Read Online A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy - Free Book Online
Authors: Douglas Kennedy
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it?’
‘Inner ’burbs. But hey, it’s only six or seven miles from Hyde Park … which is considered no distance at all in this damn sprawl. Anyway, one-point-five is the asking price for a big house in West Putney. Where I’m taking you, it’s just south of the Lower Richmond Road. Cute little streets, which go right down to the Thames. And the house may be a little small – just two bedrooms – but there’s the possibility of a loft extension …’
‘Since when did you become a realtor?’ I asked with a laugh.
‘Ever since I moved to this town. I tell you, the Brits might be all taciturn and distant when you first meet them – but get them talking about property, and they suddenly can’t stop chatting. Especially when it comes to London house prices – which is the major ongoing metropolitan obsession.’
‘Did it take you a while to fit in here?’
‘The worst thing about London is that nobody really fits in. And the best thing about London is that nobody really fits in. Figure that one out, and you’ll have a reasonably okay time here. Just as it also takes a while to work out the fact that – even if, like me, you actually like living here – it’s best to give off just the slightest whiff of Anglophobia.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because the Brits are suspicious of anyone who seems to like them.’
Intriguingly, however, Margaret didn’t play the Anglophobic card with the rather obsequious estate agent who showed us around the house on Sefton Street in Putney. Every time he tried to gloss over a defect – like the paisley-patterned carpets and the cramped bathroom and the woodchip wallpaper which evidently hid a multitude of plastering sins – she’d break into one of her ‘You’ve got to be kidding?’ routines, deliberately acting the loud American in an attempt to unsettle him. She succeeded.
‘You’re really asking four-hundred-and-forty-thousand for this? ’
The estate agent – in his spread collared pink shirt and his black suit and Liberty tie – smiled weakly.
‘Well, Putney has always been very desirable.’
‘Yeah – but, gosh, it’s only two bedrooms. And look at the state of this place.’
‘I do admit that the decor is a little tired.’
‘Tired? Try archaic. I mean, someone died here, right?’
The estate agent went all diffident again.
‘It is being sold by the grandson of the former occupants.’
‘What did I tell you?’ Margaret said, turning to me. ‘This place hasn’t been touched since the sixties. And I bet it’s been on the market …’
The estate agent avoided her gaze.
‘Come on, ‘fess up,’ Margaret said.
‘A few weeks. And I do know the vendor would take an offer.’
‘I bet they would,’ Margaret said, then turned to me and whispered, ‘What do you think?’
‘Too much work for the price,’ I whispered. Then I asked the agent, ‘You don’t have anything like this which might just be a little more renovated?’
‘Not at the moment. But I will keep your number on file.’
I must have heard that same sentence dozens of times over the next ten days. The house hunting game was terra incognita for me. But Margaret turned out to be a canny guide. Every morning, after she got her kids off to school, she drove us around assorted neighbourhoods. She had a nose for the areas that were up-and-coming, and those worth dodging. We must have seen close to twenty properties in that first week – and continued to be the bane of every real estate agent that we encountered. ‘The Ugly Americans,’ we called ourselves … always polite, but asking far too many questions, speaking directly about the flaws we saw, constantly challenging the asking price, and (in the case of Margaret) knowing far more about the complex jigsaw of London property than was expected from Yanks. With pressure on me to find something before I started work, there was a certain ‘beat the clock’ aspect to this search. And so I applied the usual
‘Inner ’burbs. But hey, it’s only six or seven miles from Hyde Park … which is considered no distance at all in this damn sprawl. Anyway, one-point-five is the asking price for a big house in West Putney. Where I’m taking you, it’s just south of the Lower Richmond Road. Cute little streets, which go right down to the Thames. And the house may be a little small – just two bedrooms – but there’s the possibility of a loft extension …’
‘Since when did you become a realtor?’ I asked with a laugh.
‘Ever since I moved to this town. I tell you, the Brits might be all taciturn and distant when you first meet them – but get them talking about property, and they suddenly can’t stop chatting. Especially when it comes to London house prices – which is the major ongoing metropolitan obsession.’
‘Did it take you a while to fit in here?’
‘The worst thing about London is that nobody really fits in. And the best thing about London is that nobody really fits in. Figure that one out, and you’ll have a reasonably okay time here. Just as it also takes a while to work out the fact that – even if, like me, you actually like living here – it’s best to give off just the slightest whiff of Anglophobia.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because the Brits are suspicious of anyone who seems to like them.’
Intriguingly, however, Margaret didn’t play the Anglophobic card with the rather obsequious estate agent who showed us around the house on Sefton Street in Putney. Every time he tried to gloss over a defect – like the paisley-patterned carpets and the cramped bathroom and the woodchip wallpaper which evidently hid a multitude of plastering sins – she’d break into one of her ‘You’ve got to be kidding?’ routines, deliberately acting the loud American in an attempt to unsettle him. She succeeded.
‘You’re really asking four-hundred-and-forty-thousand for this? ’
The estate agent – in his spread collared pink shirt and his black suit and Liberty tie – smiled weakly.
‘Well, Putney has always been very desirable.’
‘Yeah – but, gosh, it’s only two bedrooms. And look at the state of this place.’
‘I do admit that the decor is a little tired.’
‘Tired? Try archaic. I mean, someone died here, right?’
The estate agent went all diffident again.
‘It is being sold by the grandson of the former occupants.’
‘What did I tell you?’ Margaret said, turning to me. ‘This place hasn’t been touched since the sixties. And I bet it’s been on the market …’
The estate agent avoided her gaze.
‘Come on, ‘fess up,’ Margaret said.
‘A few weeks. And I do know the vendor would take an offer.’
‘I bet they would,’ Margaret said, then turned to me and whispered, ‘What do you think?’
‘Too much work for the price,’ I whispered. Then I asked the agent, ‘You don’t have anything like this which might just be a little more renovated?’
‘Not at the moment. But I will keep your number on file.’
I must have heard that same sentence dozens of times over the next ten days. The house hunting game was terra incognita for me. But Margaret turned out to be a canny guide. Every morning, after she got her kids off to school, she drove us around assorted neighbourhoods. She had a nose for the areas that were up-and-coming, and those worth dodging. We must have seen close to twenty properties in that first week – and continued to be the bane of every real estate agent that we encountered. ‘The Ugly Americans,’ we called ourselves … always polite, but asking far too many questions, speaking directly about the flaws we saw, constantly challenging the asking price, and (in the case of Margaret) knowing far more about the complex jigsaw of London property than was expected from Yanks. With pressure on me to find something before I started work, there was a certain ‘beat the clock’ aspect to this search. And so I applied the usual
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