Run As Fast As You Can, Bear.

21/08/19

My landlord is trying to sell the flat. Linda, the estate agent, leaves a voicemail. ‘Good morning. Just to make you aware that __________ has booked to view the property on blah blah blah at blah blah blah.’ As always, Linda finishes with, ‘Ooh, and Nick, as it’s booked for after 5pm, would you be OK taking the viewing yourself?’

My stomach turns.

What worries me most is that my lovely diminutive rented home of two years could possibly be taken away from me and to some extent, how come I’m doing Linda’s job for her? I’m suspicious of the switch from the initial business tone to the casual here-comes-the-weekend coolness.

Anyway, my stomach turns.

I love these three rooms (‘Cosy 1 bd apt, close to beach‘). My landlord is fair and my neighbours, too. It’d be an unsettling drag to have to leave. The mental and physical upheaval is a psychic burden.

No one ever seems to know what to ask when they view a property. I’m not such an expert but over the last year I have had some experience.

“Is it any bigger?”

“Is there no TV?”

“Are there any… issues?”

Dad would find the whole process baffling! He’d want to know, oh, something -something about the provenance of the leasehold, or, you know, the foundations or … er, the plumbing? I don’t know.

I do know that it would be a long, long lifetime before he asked, as today’s potential buyer did, “Is that the bloke from Talking Heads?” (It isn’t. It’s Mark E. Smith).

No doubt Linda would have been equally qualified to answer such enquiries?