Carol and Bev look for somewhere to live in London:
Willesden
Green High Street had shops that were not boarded up and its very own traffic
congestion. We got out the piece of
paper with the address we were looking for scrawled on it and asked for
directions. After a couple of people
had scowled and scratched their heads we found someone who could help us and
soon we were in a leafier street within a few turns of the busy centre. In front of us rose up a rather grand,
detached house with enormous gates and a separate pedestrian entrance. The driveway was pebbled (good for hearing
the approach of burglars) and there were two large stone steps up to a wide,
panelled front door. There were bushes
and shrubs that looked as though they had been transplanted from a botanical
garden. We double-checked the address,
opened the side gate and walked up to the house wondering what the catch might
be.
‘Probably a caravan in the back garden,’ said Carol.
Carol
rang the bell. A woman of about thirty-five
with curly, strawberry blonde hair and freckles opened the door. She was wearing baggy yellow trousers and a
cheesecloth shirt, bangles and bracelets and lots of rings. We were not
expecting any of this.
‘Hello. What a
lovely day. You must be Bev and
Carol. Please come in. Watch out for the cat.’ She jangled when she moved, like my auntie
Vera used to. She wasn’t a real
auntie. I mean, she was real, but not
my auntie.
We stepped over a ball of happy,
black fur and waited politely in a large spangly hallway. It was a house where the cat would be more
important than us. There were mirrors and tapestries, a glass lamp on a shiny
black table engraved with elephants, a Buddha carved in wood and standing
almost three feet tall, and a framed proverb hanging above it that said: ‘Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the
truth.’
‘Oh, don’t mind that. Adil thinks we should constantly strive for
spiritual fulfilment. My name is
Ursula. Pleased to meet you.’ We shook
hands and I bowed.
‘I like your house.’ I blurted, in the short confused silence
that followed.
‘Yes.
It’s not bad, is it? Would you
both like a cup of tea? The lounge is
through here, I won’t be a sec. Make yourselves comfortable.’
The lounge was sumptuous, with sofas thick with padding and strewn
with silky-bright cushions. Exotic
paintings in colours rich enough to make you squint hung on the walls,
expensive looking rugs layered the floor and adorned the walls and a large
stone fireplace of intricate design housed a roaring log fire. It was light and cosy and I wondered whether
we would be kidnapped and sold as slaves to rich Indian men who wanted a bit of
western promise.
‘Weird,’ Carol whispered.
‘Yeah.
Like some kind of palace.’ I
whispered back. Carol raised her top
lip and rolled her eyes.
‘Shall we sit down?’ I suggested in a more normal voice, now that
I remembered we were alone.
‘She said to make ourselves comfortable,’
Carol said.
We sat on the edge of the largest sofa. I could feel the muscles in my buttocks tensing so I did a few
pelvic floor exercises. Shame not to. I
had read about what happened to women if they neglected to maintain their
intimate muscles. Ursula returned with a tray of tea as I was in mid clench and
I smiled serenely as she carried it towards us.
‘I brought biscuits. Don’t know whether you girls are watching
your weight. I don’t bother any
more.’ She took a chocolate finger and shoved
it whole into her mouth as if to prove a point. ‘Adil will be here shortly.
He likes to interview. Don’t
worry – he isn’t as fierce as he looks.’
‘What is the flat like?’ Carol wanted to get down to business. I got
stuck into the biscuits.
‘Oh?
Yes. Well, it’s quite small I
suppose. It has a kitchen, a bathroom
and a bedroom with two single beds.
What else…? Perhaps it would be easier to just let you see it after Adil
has spoken to you.’
‘And the rent is £64 a week all in?’ Carol asked.
‘Adil will discuss the terms with you. I don’t really… Here he is now.’ She seemed relieved.
A large bellied Indian man with long hair and a beard, wearing white
trousers and a white shirt ambled importantly into the room. He wore sandals with broken straps that
threatened to trip him at any moment. I
imagined him falling on top of us and pinning us both down on the sofa. Perhaps that was the plan. I thought about Mr. Badal and his less
complex advances.
‘Good afternoon ladies.’ His lips were full and very pink. He looked at us and stroked his beard. He
swivelled into a chair and Ursula handed him some greenish liquid with stuff
floating in it.
‘My name is Adil and you are?’
‘Beverley,’ I thought it better to use my
full name.
‘Carol,’ said Carol.
‘I see.’
He nodded and said something to Ursula in what must have been Hindi.
She passed him the biscuits.
‘I see.’
He nodded again, ruminating on a custard cream. ‘Well.
I understand you girls are looking for accommodation?’
‘That’s right. We want a flat as near to Edgware Road and Park Lane as
possible. And not too expensive,’ Carol said.
‘We are going to work for Playboy.’ I added and Carol pinched me on the arm.
Adil raised his eyebrows at this and
stirred his tea. Ursula coughed.
‘I see.
And what… type of work will this be?’
He had difficulty in formulating the question and I wondered whether he
had mastered the English language sufficiently to follow our conversation.
‘ We will deal cards. Blackjack.
With chips.’ I spoke very slowly
and dealt from an imaginary pack of cards.
‘She means we will be croupiers Mr…’
‘Desai.
It’s Mr. Desai. Thank you
Carol. I see. And are these positions…permanent?’
‘Yes Mr Desai. We have signed a contract.
I have a copy in my bag if you would like to see it.’ Carol was acting very strangely. I wondered why
he might want to see our contracts.
‘That won’t be necessary. No.’ He nodded, spoke again to Ursula and
then smiled benignly at us. ‘Would you
like my wife to show you the accommodation?’
‘Yes please.’ I said, standing up and watching the biscuit crumbs fall from my
lap and bounce across the carpet.
Once more he spoke in Hindi and I half expected Ursula to produce a
dustpan and brush. She didn’t. Instead, she extended her arm for us to go
with her, and her husband said that he would speak to us again once we had
inspected the rooms.
The ‘rooms’ were in a large annex at the back of the main house with
a separate entrance to the side. The
hallway was dark and pokey and there were stairs disappearing up to a second
floor. First impressions – nul points. The vacant flat we were shown was on the
ground floor and above us Ursula said there were two others, which were
occupied. She turned the key in a huge
lock and we found ourselves in a medium sized bedroom with a small sofa and a
television in one corner. There was no
window. Through another door and down
some steps was the kitchen, where a fridge hummed noisily and then shuddered
into silence. It was freezing. There was a small, shoddy table and four
matching chairs, a cooker and a kettle.
‘Where is the bathroom?’ Carol asked, politely.
Ursula pulled back a curtain and revealed a maroon bathroom suite,
stained and with dripping taps. To the
right, there was a heavy piece of plastic nailed inside a doorway. Carol pulled back the plastic where it had
come loose and looked outside onto an area filled with dustbins. We both looked
at Ursula.
‘Adil will of course be having a new door
put in. There is a separate lock on
your bedroom for extra security.’
I looked at Carol, who was looking at
Ursula.
‘I see,’ said Carol, nodding and stroking
her chin. I wondered whether Ursula
would take offence at Carol’s mocking of her spiritual partner but she didn’t
seem to notice.
‘I see,’ I said, nodding and stroking my
chin. I think that did it.
‘I’ll leave you to look around on your own
and, when you’ve decided, you can come back to the main house, okay?’ Her tone was colder but so were my
extremities. She fiddled with her bangles and practically fled.
The flat was basic, dark, ill equipped and open to the elements but
we had found no others advertised at a rent we could afford and it was not far
for us to travel to work.
‘What do you think?’ I tried to open the window in the kitchen
and failed.
‘I think we’re stuffed. For the money it’s as good as we’re going to
get. As long as Ursula keeps Adil under
control I’d say we should go for it.’
Carol opened the fridge and gave it the thumbs up. No fridge stink is a basic human right.
It would do. We wandered back to the house, theorising about the
other tenants. Perhaps they were drugs dealers or murderers. Perhaps they were
illegal immigrants. Perhaps they didn’t
exist and we would be prisoners, doomed to a life as sex slaves. Mr. Desai was waiting at the door and waved
us into his den with a knowing look on his insufferable face. He knew we would take the flat.
After we had signed the relevant papers, it turned out that there
were several rules. There was to be no
smoking or playing of loud music at any time, and silence after eleven o’clock.
We would be asked to pay one month’s rent as a deposit and two month’s rent in
advance, which, although we had been expecting this, added up to a shocking
amount of money. We were not allowed to
sub-let, take drugs or run a business from his premises. We thought Mr. Desai had either had a lot of
trouble with tenants in the past or had a very vivid imagination.
Anyway, we were
pleased to have found somewhere. It
meant we didn’t have to waste any more time looking. It meant we could go home and sponge off our parents for a couple
of weeks and see our friends before the adventure in Tring began. Tring – could it be a real place?
Bunny on a Bike is available on Amazon to download to your kindle, nook or pc etc.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunny-on-a-Bike-ebook/dp/B0089FB71O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350641123&sr=8-1
