by Anne Douglas
‘All very different from the English practice,’ Mr MacKenna had explained to Roz on her first day, ‘and better, we believe, as the buyer has no risk of losing the property when someone else tops his offer. On the other hand, he might have paid too much, for no one has any idea what others might bid. Of course, his lawyer will have advised him on the best price.’ Here, Mr MacKenna had shrugged and smiled. ‘As best he can. We have access to previous sale figures for the area, but we still have no crystal ball.’
‘Must be really worrying, then, finding the right price,’ Roz had commented.
‘All part of the fun of being in the property business, Miss Rainey.’ Mr MacKenna’s eyes had twinkled mischievously. ‘And I’ll bet you didn’t think there was any fun in that at all, did you?’
‘Oh, no, I didn’t think that, Mr MacKenna,’ she’d answered, wondering if he was being serious about finding his work ‘fun’, and feeling cheered to think he might be. ‘I never thought that.’
‘Good for you,’ he’d answered, and she’d had the comforting feeling that they were going to ‘get on’.
So it had turned out, and it was another reason why she didn’t mind coming into work. Getting on with your boss – that was important, eh?
‘Morning, Mr MacKenna!’ she cried on that wild March day as she took off her coat and Mr MacKenna, looking up from his desk, gave her his usual friendly smile.
‘Morning, Miss Rainey. Got blown in by the wind?’
‘Oh, heavens, I hoped you wouldn’t notice!’ She put her hands to her hair. ‘I should have gone to tidy up, but I didn’t want to be late.’
‘Not to worry, you look fine. And you’re never late.’
‘There’s always a first time. The tram seemed slower than ever this morning – honestly, I felt I could have got here as quickly on foot.’
‘Cheer up; we’ll be taking the car this afternoon, anyway. Got a couple of places to see, haven’t we?’
‘The flat you valued in the Old Town and the house in the Grange. Are we all right for petrol?’
As petrol was still rationed, trips to properties by car were rationed too.
‘Sure, we’re fine. Personally, I don’t think it’ll be long before petrol comes off the ration, anyway. That might be the time for you to think of learning to drive, Miss Rainey. Ever considered it? Very useful in our line of work.’
‘Me?’ She’d never thought of such a thing.
Dougal could drive, though it was a friend who had taught him, and of course he’d no car of his own, but it would be too expensive for Roz to take professional lessons. Still, the idea of driving appealed. She could just picture herself driving around as though she were Mr MacKenna. Just another dream, of course.
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘If it was possible.’
‘Everything is possible,’ he told her as she went to hang up her coat, sort out the post and collect the office diary in which she kept appointments.
‘Ten o’clock,’ she read out. ‘Mr and Mrs Henryson are meeting you here, Mr MacKenna.’
‘And then I’m taking them to the south side. They’re wanting something bigger – children growing up like mine.’ Mr MacKenna sighed. ‘Well, let’s hope they go for what I’ve found. There’s one in Winter Place I’d really like them to take off our hands – hasn’t had a thing done to it since nineteen thirty-five.’
‘I know the one,’ Roz said, laughing. ‘You take somebody to see it pretty much every week.’
The lawyer laughed too, but then became serious. ‘Still, it’s encouraging, you know, that so many properties of whatever condition are coming our way. Everybody thought there’d be nothing available for years after the war, but the market’s not too bad at all. Nothing new, of course, except prefabs, and they’re not coming up for sale.’
Not that Tarrel’s would have been selling them if they had, Roz thought, their business being concerned only with traditional housing, but it was good to know that some ordinary folk were getting roofs over their heads. Pity there couldn’t be more of them, to ease the terrible overcrowding in some parts of the Old Town, but it would take more than a few prefabs to achieve that.
‘Anything else in the diary?’ Mr MacKenna was asking. ‘I probably won’t be back until lunchtime, anyway.’
When she told him that, apart from their visits that afternoon, he just had a call to make to a lawyer wanting to arrange a sealed bids auction, he said he would make the call straight away. Meanwhile, she could get on with preparing their spread for the property page of The Scotsman – she hadn’t forgotten the deadline, had she?
‘Oh, no, Mr MacKenna,’ she said swiftly. ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘What am I saying?’ he cried, his eyes twinkling again. ‘As though you’d ever forget anything, Miss Rainey!’
Oh, yes, I’m very efficient, she thought, returning to her own little office. But when does it all begin paying off? She’d never mentioned her ambitions to Mr MacKenna, though she was sure he was aware of them. Maybe, today, she might?
Four
‘Oh, you’re so lucky, Roz!’ sighed Norma Ward as she and Roz ate their lunchtime sandwiches in the little back room set aside as a staffroom. Bread and the same old cheddar cheese – oh, how boring! But even eating in a café, which they rarely did, the menu wouldn’t have been much more exciting. To get back to pre-war standards was taking longer than anyone had ever expected.
‘Lucky?’ asked Roz, wondering why this seemed to be the day when everyone was envying her for no good reason. ‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well, getting out of the office the way you do,’ Norma answered, gazing at Roz with large brown eyes.
She was a short girl, rather plump, with curly red hair that annoyed her, and a mass of freckles across her turned-up nose. At only nineteen and so very lively, Roz sometimes wondered if she might have been happier in a big jolly office instead of solemn old Tarrel’s, which suited Roz herself but not everyone. Norma, however, seemed content enough to stay, which pleased Roz anyway. They got on well.
‘I mean, driving about,’ Norma added now. ‘And with lovely Ronnie, and all.’
‘Lovely Ronnie!’ Roz burst into laughter. ‘Hey, you’ll get shot if Miss Calder hears you calling Mr MacKenna that!’
‘Well, he is a lovely man, Roz, you have to admit. Always smiling, always so friendly. Not like Mr Wray, eh? He’s thin as a skeleton and always frowning. Or Mr Newman – he never even knows who you are!’
‘Yes, well, Mr MacKenna is nice to work with, I agree. I’m certainly lucky there.’
‘Aye, and his wife’s lucky, too, being married to him. She might have been worried about him working with someone like you, but he’s no’ the sort to try anything on, I’m sure. Anyway, he’s more like a father, eh?’
‘Of course he doesn’t try anything on!’ cried Roz, glancing round to see if anyone might be able to overhear, but the lawyers were all out at lunch. Only Miss Calder, who usually took a late lunch hour, would still be around, ready to answer the telephone or the doorbell if anyone called. ‘And yes, he’s like a father. Been as kind as any dad, I can tell you!’
She jumped up to put the kettle on. ‘Honestly, Norma, the things you say! I can tell you this – never in this world would Mr MacKenna try anything on, as you call it, and I don’t believe anyone who works here would!’
‘I know, and you’re right. Mr MacKenna wouldn’t even think of it, anyway. He’s just devoted to his wife and bairns, and that’s the sort of guy I’d like to have. If I ever meet one at all.’ Norma sighed and took out a paper bag. ‘Like an oatcake, Roz? Ma managed to make some the other day. I’ve scraped some butter on.’
‘Oh, nice! I’ll have one with the tea. Then I’ll have to be away. Mr MacKenna will be waiting for me.’
‘Wouldn’t you really like to marry someone like him?’ Norma pressed, but Roz shook her head.
‘I’ve got better things to do than think about getting married. My sister, Chrissie,
thinks of it all the time, but I’ve got different ideas. I want to have a career first.’
‘Fancy,’ commented Norma, crunching her oatcake. ‘I don’t care about that at all. I’d really rather just get wed. And I should’ve thought there’d be plenty after you, Roz, you being so attractive.’
‘Oh, come on!’ Roz, embarrassed, was shaking her head when Mr MacKenna put his head round the door.
‘Ready, Miss Rainey? I think we might make a start.’
‘Coming, Mr MacKenna!’ With one last frown at Norma, Roz hurried to join him in the hall where Miss Calder was just setting down the telephone.
‘Valuing?’ she asked, giving a brief smile.
In her forties, tall, slim, with thin dark hair drawn back from a high brow, she had worked at Tarrel’s since leaving school, first as a typist, then as Mr Banks’s secretary – her knowledge of the firm, it was said, being now even greater than his. To begin with, Roz had found her cold – certainly her manner could be that – but after Miss Calder had found her hardworking and willing to learn, they had become friendly enough. And of course it was always good to know that if you needed help on anything to do with Tarrel’s, there she would be, Miss Calder, the expert.
‘No, just preparing details for particulars,’ Mr MacKenna told her now. ‘Valuations have already been agreed for these properties.’
‘Just what we like to hear,’ commented Miss Calder. ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you, must I?’
‘We’re on our way,’ he said cheerfully, and as they moved into the street, he exchanged a grin with Roz.
‘Don’t tell anyone I said so but it always makes me feel like I’m back at school when I talk to Miss Calder. Though in fact I’m a bit older than she is.’
‘It’s just her way,’ said Roz, taking her seat in the old Hillman that was the company car parked at the kerb. ‘Though I think she probably would have made a good teacher.’
‘And all her pupils would have got top marks for their knowledge of Tarrel and Thom’s, eh? Well, let’s get going.’
Five
Though the Hillman was considered difficult to drive by Mr Newman and Mr Wray, it was Mr MacKenna’s view that all she needed was a little coaxing, a little respect, and for him it was true the old lady put on her best behaviour and they’d never broken down in her yet. Not that she started first time, even for him, but at last they were away, threading through the traffic into Princes Street, making for the Mound and the Old Town.
How much busier it was now! During the war, there wouldn’t have been a car in sight, unless it belonged to a doctor on a visit, but with the coming of peace, more and more cars were appearing; some resurrected from owners’ garages where they’d been up on blocks and some being new, though these were still scarce and much sought after.
The Old Town flat, the upper floor of a Victorian terraced house close to the Royal Infirmary, was quite different from the overcrowded tenements in other parts of the city and would, Mr MacKenna remarked, be no trouble to sell. When he had made his notes for the particulars and Roz had completed her room measurements, they made their farewells to the owners who were making a move to Glasgow, promising to be in touch with all necessary details of the sale, and returned to their car.
‘As I say, we’ll have no trouble with that one,’ Mr MacKenna commented as they drove away. ‘It’s just the sort of flat to attract a lot of good bids from middle income families.’ He gave a quick smile. ‘Though not your sort of place, I suppose, Miss Rainey?’
‘Why’d you say that? I thought it was very nice.’
‘Ah, but I haven’t worked with you for some time without knowing what attracts you. Big, detached, or at least a semi, stone built, or old brick, large rooms, long windows, some garden space or ground at the back and, above all, a feeling of quality. Isn’t that right?’
For some moments she sat in silence, her face colouring up to her brow, then she tried to laugh.
‘You seem to know me very well, Mr MacKenna. I don’t remember telling you all that, but yes, it’s true. Houses like that, they’re my dream. Just silly, maybe—’
‘Not at all. Everyone should have dreams. And people buying houses certainly do. Rarely realize them, of course. Begin with high hopes, then gradually settle for what’s available or what they can afford. But it’s our job to try to get as close as we can to their dreams, even if we know they’re pretty impossible.’
‘Your job,’ Roz said quietly. ‘Not mine. I wish it was, because I know I could do it. Only I’ll never be allowed to, will I?’
‘Don’t say that,’ he said uneasily as they turned into a wide road of stone-built houses well fitting his description of Roz’s favourites. ‘You know you’re a massive help to me, Miss Rainey. You’re my assistant, after all.’
‘But one day I’d like to be more than that.’ She took a breath. ‘I’d like to be in charge. Don’t laugh, but I would. If I were a lawyer, it could happen, eh? But it won’t because I’m not.’ She sat back in her seat, gazing out at the street of gracious houses in the area known as the Grange, not daring to look at Mr MacKenna.
‘Why, Miss Rainey, I never knew you felt like that!’ His eyes on her face were large and wondering, his tone kind. ‘I think it’s good that you have ambition. I fully believe women should, and there are plenty of women lawyers now, you know.’
‘But I couldn’t have been one. I never went on to further education – it wasn’t possible. I had to go to work soon as I’d got my Leaving Certificate. But I believe I could do the job I want even without being a lawyer. I know you have other legal duties at Tarrel’s, but if I was an estate agent, like in England, I needn’t be a lawyer, need I?’
‘You needn’t here, if you wanted to open up an office just as an estate agent. There’s nothing to prevent you.’
She smiled wearily. ‘I don’t see me being able to do that, Mr MacKenna. And there aren’t many others trying it, either, are there?’
‘Well …’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’d better get on, see Mr and Mrs Boath. Owners of just your sort of dream house, Miss Rainey.’
‘Maybe I have too many dreams,’ she muttered, following him up to the handsome front door of the house they were to sell. ‘Maybe I’d be happier with less.’
She knew it wasn’t true – she couldn’t imagine life without something to hope for. In any case, the lawyer had no time to reply, as the door was already opening and the lady of the house was welcoming them in.
Six
Just as Roz remembered from the valuation visit, the house was perfect. Admittedly, semi-detached, but so beautifully built and showing quality at every turn, that this seemed to be only a minor point, and did not stop her from dwelling with pleasure on the solid doors and brass fittings, the plaster ceilings, elegant mantels, the long windows with heavy curtains, the fine furniture that so suited its surroundings.
As Roz and Mr MacKenna stood together, breathing in the smell of polish and the scent from bowls of spring flowers, Mrs Boath and her husband, both middle-aged – she very elegant, he quite casual – asked where they’d like to start.
‘From the top and work down, I expect,’ Mr Boath suggested, ‘this being the day you write us up, eh? And then there’ll be measuring, I believe you said? Might take some time.’
‘No need to worry about that,’ Mr MacKenna told him. ‘Miss Rainey here is very quick. We hope not to keep you too long.’
‘Oh, we’ve got all the time in the world, now that my husband is retired!’ cried Mrs Boath. ‘That’s why we want to sell, as I think we told you. Our life has shrunk and this place is too big, especially as you can’t get the staff any more.’ She shook her head with its well-coiffed grey hair, as though confronting tragedy. ‘All I have now are dailies and, believe me, they are not the same. Not the same at all.’
‘Never mind that now, Anthea,’ her husband said shortly. ‘Let these people get on. Want me to show the way, Mr MacKenna?’
‘No need, thanks. I remember the lay
out of the house from my valuation. We’ll try not to take too long.’
In fact, the work did take time, which was really only to be expected, as everything had to be done meticulously, mistakes in the particulars being considered misleading and causing trouble. Not that Mr MacKenna was likely to make a mistake and Roz could not remember ever getting her measurements wrong, but she always took extra care anyway. The bonus was that she so much enjoyed working in this splendid house, drinking in the atmosphere and admiring everything – though she couldn’t help noting that the upper rooms where the maids had once slept were of a different quality to the rest.
Poor things, she thought, how awful to live in this house and just be here to work! How lucky women were to be able to do something else now, and how lucky she herself had been, never to have had to work in domestic service.
‘All right?’ asked Mr MacKenna when they’d finished and were returning downstairs.
‘Fine, no problems.’
‘Good, we’ll get back then.’
All that remained to do then was for Roz to take a couple of quick photographs of the reception rooms, after which Mrs Boath offered them a cup of tea. Although she declared it ‘would be no trouble at all, my help in the kitchen will have it ready in no time’, they politely declined, saying they had to get back to the office. As soon as possible, they would be sending copies of the particulars and organizing an advert for the present house in the local paper, while at the same time working on the purchase of the Colinton flat Mr and Mrs Boath had decided on.
‘As I don’t see any problems with the two negotiations, I think we should be looking at closing dates very soon,’ Mr MacKenna told them. ‘Just wish all our transactions were so straightforward.’