Montague Avenue

This flat was expensive, but the experience with Marnock Road persuaded us that we just needed to start seeing places to understand what money could buy.  We’d been looking on the internet, but the stories those pictures told wasn’t necessarily an honest one. 
Case in point:  Montague Road, commanded a higher sale price than its size suggested due its prime location overlooking Hilly Fields.  It appealed because the road where our rented flat sat sprang off the same park.  We were happy there. Minimal change was good. 
It was another place currently being rented, although this time just two bedrooms sharing and in significantly better state.  The tenants had gone out for morning, no doubt irritated at being evicted by a landlord cashing in their chips for who knew what reason.  They left behind a neat and tidy flat, but with some odd signs.  A phenomenal amount of IT equipment, as though they were running a dotcom business, servers and multiple laptops, PCs and Macs, and, in the kitchen, seventy two cans of Strongbow.
It was nice enough, with a phenomenal view across the park which even in the early winter morning grey had an appealing hue to it.  Out the back was a nice garden.  So much green space one almost felt in the countryside and on the slope of a hill.  However, what the pictures had disguised was the strange shape of the bedrooms.  Double beds had been shoe-horned in, stuffed into ill fitting corners with pits of unusable space around them.  It’s not like I really believe in such things, but if I did then the feng-shui was definitely out of kilter.  I could see us living there, always compromising with the space’s restrictions.
1890:  Leonard looked out across the perfect spring vista settling on the morning.  The area had changed so much in such a short space of time.  He remembered, as a boy, passing through Brockley on his way to Sevenoaks with his parents to see Great Aunt Maud.  Back then it had been nothing but a few farms.  The houses had gone up so quickly, filling in the fields of summer strawberries; the brickworks which should have been visible just over the hummock his parlour look across had been demolished to make way the sculptured grass. 
The farm hands were all gone, replaced by the new moneyed middle classes, people like
Leonard, who worked for shipping magnates or in the city and wanted to live amongst space and clear air, away from the warrens of London.
Elsa was upstairs resting and, as it was a Sunday, Leonard had given the maids their leave.  Young Arthur, the pride of Leonard’s heart, was desperate to go outside and, curiously he thought, Leonard deemed to accompany him.  Arthur was only three years old, but already his endless energy, his growing determination of right meant that Leonard knew he’d someday make his country proud too. 
Leonard followed the tyke as he toddled straight across the road and out onto the public lawn.  The sun was strong and made the air artificially warm.  Two ladies, the widow of that fool who never came back from Argentina and her sister, sat underneath a parasol and watching the changing straggles of cloud hang in the still sky.
Arthur tripped and bounced on the ground.  Leonard looked down, but didn’t move.  His hands remained clasped in the small of his back.  Arthur’s lip wobbled, but then he clambered, silently, to his feet.
‘Good,’ Leonard said, to himself.  His boy, his Arthur, would come home.    
Remembering my antagonism towards estate agents when we’d been looking to rent, my girlfriend briefed me as we walked across Hilly Fields:  ‘Be friendly, don’t be aggressive.  We need these people on our side. They’ve got to think that we’re a nice couple.  They have to want to help us.’
‘Bollocks,’ I may well have replied.  ‘All they want is whoever can offer the most money for the place.’
The estate agent looked about twelve. 
As we emerged from the cellar which spanned the entirety of the double fronted house he said, obviously:  ‘Plenty of storage, as you can see.’ 
Another two couples were also sniffing around the flat; competition for his affections.  We were like the last few men in the student nightclub after the lights had come up and he was the only girl left, waiting for someone who promised they could get one more drink. 
Remember, be friendly, I thought.
‘Yeah, great.’  What’s the most impractical thing you could want to keep there?  ‘Ideal for surf gear.’
‘Are you sure we don’t like it?’ my girlfriend asked as we headed to our next appointment.  ‘I mean,’ she snorted ‘it’s perfect for all your surf gear.  All those wetsuits and the couple of boards you don’t have.  It’d just be great.’  I didn’t say anything as we continued our way. 
‘Dude.’