leave it outside, then. Bloke two doors down made the mistake of changing his Fiat 500 in for a Mini. Brought it home from the showroom, drove straight in, had to spend the night there. Wife fed him through the quarter-light. I suppose you could always have a sunshine-roof fitted, though.'

‘We'll leave ours out,' I said. ‘It's more convenient, what with taking the kids to school every morn—'

‘Oh, you won't need the motor for that, squire! School's only a stone's throw away.'

‘Really? Well, that's a load off—'

‘Very good glazier up the road, though. Mind you, you have to take the day off to let him in. He won't come out at night.'

‘That's surprising.'

‘In this neighbourhood? After dark even the police cars cruise in pairs.'

‘Do you think we might go upstairs?'

‘And that's only if there's a full moon.'

‘Four bedrooms, I think you said?'

‘Well, three really. The third one's been split into two with a party wall, but you could easily convert it back. Just slam the front door, and bob's your uncle.'

I started up the staircase, and it wasn't until I'd reached the first landing that I realised I was alone. The agent called up.

‘You all right?'

‘Yes,' I shouted.

He joined me.

‘Hope you don't mind,' he said. ‘Never tell with these stairs. I reckoned you were about my weight.' He patted the banister lovingly. ‘See that workmanship? They don't make 'em like that any more!'

‘It's certainly an attrac—'

‘Not after
Rex
v.
Newsomes Natty Fittings Ltd
., they don't. Christ!' he exclaimed, looking at his watch again. ‘It's never twelve o'clock already!'

‘Two minutes past, actually.'

‘That's another half-hour off the lease, then.' He turned, and started down the stairs again, gingerly. ‘I trust you have the requisite used notes in the motor, squire?'

I followed him down.

‘I'd like a little time to think about it,' I said, ‘and then, of course, my solicitor will have to make the necessary searches and—'

He laid a kindly claw on my arm.

‘Do yourself a favour, son,' he said gently. ‘Forget about searches. Tatty old drum like this, you can never tell what they might find. Now, look, am I going to be able to unload this or not?'

‘Well, I'm not entirely certain, but—'

The agent wrenched open the front door. A queue stretched down the path, and into the street. Mute supplication blinked in their watery eyes.

‘Says he's not certain!' cried the agent.

Instantly, the queue dismembered itself into a shrieking mob.

‘One at a time!' yelled the agent, tearing a brassette carriage-lamp from the wall and beating a clearing among the grabbing throng. ‘Let's do this proper! Now, I am not asking twenty-nine-five for this mouldering pile! I am not asking thirty-two-and-a-half, all I'm asking is—'

I edged through the pitiful clamour, and out into the road, and bent my steps towards the YMCA. It's warm there, and there's a nice peg for your anorak and a shelf for your clock, and it'll be weeks before the developers start bidding for the site.

With luck.

13
Suffer Little Children

According to a new publishing company, Enfance
Publishing, ‘every leading author has at least one children's
book in him.'
Every
leading author?

From THE GOLLIES KARAMAZOV
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

O
n a bitterly cold morning towards the end of November, 18—a pale young man left his little room at the top of a toadstool in one of the meaner tree-roots of the province of Toyland, and began to descend the dark and freezing stairs.

He was praying that he would not meet his landlady. Her burrow gave directly onto the corridor, and he had to pass it every time he went in or out. The door was usually open, and he would have to run past to avoid seeing Mrs. Rabbitoyeva, and when he did so he would experience a sensation of terror which left him shaking and sick to his stomach. Sometimes he would be physically sick. Other times, he would become possessed of a hacking and terrible cough, and his thin little body would grow luminous with sweat.

It was not merely that he was behind with his rent, living as he did in wretched poverty: it was simply that he had of late a horrible fear of meeting anybody, of engaging them in the lightest of conversations, of remarking upon the weather. This fear had itself become a sickness. Mrs. Rabbitoyeva, if she saw him, would wipe her paws on her apron (an action which itself brought an uncontrollable trembling to the young man's emaciated limbs, and set the pattern on his threadbare herringbone overcoat twitching like a nest of spiders), and smile, and nod, and say:

‘Good morning, Noddy Noddeyovich! I have a nice worm ragout cooking on the stove for your lunch.'

Or:

‘You should have a young lady, Noddy Noddeyovich! It is not right for a fine young man to spend so much time in the company of gnomes.'

At this, the young man would fall to the ground and kiss the hem of her garment.

But on this occasion, Mrs. Rabbitoyeva called Noddy Noddeyovich into her kitchen, and, despite the fearful trembling of his limbs which set the bell upon his cap tinkling like some derisory omen of imminent doom, he followed her. He counted his steps, as he always did – eleven, twelve, thirteen, to the table, fourteen, fifteen, to the workbench, where the knives were, and the big meat chopper. The kitchen smelt of boiled sedge, and old ferret offal, and the grey, fatty soup that Mrs. Rabbitoyeva always kept simmering for the pitiful little civil servants who inhabited her dark, cold building.

‘Noddy Noddeyovich,' said Mrs. Rabbitoyeva, ‘I wish to talk with you about the Gollies Karamazov.'

His trembling worsened. The Gollies Karamazov had recently moved in to the room next to Noddy Noddeyovich, and they came from the Big Wood, and their faces were black as round holes in the white winter ice. Whenever Noddy Noddeyovich saw them, he began to shake all over, and often he was sick down the stairwell, and sometimes he fainted altogether. He did not want to talk about the Gollies Karamazov. He listened for a while to the sound of Mrs. Rabbitoyeva, and it was of no sense, a heavy buzz, like the flies upon the far steppes when spring wakes the eggs.

And then he picked up the big meat chopper, and he brought it down on Mrs. Rabbitoyeva's old head, and she looked very surprised, and when the blood was all over his hands, their trembling stopped.

‘I should not be here,' said Noddy Noddeyovich, possibly aloud. ‘Soon Plod Plodnikov of the State Police will be here for his morning glass of tea, and he may engage me in some philosophical discussion about guilt, with reference to the words of Morotny, and it would be better if I were to get in my little car and go Beep! Beep! and seek the advice of Bigears Bigearsnitkin . . .'

From FIVE GO OFF TO ELSINORE
by William Shakespeare

ACT ONE, Scene 1
Cheam, a desert country near the sea. Before the gates of The
Laburnums. Alarums off. Sennets. Keatons. Enter Julian.

Julian: Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
The hols are but a short week old, and now
There comes such news as Hecate herself
Would quake to hear of! Five years of study gone
And now I learn that all I have to show
Is two O-levels: one Eng. Lit., one Maths!
Five subjects failed, and I one subject felled
By failure to as fell a fall as folly
Feels!

Enter Timmy, a dog.

                  Ah, Timmy! Had I but the joy
Of e'en thy meanest flea, I were in luck!

Timmy: Arf! Arf!

Julian:             Unmetric!

Timmy:                                Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!

Julian (
weeps
): The very dogs do bend them to my pleas,
Though men do reck me not! But yet I'm wrecked!

Enter Georgina.

Georgina: How now, sweet coz! I am this sec arrived
From Cheltenham Ladies' College for the vac!
And we shall do such things, we Famous Five—
Find maps, thwart thieves, have midnight feasts
In ruined castles, smugglers' coves, and more
Deserted cottages than you've had hot—

Julian: Eff off, Georgina! All has come to nought!
A sound career with ICI is lost!
And I must hie me with my measly two
And seek emolument as Clerk (Grade IV).
No longer mine, the tree-house and the barge,
The secret passage and – but ho! What comes?