It goes off without a hitch, and before I know it I’m standing in the arch of the front door and the family of four are smiling and nodding in front of me. They look like a lovely family. The mum and dad look young and handsome, there’s a beautiful girl of about fifteen, who’s humming to herself and smiling, and a brother who appears to be slightly younger and who looks suitably bored with the whole outing. The mother is absentmindedly playing with her daughter’s hair, and it’s such a tender action it gives me a pang, making me long for a loving gesture from my own mother.
‘You have gorgeous hair,’ I say to the girl, because she really does. It’s long and thick and a gorgeous reddy brown. ‘You could do shampoo adverts.’
‘So have you,’ she says, smiling shyly.
‘Oh, ho, thanks.’ I laugh. My hair’s all right. It’s blonde and there’s lots of it, but it finds the simplest things, like staying in a clip, very hard indeed. ‘How old are you?’ I ask the girl.
‘Fifteen.’ She smiles. I knew it. I could sense it. I remember being fifteen, for a while it was the most magical age.
‘Now then,’ says the dad in a good deep man voice, ‘this caught my eye.’ He points at a three bed in the window.
‘Hmm.’ I smile sadly. ‘It’s lovely. The only thing is I’ve just had an offer on it. Like,’ I check my watch, ‘seven minutes ago. And the would-be buyer has already gone over the asking price. I’m sure it’ll be accepted. I can show it; I just think you’ll have a fight on your hands. However, I’ve got two similar properties and I haven’t shown either yet. One came on the market yesterday. Similar sort of thing, but with a bigger garden.’
The lady gasps.
‘Mum’s a garden designer,’ the girl tells me.
‘Oh, wow!’ I smile. ‘Well, that’s great. I haven’t seen it recently, but I think the garden’s in a bit of a mess, so you might have a project on your hands. Funnily enough, the other property is brand new. It’s nearly finished, but if you were interested we should talk to the builder; he’s a friend of mine and you could liaise with him about what you wanted garden wise.’
‘You’re good,’ the man says.
‘Thank you.’
I hope Posh Boy heard that bit.
‘No, seriously, you’re much warmer than the other estate agents we’ve met today. Some have been quite terrifying.’
And that bit. I hope he heard that bit, too.
‘It sounds silly but I really like my job.’ I say that quite loudly.
‘That’s what it’s all about,’ says the mother.
‘Yeah. You’re right.’
‘I’m going to be an actor,’ the boy says proudly.
‘Fantastic. How exciting!’
‘I don’t know what I want to be yet,’ the girl tells me.
‘Well,’ I say to her. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Emma.’
‘Well, Emma, find what you love doing most in the whole world and do that.’
‘Do you love doing estate agent work more than anything else in the whole world?’
I hesitate.
‘Um, yes. Yes, of course.’
‘Do you think we could see those properties you mentioned on Monday?’ the father asks.
‘Course, come inside. Ignore the posh bloke to the right; he won’t be here long.’ They laugh. They think I’m joking. ‘Grab a seat and I’ll get some high-calibre biscuits. Then we’ll schedule some viewings and I’ll do some brilliant interrogation work to see if we’ve got anything else you might like.’
‘We’re the Hammond family,’ the mother informs me. Then, all of a sudden, they start singing the theme tune to The Addams Family, but replacing the word Addams with Hammond. It’s so spontaneous and joyous that when they finish we’re all laughing. They’re fast becoming my favourite family ever.
They follow me into the office and I just know they’ll buy the property with the big garden. I have a sixth sense about these things.
Estate Agent of the Year. Don’t mind if I do.
Chapter 8
I don’t think it’s politically correct to say this, but I love Sainsbury’s. I’m in the big one by the canal, off the Harrow Road. I come here every Saturday after work and buy flowers and doughnuts. I’ve been coming here every week since I can remember. When I was little I’d come with Mum and Dad. It was vital that Dad and I accompanied Mum in order to make the case for food with taste versus food with no calorific value, trying to sneak cheddar and bacon under the five bunches of celery in the trolley. Sadly, family trips to Sainsbury’s were a high point in my childhood. They became a bit hectic as Mum and Dad got more and more famous, though, as they used to get besieged by people wanting autographs. A weekly shop took nearly three hours once when I lost count of how many shopping lists and cereal packets they were asked to sign. Nowadays Mum does the shopping online, but I still go in person. Normally I quite enjoy it, but not today.
Bob the Builder put offers in on both the properties I showed him, I received another from a flat I showed last week and I took on that lovely new family who I know I’ll be able to sell to. My two completed sales filled out their estate agent forms saying I was the best estate agent they’d ever come across. I should be buzzing, but instead I’m seething inside, and my mood isn’t improved by the fact that I’m having to visit the pharmacist in the middle of the store. At least I’m hoping to visit the pharmacist, although he seems to have gone for his lunch.
‘Do you know how long he’ll be?’ I ask the young girl standing at the counter behind rows and rows of Strepsils.
‘That depends,’ she answers sullenly. She’s eating toast behind the pharmacy counter! That can’t be EU approved.
‘Um, depends on what?’ I venture.
‘On whether he gets hot or cold food.’
‘Right.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Can you help me?’
‘Dunno.’
‘I need the morning-after pill.’
She looks at me and chews. It’s toast and marmite. It looks quite tasty.
‘Have a good night, did ya?’ She smirks.
‘I’ll just wait here for the pharmacist,’ I tell her. Cheeky cow.
‘He must have gone for cold,’ she says, nodding towards a man in a white coat who’s rushing in our direction.
‘She needs the morning-after pill!’ the girl shouts towards him.
‘Follow me,’ says the man. I do and we end up in a tiny back room lined with boxes of tablets.
‘She’s new,’ he says by way of apology.
I smile.
‘So when did you have unprotected sex?’
Lovely! I’m talking to a strange man about my sex life. Danny, you owe me one for this.
‘This morning.’
‘That’s fine. You’ve done the right thing. You have up to seventy-two hours to take it, but it becomes less effective the longer you leave it.’
I nod.
‘Now then, can you remember when your last period was?’
Nice! Now we’re on to menstruation. Happy birthday to me.
‘Um, maybe two weeks ago.’
‘Right, well you’ll be at your most fertile now, so let’s get you fixed up.’
He asks me a few more embarrassing questions before telling me to wait outside for the tablet. This is proving to be a rather rubbish birthday, I think as I walk back out to find the girl attacking a packet of Haribo. She offers me one. I decline and pretend to look at the vitamins on display lest she starts asking me what position we used.
‘Here you go,’ she says eventually. ‘That’ll be twenty-seven quid.’
Danny!
‘Cool, thanks,’ I take out my purse. ‘Oh,’ I say, looking inside. My cash card isn’t there. I search my handbag. Nothing. Where is it? When did I have it last? I definitely had it the previous night when I was in the pub across the road from where I live. Damn! I’ve left it at the pub. I set up a tab and left it behind the bar. I always do this. I search again f
or cash.
‘I’ve only got five pounds and about thirty pence,’ I tell the girl.
‘Sorry, I can’t give it to you. You’ll have to come back.’
Oh, brilliant, bloody brilliant, I think as I walk away. Some posh bloke has stolen my job and my boyfriend has accidentally impregnated me. Blinding.
‘I hate men,’ I mutter. I must have said it louder than I thought because a man stacking Mr Kipling boxes looks at me and cowers.
Chapter 9
I finish work at 2p.m. on a Saturday. I pick up the doughnuts and flowers from Sainsbury’s and then, as always, I drive straight to see my dad.
My dad is buried at All Souls Cemetery, which is across the canal from Sainsbury’s. Built over 150 years ago because the Victorians were popping off like flies and there was nowhere to put them, it’s a beautiful place to be buried. The Victorians went in for big old statues and ornate gravestones to honour their dead and see them on their way to heaven. I wish we’d gone for something more ornate than the plain granite tombstone we got for Dad, but I guess Mum and I weren’t feeling that creative at the time. We chose the right wording for the gravestone, though, at least: ‘He jumped so high, then lightly touched down.’ It’s a line from his favourite song. He’s buried in a lovely part of the cemetery, in a far corner under a silver birch, which was his favourite tree. Like me, he used to enjoy sitting on the swing seat in our back garden and listening to it rustle.
‘She’s talking dirty in my ear,’ he used to say.
‘Slut,’ my mum would call the silver birch tree. Mum had a sense of humour then.
My dad died ten years ago this summer. That’s one of those facts that makes no sense whatsoever as it still feels like yesterday. I had woken early to revise for my GCSEs and was sitting at my desk with the curtains drawn, working by lamplight, when my dad knocked softly on my door.
‘How you feeling, Amazing Grace?’
‘I’m going to fail!’ I wailed. I was in a proper hysterical teenage panic.
‘Gracie Flowers. My little girl,’ he said, and he came into the room and sat on the bed and sang to me. He sang softly and it calmed me. Sometimes even now, when I’m feeling stressed I close my eyes and I can still hear him singing to me. I can picture him clearly, too. He was wearing a pale blue shirt and the Levi’s jeans he lived in when he wasn’t dancing. He was good looking, my dad. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to say that about your own father, but he was. He had salt-and-pepper hair and a twinkle in his eye. He was hairier than a lot of the men on the dancing circuit. Mum said it made him more masculine, although he said it was a pain in the behind having to shave twice a day. My mum adored my dad. Everyone adored my dad. He had a meeting that morning in Soho with a television company who wanted to talk about a prime-time ballroom dancing show. He was excited. My dad believed if we all sang and danced the world would be a much nicer place. I was so wrapped up in myself that morning that I didn’t even wish him luck.
‘I love you, Gracie Flowers,’ he said, kissing the top of my head when he’d finished singing.
‘I love you, too,’ I said. Thankfully. I say that because my mum didn’t. My mum and dad had had an argument the night before. I’m not entirely sure what it was about, but I think it was because my mum thought she should have been invited along to the meeting. She was worried they’d want my father to partner someone younger and more glamorous on the show. It was important to her. They’d danced together for nearly twenty years. She didn’t say anything to him as he left the house that day.
Later, I was in the exam. I’d read the paper through, like they told us to, and was just about to start on the first question when a teacher scuttled into the exam hall and whispered to the examiner. The next thing I knew the examiner was tapping me on the shoulder, then she led me out of the room and told me that Dad had had an accident. Another teacher drove me to the hospital, but it was too late. I saw my mum through some glass doors talking to a doctor. Then I heard my mum howl. And it was the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
He was knocked down by a bus. It sounds almost comical. He was on Regent Street, crossing the road, when apparently a fan shouted at him. He stopped, waved and did a dance move, then carried on running right into a bus. Silly sod.
Still, he’s buried in a lovely place. The slutty silver birch whispers in his ear and I come once a week for a chat and a singsong. My mum never comes. She hasn’t been here since the funeral. She hasn’t really been anywhere since the funeral.
When I first started coming I would lie on the ground, knowing that he was there a few feet beneath me, and cry. Then I started to chat to him. I told him all about Danny Saunders, who stood by me. I told him how I couldn’t apply to music college, which was something we’d always spoken about. I explained that it was because I couldn’t leave Mum. I told him all about the singing competition I’d entered shortly after he was buried, and how I’d screamed my head off while Ruth Roberts was singing for the judges and how they’d asked me not to enter any singing competitions again and how I didn’t want to anyway. Then I ran out of things to say to him because my life seemed to have stopped moving in any direction at all. That was when I started to bring my ghetto blaster down to the cemetery and play music to him. Then the ghetto blaster broke and I started singing to him instead.
One day I came to see him and noticed that there was a new grave next door but one to Dad’s. I looked at the fresh soil and the new flowers. There’s nothing sadder than fresh soil in a graveyard. You can’t help but think of the people left behind and their loss. I sang Dad ‘Mr Bojangles’ that day. Actually, I didn’t just sing, I did a few little dance steps as well. When I finished I heard clapping and a man saying, ‘Bravo.’ I looked about and saw an older couple, a man and a lady, both dressed in wellies and Barbour jackets. The man was holding a Thermos flask and the lady a bunch of daffodils from Sainsbury’s. I know because I’d put the same ones on Dad’s grave earlier.
‘Bravo,’ the man said again.
I blushed. I felt like I’d been caught naked. I’d never met anyone else at the graveyard. No one else ever came to the silver birch corner.
The lady put the flowers on the fresh grave. She was in her sixties, but she was beautiful. She looked like a retired ballerina.
‘Lucky you, Mum,’ she said to the grave with a smile. Then she turned to me, ‘You don’t by any chance know the song that goes, “Heaven, I’m in Heaven”, do you?’
The man in the wellies and Barbour jacket roared with laughter. I’ve never heard anything like it. He could literally have woken the dead. I thought we might have a scene from Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video on our hands.
‘She’d love that!’ he screamed, and the beautiful lady joined in with his laughter.
Of course I knew the song. Fred Astaire, my father’s dancing hero, sings it in an old black and white movie.
So I sang the song and they danced like Fred and Ginger. It was weird and wonderful, and afterwards, they introduced themselves. Leonard and Joan, brother and sister. Leonard opened his Thermos and shared his whisky-laced coffee with me.
‘Camille Flowers,’ Joan said, looking at my dad’s grave. ‘A wonderful dancer. It was so sad when he died.’ And she hugged me. God, I remember that hug. I closed my eyes and melted into it. It made me realise that my mum hadn’t hugged me for years.
We arranged to meet the next week and then the week after that, and now we’ve been meeting every week for seven years. Leonard still brings his Thermos and I still bring the doughnuts.
I’m not thinking about our history today, though, as I walk to silver birch corner. I’m thinking about John St John What’s-his-name taking my job.
Joan and Leonard are already seated in their usual spot, on top of the monument to Alfred George Roberts. He was a textile merchant who died in 1893. We say it was the syphilis what got him, although we don’t know that for fact.
‘Happy birthday to you!’ they start to sing. We’ve celebrated many bi
rthdays over the years.
‘Oh darling …’ Joan says as soon as she sees my downcast face. ‘Did it not go your way?’
‘No! Some posh bloke got it. He gave the job to some posh twat who didn’t even work for the company.’
‘That’s a travesty! Do you want me to talk to the lubricant chap?’ Leonard asks as he takes a doughnut from the bag.
‘One doughnut today, Len, your blood pressure was up this morning,’ Joan instructs him.
‘Spoilsport! Now, while we’re on unpleasant subjects, Grace, what did you make of that letter?’
‘What letter?’
‘There was a letter. Did you not get one? A company – oh what are they called, Joan? I had it a moment ago in the car.’
‘Something construction.’
‘Yes, yes, something construction. But what construction? SJS Construction? Was it?’
‘I think it was, Len.’
‘Well, anyway, this construction company want the land we’re standing on, Grace. They want this corner of the graveyard to build an access road to a big development they’re planning.’
‘They can’t be so arrogant as to think they can build a road through a Victorian graveyard!’ I replied.
‘Actually, they can. And, in fact, they could. The council would allow it apparently because it only affects a few graves. Mum’s, your dad’s, Alfred’s here and two others I believe, but the relatives of the deceased have the final say.’
‘Oh, thank God for that. They must have written to Mum. I’ll write back and tell them where they can shove their access road.’
‘That’s our girl. Now then, “Feeling Good”?’ Leonard enquires.
I walk over to Dad.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I whisper. ‘Not a great day for the five year plan. Sorry.’ I pause for a moment, then I start to sing. And like every birthday I’m taken back to the bathroom, when I sat on that toilet seat and Dad first played Nina Simone to me.
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