‘Well – nice to have met you, Bee – and John. See you around.’
Bee smiled to herself at the old lady’s closing blast of modern lingo and then the lift creaked and clanked and began its snail’s-pace journey back down to the lobby. She walked down the corridor towards number twenty-seven – her new flat.
Mr Arif was sitting on the sofa, going through some paperwork, but stood up abruptly and let his papers fall to the floor when he saw her walk in.
‘Oh, no no no no, madam. No no no.’ He was crossing his hands in front of his chest and shaking his head quite violently. ‘This is simply not allowed. This animal. It must go. Now.’ He pointed at John as if he were a sewer rat.
‘But – he’s my cat.’
‘Madam. I do not care if he is the cat of the Queen. No animals, of any description, allowed in any of my properties. It must go – now.’
‘But he’s an indoor cat. He’s never been outdoors. He’s fully house-trained, he’s quiet and he doesn’t even moult and …’
‘Madam. I have no interest in the personal characteristicsof your animal. All I know is this – it must leave. Now.’
Bee wanted to cry. She wanted to hit Mr Arif. Really hard. In fact, the way she was feeling right now, after the events of last night, she’d really quite like to kill him. With her bare hands. Put her hands around his big squishy neck and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until he went purple and his eyes started bulging and then …
‘Miss Bearhorn. Please. Remove this animal. I cannot give you the keys until this animal is gone.’
He’s not an animal, she wanted to scream, he’s a human being. Bee could feel her temper building, a pounding in her temples, a painful lump in the back of her throat. She took a deep breath.
‘Please. Mr Arif.’ She perched herself on the edge of the sofa. ‘I need time to think. I need …’
‘Madam. There is no time to think. These keys remain in my pocket until I can no longer see your animal.’
Bee lost her battle to control her anger. ‘OK. OK, fine!’ She leapt to her feet and grabbed John’s carrier by its handle. ‘Fine. Forget it, then. Forget this flat. I don’t like it anyway. I want my money back. Take me to your office and give me my money back.’
Mr Arif smiled at her indulgently. ‘May I draw some points to your attention at this moment, most charming Miss Bearhorn. First of all, the contract is signed and your money is on its way to the bank. It is too late for any form of cancellation. And second of all, are you really wanting to take away all of your possessions when you have just this minute carried them up here? Possibly it would be easier to leave your animal with a friend or family?’
Bee looked around her at the piles of boxes and decided that although she’d be more than happy to sacrifice every penny of the cash she’d given Mr Arif in exchange for a place where John would be welcome, she really couldn’t stomach the thought of lugging this stuff all the way back downstairs, with Mr Arif watching her with his smug little raisin-eyes, and then having to find another letting agency and look at another flat and go through this rigmarole all over again. So she took a deep breath and decided to lie.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘no problem, Mr Arif. None at all. You’re absolutely right. I’ll just make a call and find an alternative home for my – er – animal.’
She pulled her mobile phone from her bag and dialled in a made-up number.
‘Hi!’ she said breezily, to an unavailable tone, ‘it’s Bee. Are you around? Cool. I need you to do me a favour. Can I leave John with you? I don’t know. For a while. Three months at least. Really? You don’t mind? God – thank you. That’s brilliant. You’re a star. I’ll be round in about ten minutes. OK. See you then.’
‘All is sorted out?’
‘Yes,’ she beamed, tucking her mobile phone back into her handbag, ‘all is sorted out.’
Outside the block, she agreed to meet Mr Arif at his office later to pick up the keys and then watched his huge arse swinging its way back down the street towards his offices in Chiltern Street. She gave his receding back the finger and stuck out her tongue. ‘Fucking tossy wankhead arseknob shitbagcunt,’she murmured under her breath, before leaning towards the cab driver, who was waitingimpatiently for her to unload her last few boxes and pay her fare.
‘Hi!’ she beamed, switching on the charm, ‘there’s been a slight change of plan. I need you to drive around the block a bit with my cat.’
‘You what?’ The fat cab driver looked at her in horror.
‘You heard me,’ she hissed, ‘just take the cat and drive around a bit. I’ll meet you back here in half an hour.’
The driver’s expression softened when Bee forced three tenners into his sweaty hand. ‘There’ll be more where that came from when you bring him back. OK?’
‘Whatever,’ he shrugged, folding up his copy of theRacing Post.‘Whatever.’
She slipped John’s box on to the passenger seat and tickled him under the chin. ‘You be a good boy,’ she whispered into his ear, ‘I’ll see you in half an hour. Be good.’ And then she closed the door and felt tears tickling the back of her throat as she watched the car pull away and her beloved cat disappearing into the early evening London traffic.
She sighed and made her way to a Starbucks, where she sat for a few moments sipping an Earl Grey tea and taking stock of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Her life, as she knew it, was over. And all she had to show for it was as much as she could fit into the back of an Astra estate. She had no idea why she’d left her flat, no idea what she was doing moving into this one. It was just a gut reaction, really, to what had happened last night. And in a strange way it felt sort of … preordained.
After ten minutes she picked up her bag and headed for Mr Arif’s office. He looked thrilled to see hersanscat andhanded over the keys with what seemed to be unbridled joy.
