by Tim Lott
Michael made a packet.
You sold me out.
Frankie searches around in his mind but can find nowhere else to go.
Anyway, at least . . .
At least what, Frankie?
Veronica stands with her arms crossed in a gesture of fury, righteous fury.
Frankie can hold himself back no longer.
At least I haven’t been shagging someone.
What?
Yeh, you’re so moral, aren’t you? Right there on your high ground, hovering above the atmosphere in your oxygen mask.
What are you talking about?
Don’t waste your breath. Nodge told me all about it.
Nodge? What the hell does Nodge know about anything?
Owen saw you with someone. Some . . . man. At John Lewis. Between hats and socks.
It is the thought of the socks that somehow breaks Frankie and he starts to cry.
And I didn’t say anything, Vronky. I didn’t say anything to you about it.
Why? How could you not say anything? How could you cover up something like that?
How could you? How could you not say anything about what you were up to?
Frankie . . .
I could stay quiet, though. I could, because I didn’t want to lose you. I thought it would pass.
Oh.
Has it? Did it pass?
Veronica nods. Her eyes are dry.
Yes. It’s passed.
Who was it?
Nodge didn’t . . . ? I mean . . .
What? Who was it? Nodge said Owen didn’t recognize the man.
It was . . . no one. No one you know.
Who, then?
Someone from the drop-in centre.
One of the loonies?
We don’t say that anymore, Frankie.
Fuck I care what we say or don’t say. Who?
No. Not one of the clients. Someone who worked there. Temporarily.
What was his name?
Oleg . . . Oakeshott.
Oleg? You had an affair with someone called Oleg?
No one calls him Oleg. He’s just Oakeshott.
I’m going to . . . I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’m going to give him something to go properly mental about. When he’s picked up his teeth from the floor.
You can’t. He’s left. He was only there for a few weeks. He’s gone back to Prague. That’s where he’s from. Prague.
You’re lying.
No. I swear.
On China’s life.
Don’t be so melodramatic.
On. China’s. Life.
I swear on . . . her life. That he doesn’t work there anymore.
And he’s gone back to Prague.
And he’s gone back, yes, to Prague.
How long were you seeing him for?
A month.
How often?
A few times. That’s all.
Now Frankie looks up, a pleading look in his eyes.
So we’re equal.
Equal failures.
Why did you do it, Veronica?
Why does anyone do anything, Frankie? Because we’ll all be dead sooner or later and the opportunity came up. And I was angry that you had gone behind my back to Michael. And you never asked me. And you never told me.
So, says Frankie, lost entirely for what else to say.
So I presume you’re going to leave me now, says Veronica, with a matter of factness that Frankie finds unnerving.
Frankie looks around wildly.
What? No!
You have to.
Why?
Because if you don’t, I won’t respect you.
But . . . I love you. You’re my wife.
It doesn’t matter. You have to leave me. You have to leave me and China.
I won’t. No. I won’t. I forgive you, Veronica. Maybe you don’t forgive me, but I forgive you.
You’ll never forgive me. You’ll just try and find ways to punish me that I won’t know about.
No. No, Veronica. I want us to stay together. Forever.
Frankie. Be a man. Just for once.
I won’t leave you.
Please.
I won’t. Never. No.
Why not?
Because you’re all I’ve got left. You’re everything. You and China.
Then I’ll have to leave you.
But you’re the one who’s been unfaithful!
And you’re the one who’s lied through your teeth.
I didn’t lie!
No. You just didn’t say anything.
Like you didn’t say anything about . . . Oleg.
It’s not the same.
Look. At least think it over. At least give me until after the awards. I can’t go through that on my own. I want you there. For my big night. It’s only a few more days.
Veronica considers this. Her face is a mask. Frankie cannot read it.
A few more days, then.
And then?
And then I’ll make up my mind. Since you won’t.
* * *
The Estate Agent of the Year Ceremony is at the Camelot Hotel in Charing Cross Road. It is held in the Long Room, one of three function rooms. It is a rectangular room more suited towards sales conferences, with plain cream walls and giant banks of recessed lights in the ceiling that emit a steady, abrasive glare. The tables are laid with a mix of studied pretension and slack planning. The sprays of flowers at the centerpiece are slightly too large and block most of the view of the other side of the table. The bread rolls at the side of the main plates still have the chill of recent defrosting. The Prosecco is sugary.
Only ten of the twenty eight-person tables are full. Five are unoccupied. The ten full tables are closest to the front of the room, facing a podium. A very minor celebrity is on the stage, an occasional female presenter from a popular TV property programme. She has streaked blonde hair and an indestructible smile, and seems delighted beyond belief with everything anybody says or does. The publisher of Estate Agency Today is also on the stage, a vast man with a head the size of a bowling ball, sweating in his dinner jacket, looking uncomfortable and flushed. The presenter, whose name is Phoebe Witter, is doing her best to inject some enthusiasm and excitement into the proceedings, which increasingly have taken on the atmosphere of a drunken stag party. About eighty per cent of the attendees are men, all pressed into rented dinner jackets.
At one table on the far side of the room sits the contingent from Farley and Ratchett. Ratchett has been looking daggers at the FLB table all night. Frankie, meanwhile, has been assiduously keeping the F&R table out of his field of vision. He can’t bear to contemplate the idea that they will take the prize, although he has heard from several insider sources that they are the favourites, because Ratchett has been spreading a few bungs to make sure of victory. Frankie wouldn’t put it past him.
Frankie smiles at his guests. Victor and Jane are there, all that is left of the original team, along with three other salesmen and the PA, a graduate who is biding her time before ‘finding her true vocation’. Veronica is there as his guest, as is Nodge. Frankie couldn’t swing any more tickets so Owen is at home watching Ugly Betty.
Frankie’s smile is at odds with the slick of acid in his gut. Earlier that day, unknown to the rest of the table, he received a letter from the insurance company confirming that they would not pay out as the property was multi-occupancy and not single occupancy as declared on the application form. Frankie cannot deny it. He also cannot possibly bear the rebuilding cost. He is finished. He will lose his other properties. He will lose the house. He will lose his home.
Their home.
But there is still this one last night in which joy and triumph and affirmation are a possibility, just within his reach, only a few metres away, the distance between his table and the podium.
How are you feeling, Frankie? says Veronica.
Bit nervous, to tell you the truth. Never thought we would get this far. It’s very exciting, isn’t it?
I’m proud of you whatever happens, she says. And whatever happens afterwards.
The words fly out of her throat, loosened by champagne and guilt.
Frankie, startled, is set to challenge her on it – what is the implication? – but the presenter has finished her patter and jokes and is about to announce the next set of winners.
Now, says Phoebe Witter. It’s time to announce the winner of the Small Estate Agent of the Year, London West!
Her hand stretches out to the outsize silver cup on the table in front of her, almost the dimensions of a soup tureen, in pure nickel silver.
To receive the Holy Grail of the estate agency world.
She nods towards the tureen. There is scattered applause.
Behind her is an illuminated screen, still showing information about the last winners, Small Estate Agent of the Year, London East. Now the letters dissolve, and a new shortlist appears on the screen.
She reads out the shortlist from an autocue. Frankie translates in his mind. A bunch of mugs in Chiswick. Another bunch of mugs in Kensal Green. Then a posh Kensington bunch and some out in a London satellite town. Farley and Ratchett. And Frankie.
The publisher of Estate Agency Today hands her a navy blue envelope. She tears it open and pauses for some ten seconds for effect. The room is duly hushed.
And the winner is – FIB Estates! FIB is this year’s winner!
Instead of sounding the initials – F L B – Phoebe Witter misreads the letters and pronounces the word ‘fib’. And on a giant illuminated board behind them the pulsing letters ‘F I B’ appear illuminated in neon.
FLB! declares Frankie. It’s FLB!
But it is too late. The noise swallows his desperate correction, the table of Ratchett and Co. are laughing loudly, and the laughter is beginning to spread. The presenter does not correct her mistake.
F.I.B. Scott, calls out Ratchett in a convincing impersonation of Thunderbirds’ Jeff Tracy. Thunderbird 2 is GO.
Victor and Jane and Frankie and the rest of the employees all jump to their feet, ignoring the ruckus, while scatterings of polite applause break out in the room to drown out the laughter.
Frankie the Fib! Frankie the Fib! chants Ratchett, on fire with his own disappointment.
Frankie leans over and kisses Veronica, then he and the rest of his staff make their way in a snaking crocodile towards the stage. Farley and Ratchett’s table keep their hands firmly on their knees as the applause gathers. Frankie glances over to Ratchett and tips him a wink and a finger. Ratchett picks his nose in response.
A camera somewhere is flashing, turning the event, for Frankie, into a silvery dream. On the podium the group of them gather round and Phoebe Witter hands Frankie the immense trophy. Frankie sees his name on it – Frankie Blue. Once again the inscription reads, ‘FIB Estates’.
And yet, in the beating heart of this moment, despite everything, he has never felt so happy.
Supporting the cup in one hand – it is much lighter than he expects so he manages it easily – he waves towards Veronica, but cannot find her in the glare of the lights.
At the table Veronica is crying behind a red paper serviette.
Nodge leans over.
This is about Tony. Am I right?
Veronica snaps her head up, rubs her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
So Owen did know who it was.
Of course.
You knew all along.
Yes.
I didn’t think Owen even knew Tony.
He remembered him from the funeral.
On stage there is a huddle as the group gather for the official photographs. Frankie’s face is the moon, glowing with temporary reflected light from the flashes.
Tony and I . . . all that stopped months ago. For god’s sake, Nodge. You can’t tell Frankie it was Tony. It will kill him.
Nodge fidgets with his wine glass.
Why did you do it?
Veronica looks away, hardly able to meet Nodge’s eye. Frankie on the stage, beaming, flushed, trying to find her again in the darkness.
He’s been ignoring me for a long time. Trying to make money. Trying to be this thing that he’s always wanted to be. The top . . . the top . . . estate agent.
The way you say it. ‘Estate agent’. It’s like you’re saying ‘dogshit agent’. Hasn’t he been doing it all for you? For you and China?
He’s been doing it for him. He’s always been doing it for him.
Because you think he’s only interested in money? You’re wrong about that.
I know. That’s the irony. He’s actually not interested in money. He just wants me to admire him. And he wants himself to admire him. And he wants the world to admire him. But he doesn’t care about money. Not really.
Frankie takes the microphone from the presenter and starts to make his speech, the speech he has delivered so many times inside his head over the years.
. . . I want to thank all the team . . . the late, great Ralphy Gwynne who started me off in this game . . . my old friend Colin who can’t be here tonight . . .Jane and Victor . . .
You’re hardly in a position to judge him, hisses Nodge. How can you possibly know that? How can you possibly know why anyone does anything? You’re a therapist, for god’s sake. You should know that.
You’re right, Nodge. Of course you’re right. Not that it matters who’s right.
Frankie is holding the cup aloft. He approaches the microphone to speak again.
The truth is, says Veronica, I’ve never really made any proper decisions. Leaving him seems like the first one I’ve made since . . . well, forever.
You’re leaving him because you feel it’s time you made a decision of some kind about something or other?
Frankie’s eyes now glitter, starstruck in the spotlight.
We started with nothing. A single room on the Askew Road and central heating that didn’t work, says Frankie, his voice almost cracking with emotion. We had to wear thermal underwear beneath our fancy suits the first two months. And now somehow, from that frail beginning, all my dreams have come true.
At the table, Veronica turns on Nodge, angry, not with Nodge, not with Frankie, but with the way everything is and the invisible forces that make it so.
Do you know why I married Frankie? Well, that’s a long story. But I thought it was fate. Do you know why we had a baby together? Because we were too pissed to go and get some condoms. I even slept with Tony because a clairvoyant told me about the horns and hand round his neck.
What?
It doesn’t matter now. You wouldn’t understand. Do you know why else I married Frankie? Because I wanted to upset my mother. Or so it turns out. That’s what I’ve learned from therapy. My mother was right all along. And I just couldn’t face that. I couldn’t face her being right. But I’m ready now. At last. I’m ready to admit defeat. I’m finally making a decision. Because Frankie won’t. He’s too scared. And I’ll stand by the consequences. Frankie will have to do the same.
Frankie continues on the stage, holding the mike stand in two hands, caressing it like a cabaret crooner.
But most of all I’d like to thank my beautiful wife Veronica, without whom none of this would mean anything. And our beautiful daughter . . .
He seems okay, says Nodge. He’s enjoying himself.
He’s in trouble Nodge. Big, big trouble. Financial trouble.
I didn’t think it was that bad.
Oh, it’s bad all right.
. . . China, who means the world to me, but who can’t be with us tonight because, well, because she’s in bed asleep! . . .
Onstage, a smile has spread across Frankie’s face such as Veronica has never seen before.
He stands there, tall on the stage, and she does, in truth, feel proud of him.
Whatever happens he will have this. He will have this night and this silver-plated trophy. This outsize, shining, empty cup.
2008: Fall and Epiphany
Frankie is in the back of the cab
with Nodge at the wheel. They are on their way to the opening of Westfield Shopping Centre in White City, which will be the biggest shopping centre in Europe. The figures have been blared out in continuous advertising streams, on radio, on vast billboards. Two hundred and sixty-five stores. Ninety-six escalators. 1.6 million square feet. Fifty restaurants. £1.7 billon investment.
How is it going to survive in the middle of this economic shitstorm? says Frankie. No chance.
They reckon it’s going to pull in twenty million shoppers in the first year.
Chances are there won’t even be money. They nearly closed down the cashpoints.
Scaremongering. I think it will do all right, myself, says Nodge.
It’ll be bust in six months. You’ll see.
Hmmm.
At least it should help keep property prices in the Bush stable for a while, because they are tanking everywhere else. Have you seen the figures? Fifteen per cent down in a year!
Yeh, should give the agency a bit of a boost. Very desirable to live round here now.
For a while maybe.
How is business, anyway?
Flat. Very flat. Trade hasn’t seen anything like it since ’89.
FLB Estates are still managing to stay solvent – Frankie’s buy-to-let business was a purely personal affair – and are still somehow getting by, especially as they now have a ‘London Small Estate Agent of the Year (London West)’ plaque displayed prominently on their wall.
Frankie himself, however, is a bankrupt. Most of the salary he awards himself from the agency gets creamed off by the mortgage company who owned the burned-out house. All his other properties have been sold off, at the bottom of the market. It’s nowhere near enough to cover his debt.
Around his neck he fingers a golden key on a chain. Veronica left it on the bedside table when she moved out of the house with China. It is itching at his neck, irritating his skin, causing blemishes. He undoes the catch, takes it off to try and relieve the itching, then morosely examines it.
There’s a spot of rust on this. It’s meant to be gold.
Where did you get it? You told me you got it from Tiffany’s.
Well, yeh. Not that Tiffany’s.
Frankie ruefully puts the key into his pocket.
How do you make love work? he says, still fingering the key in his pocket.