Flat Hunting

I have this problem with estate agents. I kind of like them. I like their assumption of the style of Wall street – the dress sense, the sharky patter, the moral laxity– without any of the substance of Wall Street– like the money, say, or the power, or the responsibility. I like their earnest pantomime, the way they project their performance somewhere beyond our shoulders, as if they’re stars of their own reality show, as if they’re half expecting Sir Alan Sugar to step out from behind the rubber plant. I like their fragile self-possession, forever at the mercy of the ephemera of modern life - the jamming doors, the messy bedrooms, the upstairs neighbour's penchant for deep house. I like the complications in their voices when they discuss their less attractive properties, guarded generality shading into light exasperation, like special needs tutors at a parent-teacher night. I especially like the gimmicks they employ to jive things up a bit- like the convertible that ferries us from Shepherd's Bush to Acton Town this Saturday. E. and the estate agent sit up front, while I sprawl out like a dog in the back. To an inveterate non-car-owner this feels antic and glamorous, like flat-hunting in movies; we could just as easily be steering a brass bed down the Portobello Road. It doesn't even bother me that the first flat we visit has already been let, or that the agent is obviously stalling our visit to the second property by zipping randomly around the quieter streets of West London.

"She delayed us until the other couple showed up," E. says afterwards. “And then she tried the line about so much interest in this property.”
"It felt so fast," I say. "It was only 40 miles an hour, but with the wind and everything, you felt like you were hitting 80, hands down."
"And did you hear her banging on about the holding deposit?" E says. “As if she hasn’t spent months trying to shift that place.”
"It's mad isn't it?" I say. "The way you duck on the way out. You know there’s no roof, and still, you can’t help ducking. That’s mad.”
“We need to try something different,” E. says. "What do you think?"
"Let's look for a flat with parking,” I say.