Chapter 3
Early the next day, I drove into Compney Parva to see probably my only friend in this part of the world.
Sonia Bliss had been my estate agent when I purchased the cottage. We’d moved on since then to breaking and entering, and I saw a kindred spirit in her. Someone else who was able to force a smile for the outside world when they didn’t really feel it on the inside.
I parked my faithful Green Mobile on the high street and walked into Bliss Real Estate.
The office was two shops knocked into one.
The larger had been a butcher’s and retained some of the old tiling and ornate Edwardian designs of the former business.
Halfway down the internal wall was an opening with a step down to the smaller of the two former shops, reflecting Compney’s steep high street.
The larger of the two rooms had a handful of desks but was mostly taken up by a reception and sitting area.
In the room, I was greeted by the sight of Dhapinder Bliss, Sonia’s sister-in-law, and a much fiercer estate agent who had parked herself at the semi-circle sofa that took up half the room.
She had lacquered nails, a full blowout of her long black hair, and an expensive jacket over a well-fitted blouse.
“Mr Forrest,” she called out, standing up. “What a pleasure. What can we do for you?” She had the carefully considered glance of a salesperson; would I be buying? Did she need to have the charm on, or would surface-level politeness be okay in this instance?
I smiled back. “Hi, Dhapinder. I’m here to see Sonia.” I glanced around. There were several more staff in the next room. As I looked through, I saw Dhapinder’s excruciatingly attractive husband, Trevor, sitting at one of the desks, showing a middle-aged couple houses on his laptop.
Dhapinder tracked my eyeline. All too aware of her husband’s aesthetically pleasing disposition.
She gave me a shark’s smile. “I’m afraid Sonia’s out at the moment, showing a potential buyer around a farm building near Winterborne Minster, but she should be back any second.
Is there anything wrong with the property? ”
Property. That most annoying of estate agent words. It’s a house, or a home, not a property. It’s somewhere to live, not a commodity. Of course, even I didn’t say this and instead smiled back. “Not a problem, I’ll go get a coffee,” I said.
“You’re more than welcome to wait here,” she said with a flourish and directed me to the enormous sofa in the ‘waiting area’. I felt torn. “Uhhh …” I failed to think of a reason why not and instead meekly walked over and took a seat on the faux-velvet (polyblend) sofa in an art deco style.
I was glad, despite the hot weather, that I hadn’t opted for shorts and flip flops today, but instead chinos and plimsolls. “Coffee?” Dhapinder asked, gesturing towards their Nespresso machine.
“That’d be lovely.”
“You look like a man who likes an espresso?” she said, fiddling with the pods.
I was a man who liked his coffee weak, milky, and sweet, but I smiled instead.
“Perfect.” I leaned forward and looked through the alcove to the next room and saw several staff tapping away on keyboards.
A phone rang, and a thick Dorset accent belonging to one of the keyboard-tappers answered it. “Bliss Real Estate, how can I help?”
“Business is good then, I take it?” I said, benignly.
“More than good. We’re too busy to know what to do with ourselves. Can barely keep up with demand.”
I smiled graciously as she brought me a coffee and set it on the table. “Good to hear,” I said. “I suppose Trevor and Sonia’s dad must be glad his legacy is thriving?”
“The business is ours now,” Dhapinder said with a forced smile. Oh, touchy subject.
“Of course,” I stuttered. “Got to put your mark on it.”
“Quite,” she replied and took a seat at a desk, where she gave me a look that could lose you a finger.
“Arden!” came a voice from outside. I turned and saw Sonia peering through the glass of the front window. “What are you doing here?” she called.
Dhapinder rolled her eyes and beckoned Sonia in. “For goodness’ sake, Son, don’t stand at the window like a twit, come inside.” She tried to not shake her head at her overenthusiastic sister-in-law but failed.
Sonia entered with a clattering of bags, heels, paper, and dumped it all on another desk. Dhapinder winced slightly at the damage to her pristine aesthetics.
Wearing a short, tight skirt and a low-cut blouse with her jacket sitting heavily on her shoulder, she was clearly ruffled by the warm weather. Her face was red, her blonde bob slightly tousled and not helped by the large sunglasses she’d perched haphazardly on her head.
She cracked open a can of Diet Coke and fanned herself. “Scorching outside. Lovely – but scorching.” Her face searched mine for why I was here.
“Arden’s been waiting for you, Son,” Dhapinder said, offering the information when no other conversation was forthcoming.
If truth be told, I hadn’t spoken to Sonia in weeks and was starting to feel awkward.
“I was hoping we could grab lunch?” I said, rather lamely.
Sonia instantly brightened. “Yeah, sounds great. I’ll go freshen up.” She hopped across the room to a door at the back, which I assumed led to the staffroom and toilets. “Hope you’re taking me somewhere fancy.”
Just as she disappeared, the bell above the door in the room next to us chimed as Trevor led his customers out.
“I’ll be in touch about the house on Stinkbottom Lane.
In the meantime, do give our website a peruse, okay, bye for now.
” The door closed, and Trevor’s very fine form walked up the steps to the room we were in. He saw me and gave a big smile.
“Mr Forrest,” he said, offering a huge hand. I took it and felt a guilty twinge in my nether regions. “How nice to see you, I was saying to Son the other day, ‘We haven’t seen your mate Arden in a while, how’s he keepin’ on?’, wasn’t I, Dhaps, love?”
His accent was as strong as his sister’s, and somehow the deepness of his voice meant it had a bit more aplomb.
“You were indeed,” she said, folding her arms and leaning forward in her chair.
“Dhapinder has been telling me how busy you’ve been,” I said. Too busy for early morning shagfests on your runs, I bet, I thought. She must have you on a tight leash these days.
Thinking of Trevor on a tight leash did nothing for my suddenly too-small boxer shorts, and I wiped the thought from my mind.
“Very,” he said. “But who complains about business being good, eh?” He gave me a twinkly smile that lit up his perfectly shaped, perfectly clean-shaven face.
“Right,” said Sonia, bustling back in. “I’m off for lunch, back in an hour.” She came over to me, grabbing her bag as she passed her desk and barging Trevor out of the way.
“Take all the time you need,” her brother said.
Sonia was taken aback by this. “Oh, no, I’ve a million and seven things to do this afternoon.”
“No, no, take your time,” Dhapinder agreed. “Bye, Arden, lovely to see you again.” She gave a small wave.
I meekly offered a wave back, and with a final surreptitious (at least I hope it was) glance at Trevor’s crotch, I dragged a confused Sonia outside.
Once we were in my car, I started in on them. “Good God, those two are like being interrogated by the Gestapo.”
It was nothing they said – quite the opposite. But it felt like being circled by sharks. First sign of blood, and they would have you.
Sonia gulped the last of her Coke. “I know, Trevor’s gone from being a laugh to dead serious the last couple of months. Him and Dhaps have all sorts of plans for the business they’ve been working on. Never mind that I own half the company, and Dhaps doesn’t own a thing; they act like it’s theirs.”
“I see,” I said. “But you wanted out anyway, right?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the family business. I don’t want to leave. Just felt like I was never any good at it. But those two … they’re being dead secretive. All – what’s the word – furtive.”
She shook her head and shrugged again. “Right, where are we going for lunch?”
I hesitated. “So, I may have lied.”
“Arden!” she said, her tone severe. “I am not breaking and entering again.”
I laughed. “No, nothing like that, this is all legal,” I explained the situation.
“Politics?” she said in disgust as I drove the short distance from Compney Parva to Sittingston. The view across the land was of parched fields that desperately needed rain, but even the farmers had shut up for once and were keen to enjoy the once-in-a-generation summer.
“Look, we both need to socialise more,” I said firmly.
“Speak for yourself.” She folded her arms.
“Fine, I need to socialise more, and I’m dragging you along for moral support.”
She gave a small nod at this.
“Please?”
“Well,” she said. “You’ve already kidnapped me, so I can hardly say no, can I?”
The church hall was packed when we got there. Sonia took off her sunglasses as we emerged from the car. “People actually care about politics?” she said.
“I know, it’s a crazy concept, Son,” I said. We would educate Sonia about a citizen’s responsibility and civic duty another time.
We walked into the hall, probably tipping the scales from none to more than one in ten people without grey hair.
The room was full, with little white heads floating about in sensible pantsuits across the space.
At the front – difficult not to see – was a woman whose naturally jet-black hair reflected in the summer sunshine that was streaming in from the windows.
“There’s Gella,” I said.
“Is she going to be nice to me this time?” Sonia asked.
Gella clearly decided she would be as she gave Sonia a kiss on the cheek when we arrived.