A Tale of Two Flats

It was neither the best of times nor the worst of times. Overall I’d say it was simply the longest of times.

We walked out of our house in El Cerrito on Saturday at 8:30AM. Two trains and two planes later we arrived in Brighton on Sunday about half past noon. We rolled our suitcases down Queens Road and toward the sea and it all felt very familiar and easy. Well, as easy as things can be after 12 hours of hurtling through the sky at 600 miles an hour. At the time, strolling and rolling down toward the sea seemed downright relaxing.

We were due to meet our landlord in the hotel lobby and he would show us up to our flat. This is the same man who rented us our old flat, 15A, last year. The man who gave Sam a giant teddy bear two days before we flew home for Christmas. This time 15A was unavailable, so we would be housed in 11A.

But when the landlord shows up he informs us that 11A is not yet ready. How long? we ask. I am wondering if it will be days. “Oh, a couple of hours,” he says.

No sweat, say the weary travelers.

Then he says what to me seem like two cryptic and unrelated things.

To AC: “Your company cost me 20 thousand pounds because they did not tell me the correct dates of your stay.”

And to all of us: “11A is not ready but I will give you a choice. We will also look at 8A.”

AC and the landlord talk for a bit about how AC’s boss and HIS family are coming the next day. Apparently one family will have 11A and the other family 8A. But WE get to choose.

Then as we take the lift up to the 7th floor, the landlord proceeds to tell us all of the ways in which 8A is not suitable for us because we have a small child. The tiles floors are rough. The stairs are metal. Etc.

First we look at 11A. Two women are cleaning it. It’s in the midst of renovations. The carpet is new. The kitchen is new. The bathroom is not. But the flat is great. View of the sea from the living room, plus a balcony. Sam is delighted with the carpet and almost immediately starts to roll around like a puppy.

The landlord is telling us various improvements planned for the future as though we are potential buyers or investors. We are indeed not.

Then it’s on to 8A. 8A is artsy-funky with its silvery staircase and twisted metal sculpture pretending to be a railing. There is a galley kitchen and huge master bedroom on the entry floor. Upstairs is the living room, dining room, bathroom with clawfoot tub, 2 bedrooms and a rooftop terrace.

8A has a very lived in, B&B feel to it. The landlord reveals that he does not in fact own the unit, but has rented it in order to sublet it to AC’s employer.

It’s very, very nice, but it’s not us: no shower above the tub would drive AC crazy. Dining room upstairs from the kitchen would drive me nuts. Plus, it’s way more room than we need.

AC and I don’t even need to confer. We both want 11A for our 4 week stay and we don’t mind waiting a couple more hours until it’s ready. To my surprise, the landlord keeps pushing 8A.

“Well, you have 11A for this week– that is settled. Then after you can decide. You can have 8A to move into. I am going to make 11A much more special– you will see.”

I come out and ask him, “What would be easier for you?”

He says, “Oh, whatever you want, whatever you want.”

And then he proceeds to push the idea of us spending one week in 11A and three weeks in 8A.

Our landlord is Algerian and owns properties in Brighton, London, and Algeria. I figure that there is some cultural misunderstanding at work here, but I am at a loss as to what it is exactly.

But for the time being we are to live in 11A… as soon as it’s ready. The landlord says give him two hours and he gives us the keys to both 11A and 8A. We can use 8A, he says, to relax.

We move our bags into the master bedroom of 8A. I remember that we have a small gift for the landlord– truffles from a San Francisco chocolatier. I ask Sam to present the box and she is more than happy to hand them over, announcing loudly, “They’re chocolates for you!” The landlord seems both touched and caught off guard. Then he asks out of the blue,

“Do you have a membership to the hotel pool and gym?”

Recall that the flats he owns are on the top floors of a hotel.

No we do not.

“Then you will have 4 weeks membership on me.” He starts to write our names down. “I will take care of it when I go downstairs.”

Now it is our turn to be somewhere between touched and caught off guard.

The landlord leaves us then to go work on 11A. We walk down to the Regency pub where we doze through Sunday roast and a couple of hands of Uno. Sam seemed to win every time. Of the three of us, she’d had the most sleep on the flight.

Then we walk over to Waitrose and buy breakfast foods for the following morning. This was all part of the original plan: get the keys to our flat. Go eat at the pub. Buy breakfast foods. Go back to the flat and hope that it’s late enough for us to declare it bedtime.

We go back to our flat. 11A, that is. It’s still not ready. We go to our other flat. 8A. There’s a French photographer in it taking photos of the rooms. He is embarrassed. We are confused. Will we ever have a flat to call our own?

At this point everything becomes fuzzy around the edges. I think Sam and AC played a game of Junior Monopoly and then watched something on BBC. At 4PM the landlord finally rings and tells us that 11A is ready for us.

The flat is fine. I am ready to bunk down in the hallway. The landlord makes several vague promises about having the windows cleaned (lots of gulls outside) and he also seems to be worried that the extra sheets will not fit Sam’s bed, and his concerns and promises are sounding more and more like the gulls screeching on the roof. Noise. Noise I can ignore because there are beds here. Beds meant for us. Beds that are not hurtling over land and sea at 600 miles an hour.

I no longer recall when it was, but eventually AC and I had a chance to process the whole bizarre landlord encounter. And of course AC’s take on it made perfect sense:

1. The boss and family who are staying in 8A this week are there for this week ONLY.
2. We have three more weeks to go after that.
3. The boss has 2 older children. 8A has three bedrooms. That’s a good fit.
4. If we agree to move into 8A after the boss family moves out, then the landlord can continue to work on the 11A renovations. To “make it really special.”
5. If we stay in 11A, then the landlord gets no work done for three weeks AND 8A goes unlet after the landlord has already rented it for four weeks.

Now the funny thing to me is that if the landlord had said point blank: “You’re going to live in 11A for one week and then 8A for the remaining three” I would have grumbled, but I would have gone along with it. AC’s employer is paying for our lodging. It’s all a gift in my view. I’ll just go where I’m told.

In four more days the “choice” will be upon us again. We’re already pretty well ensconced in 11A. It will take some powerful incentive to dislodge us, I think.

Oh, but let’s not forget about that free pool and gym membership! When I asked AC, “What do you think that was?” he replied without hesitation,

“A bribe.”

So it’s possible that we might be provided further “incentive” to move to flat 8A. Just as long as it’s not another giant bear.