by Henry VIII attends a bidding war for a two bedroom flat and loses to a couple named Tom and Priya
I confiscated the wealth of every monastery in England within a matter of years. A two bedroom flat in Walthamstow has now defeated me twice.
The Open House
Fourteen people arrived at the same viewing slot, each given exactly ten minutes to inspect a flat and privately calculate how much of their future they were willing to surrender for it. The estate agent, a young man named Oli wearing a suit slightly too large for him, stood in the kitchen repeating the phrase lots of interest to everyone individually, as though it were a spell rather than a sales technique, though I concede it worked on me regardless.
The Guide Price
The listing said offers over four hundred and twenty thousand pounds, a phrase I now understand to mean absolutely nothing, in the same way my promises to Catherine of Aragon meant absolutely nothing the moment a better arrangement presented itself. Oli confirmed the true expected price was closer to four hundred and sixty, information he shared only once I had already fallen in love with the airing cupboard.
Best And Final
Two days later Oli called requesting best and final offers by five o’clock Friday, a deadline with more genuine menace than most ultimatums I issued to entire nations. I submitted an offer I believed generous, financed partly through savings and partly through a documentary licensing deal for my life story, and I waited by the phone the way I once waited for word from Rome, except Rome eventually answered.
Tom And Priya
Oli called back to say the flat had gone to a couple named Tom and Priya, both in finance, who had offered eleven thousand pounds above asking and waived their survey entirely, a level of confidence I have only previously witnessed in men about to lead a doomed charge at Boulogne. I asked Oli to at least tell Tom and Priya I fought bravely. Oli said he does not typically pass along messages of that nature.
The Aftermath
I have since viewed six more flats, lost four more bidding wars, and developed a genuine respect for anyone in this city who has successfully purchased a home without dissolving a religious institution to fund it. Somewhere out there Tom and Priya are choosing paint colours in a flat that was, briefly, emotionally mine. I hope the airing cupboard haunts them. I have arranged for very little in this life to go unpunished, and I see no reason to start with Tom and Priya.
The Next Attempt
Oli has since added me to a mailing list for new instructions in the area, a small mercy I appreciate more than he probably intended. I view three flats a week now, purely for the material, and I have made a private vow that whichever property I eventually win, Tom and Priya’s names will never be spoken beneath that particular roof. Some grudges outlive kingdoms. This one, I suspect, will outlive the mortgage.
The full account of everything else I have lost since coming back lives permanently over on the homepage. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: the marriage that relocated quietly to zone six, the capital’s full field guide to modern grifts, the full eyewitness account of how I came back in the first place.
