ONE OF THOSE 'OUSES

“Right you are!  You’ve made an excellent choice. Yeah-yeah-yeah, good little buy,” Jason, the estate agent said smiling at Mr and Mrs Baynes standing in front of him.  They’d been the first people to look round the house and they’d offered the asking price immediately having fallen madly in love with the property.  Now they were showing it to their three children, all aged under seven years.  The kids tore round the rooms, yelling and shrieking, shattering the peace.  Mr and Mrs Baynes did nothing to check their behaviour.
“Children should express themselves,” Mr Baynes told Jason, while Mrs Baynes nodded in agreement.
“We never discipline them,” she added.  “Did the Underwoods give you an indication of when they’re able to move out?”
“These things usually take about eight weeks, don’t they?” Jason replied easily, “is there anything else you’d like to ask, see or measure?”
“Everything’s perfect,” the Baynes beamed at him, while their youngest child sat in the middle of the living room and began crying because the eldest was kicking her.  The piercing wails gave Jason a headache.  He wished they’d go, but they remained, gaving him a lecture on the benefits of Permissive Parenting, while their middle child sat and stared at the wall, rocking from side to side.
 

Once they’d gone, Jason sat on the Underwoods’ dowdy sofa to take a call from his wife.  “I’m at 19 Anne Street, the one I’ve sold - twice now - sold it ten years ago to the Underwoods – you know the couple with the adult children who wouldn’t get jobs.  Neighbours’ll be pleased to see them go, the rows they ‘ad!  Mind you, this next lot don’t seem any better.  Believe in the no-discipline approach to parenting!  Intellectuals, they are ... Yeah, people just seem to snap this ‘ouse up.  It’s funny ‘cos there’s a property exactly like it at the end of the street that’s been on the market for months, but number 19 – it’s One of Those ‘Ouses, ain’t it?  Nice atmosphere, despite ‘oo’s lived ‘ere.  Sells the minute it goes on the market, doesn’t even need a For Sale sign.  One of life’s mysteries ‘ow some places sell and some don’t ... yeah-yeah-yeah, I’ll be home for seven ... ‘bye love.”  He cut the connection and sat, massaging his temples.  “Never empty, are ya?  Always someone wantin’ ya.  Bet you’d ‘av appreciated a bit of peace and quiet,” he said and laughed at himself for talking to the house like it was a person.

At that precise moment, the nice atmosphere at number 19 changed.  Jason felt the hairs prick up on the back of his neck.  The living room got colder and he suddenly felt stifled and fearful.  It was almost as if he could hear the screaming rows the Underwoods had had and the family before that and the family before that and the family that was to come.  He felt the ups, the downs and the daily grind of human misery upon him.  He picked up his briefcase hurriedly.

“Couldn’t get out fast enough, that ‘ouse 'as baggage, it needs space,” he was to tell his wife later, after a few glasses of wine.  The other thing he told her quietly (and he never told anyone else) was he could have sworn blind that he only tugged the front door shut lightly, but it slammed with a resounding whack behind him.