Downward Read online

  ‘Dear Mr and Mrs … yes, time, date – there we are, look.’ He hardly managed to keep the glee out of his voice. ‘Mr C Rowan will meet you at the property on …’

  Pugh snatched it back and looked at it. Then he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket, brought out some glasses and put them on. He peered again. He then held the letter out to his wife, who did the same, the only difference being that her glasses were in a handbag. Without another word, he shoved the letter back into the file and snapped it closed. The couple looked at each other and gave one small nod, the complicit agreement of a marriage too long to be measured in mere years; this went back lifetimes. ‘The original said Rowling,’ the wife said, sniffing. ‘I know that because I said to Malcolm, didn’t I, Malcolm, I wonder if …’

  ‘Shall we look around?’ Chris knew if he didn’t jump in quickly he would be standing on the pavement all day, the day of the groundhog, that is.

  The two looked the house up and down as if it had just made an off colour remark and gave the smallest of tandem nods. Chris led them to the front door and smoothly slotted the key in. He had shown this house before, to the previous tenants and indeed the ones before and the ones before that. No one stayed here long. The landlord’s requirements were at the edge of legality, with so little allowed it was almost like being in prison. No redecorating. No pictures to be hung on any wall whatsoever. No children. No pets. No unmarried couples. And probably, as Clint Eastwood admonished Clyde the orang-utan, no farting, no spitting, no picking your ass. Although Chris had to agree, he was with him there.

  He opened the door on the dingy hall, with wallpaper which had once, long ago, been bang on trend. The fake dado level was marked with a rose-spattered frieze, the wall below it a dark claret and darker claret regency stripe. The carpet was protected by a plastic runner. The stairs went up to the right, to a landing which was, as they would soon discover, as dingy as the hall. He waited for the usual reaction, which was always a variation on ‘it’s horrible, but it’s vacant and we can afford it; how bad can it be?’

  ‘Oh, Malcolm,’ Maureen breathed. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

  Chris had to fight the urge to clean out his ear with his little finger. He turned to her, and made an effort to sound unsurprised. ‘Pardon?’ he said.

  Maureen Pugh gave him the full benefit of her outrage. ‘Excuse me,’ she hissed. ‘I was speaking to my husband!’

  Then, as if no one had spoken, Malcolm Pugh agreed with his wife. ‘It is lovely, Maureen,’ he announced in his strange, distant voice. ‘Very homey.’

  ‘There are quite a few restrictions as to redecoration,’ Chris felt it incumbent upon him to point out.

  They looked at him uncomprehending.

  ‘You can’t redecorate this property,’ he said. ‘Nor can you …’

  Maureeen Pugh fluttered her eyelids as her eyes rolled up in her head. For a moment, Chris thought she might be about to have a fit, but no – she was merely astonished. ‘Why would we want to, Mr Rowling?’ she asked. ‘It’s just perfect as it is.’

  ‘It is? I mean, it is, isn’t it? Well, I’ll wait for you down here while you have a look around, shall I?’ he said, stepping out into the porch.

  They trotted up the stairs and he could hear them twittering to each other as they went from room to room. Downstairs, they went into paroxysms of joy at the dark brown painted kitchen, at the rose-trellised lounge and the dadoed dining room. He was not surprised when they came back to him and offered to sign, then and there, on the dotted line. He fought down his natural inclination to ask them if they were sure. They had come home, in a very real sense. A dowdy, dingy couple had found their dream home, one as dowdy and dingy as they.

  As Malcolm Pugh filled in the forms, as behoofed him as the man of the house, Chris tried to make small talk with the wife, but got nowhere. All she would say was that Malcolm – or Mr Pugh as she referred to him always to anyone who was not actually the man himself – had received a very substantial promotion at work and he had been moved to the head office. Of what, Chris couldn’t tell – no doubt the forms would help. She herself had always been a homemaker, although they had never been Blessed. He assumed that could mean that they had no children but with these two it was hard to say for sure. They rented because all property was theft. He hadn’t had them down for closet communists, but still waters perhaps ran deep.

  After what seemed an insanely long time, the forms were filled in. Maureen whispered in her husband’s ear and he looked at her proudly, as if she had just produced a rabbit from her knickers.

  ‘My wife was asking when can we move in?’ he said.

  Chris put the forms into his case without looking at them. ‘We have to check your references, Mr Pugh, especially since you are new to your job. Then we have to take a deposit, which I believe in the case of this property is one and a half month’s rent. We also need a month in advance. That comes to …’ he paused to do the sum in his head, ‘… two thousand six hundred and twenty five pounds. In addition, there is our non-refundable fee for doing the credit checks and so on, another …’

  ‘How much?’ Maureen Pugh hissed. ‘How much?’

  ‘Two thousand …’ Chris began.

  ‘Outrageous!’ her husband chimed in. ‘For this? One thousand and fifty pounds a month for this hole?’

  ‘I thought it was perfect,’ Chris felt it fair to say.

  ‘We like it, yes. But that rent is daylight robbery!’

  ‘Do you want to proceed with this?’ Chris was at the end of his tether. He could feel a headache coming on; he almost wished for the weird couple and the dog. ‘Because if not …’

  The two Pughs looked at each other for a long while, their mouths moving slightly, soundlessly. Every now and again, one of them would glance covertly at him, as though checking he was still there. Eventually, the Man of the House spoke. ‘We’ll take it, but I will be speaking to your superior about this rent.’

  ‘Mr Stanley doesn’t set the rents,’ Chris said, ushering them out and ostentatiously double-locking the door. ‘The landlord sets them, with advice from us if required. And this is a three bedroomed house; very sought after.’

  The Pughs sniffed and walked, stiff-legged, down the road without a backward glance. Chris looked up at the house, drab and down-at heel in its very unique Thirties way. And he felt very sorry for it. He even whispered, ‘Sorry,’ before looking around, making sure no one had seen him. This morning had been bad enough already – to be seen apologising to a house would put the tin lid on it.

  Despite the borderline insanity of the Pughs, he had some time on his hands and decided he would drop their paperwork in before setting off again with the Dinkies. He got back to the office and walked into an atmosphere you could cut with a knife. Every head turned towards him and Jacintha gave him a wintry smile. Dave Stanley’s desk was empty.

  ‘Hello, Chris,’ she said. ‘Dave asked me to tell you to pop into the board room when you got in.’

  ‘Okay.’ It couldn’t be anything he’d done. He hadn’t been anywhere except with the Pughs. He pushed open the door to the board room, to see Dave Stanley sitting at one end of the table, with a file in front of him. ‘Dave? Can I help you?’

  ‘Ah, Chris.’ Stanley’s voice oozed false bonhomie. ‘Come in. Take a pew.’

  Chris flinched.

  ‘I’ve … um … I’ve had rather an odd phone call this morning, from a Mr … what’s his name, now …’ he flicked open the front of the file, ‘Pugh.’ He looked up and then realised why the word seemed familiar. ‘Oh. Pew. Pugh. No pun intended. Now, Mr Pugh has told me …’

  Chris was still standing in the doorway but now came in and sat down, halfway along the table. ‘Don’t tell me. I was late. The rent is too high …’

  ‘Were you late? He didn’t mention that. No, he said that you gave them a false name and behaved very oddly.’

  ‘Gave them a false name?’ Chris was incredulous. ‘They thought my name was Rowling.’r />
  ‘Ah, now, that sounds right. It says here …’ and he ran his finger over the page, ‘yes, it says here “He told us his name was Rowling.” Can you explain that, Chris?’

  Chris massaged his temples and bowed his head. He spoke quietly, because to raise his voice would risk vomiting. He didn’t get heads like this very often, but he was on his way to an absolute doozie now. ‘They said that my name was Rowling. They showed me a letter which of course said Rowan, but then they more or less … well, I got the impression that they were almost accusing me of switching it somehow. They were …’ He stopped. ‘And how did I behave oddly? They looked around and all I did was wait at the bottom of the stairs. Well, the porch, if I’m honest. That hall at Dunroamin always gives me the willies.’

  ‘Apparently,’ and Dave looked down at the file, although he was clearly not reading any more, ‘apparently, you looked up Mrs Pugh’s skirt and made a lewd remark. Mr Pugh wasn’t prepared to say what it was you said. Can you recall? Perhaps explain a misunderstanding?’ Dave looked expectant.

  ‘Of course I bloody can't!’ Chris risked throwing up as he almost shouted. ‘She has to be one of the most unattractive women on the face of the planet. If hers was the last skirt in the world, I wouldn’t give it a second look. They’re making it up!’

  Stanley made a note, then tapped his pen a couple of times against his pursed lips. ‘Chris, I won't pretend I’m not disappointed. I made my apologies on your behalf to the Pughs, and offered them a discount off the rent, which they graciously accepted. It means we get hardly anything for the property ourselves – that landlord isn’t likely to agree to it so it will have to come off our commission, but I suppose you win some, you lose some. But it worries me that you make a judgement call on the attractiveness of the woman as to whether you would look up her skirt, and that will be on your permanent record. I won't actually give you a written warning, because I do feel that perhaps you misread the Pughs. The jack the lad attitude you sometimes display doesn’t suit everyone. However,’ he leaned forward and pushed himself upright, pocketing his pen, ‘let’s say no more about it. I have the mobile number for your extra client this evening on Jacintha’s desk. She will give it to you on your way out.’ He looked up at the clock. ‘Just time for a bite of lunch before your appointments. Perhaps you should have something. You look a bit pale. Low blood sugar, perhaps.’

  Chris had so much to say. Bugger the blood sugar, which was fine. Well done to the Pughs, who had bagged their discount. He didn’t look up skirts of any woman – who looked up skirts these days? There was far more than a shadowy hint of knicker on show on any High Street, anywhere, night or day. But he settled for, ‘Thanks, Dave. I’ll bring the paperwork from this afternoon in tomorrow, if that’s all right with you. It’ll be a bit late after I’ve shown forty-three.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Dave Stanley wasn’t a man to let bad words fester and had forgotten the Pugh incident almost entirely by the time he resumed his place behind his desk. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’

  Jacintha’s ears pricked up. So, Rowan was being sent home. In disgrace, hopefully. She had never liked the little prat. She handed him a piece of paper, without a word. Best not to be seen hobnobbing with the man in disgrace.

  ‘Thanks,’ Chris muttered, and went out, being careful to slam the door behind him. As he stood outside, with twenty five minutes before his afternoon appointment, his phone warbled in his pocket.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Chris? Where are you?’

  ‘Megs? Um … outside the office. Why?’

  ‘It’s Monday. We always have lunch on Monday.’

  She had a small part-time job in a local beauty spa, more to give her mother a chance to look after Kyle than for any other reason, though the money was handy. Monday lunch was as near to a date as they ever got these days.

  ‘Oh, look, Megs … I’m sorry. Today isn’t going too well, to be honest. I had the couple from hell this morning and they’ve …’

  ‘Well, don’t worry, then.’ The phrase was friendly, but the voice wasn’t.

  ‘Look, babe, I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘No. You’re busy. That’s fine. I’ll see you tonight.’

  He put a hand to his head. It was absolutely hammering. ‘Look, Megs, I …’

  But she had gone.

  Chris had painkillers from the doctor for when he got one of his heads. There had been talk of scans and investigations but a migraine was a migraine and he had had them all his life, so he passed on all that. He had tried everything, from cooling patches to top-strength tablets and he had come to the conclusion that nothing really worked. The patches in fact made things worse as they gave him a rash and also made him look a prat, walking around with a big white patch on his head. But right now, anything would be better than the hammering right over his left eye, so he popped into his local pharmacy, which had the additional bonus of being run by a guy he had gone to school with.

  ‘Chris, mate, how …?’ The pharmacist stopped himself from asking how his old mate was. He clearly felt like shit. ‘Headache?’

  Chris nodded, so slightly it hardly showed. He pressed his fingers to his forehead and grimaced, leaning on the counter. ‘Mark,’ he said, quietly, ‘I’ve got less than half an hour before I need to show a couple round four houses. What have you got?’

  ‘Driving?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Again, the minute nod.

  ‘That limits me a bit, but … hang on.’

  Chris had his eyes closed, but he heard the door squeak that showed that Mark had disappeared into his little sanctum where he did his dispensing; hopefully he would come up with something miraculous, but by this time a couple of paracetamols would do as long as they hit the spot. The door squeaked again.

  ‘Chris? Do you want to sit down?’

  A tiny shake of the head.

  ‘Okay. Well, drink this. I think it will do the business. I’ll warn you it tastes pretty vile.’

  Chris didn’t care what it tasted like and just tossed it back. It hit his tonsils in a viscous wave which had more than a hint of the farmyard about it, backed with chilli, garlic and something he never wanted to meet again. ‘What the …?’

  ‘That will be the asafoetida, mainly,’ Mark said, with a smile. ‘There’s some other stuff in there as well, mainly herbal but I think I’ll keep the recipe to myself, if that’s okay. The … um … non-herbal bit is a trick I keep up my sleeve for very special friends.’ He looked at Chris, watching his eyes closely. ‘How’s it going?’

  Chris blinked once, twice and moved his neck experimentally. The stiffness was going and the hammering above his eye had gone already. ‘Blimey, Mark,’ he said, grinning. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘As I said,’ his friend told him, ‘I think I’ll keep that to myself, if you don’t mind. It’s just a little trick I learned when I was training.’ He lowered his voice. ‘A bit frowned on, if you catch my drift. Let me give you something to help if it comes back, but I don’t think it will. But next time, take something as soon as you get the first symptom. Do you get these often?’

  ‘Now and again.’ Chris pocketed the pack of Advil and rummaged in his pocket for some money, which Mark waved away. ‘Stress-related, I suppose you could say. It’s been a hell of a day already and more to come.’

  ‘Well, take it easy,’ his friend said. He had known Chris since infant school and he knew he was always a bit tightly wound. But if his magic potion didn’t sort that out, nothing would. It wasn’t strictly illegal but on the other hand, it wasn’t strictly legal, either. Nothing you couldn’t pick up outside any club, anywhere. ‘Drive carefully. I wouldn’t want you to end up having a blood test for a few hours, if that’s okay with you.’

  Chris opened his eyes wide. ‘God, Mark! What was in that stuff?’

  ‘Like I say, nothing to worry about. Just something to relax you. And it has taken your headache away, hasn’t it?’

  Chris nodded. ‘Yes. Not a sign.’


  ‘There you are then. Them as asks no questions, isn’t told a lie …’

  ‘So watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by.’ They had had a teacher who managed to squeeze a bit of Rudyard Kipling into any lesson and everyone he had taught could have gone on Mastermind on the subject with no preparation whatsoever. Chris turned and met the startled eye of an old lady who had come up behind him on rubber-soled feet. He thought he would leave the explanation to Mark; he didn’t want his headache back, after all. ‘Thanks,’ he said, raising a hand and felt rather than saw the old dear’s eyes follow him from the shop.

  The Dinky couple were not waiting on the pavement when he got to the first house, which gave him time to go in and open the front and back doors to let some air in. The day wasn’t great for showing, because hot and humid weather meant that the homes all seemed a little fusty on first sniff. The slight breeze the door-opening created helped a little but he was already dreading forty-three. But not as much as he had been that morning. In fact, he was feeling great. A small, warning synapse in his head was trying to tell him that he shouldn’t be quite this laid back after a migraine, but he just pushed it away. After the way his day had gone so far, it was a relief to feel this good. He went upstairs to check the rooms. This house was nice but pricey – if these two didn’t take it, it might be time to bring the rent down a touch. It needed all the TLC he could give it to make it look its best and he had just run his hankie around the basin to get rid of the spiders’ webs across the plughole when he heard someone downstairs.

  ‘Coooeee. Mr Rowan?’ At least they had his name right. ‘Mr Rowan?’

  ‘Up here,’ he called back. ‘Hang on, I’ll be right down.’ He stuffed his webby handkerchief into his pocket and went down the stairs, treading as lightly as he could on the fourth step; it gave an ominous crack sometimes and he didn’t need that right now.

  The couple were standing in the hall, looking around in a friendly, uncritical way. The husband was like something off an underwear advert, all glossy hair, smooth cheek and hidden pecs. She was the same, but more so; except for the pecs, perhaps. She had other assets instead. The afternoon was looking up.