Interior Life of an Estate Agent

Interior Life of an Estate Agent - part 17

Good Evening Mr Bond

There are two couples to take round a little house on a new estate on the edge of town and I have strict instructions to make sure that the cat must not get out. I’m dreading this because I imagine a swift little beast slipping through our legs as soon as we open the front door. There’s no sign of it though and we all squeeze in, afraid to open the door wider than our sideways body widths, and close it with relief.

Monsieur Chat peeps seductively round a door frame leading into the living room, delicately places a furry paw onto the hall carpet and sways towards us, allowing his body to brush lingeringly against the paintwork.

Truly, this is Blofeldt’s cat. Condemned to a life indoors, his only pleasures are sensory. He is brushed, smoothed, fondled, and caressed. The world beyond the window; a world of territorial disputes, raking claws and screams in the night, is unknown to him.

He slinks towards me, arching his back with pleasure and kinking his tail in an attitude of camp affectation.

I bend down to make false friends, and stroke his marvellously fluffy coat, recoiling slightly at his face which appears scrunched right up as though he’s anticipating a sudden impact. He unsqueezes his face and gazes up into mine. As I peer into his, the full hideousness of his visage is revealed. His eyes have a look of pure evil.

Lock him up. Run away, run away.

Comments

Running ‘till your nipples bleed

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Ian McEwan. Amsterdam. London: QPD, 1998

McEwan’s novel about ambition, personal betrayal and revenge features Clive, a modern composer trying to complete a major orchestral work, his friend Vernon, an editor trying to save his ailing newspaper, and Garmony, an unscrupulous right-wing politician on the rise. In common, all three have, in previous years, been lovers of recently dead Molly. They meet at her funeral and the story follows the next few weeks of the men’s lives. Vernon and Clive act as one another’s conscience, each infuriating the other. Which is more important, honesty, friendship and trust or Vernon’s newspaper and Clive’s symphony? The novel presents the difficulties of balancing personal and public morality, the importance of private shame and public reputation, the conflict between taking a moral decision for the greater good, or putting first ones own desires. Not just a simple exposé of a politician with a vulnerable side, Amsterdam is full of double standards and surprises, and takes a long, cynical look a...

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