A Desirable Residence (2 page)

‘Yes, well, it’s quite a common situation you’re in,’ the young man said quickly. ‘The majority of our clients have found themselves to be in a negative equity situation.’

‘Well, I’m afraid I don’t give a toss about your other clients! Why on earth should I care about them?’ She wouldn’t, Liz decided as she listened to her own voice crescendo, let Jonathan know that she had yelled at the estate agent. He would only get cross and worry. Perhaps even phone up to apologize, for heaven’s sake. A spurt of indignation at her husband’s humility fuelled Liz further. ‘We put our house on the market nearly a year ago,’ she shouted. ‘Do you realize that? If you’d sold it then, like you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be talking about new showers. We wouldn’t be lowering the price by such ludicrous amounts. We’d have paid off the mortgage, we’d be fine.’

‘Mrs Chambers, the property market—’

‘Sod the property market!’

‘Hear, hear!’ A rich, easy, expensive voice joined the ensemble. The estate agent started, forced a smile onto his face and swivelled in his chair. Liz, who had been about to continue, took a deep, gasping breath and looked round instead. Standing in the doorway of the office was a man in a tweed jacket, with dark brown eyes and crow’s-feet and an amused grin. As Liz watched, he took a couple of steps into the room and then leaned casually back against the door frame. He looked at ease; urbane and confident, unlike the young estate agent, who had begun twitchily rearranging the papers on his desk. The man in the tweed jacket ignored him.

‘Do carry on,’ he said to Liz, giving her a quizzical smile. ‘I didn’t want to stop you. You were saying something—about the property market?’

Jonathan Chambers was sitting by the window in the grim little office of the Silchester Tutorial College, going through the last year’s business accounts. Miss Hapland, the former owner of the tutorial college, had done the books herself for thirty years in a manner which had become more and more idiosyncratic as the years progressed. In the months since her death, a nephew had perfunctorily taken care of the business side of things until the place was sold, and now the books looked even more confused than before.

Jonathan frowned as he turned a page, and involuntarily wrinkled his nose at the rows of figures before him. It was a dull and wearisome job, this, which he had been tackling methodically at intervals since they had finally taken over the tutorial college that summer. He peered at the column headings and tried to ignore the odd ray of sunlight which played alluringly on the paper in front of him. This was the perfect afternoon for a walk or bicycle ride—and the temptation to give up and go outside for some fresh air was tremendous. But he had told Liz he was going to spend the day sorting things out, and it wouldn’t be fair to let her down. Not when she was out doing a day’s dreary shopping and tackling Witherstone’s about the house.

He paused in his thoughts, pen poised over a column of figures, and wondered how she was getting on. A sudden vision of a smiling estate agent popped into his mind.
Yes, Mrs Chambers, I was going to phone you today. We had an offer on the house yesterday. The buyers would like to complete as quickly as possible
. Some chance. As far as he was aware, nobody had even deigned to look round the house in recent weeks. Let alone put in an offer. No one was interested. It was going to remain unsold. Mortgaged and unsold. The thought sent a small shiver of panic up Jonathan’s spine.

They had only been given such a large mortgage to buy this tutorial college on the basis that their house would be sold within months; that they would soon be able to pay off one mortgage completely. But instead of that, they now had two mortgages. The size of their total borrowing was horribly huge. Sometimes Jonathan could hardly bear to look at their mortgage statements; at the monthly repayments which seemed to loom so large on the horizon of their monthly budget, and yet eat so little into the outstanding debt.

It had never entered his mind, at the start of all this, that they might get to the stage where they had bought the college but not managed to sell their house. They had always taken the sale of the house for granted; had even worried that it would sell too soon, before they were ready to move out. They’d put it on the market as soon as they’d decided to have a go at buying the tutorial college; and an offer had come along within weeks, from a young couple with a toddler and a baby on the way. A good offer; enough to cover the mortgage with some over. But they’d hesitated. At that stage they weren’t certain whether they’d be able to raise enough money to buy the college. Was it wise to sell the house prematurely? Jonathan wasn’t sure what to do; Liz thought they should wait until their plans were firmer. So Jonathan stalled the buyers for a week while they thought about it. And during that week, the young couple found another house.

In hindsight, of course, they should have grabbed the offer while they had it. But how could they have known? thought Jonathan. How could they have predicted the dearth of interest in their house that had followed? He tried to be philosophical about their predicament. ‘The house will sell eventually,’ he often said to Liz, trying to convince himself as much as her. ‘It will. We only need one person interested. Not twenty. Only one.’

‘We only need one, and he’s been unavoidably detained,’ he once joked, trying to jolly things up. But Liz wasn’t interested in jokes any more. For her, the sale of the house seemed, in the last few months, to have taken on a new significance. It wasn’t simply the money. In her mind, it almost seemed a yardstick; a sign that they would succeed. It was she who had insisted, as the new autumn term approached, that they should move out of the house and into the tutorial college, as they had always planned. She was almost superstitious about it. ‘If we don’t move now, we’ll be admitting defeat,’ she’d wailed, when Jonathan said that in his opinion it was no bad thing that they had a bit longer in the house, just while they got used to running a business. ‘We’ve got to stick to the plan. We’ve
got
to.’ Even though, as Jonathan pointed out several times, the plan was based on the assumption that by now, their house would be sold. And even though Liz loved the house more than any of them.

There was a streak of fatalism in Liz which Jonathan found, on occasion, rather alarming. But experience had taught him not to argue with it. So they had moved out of their house and into the little flat above the college, and left the house empty, waiting to be sold. Liz had been, during the days since the move, almost maniacally cheerful, as if to prove to herself and everybody else that they’d done the right thing; Jonathan already dreaded the tumble in her spirits, which would surely come.

For himself, Jonathan really didn’t know whether they’d done the right thing or not. They’d both given up steady teaching jobs, a comfortable life and a secure future, to take on a business which, while not exactly declining, had certainly seen better days. If Liz was right, they would, between them, easily kickstart it into vitality, growth and profit. If Jonathan’s occasional pessimisms were right, it was foolish for the two of them, with no business experience, to take on such an enterprise. But since they’d moved in, he had only once confided his worst fears to Liz. She had reacted savagely, as though he were accusing her of dragging them down into ruin; as though he were blaming her for a disaster which hadn’t even happened.

‘For God’s sake, Jonathan,’ she’d shouted. ‘Why do you have to be so negative? I mean, you wanted to buy this place, too, didn’t you?’

‘Of course I did—’

‘And now all you can do is worry about money all the time. Oh God!’ Liz gave the tea chest she was unpacking a little shove with her foot. ‘This is all hard enough, without you being miserable the whole time.’

And so Jonathan had postponed telling her that he was going to have to take out an extra loan. The original loan they’d been given to get the business going was running out, and they still hadn’t ordered all the equipment they wanted. They needed money for the beginning of term. They needed a bit extra for emergencies. Another five thousand should cover it. Or maybe ten, to be on the safe side.

The bank had agreed immediately, pointing out in the same smooth letter that the interest rate on such a loan would necessarily be, as Mr Chambers must be aware, higher than that on the previous loan.
Whilst we are confident in your ability to pay back this loan, we would point out that your total debt is now far in excess of that originally agreed. In particular, we are concerned that you are still maintaining two mortgages. Perhaps you could update us on the proposed sale of your property in Russell Street?

Jonathan clenched his pen slightly harder, and stared out of the window. If only he could. If only he could get shot of that house, once and for all.

Liz could feel her cheeks burning hotter and hotter. Both the young estate agent and the older man in the doorway were looking at her expectantly, obviously waiting for her to explain her outburst. She glanced at the twitchy young estate agent to see if he was going to say anything, but he was staring morosely downwards. It was up to her.

She looked up, and smiled shamefacedly at the man in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry I shouted like that,’ she said.

‘Don’t be silly,’ exclaimed the man in the doorway. ‘Sod the property market! I couldn’t agree more. What do you think, Nigel?’

‘Well yes, perhaps it would be nice,’ said the young estate agent, a craven half-smile appearing on his face. ‘Sod the lot!’ He began to laugh, then abruptly stopped, and cleared his throat.

‘And now,’ said the man in the doorway, turning to Liz, bestowing on her a charming smile, ‘do tell me: were you just making a general observation, or did you have something specific in mind?’

‘Mrs Chambers—’ began Nigel.

‘Can tell us herself what’s on her mind,’ cut in the older man.

‘Yes,’ said Liz hurriedly, before she lost her nerve. ‘I’m sorry I got so cross,’ she began, ‘but really, it seems an impossible situation. We put our house on the market ten months ago and it hasn’t sold, and now we’ve moved and we really need to sell, and . . .’ What was the boy’s name? Oh yes, Nigel . . . ‘Nigel tells me that we’re going to have to drop our price by fifty thousand and put in a power shower to attract buyers. But, I mean, we can’t afford to do that. We’ve just bought a business, you see, and we promised the bank we’d pay off the mortgage on the house by the end of the summer. And here we are in September . . .’ She spread her hands out helplessly. If she hadn’t been distracted by Nigel’s obvious growing discomfiture, she might have burst into tears.

‘What I said was—’ began Nigel, as soon as she stopped talking. The older man cut him off with an upraised hand.

‘We’ll return to the power shower in a minute, Nigel. Awful things, don’t you think?’ he added confidingly to Liz. ‘Like sticking needles in your back. Give me a good old-fashioned bath.’

‘I’ve never been in a power shower,’ admitted Liz.

‘Well, my advice is, don’t bother. Now, tell me, what is this business you’ve bought?’

‘We’ve bought Silchester Tutorial College,’ said Liz, unable to stop her mouth curving into a smile. They had actually bought a tutorial college. They were the owners of a business. It still gave her a thrill to articulate it; to watch for the reaction on people’s faces. This time it was even better than usual.

‘No! Really?’ The debonair, amused expression slipped from the man’s face, to be replaced by a disarming enthusiasm, and his eyes focused on Liz anew. ‘I was crammed for my O levels there. Wonderful place.’ He paused. ‘Actually, what am I saying? I still failed them all. But I’m sure that was my fault. I was a hopeless case.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘I was taught English by Miss Hapland herself. I think she hated me by the end of it.’

‘She’s dead now,’ said Liz cautiously.

‘Really?’ His face fell briefly. ‘I suppose she must be. She looked pretty ancient even when she taught me.’

‘It only happened last year,’ said Liz. ‘That’s why the tutorial college was put up for sale.’

‘And you bought it. That’s wonderful! I’m sure you’ll have a much better calibre of pupil than I was.’

‘But you’re a graduate. You’re a qualified surveyor,’ objected Nigel, who was leaning back in his chair, staring gloomily at the ceiling. A cloud had passed over the sun; suddenly the room seemed colder and darker.

‘Oh, I got a few exams eventually,’ said the older man impatiently. ‘Anyway, that’s not the point. The problem here is what to do about your house. Where exactly is it?’

‘Russell Street,’ said Liz.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I know. Nice family houses. Got a garden, has it?’ Liz nodded.

‘Well, from what you’ve said, I would have thought one of your best bets might be to try and rent out your property for a while, just until prices pick up. Are you on a repayment mortgage?’ Liz nodded. ‘Well then,’ he smiled, ‘the rental income should cover at least part of your monthly repayment. Maybe the whole lot, with any luck!’

‘Really?’ said Liz, feeling a flicker of hope rising inside her.

‘And there’s no shortage of prospective tenants at the moment, especially for a nice, well-located house like yours.’ He gave her a warm smile, and Liz felt suddenly overcome, as though his compliment were to herself. ‘We can handle all the arrangements here, draw up a shorthold tenancy agreement, and then, when the market seems right, try and sell again. I certainly wouldn’t be tempted down the route of power showers,’ he added, flicking an almost imperceptible grin at her.
It’s you and me against that idiot Nigel
, his look said, and Liz gazed back at him, feeling ridiculously warmed.

‘I only suggested installing a power shower in the context of my first mooted option,’ said Nigel, clearly not quite daring to adopt the defensive tone he would have liked. ‘I was about to proceed onto the rental option.’

‘Yes, well, perhaps you should have mentioned that first,’ said the older man, a steely note creeping into his voice. Nigel’s back stiffened, and Liz wondered for the first time who this stranger was. Someone important, obviously. ‘In fact,’ the man added, turning back to Liz, ‘I might even know some people who are interested. A very sweet girl and her husband. She does PR for us—you know Ginny Prentice,’ he said to Nigel, who nodded. ‘Lovely girl, husband’s an actor. I’m sure she said she was thinking of taking a place down this way. Your house would do them perfectly.’