Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks (33 page)

Sudden brilliant thought. Decided to make one's own breakfast. Cheered to find nursery kitchen empty. Recognised frying-pan. Put egg in frying-pan. Oddly, egg did not go yellow and white, egg just rolled around in frying-pan, went hot, then exploded.

Had bath.

Rang TIM, Weather, Cricket Scores, Puffin Storyline. Listened to Mrs Goggins story. Rang Starline: good day for throwing out old clothes, will meet interesting short man with financial proposition, a loved one will have exciting news in evening.

Threw out old clothes and waited for interesting short man. Did not come, so got old clothes back. Put them into symmetrical heaps.

In evening, loved one stomped in with exciting news: Louis XV garage shelf had fallen on Rolls, dented bonnet, knocked off wing-mirror.

Bed at 9, with interesting book. There are 3,786 Patels in it.

WEDNESDAY

Got up, put
Telegraph
in bucket of water. Added flour, as recommended by
Fifty Things To Do On A Wet Day
, made papier-maché head of Mrs Goggins.

Removed old glove from pile waiting for interesting short man, put it on, poked forefinger into Mrs Goggins, did puppet-show for corgi.

Corgi passed out.

Rang 246 8000 again, but no further news of interesting short man or his financial proposition. Nothing about one's dog falling ever, either. However, it is a good day to go shopping. One leapt at this! Why had one not thought of it sooner?

One has never been shopping.

It being a fine day, one decided to slip out quietly in sensible shoes and headscarf, and walk up Constitution Hill to Knightsbridge. Most interesting. Sixty-two street lamps.

Several Japanese persons stared at one strangely. At Hyde Park Corner, a taxi-cab driver slowed, pushed down his window, and shouted ‘I bet you wish you had her money!'

Quite incomprehensible.

One recognised Harrods at once, from their Christmas card.

One went inside. Most impressive. One selected a jar of Beluga caviare, a rather splendid musical beefeater cigarette-box with a calculator in its hat, a pair of moleskin slippers, a Webley air-pistol, and a number of other items one might never have thought of to help one while away the remainder of one's spare fortnight, and one was quite looking forward to strolling back to the Palace, putting one's mole-shod feet up, treating oneself to a spoonful or two of the old Royal fish roe while potting starlings through the window and totting up the toll on one's loyal Yeoman calculator to the stirring accompaniment of
Land of Hope and Glory
, when one suddenly felt one's elbow grasped with an uncustomarily disrespectful firmness.

‘Excuse me, madam, but I wonder if you would mind accompanying me to the Assistant Manager's office?'

One was aware of a grey-suited person.

‘Normally,' one replied, ‘one allows it to be known that one is prepared to entertain a formal introduction. One then initiates the topic of conversation oneself. It is normally about saddles. However, one is prepared to overlook the protocol occasionally. One assumes the senior staff wishes to be presented?'

FRIDAY

Got up, slopped out.

One might, of course, have made a fuss. One might, for example, have pointed out to one's Assistant Manager – the entire place is, after all, By Appointment – that not only does one never carry money, but that money actually carries one, and would therefore serve as a convenient identification.

One chose, however, to retain one's headscarf, one's glasses, and one's silence; since something had suddenly dawned on one.

Thus, yesterday in Bow Street, being without visible means of support, one was not even given the option of seven days. One now has a rather engaging view of Holloway Road, albeit only from the upper bunk, a most engaging companion with a fund of excellent stories, and a mouse, and one is already through to the South Block ping-pong semi-finals.

Tonight, there is bingo, rug-making, cribbage, aerobics, bookbinding, squash, pottery, chiropody, raffia work, community singing, petit-point, judo, darts, and do-it-oneself. One can hardly wait to see what tomorrow may bring!

One is, in short, amused.

48

£10.66 And All That

A Dorset wood which was valued at £9 in the Domesday
Book is now on the market at £120,000.

Daily Telegraph

G
loomily, the Shaftesbury branch-manager of William & Bastards rubbed a clear patch in the little mullioned window with his smocked elbow, and stared out.

‘Cats and dogs,' he muttered.

‘What?' said his assistant.

‘The rain is coming down,' replied the manager, ‘cats and dogs.'

‘Bloody portent, that is,' said the assistant. ‘There'll be bishops dead all over by tea-time.'

‘Not
real
cats and dogs,' said the manager, irritably. ‘It is just an expression.'

‘It doesn't mean anything,' said his assistant.

The manager rolled his eyes, rooted in his hirsute ear, cracked a hidden nit.

‘You cannot expect to know what everything means, these days,' he said. ‘The language is in a state of flux. Cats and dogs is probably from the Norman.'

‘Why not?' grumbled the assistant. ‘Everything else bloody is. I never eat out any more. Time was, you found a maggot on your plate, you stuck an axe in the cook. These days it's 305 more than likely simmered in a cream sauce with a bloody peppercorn on its head.'

The manager sighed.

‘Nevertheless,' he said, ‘estate agency is nothing if not adaptable to change. We are at the forefront, Egwyne. We have got to be perceived to be red-hot. Hence smart fashionable expressions, e.g. cats and dogs.'

‘What is e.g. when it's at home?' enquired the assistant.

‘It's another one,' replied the manager. ‘You hear it everywhere.' He peered out again. ‘Funny thing about this glass stuff,' he said, ‘it makes people's legs go little. That woman from Number Four just went past, her feet were coming out of her knees. Her dog looked more like a bloody lizard.'

‘If she finds out it's the glass what's doing it,' said the assistant, ‘she could very likely sue us. I reckon we ought to have it took out again. God knows what it's doing to our eyes, they could start going little any minute, why did we have it put in in the first place?'

‘It is what is called chic,' said the manager.

His assistant stared at him.

‘Do not blame me, Egwyne,' said the manager, looking away, ‘this stuff is coming straight down from head office. I am getting memos headed
From the Stool Of The Senior Bastard
informing me they are determined to drag estate agency into the eleventh century. You do not know the half of it, Egwyne. It is a whole new, er, ball game. It is where it's at.'

His assistant sniffed.

‘I wouldn't care,' he said, ‘we've hardly shifted nothing since we were set up. It may well be estate agency is not a British thing.'

‘Concept.'

‘What?'

‘Never mind. Since you raise the point, Egwyne, the plain fact is it is all a matter of marketing.'

‘What is marketing?'

‘It is the name of the game. The old days of if you want somewhere to live you go round to the bloke with three chickens and if he doesn't reckon it's a fair price you knock him about a bit are over, Egwyne.'

The shop-bell tinkled. A young couple, entering, shrieked and ran out again. The manager hurried to the open doorway.

‘What is it?' cried the young man, backing off. ‘Leprosy? Boils? Ague?'

‘Do not be alarmed!' replied the manager. ‘It is only a concept. It rings when you open the door.'

His assistant appeared at his shoulder.

‘Yes,' he said reassuringly, ‘it is a ball game where it's at. Come on in out of the cats and dogs, it's bloody chic in here, e.g.'

Hesitantly, the young couple re-entered.

‘We're after a hut,' said the man.

The manager beamed, drew up a pair of stools, flicked an unidentified dropping from one, and motioned his clients seated.

‘And what sort of price range are we talking about?' he said.

‘About eight bob,' said the husband, ‘tops.'

The manager sucked his teeth.

‘What have we got in the way of eight-bob huts, Egwyne?' he said.

‘There's that rat-riddled old drum we've been trying to shift down by Aelfthryth's Swamp,' said his assistant, ‘or possibly in it, by now; you know what it's like with bogs.'

‘Rats?' enquired the young woman.

‘Not large ones,' said the manager. ‘Some of 'em are virtually mice. It's got a lot of roof.'

‘It would have to have,' said the young man, ‘for eight bob.'

‘I'm not saying eight bob,' said the manager, quickly. ‘We could certainly knock one-and-threepence off for cash. It's got a door up one end with a brand new string on it,' he added, ‘it's got a ladder for climbing up to repair some of the roof it hasn't got, and a nice window without any of that glass what makes your legs shrink.'

‘Has it got a floor?' enquired the young man.

‘All right, six bob,' said the manager.

‘Any land?' said the young man.

‘Ah,' said the manager. ‘It has got land, hasn't it, Egwyne?'

‘No point denying it,' said his assistant. ‘They'd notice it straight away, anyhow. You cannot miss it, bloody great forest out back, could be anything in there, goblins, bogeys, trolls, you name it, well, it wouldn't be five bob otherwise, would it?'

‘Four and sevenpence,' said the manager. ‘It's got a relatively scum-free well, mind.'

‘I don't know,' said the young woman, ‘we were rather set on . . .'

‘Tell you what,' said the manager quickly, ‘you could chop the trees down, anything nasty'd soon run out, call it four bob and I'll chuck in Egwyne to come round with his axe, he'll have that lot down in next to no—'

But the shop bell had tinkled again. Egwyne watched them go, from the window.

‘She'll never fancy him now his legs have gone little,' he said. He grinned. ‘Serve 'em right, it was a steal at four bob, some people don't know when they're lucky.'

The manager might well have responded, had not the door opened again.

It was a slim young man in a neatly tailored smock, flared, patch pockets, and polychrome embroidery at the scalloped neck. He was clean-shaven, save for a thread of ginger moustache, astonishingly symmetrical for the period, and his hair glinted with polished lard. He had at least four teeth.

‘Good morning,' he said. ‘Edward the Smart, from head office.'

The manager and his assistant cringed expertly backwards.

‘Sir,' they murmured, ‘sir.'

Edward the Smart waved the deference away with one heavily ringed hand, while the other raised a large leather-bound book it had been holding and laid it on their table.

‘We have noticed up head office,' he said, ‘that Shaftesbury is into a disappointing situation tradewise. In short, as of this moment in time, you have shifted sod-all.'

‘It is always a bit quiet after a war, Edward the Smart, sir,' mumbled the manager. ‘People want to be dead sure the pillaging etcetera has finished before rushing into property.'

‘E.g.,' added his assistant, keenly.

‘Yes, well, be that as it may,' said the man from head office, ‘we have something we wish for you to run up the flagpole.'

The manager narrowed his imperceptible brows.

‘Is it a concept?' he asked. ‘Is it red-hot and chic?'

Edward the Smart looked at him, and knuckled his moustache smooth.

‘It is called advertising,' he said. ‘We have just invented it.'

‘Is it like cream sauce?' enquired the assistant, eager to commend himself. ‘Is it like snails' legs? Is it e.g.?'

Edward the Smart opened the big book. The page was blank.

‘This is what we call the
Domesday Book
. It is a property guide. It goes free to everybody earning more than two pounds per annum.'

‘The rich get everything,' muttered Egwyne.

‘On each page,' continued the man from head office, ‘William & Bastards will advertise a desirable property to the discerning buyer. Now, what can we put in from the Shaftesbury branch?'

‘We got a four-bob rat-infested drum in the middle of a haunted wood,' said the manager. ‘That's about it.'

‘Better write down three-and-six,' said his assistant. ‘No point misleading anybody.'

Edward the Smart looked at him for a very long time. Finally he said:

‘Do you have a written specification of this item?'

The manager produced a crumpled note, licked a cheese-crumb off it, and handed it across. Edward the Smart considered it for a while, hummed a snatch or two of galliard, finally began to write.

‘Just in the market,' he said aloud, quill darting, ‘a bijou cottage-style residence in the midst of a fine wooded country estate, magnificently located beside a lush water-meadow supporting a truly rich profusion of wild life. The house itself is wholly original and constructed from local materials to blend perfectly with its environment, and requires only a touch of sympathetic decoration to create a magnificent rural retreat that is, nevertheless, being secluded but not isolated, within easy reach of all amenities. The superb woods which go with the property are rich in local legend, and offer a mature aspect from all windows. Due to bereavement, the present titled owners wish to dispose of the property quickly, a factor reflected by the realistic price of only nine pounds. An early inspection is advised.'

Edward the Smart put down his quill.

The manager was whimpering quietly in the corner.

The assistant licked dry lips.

‘Nine pounds?' he croaked, finally, ‘
nine pounds
?'