When he finishes reading, Craig throws the newspaper over. It hits Mark in the chest and drops into his lap. He flattens it out on the coffee table:
MY NIGHT OF HELL WITH OLD FLAME
When an ex invited me for dinner, I hoped he’d changed. He had - for the worse!
I’d pulled Mike after a drunken night out in my last year at
university. He wasn’t my type as I normally go for pretty boys or sporty types but I mistakenly thought he was hot and he came back to mine. I spent the rest of the night on my hands and knees, but I wasn’t getting any steamy action, I was cleaning the floor after he vomited all over my room. Hardly Prince Charming!
A month ago, Mike got back in touch. After exchanging emails he invited me to dinner at Stove, and, judging by his email signature, now had a senior finance job in the City. I’m not one to turn down a free meal at one of London’s best restaurants so I accepted, hoping my vomiting ugly duckling had blossomed into a beautiful (and rich!) swan.
I topped up my fake tan and bought a new outfit for the big night but my dreams of a new and improved Mike were dashed.
He arrived late, a fatter and more arrogant version of the boy who’d been sick in my room. His hair had receded and he was wearing a horrid double-breasted pinstripe suit.
He was rude to the waiters, mispronounced the dishes, and talked endlessly about his job and how much money he was earning. We’d finished the main course before he even asked me a question!
Mike plied me with white wine and implausible stories, like how he’d just broken up with his girlfriend who was a stripper at Peppermint Pussy Cat, and when it came to time to pay, he made a fool of himself by having two credit cards refused and started an argument with one of the waiters about service charge. I wanted to hide under the table!
Outside, he hailed a taxi and told the driver to head to Clapham, where we both live. As I was falling into a wine-induced trance, he slid his hand up my skirt and tried to pull down my knickers.
I woke up two hours later naked on a double bed with the room spinning. Mike then rolled me onto my back and mounted me like an over-amorous hippo, slobbering wine-laced gob all over my face.
He climaxed within a minute and whispered ‘You love it!’ in my ear. It was the most disgusting sexual experience of my life – even worse than last week’s threesome at a homeless hostel.
I woke up at dawn and sneaked out suffering the hangover from hell. Thankfully it was a short walk of shame as I only live a couple of streets away (hopefully he won’t remember where).
When I got home, I left a message on my editor’s answerphone saying that I wouldn’t be in as I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and that if she hadn’t heard anything by Friday I’d either become a nun or committed suicide.
When it comes to dating rich City boys it’s always the same - the size of their bonus is inversely proportional to the size of their penis. And as for Mike turning into Prince Charming - well, there are some things money can’t buy!
Mark throws the newspaper to the floor.
‘Who do you reckon it is?’ Craig says, grinning.
‘I don’t know. It’s probably all made up anyway.’
‘I think you do know who it is,’ Craig says, laughing. ‘I think I know. It’s obvious.’
‘Who?’
‘Think about it: he lives around here, works in the City and he’s got really fat.’ Craig holds his arms out in expectation that Mark will
provide
the answer, but he doesn’t. ‘It’s Mike Davidson. Must be.’
A
haggard old man shelters from the driving rain under a broken umbrella and pretends to browse the houses in Cinq Estates’
window
. Craig and Danny watch as he swigs from a two-litre bottle of White Lightning in a plastic bag, spilling some down his tracksuit.
Christian runs outside, shakes the man’s hand and tries to usher him into the office. He pushes Christian away, coughs up some black phlegm and staggers off.
Christian jogs back inside. The rain has marked his suit and
flattened
his hair. ‘Why didn’t one of you get out there and talk to him?’ he yells at Craig and Danny.
‘Because he was a tramp,’ Craig says.
‘Never, ever, judge a person by what they’re wearing. He might have been a millionaire, but you’d never find out because you sat there on your arses rather than getting out there and selling.’ Christian slams his office door.
Hannah tries not to laugh and looks over at Craig.
‘Yes, of course, millionaires usually wear tracksuits and drink cider from plastic bags,’ he says.
Danny giggles, lowering his head behind his computer so Christian can’t see him.
It’s the 20
th
August and there is only one entry on the sales board. Bradley has sold a bedsit in Tooting Bec for £67,500.
Christian opens his door and calls Craig over.
Craig closes his inbox and rolls his eyes at Danny.
Christian sits behind his desk, his fists clenched. Craig shuts the door and stands in front of him. He’s told to sit down.
‘What do you want to see me about?’
Christian rocks back in his chair and orchestrates a long,
uncomfortable
silence. ‘Why are you and Danny sitting around out there messing about like a pair of kids?’
‘We’re not.’
‘I’ve been watching you. Don’t lie to me.’
‘We were just having a joke, that’s all,’ Craig says quietly.
‘You aren’t here to have a joke; you’re here to sell houses. Explain this to me, right: You haven’t sold a single house for two months and yet you’re sitting around in the office, browsing the internet like you haven’t got a care in the world whilst everyone else is out there on the streets
trying
their arses off to sell some houses!’
Craig glances at the sales board. ‘I’ve made all of my calls. I’ve called everyone on the database at least three times in the last week. I’ve spent on average five hours a day on the phone, but nobody is interested.’
‘That’s bollocks. Those monkeys at Crouch and Giles sold seven houses in SW11 alone last week and a five-bed in Wimbledon for two million. How do you explain that if nobody is buying? People are buying. You aren’t selling. How many viewings have you done this week?’
‘Six.’
‘Six? Craig, you should be doing fifteen a day.’ Christian picks up a biro and jabs it into his desk. ‘No wonder we aren’t selling anything!’
‘Who am I meant to show around?’
‘People. Find people.’
‘Where? Please tell me where, I’d love to know. We’ve not had
anyone
walk through the door for two days.’
‘Go out in your car and look for them.’
‘What just drive around the streets asking people if they want to buy a house?’
‘That’s what everyone else here is doing, so why don’t you?’
‘That’s not what everyone else is doing. Do you want to know where the rest of your team are?’
‘I know where they are.’
‘So you know that they’re all at the McDonald’s off Wandsworth Bridge?’
‘That’s bollocks. I spoke to Yado a few minutes ago and he said he was on a viewing on Bedford Hill.’
‘Who’s Yado?’
‘Big guy, started a few weeks ago. I think his name’s Yado. Or is it Wado?’ Christian checks the sales board. It’s Yado. ‘Making up lies about your colleagues isn’t going to get you anywhere, Craig. There’s no room
for liars in this office. My team are out on the streets selling, all apart from you and Danny. I think I’d know if they weren’t.’ He bites his
bottom
lip. ‘You’re skating on very thin ice. The ice is so thin that you’re on the verge of falling in and drowning. And there aren’t lifeguards on duty. Do you get me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re lucky you’ve still got a job after the sales figures you’ve posted recently.’ Christian runs his fingers down his pink tie. ‘I don’t know where this arrogant attitude of yours has come from, but let me tell you, it stops now. I don’t want some loose cannon in this office, going off whenever and wherever he feels like it.
Selling
is the key to our success, Craig. If I don’t feel that you can get out there and sell, then you might as well leave now.’
‘I can sell.’
‘And how can people working here trust you if you tell me that they’re all in McDonald’s?’
‘I was being honest.’
‘Craig, you say that like it’s a good thing. The key to honesty is knowing when to be honest.’ Christian takes something from the
bottom
drawer of the mini filing cabinet beneath his desk. ‘Look, I like you Craig. You remind me a bit of me when I was younger, and I know that deep down there’s a top salesman in you, but you’ve gone to shit recently. It would be the easy way out to fire you, but I’m not gonna. I’ve invested a lot of time and money into developing you and I’m not giving up, even if you are. I’ll level with you. When I joined here from school in 2004, I struggled. I wasn’t making the sales. My boss at the time was Ben
Rossiter
, you’ve probably seen his photo in the magazine, he’s now national sales manager. He called me into his office and gave me such a massive bollocking I thought I was going to get the chop. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I was almost in tears, begging him not to sack me. But he told me that he thought I had potential and gave me something that would change my life forever.’
‘What was it?’
‘This.’ Christian reaches down and places a twenty-inch steel saw on the desk.
Craig looks baffled. ‘He gave you a saw?’
‘Yes, Craig. He gave me a saw. He gave me this saw, told me to get in
my car and wherever there was a ‘For Sale’ sign of another agent, I had to cut it down and burn it. It was a test, Craig. A test of commitment.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What do you think I did? I got out there and sawed down signs until my hands bled. Do you know how many I did?’
‘No.’
‘Guess.’
‘Twenty?’
‘Nowhere near.’ A smug grin spreads across Christian’s face. ‘One hundred and three. It’s a record.’
‘And you want me to do the same.’
‘Yeah, I do.’ Christian pushes the saw towards him. ‘I don’t expect you to do as many as me. Let’s say fifty.’
‘Fifty?’
‘Yeah. Minimum. Print off the list of houses for sale from the
registry
, go home, get changed and get sawing. Oh, and don’t park too near where you’re doing it, for obvious reasons.’
‘What do I say if anyone asks what I’m doing?’
‘Say that the company is being rebranded and there’ll be a new sign put up tomorrow. Make sure you make a note of where you’re cutting the signs down and then email it to the signage department immediately. Are you up for this or what?’
‘Err…Yes. I suppose.’
‘That’s what I hoped you’d say.’
A Swann Estates ‘For Sale’ sign stands in the garden of a smart semi-detached house on the corner of Smith Street and Fairfax Road in Balham. There isn’t anybody around so Craig sneaks in through the gate. He hides behind a bush and starts sawing the sign a third of the way up.
He’s only made a small incision in the post when he has to stop to get his breath back. He looks at his red right hand and wrings it. It starts raining again and Craig brushes his damp hair off his forehead and takes a sip from a bottle of water he’s placed at his feet in the flowerbed.
A car stops outside the house. Craig drops the saw, crouches into a ball and waits. Footsteps pace off down the street, so he continues sawing frenetically. The wood splinters and the sign breaks in two.
The front door opens and a man with a walking frame edges out into
the porch as Craig tucks the two halves of the sign under his arm. He has liver spots over his face and hands and is wearing a long brown coat.
‘Excuse me,’ he says, his voice trembling. ‘Excuse me. Where are you going with that?’
‘Umm, sorry, I’ve been told to take it down. There’ll be a new sign going up tomorrow.’
‘Have they sold my house?’
‘Sorry, I don’t know. I’m just doing the sign.’
‘They come over here at all hours. I don’t know who’s here. They just turn up and let themselves in. You’re not bringing people over are you?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m just taking the sign down. Some men will come tomorrow and put a new sign up.’
‘You haven’t been treading on the roses?’
Craig checks his footprints in the soil. ‘No, I’ve avoided them.’
A set of keys drop on the doormat between the old man’s slippers. He shakily attempts to bend over and looks to Craig in desperation. Craig leaves the sign on the lawn and passes the keys into his brittle hands.
‘Please, if people are going to call,’ he says, ‘could you ask them to telephone me first? It’s such a nuisance having people walking through the house, it’s really quite a worry.’
Craig tells him that he is sorry but he only does the signs. He
apologises
for being in the garden without permission and carries the broken bits off to his car.
The two pieces are added to the collection he is building on the back seat. He sits in the driver’s seat with the engine running and phones Swann Estates to tell them that one of their signs had been vandalised by kids. He scans down the list of seven addresses he’s compiled and
scribbles
out 41 Smith Street.
Craig parks and looks up at the grimy low-rise council flats which
surround
him on three sides. Their exterior walkways overlook a main courtyard where there are industrial-sized wheelie bins. Some flats have washing hanging up outside and most have lights shining out of their small front windows. Somewhere, a child is screaming.
He pokes the blister on his hand with his pen and gets out of the car. The rain is hammering down. He quickly flips down the front seat and starts throwing the sawn-up ‘For Sale’ and ‘To Let’ signs beside the bins
where there’s already a heap of old furniture, toys and a couple of hefty old televisions.
An overweight woman wearing a yellow plastic mac waddles towards him, carrying shopping bags. Craig frets, gathers the rest of broken signs up in his arms and throws them onto the rubbish. Most of them slide off onto a pile of bin bags. He jumps back into his car and speeds off,
clipping
the wing mirror of a blacked out BMW as he turns out of the estate in the direction of Clapham Junction.
The Cinq office is still open even though it has gone nine o’clock.
Christian
is standing over a young girl at a computer. He notices Craig, backs away and tells the girl she should go home.
‘Who’s that?’ Craig asks, walking into Christian’s office.
‘Naomi, I think.’ Christian takes his suit jacket from a hanger on the back of his door.
‘How long’s she worked here?’
‘A few months.’
‘Really?’
‘Or I might be confusing her with Nadia.’
‘Hasn’t she left?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. Nadia was meant to be tying up a deal for a place on Wordsworth Road but she called in saying her mother was ill and she needed a week off so I had to let her go. How many boards did you cut down?’
‘Thirty-eight.’
‘Why not fifty?’
‘It took longer than I thought in the horrible weather. The saw kept slipping. I almost sawed my hand off a couple of times. I decided to focus on more expensive houses. I did a lot of places around the common and the bigger semis in Balham.’ He takes the list from the pocket of his waterproof coat and hands it over.
‘Have you emailed the signage department the list?’ Christian asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Excellent. They’ll have our boards up overnight. I’ll find out who owns these places and give them a call tomorrow. Have you got the saw?’
‘It’s in the car.’
‘Where did you dump the signs?’
‘On that estate around the back of Clapham Junction.’
‘Good thinking. You’ve done well, Craig. Have you got any plans tonight?’
‘No.’
‘Why don’t you go home and change and we’ll have a beer
somewhere
?’
Craig stands inside the main door of The Temperance. The pub is split across two floors and the mezzanine level restaurant is closed so he wanders downstairs. The bar runs all the way along the left-hand side and there are dark-stained tables around the edge of the room with four sunken Chesterfield sofas arranged in pairs in the centre. Large standard lamps are dotted along the walls, some almost touching the low ceiling. There are plenty of places to sit.
Christian is at a table by the bar. He’s still in his work clothes and doesn’t have a drink. He calls over to Craig, who has changed into jeans and a black sweatshirt, and tells him to buy him a pint of Staropramen.
There doesn’t appear to be anyone serving. A man in a suit stands alongside Craig and pulls a £20 note from his wallet. The trapdoor to the cellar opens and a man with tattoo-covered arms climbs his way out. He asks who is next and the man in the suit orders three bottles of Leffe and a small glass of white wine.
Craig pays for his two pints on card and carries them over to
Christian
.
‘Do you know what I think you lack Craig?’ Christian says, after sampling his beer, ‘Assertiveness. Killer instinct. You get pushed around too much. I told you to buy me a beer and you just did it without
questioning
. I was here first; I should have got the first round in. I was
watching
you at the bar and that bloke just pushed in right in front of you and you said nothing. It’s what’s holding you back, Craig. If you were a bit more ruthless, you’d make ten times as much money.’