Se Vende

 

The creaking gate announced someone's arrival. Even WD-40 every day didn’t stop it. Vic looked at Jean on the sofa. They could see a man through the window. He stood on the cracked flags of the patio; as if he were an incompetent burglar, casing the joint, in broad daylight. Fine, there was no bell, but, well, you would shout a wavering “Hello! Hello there!” wouldn’t you? Or maybe even “Hello, the house!”, although that did strike Vic as a little...American.  

‘Go on, Vic, see to him,’ Jean said

Vic sighed, opened the front door and stepped out into the garden. A patch of grass and a lemon tree, the rest a gravelled drive and a large expanse of patio.  They both had black fingers rather than green. He saw a man, young you might say, if you were as old as Vic. The hand was out, Vic took it.

‘Señor Tomps-on?’

‘Ah… Thompson, yes.’

‘You are selling your beautiful house? I see the sign.’

Vic looked over his shoulder shouted through the open front door,

‘It’s one of those damn cor-corry-’

‘Chancers,`Jean finished the sentence off for him.

‘Correadores,’ Vic said, under his breath.

The man was speaking again – had he winked?

‘Ramon Gutierrez Silva de La Mancha, at your service. I am not a-’

The man looked up and to the right,

‘a state agent.’

The man’s eyes were so brown as to be black, as though his eyes were all pupil and white.

‘He says he’s not an estate agent, Jean.’

‘Well, what does he want then?’

Vic looked at the man and shrugged. Mr Gutierrez Silva de La Mancha had the tiniest patch of hair under his bottom lip. What were they called?  Soul patches, that was it.

The man put an arm around Vic’s shoulder, gestured with the other at the house, the garden and toward the interior of the house.

‘I can help you, Victor. With everything.’

The man put his free hand behind Vic’s ear and flourished a business card between the index and middle finger. Vic took it. The card was like those magic rings where the image changed when you moved it. There were no images, just lettering. The man’s ridiculously long name changed to what was presumably the name of his company.

“Magia Potagia S.L.”

Well, anyone could set up a limited company, or print a card with the letters S.L. on it, couldn’t they?

The man clapped his hands, the sun came out from behind the clouds. In fact, the sky had cleared altogether. It looked more like September than the solstice.

‘I need to look around the outside of the house first, Victor.’

Jean shouted, “Does he want tea? No… of course not. Coffee? You’ll make him coffee won’t you, Vic?

Ramon etcetera raised both eyebrows at Vic, shook his head and raised a forefinger to his lips. His nails were awfully long, Vic thought, perhaps he played Spanish guitar in his spare time.

The sun was warm, the man had a long cashmere coat and a rose in its buttonhole. Vic couldn’t decide whether the coat was blue or black, but he knew the man should have been sweating but he looked as cool as a costa breeze.

‘You have heard of alternative therapies, Victor? Ayurvedic principles?’

Vic felt that the man was looking inside him, tracing his insides with an invisible finger. He nodded.

‘People dismiss those too. As magic, I mean.’

They both looked up at the house’s façade. The stucco was cracked and worn. You could paint the exterior of a house every year and it would make no difference. The Andalucian climate was hard on all but the cathedrals of Seville and Cordoba.

‘I do “alternative therapies”. If people think it’s magic, I don’t mind. Vaya! I have it on my card. My  little joke.’

He laughed. A low sound; laughter at someone else’s expense,  with a sly invitation to join in.

‘Do you believe, Victor?’

The man leaned towards him. Victor felt the man would have fingered a lapel if Vic had been wearing a suit instead of campo clothes. Victor looked down at his sweat pants and the faded blue slippers on his feet.

‘Believe in what?’

‘Anything! Anything at all!’

This time it was a belly laugh and Vic did join in.

They continued to walk round the exterior of the house.  Vic caught sight of the man’s shadow. It didn’t seem to move right. When it fell on the car it didn’t change, there was no fold. Vic moved to cast his own shade on the old Ford, but the sun went behind a single returning cloud. They arrived at the rear of the house.

‘We will go up onto the terrace, Victor, yes?’

Vic nodded, opened the gate at the foot of the stairs and swept an arm across his body, giving a slight bow. He felt ridiculous, but then, he was showing a stranger round his house. That was the trouble with a sign on the gate. People ignored the telephone number and walked right in. Vic locked the gates after dark, as a rule. Maybe he’d start locking them all day.

The man preceded Vic up the concrete stairs. The steps made a right turn at the top and they were not of uniform size. Most people stumbled the first time they used them. The man calling himself Ramon did not. The terrace had sold the house to Vic, all those years ago. After moving to Malaga province they’d realised that it was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. In general, autumn and spring lasted a day each. The views were beautiful. A 360 degree panorama as the estate agents put it on their websites.

The man turned in a circle, an arm outstretched,

‘What can I offer a man who has all this, Victor?’

It was a clear day, Ramon et cetera had stopped his slow-motion pirouette and his left arm was pointing directly at the Sierra Nevada over one hundred miles away as the crow flew.

‘We just want to sell our house. I doubt you can help us.’

‘Let me try. No sale, no fee.’

‘What is the fee? We’re not rich, we need all the money from the sale. Then there are the taxes...’

‘My payment will not inconvenience you. Besides, I will give you a lifetime to pay.’

‘A lifetime? Maybe you won’t have to wait so long.’

‘But I could, no one has ever called me impatient.’

Vic laughed, and said, ‘Okay, why not?’

‘Why not, indeed, Victor?’

The man produced a tablet from the cashmere’s inside pocket. He made several swiping motions before presenting the screen to Vic.

‘A thumb print, Victor. Your left. I prefer the left. The left-hand path, the left luggage, the left is always much more interesting, though people will prefer the right, I find. Thank you.’

The man clapped his hands three times and said ‘Abra Cadáver.’

Vic laughed.

‘It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Most people expect it. Especially those expecting miracles. Don’t worry, Victor. The magic occurred when I opened your gate.’

Vic saw the man out. There was no car on the deserted street. The man walked away. Vic lost sight of him before he reached the main road, but then his glasses were on the table in the lounge.

He closed the gate. ‘Jean! Jean! He’s gone. What a weirdo!’

The front door was closed. He was sure it had been open.

In the lounge, the sofa was empty.