by Toby Litt
CHAPTER 1
‘YOU’LL see,’ says the young man probably an estate agent coming through the front door of the house.
‘After you,’ he says, and across the threshold step a woman and then a man, she is pregnant, he keeps close.
The man is about thirty-five years old, tall and slim, a little gangly, with sandy hair and grey-green eyes.
The woman, much shorter than the man, has long straight dyed-black hair, olive skin, bright brown eyes, and is dressed entirely in black.
‘This is the hall,’ says the young man, ‘as you can see.’ There is a short pause before the couple laugh. ‘Original black and white floor tiles,’ the estate agent says.
‘Very nice,’ says the pregnant woman.
‘Mmm,’ says the man.
‘Shall we go through here?’ asks the estate agent, and they turn left off the hall into the front room. ‘As you can see, the vacating tenants did their best to take everything that wasn’t nailed down – and quite a few things that were.’
The room is quite small. The floor is bare wooden boards, rough and dusty – a carpet has been removed. Wires branch out of the holes where light sockets and power points are meant to be.
‘Been looking long?’ the estate agent asks.
The woman is now walking over to the fireplace and the man is going to inspect the bay windows.
‘Yes,’ says the man, turning.
‘Months,’ says the woman, not turning.
‘But in London,’ says the man, ‘not down here.’
‘Really?’ says the young man.
‘Who were the vacating tenants?’ asks the woman, then grimaces.
‘Ah, well, there’s a bit of a story there,’ says the estate agent. The couple wait for it. ‘You see, for a long time this place was unoccupied. Quite frankly, the owner couldn’t be bothered with it – he lived in India, I think. Indonesia. And because it was empty, someone spotted this fact and moved swiftly in – started to squat it, if I’m perfectly honest with you. The area’s come up a lot since then, but at one time it was pretty druggy. Anyway, that lot were in here about two years in total. They weren’t too bad, I’ve heard, as far as druggies go – they had a little daughter, and she went to school and everything, was kept clean. But then the owner died. Food poisoning, I wouldn’t be surprised – and his son took over the property. He had the squatters out within what? a month, then started to do the place up. He’s the vendor, by the way. And he as you’ll see got as far as the kitchen and a bit of the attic before, well, let’s say he ran into some financial difficulties of his own – and now he’s looking for a swift sale. You’re not in a chain, are you?’
‘We’re moving out of a flat,’ says the man. ‘We’ve got a buyer already – and they haven’t got anywhere to sell.’
‘Lovely-jubbly,’ says the estate agent. ‘Like I say, the kitchen’s been done up very nice.’
‘Is that blood, do you think?’ the woman says, pointing with the toe of her shoe to some dark red stains on the floorboard.
The estate agent comes across. ‘Looks more like varnish to me,’ he says. ‘But I suppose you could be right. As far as I’ve been informed, they were crackheads not smackheads.’
As the estate agent goes back into the hall, the woman whispers to the man, ‘Looks like blood to me.’ She smiles, and he smiles broadly back.
They follow the young man into the next room off the hall, also to the left. It has two narrow windows that look along the side of the house towards the green of the lawn.
‘It’s a good shape,’ says the man.
‘Not too small, either,’ the woman says. ‘I could fit a piano in here.’
They go back into the hall. A little further on, beneath the stairs on the right, is another door.
‘Cellar,’ says the estate agent, sliding back the small brass bolt. ‘Quite a decent size one, too.’
‘Spooky,’ says the woman, which makes the estate agent laugh quietly.
The man opens the door and starts to descend.
‘Paddy,’ says the woman. ‘It’s dark.’
‘I think there’s a,’ says the young man, and reaches round to try the switch. There is a dry click, but no light.
‘I’m just going to see what I can see,’ says Paddy.
‘Bulb must be gone,’ says the estate agent. ‘You’ve got your fusebox down there. Electrics are all fine.’
‘I wouldn’t go down there,’ says the woman.
‘Why not?’ asks the young man.
‘It doesn’t smell damp,’ Paddy calls up.
‘Why do you think?’ the woman says.
‘You don’t like the dark?’ the young man asks.
‘Rats,’ she says.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to worry about those round here. It’s very clean, like I said.’
Paddy re-emerges. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Sure you don’t want a look?’
‘The kitchen is just through here,’ says the young man, walking further along the hall and opening the door. ‘All very contemporary.’ They follow him in. The kitchen cabinets are of pale maplewood. ‘Do you know the area, at all?’ he asks.
‘No,’ says Paddy, ‘but we’ve got some friends who live just.’ He is interrupted by the jingling of a mobile phone and kept from continuing by the estate agent answering it.
‘Vince,’ says the agent, then mouths the word sorry and holds up his palm. ‘Yes, this is Vince,’ he says.
The couple watch as the estate agent points towards the hall door and then goes through it. He goes out the front door, too. They are on their own in the house.
She looks at him and he looks at her, and they both smile, and then laugh.
‘Why didn’t you ask if we could look round by ourselves?’ she says.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies. Their voices are louder. ‘We always have to go through this kind of thing, don’t we? They won’t let you alone.’
‘Paddy,’ she says.
‘Are you alright?’ he asks.
‘I’m fine,’ she says.
They look out through the French doors. The flowerbeds are overgrown: an appletree in the middle of the lawn has shed its fruit, which lies rotten on the long brown grass. It is a day with a white and dull sky.
‘Plenty of work here,’ she says, coming to stand beside him.
‘Agatha,’ he says, his voice lowered. ‘Not for a while.’
‘We’ll have to make it safe,’ says Agatha.
‘It looks fine to me,’ Paddy replies. They turn and look back through the house, towards the front door – where the frosty silhouette of the estate agent moves behind glass.
‘Quick,’ Agatha says, ‘Let’s see as much of the rest as we can before he comes back.’
‘I like it so far,’ says Paddy.
In a few moments they are up the stairs and onto the first-floor landing. Above the kitchen is a small bedroom, which they enter. It is painted pink. Glow-in-the-dark stars are stuck to the ceiling, lots of them, a whole glow-in-the-dark universe. There are stickers on the doors of the built-in cupboard, glossy pink. The bottom two panes of the window are crammed with transfers – of pastel ponies with flowing manes and tails, long-haired trolls with very dark eyes.
‘This will have to be completely redone,’ she says. ‘The Monster wouldn’t like it at all.’
‘He might,’ says Paddy.
Off the landing is the bathroom: modern, white-tiled, clean. ‘Fine,’ says Paddy.
The next bedroom along is slightly smaller, boxier. ‘Yes,’ says Agatha, her hands on the dome of her belly, ‘it feels good in here.’
There is a large radiator beneath the window which has the same view, but elevated, as the rear living room downstairs. Paddy comes up behind Agatha and puts his hands around the top of hers; their fingers interlace. They sway from side to side. ‘You like it, don’t you?’ he says.
‘So far,’ she replies. ‘Let’s see the rest before we get carried away.’ She walks out
the door.
‘Who’s getting carried away?’ says Paddy. He follows her into the main bedroom. ‘You were standing there deciding where the cot would go – I could tell.’
‘So what if I was,’ she says, looking round at the coving of the ceiling, ‘it’s only practical.’
Taking a few strides around the room, Paddy says, ‘I like this.’
‘It’s big, isn’t it?’ says Agatha.
‘We can get a wardrobe in,’ says Paddy.
‘Or two wardrobes.’
‘Where are we meeting them?’ Paddy asks.
‘At their house,’ she says, ‘at twelve o’clock – or whenever we’re finished at the next one.’ They walk around the edge of the room.
‘And we’re going out for lunch?’
‘You’re not hungry already, are you?’ she says.
‘Well,’ he says.
Downstairs, the front door opens. ‘Hello?’ calls the estate agent.
‘Quick,’ says Agatha, and grabs Paddy’s hands. ‘Before he finds us.’ She pulls Paddy out into the upstairs landing and then up a narrow flight of stairs just to the left. Her feet make very little noise on the thick carpet.
‘Ah,’ she says, looking into the narrow attic with the ceiling sloped to either side. ‘Our office,’ she says, stepping forwards. ‘The desk can go here.’
‘Stop it,’ says Paddy.
‘Do you think I’ll jinx it?’
‘It’s not that,’ he says.
‘Hello?’ calls the estate agent, louder, from the upstairs landing.
‘Agatha,’ says Paddy, pulling open the velux window in the roof. ‘Come here.’
Agatha goes to him. Paddy tips it up, and they step into the space created – heads and shoulders out the front of the house. ‘I thought so,’ he says, and points.
‘Oh yes look the sea,’ says Agatha, happily.
CHAPTER 2
‘COME in, come in,’ says Agatha, standing proudly in the hall.
It is a month or so since anyone has been here. Agatha’s belly has swelled so as to become unmissable.
Into the hall steps a large woman with bright auburn hair. Behind her, in a wheelchair pushed by Paddy, is a very thin man with thick gray hair.
‘Welcome,’ says Agatha, with a small fling of the hands, ‘to our new home.’
‘Wonderful, darling,’ says the woman.
‘That it is,’ says the man, in a very rough voice. He coughs, and coughs again.
‘Come on, Mummy,’ Agatha says, taking her hand. ‘I want to show you the kitchen.’
The two men watch them flitting down the passageway and through the door.
‘Isn’t it fantastic?’ asks Agatha, her voice echoey.
‘It’s all just wonderful,’ says her mother, and gives Agatha a hug.
As Paddy wheels him down the passage, the gray-haired man says, ‘So you only saw it the once before you bought it?’
‘Yes,’ says Paddy, over the coughs. ‘We felt very sure about it almost from the moment we stepped through the front door.’ They enter the kitchen, with only a slight jolt. ‘It had just the right feeling about it.’
‘Donald, look at this,’ says Agatha’s mother, admiring the new kitchen. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
‘But how could you be certain?’ says Donald. ‘It’s a big decision – lot of money.’
Agatha says, ‘It was a bit of a bargain, actually.’
‘It needs a bit of work,’ says Paddy.
‘Front certainly does,’ says Donald, wheeling his way coughing to the back of the house. ‘Completely repointing.’
‘I’m afraid we can’t offer you a cup of tea,’ says Paddy, and then to Agatha, ‘That’s a point – we should get a kettle here before the builders come.’
‘I’m sure they’ll have one of their own.’
‘Donald,’ says Agatha’s mother. ‘Be a little more supportive, why don’t you?’ Then turning to Paddy, ‘I think it’s beautiful.’
‘There are two sitting rooms,’ says Agatha. ‘But we’re going to have them knocked through. Come and see.’
Paddy wheels Donald into the nearest one. ‘This is the wall that’s going to go,’ says Paddy, putting his hand against it.
‘Sure it’s worth the bother?’ says the old man. ‘It’ll make mess.’
‘All houses need a lot of work when you first move in,’ says Agatha’s mother. ‘What condition was your first house in, when you bought it?’
‘Nothing like this bad,’ says Donald, using one of his coughs to nod towards some exposed wiring.
‘I’d like to show Mummy upstairs and around the rest of the house,’ says Agatha. ‘Is that okay?’ Her eyes were still bright, not angry.
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ says Donald.
‘Why don’t you show your mum the cellar first?’ asks Paddy.
Agatha gives him a brief look, then goes with her mother into the front room.
‘Dad,’ says Paddy.
‘Yes,’ his father replies.
‘Don’t you really like it at all?’
The old man coughs for a while. ‘The thought of it’ – he pauses, breathes – ‘tires me out.’ When he has finished coughing again, he listens for a moment to the women’s high voices. ‘Why does she have to call her Mummy?’
‘It’s what she’s always called her.’
‘It’s embarrassing, that’s what it is.’
Agatha and her mother come out into the hall and start up the stairs. Paddy watches their legs and feet, ascending diagonally.
‘You can go too, if you like,’ says his father.
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Donald says. ‘Go on. I’ll stay here. Try not to electrocute myself.’
Paddy smiles his thanks down towards the old man, and takes off up the stairs. He joins Agatha and her mother in the back bedroom.
‘ – a little girl’s. But we’re going to decorate it for Max.’
‘Do you really like it, Margaret?’ asks Paddy.
‘Are you trying to make me cry?’ she asks back.
In a lowered voice, Paddy says, ‘I’m sorry about my father. He’s very difficult.’
‘He’s very ill,’ Margaret says. ‘I understand. I’ve lived with illness.’ She ran her fingers into Agatha’s hair. ‘Your father was not a patient patient.’
‘Oh, Mummy,’ says Agatha.
‘And now I am going to cry,’ says Margaret, but she is smiling as her eyes go sparkly. ‘Look at all the stars,’ she says. ‘So many stickers. What a sad, lonely little girl.’ Paddy goes and opens one of the built-in cupboards.
‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ says Agatha’s mother. ‘We’re a very emotional lot, aren’t we?’
Agatha’s eyes too are bright.
‘You mean the Welsh?’ says Paddy, doing his best to joke.
‘I mean the Williams clan.’
‘The next room, my lovelies,’ says Agatha, with a half-choke, ‘is going to be the nursery.’
Out onto the landing they step. ‘You forgot the bathroom,’ says Paddy.
‘We can look at that on the way back,’ says Agatha.
Paddy allows the two women to spend a moment together in the nursery before he joins them.
‘It’s going to be such a wonderfully lovely room,’ says Agatha. ‘And it’s all for you,’ she says downwards, cradling her belly.
Paddy comes over to her and puts an arm around her shoulder.
‘I wish I had my camera,’ says Margaret. ‘You two are a picture.’
‘Oh, Mummy, you always forget to bring it, don’t you?’
‘You three,’ says Paddy, to himself.
‘I just never think.’
A more violent than usual series of coughs comes up the stairs.
‘I’d better go and see how he is,’ says Paddy. ‘You can come and join us when you’ve completed the tour.’
As he goes down the stairs, Paddy hears Agatha saying, ‘The next room, ladies and gentlemen, is t
he master bedroom.’
When he enters the back sitting room, his father looks up, takes a hard breath and says, ‘I think you’ll find those over there in that corner are mouse-droppings.’
CHAPTER 3
THE builders come.
They shout back from the hall, throw dirty sheets on the floor, bring a cardboard box into the kitchen, pull out a kettle, fill the kettle, put the kettle on, look out through the French doors, make tea, unlock the French doors, go out into the garden, talk about yesterday (Ted is the gaffer, Charlie is his mate and Lee makes the tea), leave the mugs in the sink, carry in paint pots, buckets, brushes, stepladders, hammers, toolboxes, look over the living rooms, look over the rest of the house, read out the letter from Paddy saying what he wants done (Ted sends Lee to tell the neighbours there is going to be some noise and Lee comes back to say no-one is in), they put masks on, start at the wall with two big hammers, make jokes, cough, break through, shake hands through the hole, put the bricks in a wheelbarrow, enlarge the hole, step through, go for lunch, come back, hear knocking, answer the door, start wheeling bricks out to the just-delivered skip, finish enlarging the hole, finish taking out the bricks, sweep the floor clean, make tea, drink it, come inside, pull up old floorboards, cut to size and nail down new ones, wash the walls, reinforce the doorway with a support beam, knock off for the day, arrive early next morning, mix plaster, finish the doorway, make tea, drink it, play pop music on a radio, leave the front door half-open, bring in a sander and start on the floorboards, fix light switches and plugs and other small things, keep taking turns with the sanding, sit on the loo reading tabloid newspapers and smoking (Lee), stop for lunch, talk about television, international affairs, sport, money, crime, their girlfriends (Lee is hiding the fact he is secretly in love with Charlie’s ex-wife – they have been seeing one another since before the divorce), do more sanding, make tea, drink it, sand, wash the walls, knock off for the day, arrive early, pour out paint, paint the living-room ceilings, wipe drops of paint off walls, paint walls, sing along to pop songs on the radio, whistle, make tea, drink it, stare out the windows at the rainy garden, think about men with whom they used to work and women for whom they used to work (Lee is worried that Charlie suspects something and Charlie, who has known for a long time, is secretly amused by this), put a second coat of paint on the walls, talk about television, death, hangovers, money, Paddy and Agatha, this house, children (Charlie has a child with behavioural problems), eat chocolate bars, stick masking tape along the edge of the window panes, fill the gaps in with putty, put a lightbulb in, turn the light on, go for lunch, paint the window frames with white gloss, tear off the masking tape, finish downstairs, move upstairs, laugh, argue about who is going to make tea, make tea (Lee), drink it, steam and strip wallpaper in the front bedroom, talk to Paddy on the phone (Ted), swear (Charlie is very concerned about his son and the way the other kids at school bully him), whistle (Lee is very worried about his father who used to be an alcoholic and is now in a home and no longer knows his own name or recognizes anyone), fit anti-burglary devices to the downstairs windows, break for the day, arrive not so early, shout morning to the opposite neighbours, make tea, drink it, talk about hangovers, money, mathematics, astrology, homosexuality, tell the DJ on the radio to shut up, paper the bedroom (Charlie thinks it’s time he told Lee he knows about him and his ex-wife), make tea, drink it (Lee thinks maybe it’s time he broke it off with Charlie’s ex-wife), talk about money, the lottery, answer the phone (Ted says I’m sorry to hear that, tells the others to pack up), they stop, pack up, tidy up, sweep up, check for anything they might have left behind, feel sad, laugh, lock the door.