by Sean Mallen
When I landed for my first visit in 1979, toting a ridiculously small and rudimentary knapsack, I was encouraged to discover that you could ride the subway all the way to the centre of the city. Seemed like a great deal. Although groggy after the all-night flight, adrenaline kept me going on the endless journey along the Piccadilly line.
No one but backpackers would do it. My cousin Suzy told of the time she tried the Tube after the long flight from Canada, ending up in tears as the train gradually filled to bursting with rush hour commuters who had no patience for her ordeal with two giant suitcases.
On my debut trip, when I emerged wide-eyed at the top of the stairs at Piccadilly Circus, a Cockney jumped in front of me and started snapping pictures.
“Royt … ‘old that one. Bee-oo-tee-ful, mate!” he said, directing me in a series of poses. Stunned and sleep deprived, I complied until he pulled out a notebook to ostensibly write down my name and contact information. It dawned on me that it was almost certainly a scam to separate a young rube from some of his meagre money and I walked away.
“Owww … don’t ruin it!” I can still hear him complain.
Somehow I managed to find a fleabag bed and breakfast, where the toast was cold, the butter hard, and the bacon leathery. But it did not matter. I walked astonished through the streets until my feet screamed, drank warm beer in the pubs, and then fell asleep as I watched the world’s greatest actors on stage.
London had me then and never let go.
Much older, if not wiser, I took the gleaming Heathrow Express out to the airport to meet my wife and daughter — a mere fifteen-minute ride from Paddington. A taxi was arranged to bring us all back to the flat. Sean was all grown up.
When Julia spotted me at arrivals, she dropped her bag at her mother’s feet and ran the last few metres for a most satisfying jump into my arms. Isabella struggled over with the extra bag. Ballet left her with chronic back pain, meaning that long flights were exhausting and tough. She embraced me wearily.
“Okay. Let’s see London,” she said.
There is no fast way to drive from Heathrow to north London. Parts of the journey are on expressways, but most of it is a confusing zigzag through city streets.
Julia fell asleep in the taxi. Isabella made tentative observations.
“There do seem to be a lot of trees. That’s good,” she said. “Some nice buildings, too. But don’t get happy.”
Don’t get happy. This was a phrase I would hear many times.
It was at least a sunny day and the well-maintained gardens in front of the short-let building were all in bloom.
“Nice,” she offered with little enthusiasm.
“Oh … a ground-floor apartment. Hmmm.”
I did not expect her to be wowed by the sparse decor and indeed she was not. Nor did the high window in the living room do much for her, despite the evidence of greenery and flowers outside.
“We really need to sleep.”
My girls did not fall in love with London at first sight. But this was only Day One.
After their nap, I took them out to the high street around the Hampstead Tube stop, hoping they would be wooed by its charm. Julia made a beeline for a cute little toy store. Just inside the door was a stuffed giraffe, taller than me.
“Daddy, if I come to London will you buy this for me?”
“Sure, sweetie,” I offered as Isabella eyed me. “He’ll be waiting for you when you come in the fall.”
This was the beginning of an extensive campaign of extortion by my six-year-old, who had astutely observed that she had me over a barrel. Isabella was regularly reminding me that it was no sure thing that they would be coming to join me. They were here effectively under protest, on a skeptical fact-finding mission.
Two things had to be done: find an apartment and settle on a school.
First, though, we needed to have an argument. The reasons were murky, but it developed as I expressed concern about Julia needing to be careful to not put any marks on the wall at the short let, fearing that I was going to be stuck with any repair bills.
“Leave the kid alone!” said Isabella.
And it went downhill from there, revisiting all the stresses that led up to my accepting the London job. All three of us went to sleep with teeth gnashing.
Morning dawned misty and cool with tinges of frost in our voices. They were both still jet-lagged, and we were late getting out the door for our tour of a school.
It was a short walk down Frognal, but they were continually lagging behind … or I was quick-marching ahead, depending on one’s perspective.
“Come on. This is for you!” I barked. Mistake.
Isabella stopped in her tracks and hissed, “No, this is for YOU!”
Point made, I took a deep breath and beseeched them to please try to walk faster.
Our appointment was at an international school in Hampstead, which I thought might be a good choice. All the kids would be expatriates, so I reasoned that my child would not be singled out so much as she might in a classroom where everyone spoke with a British accent. Checking their website, the tuition seemed substantially less than many of the alternatives, about £6,000.
As we walked up to the door for the tour that I had arranged, Julia was noticeably quieter than normal. It was a handsome brick building in the midst of a leafy street with similar looking homes. All good. But a European culture shock awaited: the classrooms, although neat, airy, and pleasant, were all tiny; the “playground” more of a cramped courtyard with an artificial surface. Space in London is at far more of a premium than in Toronto. Julia’s school back home had a playground that was a vast, grassy expanse. She loved playing on the monkey bars. No monkey bars here.
As the affable young registrar explained the teaching philosophy, another glitch arose: in Britain children are placed in grades depending on where their birthdays fall in the school year … unlike Canada, where it’s based on the calendar year. Given that Julia was born in December, it meant she would basically have to repeat Grade 1. Not good. Isabella asked if there might be some flexibility, which revealed another lesson about the Brits: flexibility on the rules is a colonial concept. But the registrar offered as least some hope that the teacher could tailor the program so that our daughter could learn some Grade 2 material.
We were told that there were still some places available, but that they might go soon. To submit an application, we would need a letter of reference from a teacher, plus a report card — along with a non-refundable £200 fee for the privilege of asking them to consider our daughter.
Whew. So: Julia would not only have to move to London against her will, she would effectively have to repeat a grade in school. Things were going swimmingly.
While Isabella took a nap, Julia and I played in the backyard of the short let, kicking a ball around for a bit.
“Daddy, are there any monkey bars around?” she asked, bored. I took her up to the Heath, which was vast and verdant with wonderful walking paths. Much later I was to learn of a playground on the other side, at the base of Parliament Hill, but on this day, when I desperately needed to impress her, all I could find was greenery.
We walked back to the flat, with me feeling defeated. All the more so when we walked in and realized Julia did not have her little pink raincoat.
I went to the backyard to see if we had left it there. As I was poking around, a hatchet-faced older fellow emerged from the building and eyed me suspiciously.
“Can I ask what you’re doing?”
I approached him with a big smile and introduced myself as the new tenant in the ground-floor flat, here on a short-let basis for a few weeks.
“Ah. Canadian then, is it?”
“Yup.”
“I used to know a Canadian. Lived near Toronto, in a place with an Indian-sounding name. Can’t recall it now.”
“Mississauga?”
“Yes, that’s it. But never mind, he’s dead now anyway.”
“May I ask your name?”
It happened just after supper. To escape the boring flat, Isabella devised a game to play with Julia in the hallway. There was a spiral staircase, the top of which offered a fine opportunity for a little girl to drop a stuffed bear to see if it would make it all the way down to the mother at the bottom. There was much giggling, a hopeful sign. But I feared it would end badly.
Sure enough, Mr. Sneezy BritFuck emerged from his top-floor flat to confront my playful six-year-old.
“And what are you doing?” he demanded. Julia froze.
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m her mother,” Isabella chimed in sweetly from the ground floor. “We’re just playing.”
“Well. That’s not permitted,” intoned Mr. BritFuck.
Julia hightailed it back down the stairs.
“Glad he’s not going to be our neighbour for long,” I said.
Three flats were lined up for them to see. But it came down ultimately to two. A genial young Brit named Edward drove us to the Buckland Crescent place that Isabella had spotted online. I had already checked it out and found it passable, with the least objectionable price of all the choices: £550 per week.
As we walked up the dim staircase with the dirt-coloured carpet to the door of the flat, Isabella waggled a finger behind her back, signalling to me she did not think much of the dreary entranceway — a gesture that she would often remind me of in the months to come.
The balcony that looked so inviting online was actually a tiny thing with dead plants in the pots and a rickety metal table with some rust around the edges. The entrance was off the cramped, decrepit kitchen. The second bedroom was similarly miniscule, with a two-piece bathroom next door. Actually more like a 1.5-piece, because the ridiculously small sink could not properly wash any hands larger than a Barbie doll’s.
But the reception room was airy, bright, and large, and the main bedroom an acceptable size. It also had some furniture in what I thought was a relatively inoffensive yellowish colour, but which Isabella described as closer to the hue of puke.
Candidate number two was pushed by Jade, the agent for my short let. It was the top floor of a red brick house on Frognal. The entranceway was at least clean, but the stairs upward never seemed to end. After a long winding climb we emerged, panting and exhausted, at a place that Isabella immediately loved. It was all newly renovated — new floors, new paint, new kitchen. But in the maddening way of London housing, it had three big bedrooms, but no closets, no proper place to put a dining-room table and a fridge large enough for perhaps one six-pack.
It was also £100 more per week than Buckland. I pictured Isabella fainting as she climbed the stairs, me having to put my beer out on the balcony to cool, a sacrifice that would still leave no room in the fridge, and all of us eating on laptop trays because there was no room for a table.
Jade pointed out that there was at least a mutual garden. The Brits call their backyards gardens, even if there is not a single flower. What it meant was that anyone in the building had access to the backyard — a compelling selling point for a family with a six-year-old.
Back at the short let, we were up late struggling with the pros and cons of our two choices. Isabella worked out a point system to help us decide, assigning scores for issues like cost, living space, and location. The two came up even. Finally, at midnight, drained and punchy, we decided to make a lowball offer for Buckland: £495 per week. Still a multiple of our Toronto mortgage. One thing I had learned about renting in London: the price is always negotiable. I wrote an email to the agent and turned out the light.
At 8:00 a.m. I was dragged out of a deep sleep by a ringing phone.
It was the agent for Buckland.
“I can’t make that offer. He would be most insulted and would likely seek another agent. For him even to consider it, there must be a ‘5’ in the offer.”
Very well then. Frognal it was. Jade had suggested the landlord would accept £600 per week, so we called her and made the pitch. Within an hour we had acceptance, so off we went to the agent’s office. There was another book-sized tenancy agreement to sign, with another emergency call to Canada to up the credit limit on my card once again so that I could pay the deposit of six weeks rent plus a month in advance.
As I ploughed through the paperwork, Jade got a call from the owner of the short let.
“There’s a bit of a problem,” said Jade. “It seems there’s been a complaint from another tenant. Your owner wasn’t actually allowed to rent out his flat on a short-let basis. It’s against the rules of the building.”
It seemed that Sneezy BritFuck was also on the board of the building and had turned us in. I could feel my temperature rising and imagined the scene from A Fish Called Wanda where the slow-witted but dangerous American dangled a supercilious Englishman by his heels outside a third-floor window.
“So what does this mean?”
“You’re being evicted.”
“Oh. When?”
“Next week. But I’m sure we can work something out.”
“I hope so because next week we’re all going to be in Canada. Difficult to move out of a London flat when I’m in Toronto.”
With homelessness looming before we had even found a proper home, Jade drove us down to the flat, where we took extensive measurements to assist in upcoming furniture purchases. Isabella planned to ask her designer friend Cameron to recommend the appropriate Ikea purchases to speed the matter along. The company provided some moving-expense money, which was supposed to cover most if not all of the furniture buys. My head whirled as I did the mental calculations about how much we were about to shell out in rent. But Julia had always preferred Frognal due to the availability of a backyard.
As we left, I noticed that the doorway to the backyard was locked.
“How do we access it?” I asked Jade.
“Hmm, not sure. Must be a key that comes with the flat key. I’ll text the owner.”
Back we went to Jade’s office to finalize matters. Her phone buzzed with the owner’s response.
“He says you would just need to make friends with the main-floor tenants in order to gain access,” she said.
“Why is it we need to make friends with them if it’s mutual access?”
“Uhhh.” She started to look worried. “I’ll phone him.” She went out to the back of the office.
A few minutes later she returned, downcast.
“I’m so sorry. It is not actually a mutual garden.”
I sat down heavily, dropped my head in my hands and concentrated on deep breathing.
“I think Sean is about to explode,” observed Isabella with some concern.
“I wish you would explode and tell me off,” said Jade remorsefully.
After a couple of minutes of head-pounding contemplation, I lifted my head.
“The agent’s office for Buckland is right across the street,” I murmured. “I’m going across and offering them £500 a week. If they take it, we’re tearing up this agreement and getting our money back.”
I crossed Heath Street in a daze, somehow managing to avoid being run down. The transaction was the fastest in the history of our time in London. The agent happened to be in the office, and when she called the owner he also happened to be at home and gave us an immediate acceptance.
Back across Heath Street where the stricken Jade was waiting with Isabella and Julia.
“Tear up the agreement and give me my money back please.”
Jade complied with no complaint, but although the agency was able to extract many thousands of dollars from my credit card wit
hin a matter of seconds, it would take up to ten working days to get it back to me, minus the extra fee for paying via plastic.
As we waited to wrap up the sorry affair, the landlord of the short let called my cell and was most apologetic about our imminent eviction.
“I am so sorry about this and I don’t wish to have your stay in my flat ruined by Mr. Sneezy BritFuck.” He, of course, used BritFuck’s real name.
He assured us that we would be able to stay as long as we liked, but I advised him that we had found a new place anyway and I would be moving as soon as I returned from Canada in two weeks. Presuming that my belongings were not out on the front lawn when I returned.
What a day: offer refused, offer accepted, offer falls apart due to miscommunication, eviction threatened from short let, original offer improved and accepted, offer number two dismantled, eviction put off. Yikes.
We walked over to PizzaExpress a few doors down and I ordered the largest bottle of beer they had available.
The remaining days of Isabella and Julia’s London visit were mainly filled with sightseeing. Julia sat on my shoulders at the gates to Buckingham Palace and shot the changing of the guard on my iPhone. I took her to the Diana, Princess of Wales’ Memorial Playground.
Uncertainty still hung over the future. We had not settled on a school, but the default choice seemed to be the international school, and although we now had arranged for a flat, Isabella regularly reminded me, “I’m still not saying that we’re actually going to move here. Don’t get happy.”
We also visited my cousin Suzie.
She, her partner, James, and their dachshund, Archie, shared a former council flat a short walk south of Hampstead Heath. Strolling with them through the Heath gave us a glimpse of the British passion for pets and the subculture of dog owners. Having an animal on a leash meant that complete strangers would abandon their typical reserve, stop, talk, and smile at each other’s pets. Surrounding the Heath are dog-friendly pubs, where you can bring your pooch inside to sit beside you while you have a pint and some lunch.
Archie strutted along the pathway as though he owned the joint, occasionally yapping at much larger dogs in what appeared to be a canine version of short guy syndrome. He also loved Julia, giving her a serious licking all up and down her legs, leaving her paralyzed with giggles.