by Neil Cross
Exactly as the details suggested, the first house fronted on to a 'quiet, tree-lined street'. But the details had neglected to mention that it stood next to an electricity substation that hummed in a feline and sinister fashion. Its garden backed, via a decrepit wooden fence, directly on to a railway line.
Holly led him through the front door. The house was dark. There was darkness at the top of the stairs, and darkness at the end of the hall. He pretended to examine the external door frame while she turned on the lights, saying: 'Those are new doors. Very solid. Very secure.'
'Right,' said Nathan, as if he cared, then stepped over the threshold.
The
empty house echoed with their footsteps. She led him to the through-lounge: a back and front parlour knocked into one long room, and into the galley kitchen. Its UPVC window overlooked the rear garden, which the developer hadn't got around to cleaning up; there was a rusty old wheelbarrow parked by a pile of bricks; a pile of wet sand on the patio.
The kitchen was newly fitted with cheap materials: maple-look veneer on chipboard. He opened a few cupboards, looked inside the oven. (An instruction booklet, still wrapped in plastic, lay in the spotless grill pan.) Even Nathan could tell this kitchen would begin to fall apart in a matter of months, if not weeks. But he stood and dusted sawdust from his trousers, saying, 'Yeah, I like it.'
He followed her upstairs.
The second house was similar but smaller; the 'office' was barely large enough to accommodate a small table and a laptop. But it stood on a nicer street, with better access to public transport and the local shops. The third house was the biggest of the three, but in spitting distance of a forbiddingly brutal-looking housing estate with whose reputation Nathan was well acquainted.
Outside the third house, they sat in her car. She put the heater on.
She said, 'No pressure. But what do you think? Are we on the right track ?'
'Oh, definitely. You've definitely given me a lot to think about.'
'I'm sure Mr Hinsliffe would take an offer,' said Holly. Mr Hinsliffe was the developer. 'Things are quite slow at the moment.'
'Okay,' said Nathan. 'I'll bear that in mind. Let me think about it.'
'Okay. What I'll do is this - I'll give you a call when a property comes on the market that you might be interested in. Things are coming in and going out all the time -- weekends, especially.
Something good can come on at nine and be sold by lunchtime.
Happens all the time. It's a solid market. But you're in a strong position to buy, mortgage agreed, no chain, so I can afford to give you priority treatment. How does that sound?'
He nodded, as if she had spoken with great wisdom and kindness and had not flatly contradicted her earlier claim that things were slow at the moment.
He thought, I left your sister alone in the dark.
He said, 'That sounds great.'
'Great.'
She dropped him off at the high street.
In no rush, he caught the bus home.
He got back to discover his flat had changed. The interior angles seemed more acute. The walls seemed to huddle over him.
He lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. In feverish half-dreams, it seemed the flat was two dimensional - a drawing on a scrap of paper that, with him still scribbled on it, was about to be squeezed into a ball by a giant hand, and thrown away.
15
Holly called him at home on Saturday morning. He knew as soon as the phone rang that it must be her; nobody ever called him at home unless there was a crisis at work - and if there was a crisis at work, he'd already know about it.
It had rained heavily that morning, but half an hour ago the sun had come out, to make mercury of the puddles in the empty nursery playground. He took the call from his bed, looking out the window.
He was wearing socks and boxer shorts and a rumpled white T-shirt, the one he'd slept in.
'Hello?'
'Is that Nathan?'
'Yeah.'
'It's Holly. From Morris Michael estate agents?'
'I recognized your voice.'
There was a pause - perhaps she was a little taken aback by his familiarity. He thought he detected a note of pleasure in the silence, but he couldn't be sure. Perhaps she was simply consulting her notes, reminding herself who exactly she was talking to. Or perhaps a colleague had handed her a Post-it note with an important phone number on it.
He met her at yet another of Mr Hinsliffe's houses. He parked outside, the A-Z unfolded, spine broken, in his lap. Holly was inside, waiting for him. Pulling up, he saw her face in the window. She darted away, and he began to doubt that he'd seen her at all.
But she was waiting for him at the door, wearing a blue-grey belted coat and a scarf and high, suede boots. The house still smelled of wood glue.
He thought, I'm really going to do this, and closed the door softly behind him.
They stood in the empty front room. He told her, 'It certainly catches the light.'
'It's south facing.'
'I like it.'
He walked through to the kitchen; it was very similar to the others.
'I'm still not sure about these kitchens, though.'
She squatted heel to haunch and experimentally opened the cupboard beneath the sink, telling him: 'Developers' kitchens. They buy them cheap, in bulk.'
He was pleased that she seemed to trust him.
'I expect that's reflected in the price though,' he said. 'The crappy kitchens.'
'Exactly. They're not really designed to last. They're more like a what do you call it? - a serving suggestion. Would you like to see upstairs?'
'Would you like to have lunch with me?'
There was an awkward moment. Holly looked at her suede boots and pursed her lips and he thought he'd blown it. No second chances.
He couldn't go through this again.
Then she said, 'Where do you have in mind?'
'You're the estate agent. You know the local facilities.'
'Then let's go into town, shall we?'
There was a moment outside the house when neither was sure which car to take. In the end, they took hers.
Holly turned on the radio, saying, 'I love this song.'
She turned it up. It was Smokey Robinson.
Nathan said, 'I second that emotion.'
She sang under her breath and beat occasional time on the steering wheel. She did not seem sad.
She parked outside a primary school; in the car park, they were holding a car-boot sale to raise funds. Closing the car doors, they looked at the families gathered there. Nathan glanced at her, to see if there was anything in her eyes. But he saw nothing. He followed her round the corner, past a deli, a newsagent, an Algerian cafe. They walked into a tapas bar. Inside, she removed her coat. They sat and he offered her a cigarette.
'No. Thank you. But you go ahead.'
'Do you mind?'
'Not at all. Go ahead. I'll breathe it in if I can.'
He made as if to put the packet away and she told him: 'Really. I'd say if it was a problem.' Then, unwrapping her scarf, she said, 'To tell the truth, I'd love a cigarette. I only gave up at New Year.'
'I gave up once. For two years.'
'Twoyears? What made you start again?'
'Oh, y'know. Stress.'
'Tell me about it.'
'So, it's stressful, being an estate agent?'
'I'm not really an estate agent. I mean, it's not a vocation or anything.'
'So,
how long have you been doing it?'
'Oh, I don't know. Two years? Three years.'
'And how'd you get into it?'
'It's just one of those things. Life just. . .' She made a bird-like fluttering with one hand, then said, 'What about you? How long have you been
'A salesman.'
'That's right. And what is it you sell, again?'
'Greetings cards.'
'That's right.'
'It's not as boring as you might think.'
She crunched on a breadstick.
'All right,' he said. 'It's pretty boring.'
'How long have you been doing it?'
'Four years.'
Their coffees arrived. He took a sip, lit another cigarette. Holly said, 'So, are you one of these salesman-types who thrive on stress?
All that coffee, all those cigarettes.'
'Not really. I'm not really, like, one of nature's salesmen. It's just what I do.'
'So - I'm not a natural estate agent and you're not a natural salesman.'
'I
think you're probably a very good estate agent.'
She laughed, sudden and loud and raucous. Then she cupped a hand to her mouth as if amazed at herself and looked left and right.
'Sorry.'
'That's all right.'
She covered up the sudden flush by saying: 'So, if I'm that good, are you going to buy a house from me?'
'I might. If you play your cards right.'
'I think you're probably a very good salesman.'
The meals arrived. She dug in with a fork, in the American manner.
She leaned over, to steal one of his French fries and chomped on it, grinning.
Then she brushed hair from her eyes and grew quiet.
He said,'Are you okay?'
She waited a long time without answering, prodding at her food, taking a small mouthful, dabbing with a napkin at the corners of her mouth.
He said, 'Holly. You don't have to feel guilty for laughing.'
Her long silence intensified. She lay down her cutlery and looked at him.
'Why do you say that?'
'I don't know.'
She kept looking at him, as if suspecting they knew each other from way back, from long ago.
Lunch overran by half an hour.
Holly said, 'Well. Thanks for lunch.'
'Can we do it again? When you're less pressed. When you've got more time.'
'Usually I only get an hour for lunch. You know. It looks bad otherwise.'
'I'm
not talking about lunch. Dinner?'
She considered it.
'Dinner would be great. My treat.'
'Fine. Whatever. Great.'
'Wednesday?'
'Wednesday would be great.'
'Give me a call.'
'I will.' He mimed it, feeling like a dick. 'I'll call you.'
Then he stood on the street and watched her pull away: jerky, impulsive, somewhat dangerous. He stood there while her car waited at the lights. And he stood there when the car had gone, simply watching the empty space she had recently occupied.
Outside, Nathan told her he'd get a taxi back to the house and pick up his car from there. She thanked him. She was flustered, searching in her handbag for her car keys. She dropped them on the pavement.
They paused at the door of her car. She unlocked it with a flick of the wrist; there was a little beep of confirmation.
16
On Tuesday morning -- just after the marketing meeting -- Justin came into Nathan's office and perched on the edge of his desk.
Justin was tall and grossly overweight, in trousers that were always a little too short. He had a babyish face and curly hair and (when he chose) the entreating eyes of Bambi.
For several seconds, Nathan ignored him -- concentrating on a printed memo about another increase in paper costs. Then he swivelled round in his office chair.
Justin said, 'Are you okay?'
'What do you mean?'
'Well. You were off your game during the marketing meeting.'
'Look, I didn't mean to contradict you.'
'That's not what I'm worried about. I think I got us out of it. I'm worried about you.'
But Justin hadn't got them out of it: he'd just made a bumbling, mendacious spectacle of himself. Justin was often doing that, and only Justin didn't know it.
Nathan hadn't been paying attention during the meeting, because he was thinking about Holly Fox and, unintentionally, he'd contradicted one of Justin's lies. The lie concerned a chain of newsagents based in the north-east of England. The chain was usually a reliable source of revenue, particularly for the meat-and-potatoes novelty range.
In fact, the large stock returns were a consequence of Justin's failure to complete a renewed terms negotiation with the customer's chief buyer.
The returns were slow-moving stock that, ordinarily, the retailer might have held on to or sold off cheaply. But, as a signal of intent, they had been returned, still shrink-wrapped, to the Norfolk warehouse -- from which point, business between the two companies had been suspended. Justin was trying to keep all this from the board of directors.
The episode had nearly driven Justin to a nervous breakdown.
But now he was saying, 'I'm just worried about you, mate. It's not like you to drop the ball.'
'Really,' said Nathan. 'Don't worry about me.' Then he said, 'How are things with Georgia?'
Georgia was the buyer for the north-eastern chain. If negotiations with Hermes weren't restarted quickly, she'd allocate Hermes' shelf space to their bigger competitors. Getting it back would be humiliating and costly.
Justin said, 'Georgia will come on-line shortly.'
'I think you'd better drive up there to see her, mate. Have a faceto-face meeting.'
'I'll leave her for a few more days,' said Justin. 'To sweat.'
Nathan tried to hide his amusement by turning away and lifting a random sheet of paper from his desk; he pretended to scan it with a distracted frown. He said, 'I'll go up to see her, if you like. See if I can calm things down a bit.'
Unutterable panic flitted across Justin's big baby face.
Then he said, 'I can't let you do that. Not in your state.'
'In what state?'
'Look at you. You're on the edge.'
'Why don't you talk to me about it?'
'There's nothing to talk about.'
'I can't let you see Georgia. Not in your present condition. There's too much at stake. She's an important customer.'
'Okay. Fine. Whatever.'
'Is it a woman?'
'Is what a woman?'
'It.'
'It's not a woman. It's not an anything. I'm fine.'
Justin said: 'What are you doing for lunch?'
This was the question Nathan dreaded above all others.
Justin took lunch in one of a number of local pubs. For the sake of appearances, he'd order a square of lasagne, then ignore it while he worked his way through six pints of lager and a packet of cigarettes.
Often, lunch was followed by an afternoon 'meeting' or two, in the same venue.
He'd return to the office with his tie loose and his shirt untucked and his shoelaces untied.
'I'm sorry,' said Nathan. 'I'm really, really busy. Really busy.'
'Busy with what?'
'I have lunch with marketing.'
'The marketing lunch is tomorrow.'
'This is a pre-lunch lunch. We want to finesse the agenda for tomorrow's meeting.'
'Okay. Let's do that, then.'
Nathan gave up. He said, 'Give me five minutes', then hurried upstairs to the marketing department.
He found Amrita at her desk, eating a Pret a Manger sandwich and typing an email one-handed. Otherwise the floor was empty.
Nathan sat, telling her: 'I'm in trouble.'
Amrita turned on her swivel chair. 'God. I've been meaning to call you. I thought Justin was going to die. The fat lying bastard.'
'The fat lying bastard has invited himself to lunch.'
Amrita laughed, spitting a mouthful of damp breadcrumbs. She tutted and brushed them from her keyboard.
She said, 'That'll be nice for you.'
'Lunch with me and you. I used you as an excuse. Sorry.'
'I'm not having lunch with Justin. I have a sandwich.'
'Please.'
'Last time, he came back from the toilet with a wet patch on his trousers. I nearly threw up.'
'I
know. Really.'
'And he touches my knee.'
'I know.'
'What did you think you were doing, saying yes?'
'He trapped me with his cunning.'
Amrita took another, pointed bite of BUT and said, 'You're not really on top form, are you?'
'What does that mean?'
'You sat through the meeting like this . . .'
She made a dreamy face and rolled her head round on a loose neck.
'. . . like you were somewhere else. You took about ten minutes to answer a question. And you called Justin a liar.'
'I didn't.'
'Good as.'
'He is a liar.'
Amrita crossed her legs, brushed crumbs away. 'Tough tits, I'm afraid. I'm busy.'
'Please.'
'No.'
'Please please.'
'No.'
'PI--'
'No.'
She returned, sandwich in hand, to whatever she was typing.
Nathan wondered how long Justin would keep him this time. Two and a half hours was about average. But Justin was upset, so it would probably be longer.
On Wednesday night, he met Holly in a blue-lit cocktail bar for a pre-dinner drink.
Nathan hadn't known what to wear. In the end, he'd asked Amrita's advice and they'd sneaked out after the marketing meeting to buy him some new shoes and what she called a funky shirt.
Holly sat on a chrome bar stool, stirring a drink set down on the radiant glass bar. She was wearing a little black dress. He sat next to her.
'Hello.'
He wasn't sure if he was expected to kiss her cheek, or what?
Helpfully, she glanced back into her drink and stirred it with a complimentary plastic swizzle stick.
Nathan said, 'Am I late?'
She said, 'Probably not,' and he knew something was wrong.
He set his coat, folded, on the empty stool next to him and ordered a margarita.
She said, 'I'm really sorry. I'm early for everything. I get it from my dad. He's got this punctuality thing.'
', Nathan said, 'Are you okay? Or would you like another drink?' 'I'm okay. I'm fine for the moment. Thanks.'
He could tell this was not her first drink of the evening. I' He said, 'Well, this is weird.'
She looked at him with an expression that Nathan should not have been able to understand. But he understood it, all right.
'What's weird ?'