A Special Relationship Page 6

  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 journalistic skills to this task – by which I mean I gained the most comprehensive (yet entirely superficial) knowledge of this subject in the shortest amount of time possible. When Margaret was back home with her kids in the afternoon, I’d jump the underground to check out an area. I researched proximity to hospitals, schools, parks, and all those other ‘Mommy Concerns’ (as Margaret sardonically called them) which now had to be taken into account.

  ‘This is not my idea of a good time,’ I told Sandy during a phone call a few days into the house hunt. ‘Especially as the city’s so damn big. I mean, there’s no such thing as a simple trip across town. Everything’s an expedition here – and I forgot to pack my pith helmet.’

  ‘That would make you stand out in the crowd.’

  ‘Hardly. This is the melting pot to end all melting pots – which means that no one stands out here. Unlike Boston …’

  ‘Oh, listen to the big city girl. I bet Boston’s friendlier.’

  ‘Of course. Because it’s small. Whereas London doesn’t need to be friendly …’

  ‘Because it’s so damn big?’

  ‘Yeah – and also because it’s London.’

  That was the most intriguing thing about London – its aloofness. Perhaps it had something to do with the reticent temperament of the natives. Perhaps it was the fact that the city was so vast, so heterogeneous, so contradictory. Whatever the reason, during my first few weeks in London, I found myself thinking: this town’s like one of those massive Victorian novels, in which high life and low life endlessly intermingle, and where the narrative always sprawls to such an extent that you never really get to grips with the plot.

  ‘That about gets it right,’ Margaret said when I articulated this theory to her a few days later. ‘Nobody’s really important here. Because London dwarfs even the biggest egos. Cuts everyone right down to size. Especially since all Brits despise self-importance.’

  That was another curious contradiction to London life – the way you could mistake English diffidence for arrogance. Every time I opened a newspaper – and read a lurid account of some local minor celebrity enmeshed in some cocaine-and-jail-bait scandal – it was very clear to me that this was a society that stamped down very hard on anyone who committed the sin of bumptiousness. At the same time, however, so many of the estate agents I dealt with deported themselves with a pomposity that belied their generally middle-class origins … especially when you questioned the absurd prices they were demanding for inferior properties.

  ‘That’s what the market is asking, madam’ was the usual disdainful response – a certain haughty emphasis placed on the word madam, to make you feel his condescending respect.

  ‘Condescending respect,’ Margaret said, repeating my phrase out loud as we drove south from her house. ‘I like it – even though it is a complete oxymoron. Then again, until I lived in London, I’d never been able to discern two contrasting emotions lurking behind one seemingly innocent sentence. The English have a real talent when it comes to saying one thing and meaning the—’

  She didn’t get to finish that sentence, as a white transit van pulled out of nowhere and nearly sideswiped us. The van screeched to a halt. The driver – a guy in his twenties with close-cropped hair and bad teeth – came storming out towards us. He radiated aggression.

  ‘The fuck you think you was doing?’ he said.

  Margaret didn’t seem the least bit flustered by his belligerency, let alone his bad grammar.

  ‘Don’t you talk that way to me,’ she said, her voice cool and completely collected.

  ‘Talk how I want to talk, cunt.’

  ‘Asshole,’ she shot back, and pulled the car back out into traffic, leaving the guy standing on the road, gesticulating angrily at her.

  ‘Charming,’ I said.

  ‘That was an example of a lowly species known as White Van Man,’ she said. ‘Indigenous to London – and always spoiling for a fight. Especially if you drive a decent car.’

  ‘Your sang-froid was impressive.’

  ‘Here’s another little piece of advice about living in this town. Never try to fit in, never try to appease!

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ I said, then added, ‘But I really don’t think that jerk was saying one thing and meaning another.’

  We crossed Putney Bridge and turned down the Lower Richmond Road, heading back to Sefton Street – our first port-of-call on this house hunting marathon. I’d received a call from the estate agent who’d shown us that first house, informing me that another similar property had just come on the market.

  ‘It’s not in the most pleasing decorative order,’ he admitted on the phone.

  ‘By which you mean tired?’ I said. He cleared his throat.

  ‘A bit tired, yes. But structurally speaking, it has been considerably modernized. And though the asking price is four-thirty-five, I’m certain they will take an offer.’

  Without question, the estate agent was telling the truth about the shabby interior decor. And yes, the house was distinctly cottagey – with two small reception rooms downstairs. But a kitchen extension had been built on to the back – and though all the cabinets and appliances were outdated, I was pretty certain that a ready-made kitchen from somewhere like IKEA could be installed without vast cost. The two bedrooms upstairs were papered in a funeral-home print, with an equally gruesome pink carpet covering the floor. But the estate agent assured me that there were decent floorboards beneath this polyester veneer (something a surveyor confirmed a week later), and that the woodchip paper in the hallways could be stripped away and replastered. The bathroom had a lurid salmon-pink suite. But at least the central heating was new throughout. Ditto the wiring. There was also substantial space for an attic office. I knew that, once all the decorative horrors were stripped away, it could be made to feel light and airy. For the first time in my transient life, I found myself thinking a surprisingly domesticated thought: this could actually be a home.

  Margaret and I said nothing as we toured the house. Once we were outside, however, she turned to me and asked, ‘So?’

  ‘Bad clothes, good bones,’ I said. ‘But the potential is fantastic’

  ‘My feeling exactly. And if they’re asking four-thirty-five …’

  ‘I’m offering three-eighty-five … if Tony gives it the thumbs-up.’

  Later that night, I spent the better part of my half-hour phone call with Sandy waxing lyrical about the cottage’s possibilities and the genuine pleasantness of the neighbourhood – especially the towpath fronting the Thames, which was just down the street from me.

  ‘Good God,’ she said. ‘You actually so
und housebroken.’

  ‘Very funny’ I said. ‘But after all the dismal stuff I’ve seen, it is a relief to find somewhere which could be actually made liveable.’

  ‘Especially with all the Martha Stewart plans you’ve got for it.’

  ‘You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  ‘Damn right. I never expected to ever hear you sound like someone who subscribes to Better Homes and Gardens.’

  ‘Believe me, I keep shocking myself. Like I never thought I’d be poring over Dr Spock as if he was Holy Writ.’

  ‘You reach the chapter where he tells you how to flee the country during colic?’

  ‘Yeah – the stuff about false passports is terrific’

  ‘And wait until you experience your first broken night…’

  ‘I think I’ll hang up now.’

  ‘Congrats on the house.’

  ‘Well, it’s not ours yet. And Tony still has to see it.’

  ‘You’ll sell it to him.’

  ‘Damn right I will. Because I start work again in a few weeks – and I just can’t afford, time-wise, another extended house hunting blitz.’

  But Tony was so wrapped up in life at the Chronicle that he could only make it down to Sefton Street five days later. It was a late Saturday morning and we arrived by tube, crossing Putney Bridge, then turning right into the Lower Richmond Road. Instead of continuing down this thoroughfare, I directed us towards the towpath, following the Thames as it continued snaking eastwards. It was Tony’s first view of the area by day, and I could tell that he immediately liked the idea of having a river walk virtually on his doorstep. Then I steered him into the green-and-pleasant expanses of Putney Common, located right beyond our future street. He even approved of the upscale shops and wine bars decorating the Lower Richmond Road. But when we turned into Sefton Street, I saw him take in the considerable number of Jeeps and Land Rovers parked there, signalling that this was one of those areas which has been discovered, and populated, by the professional classes … of the sort who looked upon these charming little cottages as family starter homes, to be eventually traded in (as Margaret had informed me) for more capacious residences when the second child arrived and the bigger job came along.

  As we toured the area, and seemed to be passing a nonstop procession of pushchairs and strollers and Volvo station wagons with baby seats, we started shooting each other glances of amused disbelief … as if to say, ‘How the hell did we end up playing this game?’

  ‘It’s bloody Nappy Valley,’ Tony finally said with a mordant laugh. ‘Young families indeed. We’re going to seem like geriatrics when we move in.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ I said, nudging him.

  When we reached the house, and met the estate agent, and started walking through every room, I watched him taking it all in, trying to gauge his reaction.

  ‘Looks exactly like the house I grew up in,’ he finally said, then added, ‘But I’m sure we could improve on that.’

  I launched into a design-magazine monologue, in which I painted extensive verbal pictures about its great potential once all the post-war tackiness was stripped away.

  It was the loft conversion that won him over. Especially after I said that I could probably raid a small stock-market fund I had in the States to find the £7000 that would pay for the study he so wanted, to write the books he hoped would liberate him from the newspaper that had clipped his wings.

  Or, at least, that’s what I sensed Tony was thinking after our first two weeks in London. Maybe it was the shock of doing a desk job after nearly twenty years in the field. Maybe it was the discovery that newspaper life at Wapping was an extended minefield of internal politics. Or maybe it was his reluctant admission that being the Foreign Editor was, by and large, an ‘upper echelon exercise in bureaucracy’. Whatever the reason, I did get the distinct feeling that Tony wasn’t at all readjusting to this new office-bound life into which he’d been dropped. Anytime I raised the issue, he would insist that all was well … that he simply had a lot on his mind, and was just trying to find his feet amidst such changed circumstances. Or he’d make light of our new-found domesticity. Like when we repaired to a wine bar after viewing the house, and he said, ‘Look, if the whole thing gets too financially overwhelming, or we just feel too damn trapped by the monthly repayment burden, then to hell with it – we’ll cash in our chips and sell the damn thing, and find jobs somewhere cheap and cheerful, like The Kathmandu Chronicle.’

  ‘Damn right,’ I said, laughing.

  That night, I finally got to show my husband off to my one London friend – as Margaret invited us over for dinner. It started well – with much small talk about our house-to-be, and how we were settling in to London. At first, Tony managed great flashes of charm – even though he was tossing back substantial quantities of wine with a deliberate vehemence that I had never seen before. But though I was a little concerned by this display of power drinking, it didn’t initially seem to be impeding his ability to amuse, especially when it came to telling tales about his experiences under fire in assorted Third World hell holes. And he also kept everyone entertained with his own wry, damning comments on Englishness. In fact, he’d won Margaret over – until the conversation turned political and, shazam, he went into an anti-American rant which sent her husband Alexander on the defensive, and ended up alienating everyone. On the way home, he turned to me and said, ‘Well, I think that went awfully well, don’t you?’

  ‘Why the hell did you do that?’ I asked.

  Silence. Followed by one of his languid shrugs. Followed by twenty additional minutes of silence as the taxi headed east to Wapping. Followed by more silence as we prepared for bed. Followed by the arrival of breakfast in bed courtesy of Tony the next morning, and a kiss on the head.

  ‘Drafted a little thank you card to Margaret,’ he said. ‘Left it on the kitchen table … post it if you like it … okay?’

  Then he left for the office.

  The card was written in Tony’s illegible hieroglyphics but after the second go, I was able to crack the code.

  Dear Margaret:

  Wonderful meeting you. Splendid food. Splendid chat. And tell your husband I did so enjoy our head-to-head on matters political. I do hope it didn’t get too heated for all concerned. I plead ‘in vino stupidus’. But what is life without a spirited argument?

  Hope to repay the hospitality soon.

  Yrs…

  Naturally, I posted it. Naturally, Margaret rang me the next morning when it arrived and said, ‘May I speak my mind?’

  ‘Go on …’

  ‘Well, as far as I’m concerned, his note gives new meaning to the expression “charming bastard”. But I’m sure I’ve spoken out of turn.’

  It didn’t bother me. Because Margaret had articulated another emerging truth about Tony – he had a cantankerous underside … one which he largely kept hidden from view, but which could make a sudden, unexpected appearance, only to vanish from view again. It might just be a fast, angry comment about a colleague on the paper, or a long exasperated silence if I started going on a little too much about house hunting matters. Then, a few minutes later, he’d act as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Hey, everyone gets a little moody, right?’ Sandy said when I told her about my husband’s periodic dark moments. ‘And when you think of the changes you guys are having to deal with …’

  ‘You’re right, you’re right,’ I said.

  ‘I mean, it’s not like you’ve discovered he’s bi-polar.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘And you’re not exactly fighting all the time.’

  ‘We rarely fight.’

  ‘And he doesn’t have fangs or sleep in a coffin?’

  ‘No – but I am keeping a clove of garlic and a crucifix handy under the bed.’

  ‘Good marital practice. But hey, from where I sit, it sounds like you’re basically not doing too badly for the first couple of months of marriage … which is usually the time when you think yo
u’ve made the worst mistake of your life.’

  I certainly didn’t feel that. I just wished Tony could be a little more articulate about what he was really feeling.

  Only I suddenly didn’t have enough time on my hands to consider my feelings about our new-fangled life together. Because two days after the dinner with Margaret, our offer on the house was accepted. After we paid the deposit, it was I who organized the housing survey, and arranged the mortgage, and found a contractor for the loft and the extensive decorative work, and chose fabrics and colours, and did time at IKEA and Habitat and Heals, and also haggled with plumbers and painters. In between all these nest-building endeavours, I also happened to be dealing with my ever-expanding pregnancy – which, now that the morning sickness was long over, had turned into less of a discomfort than I had expected.

  Once again, Margaret had been brilliant when it came to answering my constant spate of questions about the state of being pregnant. She also gave me the low-down on eventually finding a nanny once my maternity leave was over and I was back at work. And she also explained the workings of the National Health Service, and how to register myself at my local doctor’s office in Putney. It turned out to be a group practice, where the receptionist made me fill out assorted forms and then informed me that I had been assigned to a certain Dr Sheila McCoy.

  ‘You mean I can’t choose my own doctor?’ I asked the receptionist.

  ‘Course you can. Any doctor in the surgery you like. So if you don’t want to see Dr McCoy …’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I just don’t know if she’s the right doctor for me.’

  ‘Well, how will you know until you’ve seen her?’ she asked.

  I couldn’t argue with that logic but, as it turned out, I did like Dr McCoy – a pleasant, no-nonsense Irish woman in her forties. She saw me a few days later, asked a lot of thorough, no-nonsense questions, and informed me that I would be ‘assigned’ an obstetrician … and if I didn’t mind crossing the river into Fulham, she was going to place me under the care of a man named Hughes.