‘The Estate Agent’ by Naomi Ishiguro

The front door opened to reveal a couple. In that first instant of us facing each other they were both wearing smiles, but the sight of me and the estate agent there on their doorstep swiftly turned their cheerful expressions into ones of shock, then grief. There was a moment of stricken silence, before the woman started to cry. Instinctively, I turned to the estate agent. He was meant to be in charge of the situation; surely the responsibility lay with him to sort out whatever was wrong. He only sighed in a way that seemed to suggest both boredom and familiarity with the situation.

‘You can’t come in,’ said the man of the couple. His arm was clamped around his partner’s shoulder and he’d stepped just slightly in front of her, as if she might need protecting from us. ‘We’re up to date with the rent. We’re good tenants. We’ve never had a noise complaint. If we smoke, we smoke in the garden. I even cleaned the cooker hood last week.’

The estate agent ran a hand over his rigidly gelled hair. ‘Can’t you see you’re making this awkward?’

The woman sobbed hard at that, and the man drew her deeper into the folds of his sweater. She reached up to grasp his hand, and I watched as they gripped each other, fingers entwined. It had been months since Luke and I had sought such physical closeness.

‘We’re meant to have twenty-four hours’ notice at least, aren’t we?’ said the man. ‘That’s what Maria got. And the Hendersons, across the square.’

The words twenty-four hours’ notice registered with me in a way the couple’s anguish had not. Up until that point I’d seen myself as a passive spectator to the situation, and had been mostly concerned with studying their togetherness, greedily observing how united they were in facing this strange wave of emotion. I’d assumed the cause of it was something historic between them and the estate agent. Now, though, I began to understand.

‘I’ll go,’ I said, though this house – this couple’s house – was the reason I’d travelled two hours here from London, the photographs of its ample kitchen and south-facing living space the promise on which I’d pinned all my wounded hopes for the future. ‘Honestly, it’s not a problem. Don’t worry about it. I should go.’

The estate agent’s demeanour changed utterly, as if a switch had been flicked. He turned to me with spread fingers, welcoming, conciliatory.

‘Don’t let this put you off,’ he said, with a light wave of his hand at the couple. ‘Honestly, this is more common than you’d think.’

‘What do you mean, this?’ the woman said then, looking up from her partner’s embrace to spit the words out at him.

‘If you’d just step to one side and let us pass,’ the estate agent said.

‘But we weren’t given notice,’ the man insisted. ‘It’s meant to be twenty-four hours’ notice before anyone comes round, isn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid that’s not my problem,’ the estate agent told him. ‘That’s between you and your landlord.’

With that, he stepped smartly over the threshold into the couple’s home, forcing them to break apart from one another to let him pass, each pressing themselves to an opposite side of the narrow corridor leading into the house. The estate agent’s skinny form slipped between them like a shadow.

‘Come on.’ He beckoned me from the far end of the corridor. ‘It’s fine. Don’t be shy.’

I could have left, then, and followed up on my suggestion from a moment earlier. And yet the thought of the long, cold train ride back to London, back to the flat and to Luke and the hostility that had grown to fill every inch of the space we’d once so lovingly shared, kept me where I was. I lowered my eyes as I jostled between the couple. At the last minute I looked up to give the woman what I hoped was a sort of good-natured, apologetic wince. She didn’t smile back, as I’d hoped she might. The look she gave me made it clear she blamed me utterly.

The estate agent whistled as we stepped into the kitchen. ‘Obviously this needs a bit of work,’ he said. ‘Imagine it though. Rip that out. Chrome detailing. Drinks fridge. LED lights in the window.’

It was a friendly room, just the way it was. It reminded me, in fact, of how the kitchen I still shared with Luke in London had felt, back when we’d been happy. On the wall next to the fridge was a corkboard, to which the couple had pinned photographs and postcards. Birthdays. The faces of friends. The two of them wearing paper party hats and sharing a kiss. I stepped closer, wanting to see these things in more detail. Luke and I had never had a corkboard, but back in the early days we’d put pictures not dissimilar from these up around the flat. I’d long since stopped being able to see those pictures clearly, too used to them in their habitual positions to glean anything new from looking at them. In a funny sort of way, it felt almost easier to see Luke’s and my shared past in these pictures of this other couple. I found myself speculating on how long they’d been together – whether it was more time or less than the three years and two months Luke and I had managed – and then, too, on whether this couple would be able to keep things up, or if they’d succumb to bitterness and competition one day, too. Then I thought back to the way they’d gripped each other’s hands in the hallway. Had Luke and I ever been like that, really? I honestly couldn’t remember.

I was still lost in that corkboard when the floor began to vibrate, the window to rattle in its frame, and the glass jars in the spice rack to clatter against each other, like some kind of experimental percussive instrument. I turned to the window as the roaring and rattling coalesced into the sounds of a train, and I clocked the tell-tale, high brick wall that confirmed that despite its not being at all obvious from outside, or from the photographs on the website, this house stood directly next to a railway line. The estate agent grimaced as the train whistle blared and the whole room shook with the vibrations of several hundred tonnes of metal hurtling over rails and rocks.

‘You’d get used to that,’ he said, when the noise had subsided enough for us to hear each other again. ‘People do, in these kinds of properties. Some even tell me they find it soothing. That they couldn’t live anywhere else, now they’ve tried it. Or that if they did, they’d find the silence overwhelming, without the rhythms of the train timetable to break it up. The days lacking structure, and a sense of forward momentum.’

I blinked at him. He didn’t seem to think he’d said anything out of the ordinary. I supposed maybe he hadn’t. After all, why shouldn’t estate agents think about things like silence, and the passage of time? Perhaps he had hidden depths. I was considering this possibility when his expression morphed into a wide, warm smile, and he tipped his head to one side. The effect was staggering, uncanny. The gesture was one hundred percent Luke’s. I hadn’t seen him do it for a while – we’d been avoiding each other as much as was possible, after all – but it was absolutely unmistakable.

‘Tea?’ the estate agent asked then.

It was presumptuous of him, certainly, considering that this was not his kitchen, and yet he asked it so easily, as if it were a completely normal question. I wondered if it was just that things were done differently here, in this town. If this could be one of those general small-town things, even. I was about to refuse, mindful of the couple with the grief-stricken faces who were presumably still in the corridor – if they hadn’t moved by now, into their spacious, south-facing lounge – and yet I found myself wanting to linger.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

As the kettle boiled, I heard, over the noise of it, what sounded like the couple arguing in the next room. I tuned into what I could piece together of what they were saying.

‘But I love you,’ I listened to him tell her, as if so many things depended on it. ‘I love our life here. This is our home, and I’m not willing to just give that up. Can’t you understand that?’

‘What can we actually do though?’ was what she said back. ‘What do you suggest we do?’

It was too sad and uncomfortable to listen to for long. The kettle clicked off and gratefully I turned my attention back to the room around me. The estate agent had arranged two mugs on the countertop, and was now humming an old Cat Stevens song as he poured out the hot water. I hadn’t heard that song in years, not since that first summer after Luke and I had moved in together. We’d had a record player then. God knows where it had disappeared to.

‘What made you think of looking for somewhere round here, then?’ the estate agent asked as he added the milk. ‘You just fancy a change from the city, or ...?’ The way he left the question hanging made it oddly personal.

‘I split up from my partner,’ I told him, ‘and I can’t afford to stay in London, living alone.’

He nodded, and handed me my tea. ‘You’ll like it here,’ he said. ‘Sea air. Beautiful light in the mornings.’

Another train went by outside, and this time I didn’t notice the noise quite so much.

We took our mugs and went to view the rest of the house. There was a Green Day poster at the top of the stairs, stuck up with masking tape, and as we passed it, the estate agent reached out and tore it right off the wall, letting it fall down the stairwell.

‘Sorry,’ he said, with a sheepish kind of grin. ‘It’s just, posters stuck straight to the wall. I can’t stand the look of them, can you?’

I frowned at the pale rectangle the poster had left behind. It was about the same size as a print Luke had bought me for my birthday, back when we’d still done things like buy each other birthday presents. I could suddenly imagine that print hanging there, covering the newly blank space. It would look almost perfect.

I was just thinking what else might work on that wall, and if maybe in fact I should repaint it, when a wail came from somewhere surprisingly close by, and the estate agent opened a door to reveal a bright, open master bedroom, and the couple again, who were crouched, this time, over an open suitcase.

‘Would you mind stepping out for a moment?’ the estate agent asked them, as I turned back to the landing, considering which paint colours might work best on the wall.

‘Why are you here?’ I heard the woman say, her tone ragged in a way that sounded all wrong for the atmosphere of this house. ‘We’ve been good tenants. I’ve lived in this town all my life.’

‘You’ll appreciate I need to show this room now,’ the estate agent said. ‘Can’t the two of you go somewhere else?’

By the time I looked back, the couple had disappeared off somewhere, and the estate agent was standing alone in the middle of the bright bedroom, a goofy grin on his face. It was funny, on the surface of it they didn’t look like each other at all, but just in that moment, the resemblance between him and Luke nearly bowled me over completely.

‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Do you like it?’

I did like it. It was a friendly, lived-in, cheerful sort of room. A bit cluttered, but nothing a few bin bags and a few hours’ work wouldn’t sort out. When I’d arrived in the town that morning, just off the train from London, I’d felt a flash of worry at the idea of living here alone, so far from my friends and my family. A flash of resentment, even, at having been pushed out of London in this way. This room, though. This didn’t feel at all like the sort of room anyone could be lonely in, or that might belong to someone with an empty kind of life.

‘Apologies,’ the estate agent said, hovering now by the door. ‘Would you possibly excuse me for a moment?’

‘Of course,’ I told him. ‘Go ahead.’

It was a pleasure to be left alone in that room. Immediately, I could imagine myself living in it. Sure it was still filled with all the couple’s bits and pieces, but really, when it came down to it, their things weren’t even all that different from what Luke and I had strewn about our own bedroom. Looking at it again, in fact, I could almost kid myself that that record player in the corner was our old record player – that it had been waiting here for me all along, and hadn’t gone missing at all. I could nearly imagine that that mirror, too, was the same one I’d stared into that morning while putting on my eyeliner. That that make-up bag next to it was my make-up bag, and that that wardrobe held Luke’s and my clothes, the discarded hoodie on the floor belonging to him.

I kicked off my shoes and went to sit on the bed. I felt so tired, suddenly. The train from London had been so early that morning, and then it hadn’t exactly been the easiest few months, either. I hadn’t been sleeping well. I lay back, watched the patterns of afternoon light move over the ceiling, and let myself imagine that it was Luke, and not the estate agent, who I was waiting here for, that it was only the two of us here in this house, with no estate agent or other couple at all.

Another train went by outside, and this time I found the noise of it almost soothing. I shuffled round on the bed to look out of the broad sash window, and found that from up here, I could actually see the train. I watched it hurtle past, out towards the sea, and disappear from view. Then I stared at the empty tracks and wondered why there was only one set of them, as if the trains only went one way. And then I closed my eyes, settled back on the pillows, and allowed myself just a moment or two of rest.

My doze was interrupted by what sounded like voices in the hallway. The estate agent and the couple seemed to be talking. The estate agent sounded stern, nothing like Luke at all. He kept asking if the couple were ‘ready’, kept telling them they couldn’t be late, that they didn’t have long to get to the platform. I listened as he asked them if they had their coats, because he wasn’t about to ‘get done’ for them freezing to death immediately. I couldn’t hear what the couple were saying in reply. Their voices were so quiet, barely louder than murmurs. It was a good thing they’d calmed down, at least.

I got up from the bed and padded over to study their record collection. Not all of it was exactly what I would have chosen, but I could get rid of the duds easily enough, and there were plenty of things I’d be happy to listen to. I picked out an old Chet Baker album, and put it on the turntable. The music worked a treat. It drowned out the voices downstairs without me even having to turn it up particularly loud.

I was back on the bed, bare feet curled under me, with My Funny Valentine playing from the speakers, when behind me the bedroom door gave a creak. I whirled around, feeling just for a moment as if I were about to be caught doing something I shouldn’t. It was only the estate agent, though. He was holding a bottle of champagne and two glasses, and he’d taken off his pin-striped suit jacket. He was wearing a woollen jumper instead, and the effect was staggering. He looked so much more human, with no sharkiness or sharp edges about him at all, now. He flashed that familiar old sheepish grin.

‘Chet Baker,’ he said. ‘Very nice.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d like it.’

He poured out a glass of champagne and handed it to me.

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ I told him – and I’d been craving this for so long, I realized then. This kind of mood. This ease. This warmth.
The two of us clinked glasses and I found myself laughing – actually

laughing, when I hadn’t laughed properly in months. The moment just felt so right, somehow. Almost miraculous. And the estate agent was laughing too. Then he took my hand, pulled me up from the bed and spun me around the room in a slow dance. I noticed that he danced maybe even a little better than Luke usually did – as if he’d shed the constant layer of irony that Luke always insisted upon while doing things like dancing, whilst keeping all of his charm. We danced until the song was over, and then I was laughing again, flopping back down on the bed. The estate agent flopped next to me, and side-by-side we looked out of the window at what was now the fading light over the sea. It had been late morning, when I’d arrived for this viewing. I’d forgotten how quickly time could pass, when things were going well.

Another train went by outside, and we sipped our champagne and watched as it hurtled off, into the big empty sky towards the ocean, heading the same way that all the trains passing through here seemed to go.

‘Why is there only one set of tracks?’ I asked the estate agent then. ‘Do the trains only go one way?’

‘I love Chet Baker too,’ he replied. ‘When you listen to his voice it feels impossible to imagine life not having love in it.’

It seemed such a beautiful thing for someone to say. We listened to the rest of that side of the album in silence, until we were left with just the sound of the needle knocking gently against the record’s centre. I looked around to the turntable then, and involuntarily caught sight of the sleeve of Green Day’s American Idiot, propped up on the shelf beside it. Who could have left that there, I wondered? I hated Green Day. And why did the train only go one way, straight out towards the sea? And who was this estate agent, anyway, and why had he been so insistent that that couple from before wear their coats? Where had they been going, that couple? Where were they now? All of this uncertainty threatened to surge up within me, and spoil the fragile beauty of the moment. I took a large gulp of champagne, and felt immediately better.

‘So,’ the estate agent said then. ‘You want this house, don’t you?’

I looked out at the sunset, and I thought about the beginnings of things. I made myself remember how life with Luke had felt, all the way back at its beginning. There had been our first date – all nervous laughter and cocktails by the Thames – and then the day we’d moved into our flat in London. We’d had champagne then, too, hadn’t we? And we’d danced to jazz – sort of like I’d just done now, in fact. Though back then we’d been surrounded by boxes, the record player and corkscrew being the first things we’d unpacked. This did feel a little like that day, didn’t it? Maybe this was how beginnings felt, I told myself. Maybe this could be a beginning.

‘It’s yours, if you want it. Just say the word.’

‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘I want it. I do.’

‘I know,’ he told me. His tone was soft, gentle, steadying, as he held out his hand for me to shake. I grasped it, expecting it to feel warm and strong, but it didn’t. Instead, the touch of his skin left me feeling oddly chilled.

From issue #11: spring/summer 2021

About the Author
Naomi Ishiguro was born in London, in 1992. Her first collection of stories, Escape Routes, was published by Tinder Press in 2020, and her first novel, Common Ground, in March 2021. She is a recent graduate of the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MFA programme.