Certainly, Margaret wasn’t exactly living in disadvantaged circumstances—she and her family resided in a three-story town house in South Kensington. I phoned her the morning after we arrived in London—and, true to her word, she invited me over that afternoon. She’d become a little more matronly since I’d last seen her—the sort of woman who now sported a Hermès scarf and wore twin sets. She’d given up a serious executive position with Citibank to play the post-feminist stay-at-home mother, and had ended up in London after her lawyer husband had been transferred here for a two-year stint. But despite this nod to corporate-wife style, she was still the sharp-tongued good friend I had known during my college years.
“I sense this is just a little out of our league,” I said, looking around her place.
“Hey, if the firm wasn’t footing the sixty grand rent . . .”
“Sixty thousand pounds?” I said, genuinely shocked.
“Well, it is South Ken. But hell, in this town, a modest studio in a modest area is going to set you back a thousand pounds a month in rent . . . which is crazy. But that’s the price of admission here. Which is why you guys really should think about buying somewhere.”
With her two kids off at school all day—and with my job at the Post not starting for another month—Margaret decided to take me house hunting. Naturally, Tony was pleased to let me handle this task. He was surprisingly positive about the idea of actually buying a foothold here, especially as all his colleagues at the Chronicle kept telling him that he who hesitates in the London property game is lost. But as I quickly discovered, even the most unassuming terraced house at the end of a tube line was exorbitant. Tony still had his £100,000 share from the sale of his parents’ place in Amersham. I had the equivalent of another £20,000 courtesy of assorted small savings that I had built up over the past ten years. And Margaret—immediately assuming the role of property advisor—started working the phones and decided that an area called Putney was our destiny. As we drove south in her BMW, she pitched it to me.
“Great housing stock, all the family amenities you need, it’s right on the river, and the District Line goes straight to Tower Bridge . . . which makes it perfect for Tony’s office. Now there are parts of Putney where you need over one-point-five to get a foot in the door . . .”
“One-point-five million?” I asked.
“Not an unusual price in this town.”
“Sure, in Kensington or Chelsea. But Putney? It’s nearly the ’burbs, isn’t 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 real 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 real 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 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 agent avoided her gaze.
“Come on, ’fess up,” Margaret said.
“A few weeks. And I do know the seller 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 neighborhoods. 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 was 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 r
eally 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-jailbait 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 real estate agents I dealt with comported 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 delivery 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 toward 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 sangfroid 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 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 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 onto 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 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 neighborhood—especially the towpath fronting the Thames, which was just down the street.
“Good God,” she said. “You actually sound housebroken.”
“Very funny,” I said. “But after all the dismal stuff I’ve seen, it is a relief to find somewhere that could be actually made livable.”
“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 were 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 toward the towpath, following the Thames as it continued snaking eastward. 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, signaling that this was one of those areas that 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 baby carriages 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 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 postwar 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. Any time 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 amid such changed circumstances. Or he’d make light of our newfound 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 into 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 hellholes. 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?”
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 69
