Chapter 12: Number 77

THEY welcomed us with open arms at the estate agents. I assumed that houses and flats were hard to shift with so much uncertainty about the future and the war going against the allies quite so badly. Also, all the breadwinners of new or growing families were being conscripted, so there were fewer opportunities for families to obtain mortgages from banks or building societies. Although the bombing had caused homelessness elsewhere, the war had bypassed this little corner.

We had peered through the windows of both the barbers and the closed shop as we walked down towards the estate agents’ shop. While the barber’s shop had an internal wall across his shop with a doorway, the empty shop was completely gutted of shelving and with no internal walls. You could just about see through a gap in the whitewashed window through to the back windows leading to the garden and see the outline of an external steel staircase casting a shadow over one of the windows, so somebody could access the flat above without having to go into the shop.

We wondered if that same arrangement was matched at the barbers, or if the stairs were inside the barber’s back room. We agreed that Mary would take the lead and see what she could charm out of the estate agent.

The young lady who opened the estate agents’ shop, at the end of their lunch hour, asked how she could help.

“I would like to see Mr Cavenagh, please,” Mary said, loudly and imperiously. She seemed to swell from the mouse she had played the self-effacing Mrs Mary Jones in front of people who we were keen to question the last two days, and now she seemed bigger and sounded older, almost towering over the now timid lady who opened the shop, “Now!” she continued. The lady cowered, unable to answer.

A voice came from the other side of the room as a man rose from his desk.

“I am sorry, Madam, but Mr Cavenagh is more of a silent partner in this establishment. He looks in once or twice a month to check on his investment, but doesn’t get involved in the day to day workings. I am his partner, Mr Laws, Stanley Laws. I am sure that I can answer any enquiries you have on any of the properties on our books. Would you like to take a seat over here, so we can see what kind of property you are looking for?”

The speaker was a tall, thin man, probably in his mid-fifties, stood behind his chair at the back of the office.

Mary marched over and introduced herself as ‘Mrs E Onslow’, proffered a hand for Mr Laws to kiss or shake as he pleased; he shook it nervously.

She sat down, turned to me and said, as imperiously and loud as she had to the cowering shop assistant, “Now, sit down Edgar, I know you don’t want to make a fuss or move out of your old studio, but one really must move with the times, dear.”

Then she turned her attention to Mr Stanley Laws, “Mr Laws, My husband here is an artist. Do you know much about art?”

“No, not really —”

“Well, it is something he has messed about with all his life and he is really rather good at it. Royal Academy shows and all that sort of thing. But, lately, he has been experimenting with ceramics, firing them in a small kiln we have in a wooden shed in the garden, but it really won’t do at all, it is damp in there when the oven’s off and he suffers terribly with his poor chest.”

She turned to me, placing an affectionate hand on my chest, “don’t you, dear?”

“Yes, dear,” I said meekly, and coughed a couple of times, which actually set me off, choking, spluttering and setting off further involuntary coughing that sounded quite as painful as it felt and brought tears to my eyes, so that I had to pull out a hankie and dab at my eyes.

“See what I mean, Mr Laws, our present arrangements simply will not do any longer. Anyway, to the point of our calling on you, I saw a shop down this road, featuring your sign, No 75 Denmark Hill, which seems perfect for our purposes, but I do have one or two questions to ask about it, if I may?”

“By all means, Madam,” he said, flicking his eyes momentarily in my direction without moving his head.

He looked like a crafty weasel, realising who wore the trousers in this ‘marriage’. I just rolled my eyes in a gesture of resignation: clearly the lady was the one who was the person to deal with, my gesture intended to communicate, and that I was just accustomed to going along with whatever made the ‘mem sahib’ happy. He turned his whole attention back to Mary, who had continued talking through our wordless exchange.

“So, whilst Edgar is an exceptional artist, he can be rather careless, with the children you know, spraying paints around and heating objects to a thousand degrees in the very same room as our little mites are crawling around. Now, children and temperatures hot enough to melt off pudgy little fingers really should never mix, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Laws?”

“Oh, definitely not, Mrs Onslow, the very thought!”

“Exactly, and it’s not only Nanny that would be frazzled with the worry. So, the access to the flat above, would that be through the shop or a separate door at the back?”

“There’s a very serviceable rear access madam, wide enough even for a motor vehicle. Just a rear yard, no garden I’m afraid, but there are several parks for recreation perfect for young families within a gentle walk, and schools with excellent reputations, too.”

“Yes, yes, all very well Mr Laws, but would one have to come into the shop to go upstairs to the flat. I mean, we are all rather comfortable in Bayswater, so we may stay there and want to rent out the apartment above to the suitable family of, say, a professional gentleman.”

“I believe you are in luck, that particular shop No 75 does have a modern outdoor staircase made in forged anodized steel, leading to a front door of the flat on the first floor. I understand that the previous to last owner leased the flat out to a relative, so you could come and go as you please. As you can see from the Specification,” he handed over a mimeographed sheet with details typed on it, “the flat has a lounge, small dining room and a kitchen on the first floor, three good sized bedrooms and a bathroom with indoor facilities, on the second, and a bedroom and small sitting room, ideal for a nanny, on the top floor, with electric lighting fitted throughout. The shop is self contained with a separate electric meter, the whole building being wired for electric light as recently as 1938, supplied by the London Power Company, and hot and cold running water on demand with ascot water heaters precisely where you would expect them, and there’s a modern outside privy for the shop.”

“It all seems quite sound, would it be possible for my husband and I to have a viewing?”

“Certainly, I can arrange that now as the owners have left us with the key.” He responded eagerly, yelling to his assistant, “Maggie, be a sweetheart and look out the 75 Denmark Hill keys for me?”

“Is there any reason that they left?”

“Oh, they are a young family, three of the cutest kiddies you ever saw, but hubby was immediately called up from Army reserve and the missus tried to keep the shop going, with her mother coming up from Weston-Super-Mare to help look after the little ones while she minded the shop. But once all the kiddies around here were evacuated and the local school virtually put into mothballs, she couldn’t face living here alone, so she shut up shop only a week ago and moved west.”