Nigel
‘Who let it get in this state?’
‘Not me. I’ve been away.’
‘How long for? Fifty years?’ Mike chuckled.
‘About half that. I guess the sea air hasn’t helped.’
‘Well.’ Mike clutched his iPad closer to his chest. ‘You’re looking at at least ￡50k.’
‘All in?’
‘Might be a bit extra if you want us to take the rubbish away?’
‘I hadn’t planned to use it to build a garden feature, so yes please.’
Mike wrote something down on his iPad, and started taking photos of the court from various angles.
‘Is ￡50k your best price?’ Nigel asked.
‘I always give clients my best price.’
‘How much would it be to put an inflatable cover over it for the winter?’
‘Another ￡30k at least, but you haven’t got the space unless we chop down those trees. And we’d have to look at permission potentially.’ He nodded at the house. ‘Listed is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d advise you to take up another sport in the winter.’
‘How about if we built the court in our barn instead?’
‘Depends how big your barn is.’
‘It’s pretty big. I’ll show you.’
They walked up the steps to the top garden, out of the back gate and up to the road.
‘That’s the barn,’ Nigel said.
‘Hmmm, can I see inside?’
Nigel got the keys out of his coat pocket, unlocked the padlock, and pulled open one of the doors. ‘We’d clean it out, obviously.’ He’d had a quick look in here yesterday evening, but it looked even messier with the bright morning sun streaming through the door.
Mike got out his laser measuring tool. There was more teeth-sucking.
‘The bad news is that it’s not big enough for a tennis court. The good news is you could have a padel court in here. Nice size for it, actually. And suits the older player.’
Nigel didn’t like the way he looked him up and down when he said that.
‘I’m still up to playing regular tennis, thanks.’