by Claire Peate
“No. Honestly. It’s fine.”
“No, Eds, it’s not. You need a firm hand and—”
“It’s fine Beth! I’ll muddle through with Amanda and anyway, there are going to be forty-two candidates: you’re pregnant and will probably flop by the fourth. It’s a full day of interviewing: think about it – it’s probably not going to be good for baby is it?”
I had played my trump card and I could see it instantly had the desired effect. Beth had left, mollified but not entirely happy.
But it was done now. Beth was put off and Amanda would be on her way soon. And as I sat eyeballing the wild animals in the early morning, I realised that actually I needed Beth not to be with me today. I needed to do this without her domineering and taking over for once. I needed to take a small step out of her shadow and make my own decisions.
But for all the inner-strength and resolution I was feeling it was diminished by the realisation that choosing the wrong lodger would inevitably lead to being baked into an enormous – but very tasty – pie.
I don’t know what I’d expected Amanda to wear when she came to help me interview prospective tenants, but not that would have been a really good start. She bounced into the house just after ten o’clock in the morning in a skin-tight magenta dress, unbelievably perky for someone who had been out until three in the morning.
“Did you go out in that dress last night?” I asked, remembering with a sudden fondness the times – so recently – that Beth and I had collapsed into V-2 following a heavy session the night before, still wearing the night before’s clothes and make-up.
“Oh my God, no! I’d be like totally a granny if I wore this out. No I’ve got these just amazing hotpants…”
Of course. I smiled tightly. I made coffee. Tightly. I felt like a suburban fifty-something housewife whose daughter had just discovered Rimmel.
“… so he came over to me in the club and it was like two in the morning at that point and he was, like, I have this like really enormous thing in my pants for you and I was, like, all oh yeah and then he said—”
“HERE’S YOUR COFFEE, THEN.”
“Oh! Fab! Thanks, Edda!”
“Have you had any thoughts on what questions you’re going to ask the candidates today?” I sat opposite her at the breakfast bar and sipped my own coffee. I was determined to keep complete control of the conversation from now right through to the end of the day.
Amanda looked thoughtful. “No. Not really. I thought I’d wing it. You know – follow your lead.”
“Great. Sounds good.”
“I love your house, by the way. It’s, like, amazing and everything! And the whole thing is yours?”
“Every brick. It feels weird though – it’s never been this clean. Even the cat’s freaked out by how clean and tidy it is.”
“Yeah. It’s, like, really homely but also, like, a bit funky. I mean not way-out funky or anything like that. Sort of mature funky. You know?”
“I know.” Any second now she was going to mention the word sepia. I braced myself.
“Yeah. Well. It’s cool. And I love the garden. It’s so … posh. Like a manor house or something.”
“Well I went a bit mental with a hatchet recently,” I said, “But I wouldn’t say it’s posh…”
“I mean, like, the sundial! It’s totally mad! And the little hedge things in patterns. And get this, right, I actually know what that is! You’ve got a knot garden! Like, how clever am I? No, I’m not really. It’s just that’s like the only thing I remember from my history GCSE. Can you believe that? Like the single only thing! We did these studies of Elizabethans and stuff, you know those people who wore the ruffs around their necks? Anyway, they used to have knot gardens with the little hedges and the herbs. So did you go for the historical garden or something? That’s, like, so weird to have a themed garden. Although I would just love a garden with a big fountain with these dolphins leaping out from it. I’ve seen it in magazines—” As she’d gabbled on I’d stared at her, my mouth opening wider and wider until, full gape, I walked to the front door, fumbled the catch with shaky hands and stepped out.
Into a perfect Elizabethan knot garden.
“My mud! My weed pile!” I looked around for something familiar to anchor myself to, to put what I was seeing into some sort of context. Was it really my garden?
“What’s up?” Amanda bounded over beside me. “I think it looks kind of cool. Your garden makes the neighbours’ gardens look well shabby, though.”
Where yesterday there had been vast expanses of mud and rubble and the weed pile now there were neat clipped box hedges in curves and angles. In between the hedges the spaces were tightly packed with herbs and the paths between were perfectly filled with a purple-blue shale. And in the middle of it all sat the most enormous stone sundial.
I hung onto the door frame and stared at my Country Living front garden. I was shocked. Shocked that, between Beth leaving at eleven last night and Amanda arriving at ten this morning, someone had stolen into my garden and carted away my dead plants and done this. For me. It was them, wasn’t it? It had to be. It must have been the Brockley Spades’ work. Had Eustace been here: had he been among the gardeners? Guy? Had Guy been working in my garden last night? And how many of the people I’d met at the underground meeting had been repairing my damage while I slept just metres away from them? Who had let themselves through my gate last night? It was creepy to think that I’d been fast asleep just above them as they’d worked beneath. Did they do this for all their new members? Was this a perk of being a guerrilla gardener? And – more pertinently – did I like it? Did I like being the victim, if that was the right word, of guerrilla gardening? Did the fact that they felt the need to take over my garden imply I was in some way negligent or lacking in standards, horticulturally that is. Was Eustace worrying that my front garden, so near to Fox Estates, was bringing down the tone of Brockley? Which it was, of course. Even Babs had said as much…
“Hey look!” Amanda tugged my sleeve. “Do you think that’s our first interviewee?” she pointed down the road to where a balding and horribly obese man was shuffling nearer.
“I shouldn’t think so,” I began, and then saw he was carrying the free ads paper I had placed the advertisement in.
“Urgh!” Amanda realised at the same time as me. “You should, like, totally have asked them if they were good looking when they phoned up.”
“Well he’s going to be an ideal opportunity to practise.” I said, deciding to see the best in a bad situation (Company magazine, November). And besides, I needed a moment to pull myself together after the shock of finding my refurbished garden.
“Amanda?”
“Yes.”
“Are you having fun?” I asked, with my head in my hands.
“No!” came the resolute response from Amanda across the table, also with her head in her hands. It was early evening and we’d spent the entire day interviewing for the room.
“It is so absolutely awful. It is really genuinely completely awful.” I looked up and stared at the scrawled paper in between us. The names of the twenty-seven potential lodgers who had turned up on the day were written in the left hand column, the handwriting getting progressively messier as the list went on, then their phone number in the next column and in the third column there were scrawled notes on the interview and a mark out of ten. The first interviewee had scored a minus eight. The notes towards the end were illegible: as though a spider with ink boots had suffered a fit across the paper. By number twenty-seven Amanda and I had almost lost the will to live.
I rested my forehead onto the table top.
“Tired?” Amanda asked, yawning.
“Yes,” I said and then quickly added, “But not because I’m old. Just because it’s been a long day.”
“I totally didn’t say it was because you’re old,” Amanda said. “So who are you going to choose then? I liked the blonde bloke.”
I leant forward to read her notes. “Blonde bl
oke … number twelve? Crispin from Bristol.”
“That’s him. The posh scriptwriter.”
“No way. Too flimsy. And he was poor – how is a boy like him with no money going to pay the rent?”
“He could pay with his body in your bed.”
“Amanda!”
“Well come on, the man was so cute! Who would not want to have a bit of that in their house? The way he sat there flirting with us and he had, like, just such enormous thighs … but I suppose he was like a bit young for you.”
“Thanks for that.” I savagely crossed the flirty blonde boy from the list. He was quite young, as it goes.
“I didn’t like many of the girls much, did you? Except that one called Jane. Jane was OK.” I said, trying to decipher my handwriting.
“Was she like the banker with that really amazing jacket that was, like, really expensive? Yeah she was OK but you wouldn’t actually want to share with a girl would you?”
“Why? She was fine.”
“Yeah, but that’s like a waste of a go. Let’s open the wine now!”
“Amanda are you only thinking of one thing?”
“For you! Not for me! I just think it’s totally a good way for you to meet someone, because if you never go out—”
“I go out!”
“You do?”
“Yes I do! Remember the secret society thing I told you about. In strict confidence? Remember? And the artist called Guy who is an amazing Milk Tray type of man.”
Amanda looked at me with a vague expression. “What’s a Milk Tray man?”
Hmmm. “It was an advert that was on the TV before you were born. A swarthy James Bond-style man broke into a woman’s house and left a box of chocolates in her bedroom and—”
“He broke into a woman’s house?”
“Well yes—”
“And she didn’t mace him? Man, the eighties were crazy! Oh my God was like breaking and entering acceptable in the olden days? Is that before locks were invented?”
My incredulity was cut short by a burst of knocking at the front door.
“Oh no. More!” I stayed motionless in my seat. “I thought Dan was the last one!” I rechecked the list. He was the last to be interviewed. It was gone six – that was it. We were supposed to be done for the day. I felt we had some legal right to be done for the day. “Maybe it’s one of the no-shows,” I said.
“Or maybe it’s someone else. Not someone about the room?”
“Of course! It’s Bethan!” I jumped up from my chair and flew to the door. She said that she’d try to come over in the evening to see how I’d got on. Bethan would know who I should choose!
“B— oh!”
“Hi!” There were two men standing in my mock-Elizabethan knot garden. Neither of them were Bethan.
“I’m sorry I’m so late,” the younger, brown-haired man said, “I have an excuse but it’s rubbish. Am I too late for the room? Has it gone?”
“I’m – ahh – ” I looked from one to the other. I almost couldn’t bear to ask the same old questions one more time and show an interest in the twenty-eighth person that day. I could just say the room had gone. It practically had gone, to the girl called Jane. And I could already hear Amanda fighting with the corkscrew in the kitchen behind me.
“I’m the reason he’s late.” The silver fox behind him stepped in. “I’m his father.” He held out his hand. “Max Willoughby. Hi.” I smiled and shook his hand, wondering where I’d seen him before. Did I know him? Was he something to do with the Council – his face looked very familiar.
Damn. Now I couldn’t turn them away: not when I’d shaken his hand.
“Max Willoughby?” Amanda was beside me, suddenly. And now she was hanging on to the side of me. “Max? Max Willoughby?”
“Hi.” The silver-fox father grinned and held out his hand to her as well. Maybe my new Elizabethan knot garden made everyone more formal. Now I had topiary I would start shaking hands with Babs and we would remark on the particularly clement weather for this time of year.
Amanda squeaked, “You’re Max Willoughby!”
“He’s Max Willoughby,” the son said to me. “Does that have any bearing on whether I can still be interviewed for the room?”
“Oh my God, come in!” Amanda pushed me aside, literally throwing me against my door jamb, “I so think you’re, like, amazing and everything! I want to be an actor too! I had this walk-on part in East Enders last year and I’m auditioning for a murder victim in a new series for BBC1 and, like … oh my God it’s really you isn’t it? Say a line!”
“Oh … well, where do I start…” Max followed her inside with a grin on his face and a wink at me.
The abandoned son and I stood in the knot garden and faced one another. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So … the room?” the son said.
“Yes! Yes, you can come and see the room.” I stood aside and he came in.
“I’m Robert, by the way.”
“Hi, Robert.” I stood back to let him in. “Edda. And I’m sorry but you’ll have to excuse the smell of lavender.”
For the last twenty-seven candidates, Amanda and I had sat in the kitchen for the “Interview” before showing the interviewees the downstairs rooms and then up to the bedroom and bathroom on the top floor. For number twenty-eight – Robert – the routine had to change. Because Amanda was completely absorbed by Max Willoughby who, in turn, was utterly engrossed in her supercharged flirtation. He was saying witty things about the theatre and she was giggling and leaning in to him provocatively.
“So, you, like, do film as well?”
Max shrugged. “I recently had a small part in Harry Potter.”
Robert and I looked at each other and laughed out loud. In fact I snorted, which was rather embarrassing. But Max and Amanda continued unabated.
“So,” I pulled myself together, “Would you like a glass of wine Robert?” It seemed like the polite thing to do given Amanda has poured one for her and Max. “This is the hall by the way.”
“It’s very nice. No wine though, thanks. I’m driving.”
“Oh, you have a car!” I refocused on the potential lodgerdom of Willoughby junior.
“Yes. Does that stand me in good stead? A famous father and a car?”
“It might do.” I played it cool. “What sort of car is it?”
“It’s an old VW beetle. It breaks down sometimes. But maybe I shouldn’t tell you that.”
“No … I think you’ve possibly damaged your chances a bit there. This is the lounge.”
“Great. I like the shield above the fireplace. It’s very … very Viking.”
“Oh right. Yes. It’s a replica of a … well … that’s a bit boring really. Anyway, this is the dining room.”
“OK.”
There was a fit of giggles from the kitchen and Amanda’s voice squeaking: You just can’t say things like that about Judi Dench.
“And this is the back garden.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Well,” Robert looked around the long, sprawling now fox-free garden which – I had to admit – looked very beautiful in the warm spring sunshine. “It’s quite different to your front garden.”
“Is it? Oh yes – yes it is. I keep forgetting.”
Robert turned to me. “You forget how your front garden looks?”
“Mmm. Anyway, it’s quite a nice neighbourhood. Mostly. Do you live nearby at the moment?”
“Greenwich.”
“Oh. Very nice. Well it’s not quite Greenwich, but it’s getting there.”
“It’s convenience more than anything: I teach at a school in New Cross Gate. I wanted to move closer, so I could walk to work. So – have you had many people come to look at the room?”
“You’re number twenty-eight.” I said.
“Right.” He looked deflated.
“Let’s go inside.” I led the way, feeling sorry for him. “Is your father really famous?”
&nb
sp; “I think so. But if you’re interested in the fame thing, then I’m sorry but I’ve not followed in his footsteps; I teach history. But on the plus side remember I still have that car.”
“The one that breaks down?”
“Only occasionally.”
“So, if you did get the room, when would you be looking to move in?” I effortlessly slipped into my well-practised questioning routine.
“Whenever would suit you to be honest. I’m living with my dad but he’s such, well, as you can see he’s a real character and as much as I love him – I think I need my own space.”
“You mean you’re fed up of luvvie parties thrown by your dad?”
“Exactly! I get up early, he gets up late. I work days at school, he works evenings at the theatre. Our lives don’t fit together very easily.”
We were back in the kitchen and Max and Amanda looked up.
“Smashing place you’ve got here, Edda.” Max said.
“Thanks. Look, Amanda, would you show Robert the rooms upstairs. I just have to – erm – do something. Excuse me a moment.” And I dashed to my knot garden.
“Everythin’ all right with yer darlin’?” Babs eyed me suspiciously over her fag. I was standing on her doorstep, on her territory, something I’d never done in the five years I’d lived in Geoffrey Road. “What happened to yer garden love? Shocked the bejeezus outta me when I had me first fag of the day.”
“Oh. Just, you know, something I felt had to do last night, no time like the present... You know how it is. Anyway, I have to ask you a favour.”
“Go on then. I ain’t lendin’ yer no money though, much as I like yer. Don’t lend no one no money.”
“That’s fine. I don’t want money. What I do want is for you to take a look at the two men leaving my house in the next few minutes and tell me … do you think, in your opinion that is, that the younger one is good lodger material? Basically do you think he’s going to be the sort who will bake me into a pie if I don’t let him watch Grand Designs?”
“You think I was jokin’, but I wasn’t.” Babs intoned.
“Oh I’m sure it was true. I would like your opinion.”