MALCOLM
Thankfully, the walls do not have the consistency of sorbet.
Walking down the hallway, MALCOLM points through to the living room.
MALCOLM
There is the living room.
OFF SCREEN: JEMMA can only take so much of this. She watches at double speed to understand the bungalow has structures to do with mining close to its foundation and so intense structural work will need to be done by whoever purchases it.
CUT TO: The auction. HENRY (early thirties) has a Ewan McGregor look to him. He wins the bungalow for £38,000.
MALCOLM (VO)
The winning bid came from property surveyor Henry. I met up with him at the Blancmange Bungalow to find out his plans to give it less wobble.
OFF SCREEN: JEMMA is losing patience, she fast-forwards to the reveal.
The exterior of the house is now white where before it was pink.
MALCOLM (VO)
Well, bye bye, Blancmange Bungalow, hello to a fresh new start.
There is a montage showing each room in its rejuvenated state. Most of the rooms have been painted magnolia and have had new beige carpets fitted. HENRY is in the living room talking to an interviewer off camera.
HENRY
The structural stabilisation has been completed – at great expense – so the house is now totally safe and will have no further movement.
OFF SCREEN: JEMMA grows hopeful that a man this handsome, who has put so much money into fixing the house’s foundations, will keep it to live in. She remains this way when the estate agent gives their estimate and HENRY reacts by puffing out his cheeks in disbelief.
HENRY
Seems like a ridiculous amount of money. (Beat) Unfortunately, that does seem to be the going rate. The value in this area is only going to go up, so because of that I’m going to rent it out.
OFF SCREEN: JEMMA learns an important lesson. Even the handsome can be greedy bastards.
33
So far, all I know for certain is that the house from the show has since been sold and the company Henry owned it through was wound down a few years ago. Henry is a conundrum. It turns out men called Henry Hamilton who live in and around the Hamilton area are plentiful. I search ‘Henry Hamilton property developer’ and angrily press enter on the phone so hard it makes Gavin look up from their computer screen.
When I arrived at the office Gavin was not here, which was unusual. They usually arrive before everyone else. It was Brian who had opened up and was in the back office, his ring light shining while he spoke to his phone on the tripod about ‘the warrior’s mindset’, whatever that is. Prior to recording his pish, he’d left a Post-it note asking me to organise a delivery of the most expensive bouquet the florists would do for his lover, and one of a mid-size arrangement for Leanne, and for me to compose a message of my choice on both. This radicalised me even further against him. Brian needs to be exposed as soon as is possible as far as I’m concerned, because it’s starting to feel like I’m the one having the affair and I have enough on my plate as it is. To keep things simple I put the same message on each bouquet, worded in such a way that they would prompt a conversation at the very least:Love is complex, isn’t it? - Bri x
10:00 am came and went and still Gavin wasn’t here. The longer they were missing, the more I thought about the events of last night and grew increasingly annoyed with Gavin. How dare they abscond at the first sign of things not going exactly to plan? So when they eventually arrived at 10:30 am saying the issues from last night had needed their attention this morning too, I’d built myself up to a fury.
‘That’s nice of you to stay around long enough to resolve an issue,’ I said as I typed inHenry Hamilton property South Lanarkshire.Gavin flinched as I smacked the phone and received no useful results.
My own phone buzzes. It’s Amara.
Checking ok to get everything for Thursday?
Oh good, another person bothering me.
YES
I respond, and then follow up with:
