Capital

work done, so had called to make an appointment and give a quote. Work, thank God for work. While he was at work he didn’t have to think about Davina and about the dead end, the impasse, the stuck-with-his-leg-in-a-bear-trap disaster he had made of his own life; he managed not to think about those things for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. They were a good ten or fifteen minutes, the best of his day.
    Zbigniew assessed the house professionally as he stood there: he knew these buildings well. Decent condition, ugly but sound. A kind of job he’d done many times: make it less unfashionable, less out of date, fix up the wiring, bit of plumbing. A decent-size job. Quote in the high single figures.
    The woman he’d spoken to over the phone opened the door; she looked tired and older than she had sounded. Mrs Mary Leatherby. She had the air of someone not giving the matter immediately in front of her her full attention. Zbigniew knew how that felt. It was fine with him. He had no interest in her either. She showed him round the downstairs. It was as he thought. Linoleum. Strip and repaint, take out the kitchen, put in a new one from a kit. Check the wiring. Zbigniew guessed that it would be OK; it didn’t look as if the place was broken, just tired. The toilet under the stairs was horrible and she wanted to take it out. He’d have to get help with that, which wouldn’t be a problem. Quote in the low teens. He scribbled in his notebook.
    The sitting room was also straightforward. From the choices she was making it was obvious that Mrs Leatherby wanted to sell the house. Everything was going to be neutral, cream and white. Modern fittings. No problem; Zbigniew knew how to do that. More scribbling. Quote heading toward the middle teens. They continued going around the house. There was a bathroom upstairs, in more or less the same condition as the one downstairs, except this was for renovation rather than removal. More work for subcontractors, no problem. New bath and shower and basin and cupboards and fittings, good margin on all that, subs would be happy. Quote in the middle teens.
    ‘There’s another bedroom but we can’t go in there,’ said Mrs Leatherby. She showed him into a little study bedroom where she had been sleeping on a sofa bed. There was an opened, unpacked suitcase on the table and a photograph of a man and three children beside it. They went upstairs. The linoleum here would be going also, maybe to be replaced by carpet. That was a specialist job he could not do but he wouldn’t tell her that yet, he could put something in the figures and outsource it later, besides she had so little idea of what she wanted it would be premature to be too clear. The client not sure of what they want – every builder’s nightmare, every builder’s dream. Upstairs, two more bedrooms, both dark and poky, a small bathroom, ditto, a loft which had not been converted. He went up there and took a look: it was the usual – unlagged, warm and humid, with low exposed wooden beams and a centimetre-thick layer of dust. He could get in a crew to do this but it would be a step bigger than any job he had taken on for himself.
    ‘We might do it up, or might leave it for the buyer. A rough quote is all we’re asking for. But then there’s the hassle, the permissions . . . the council . . .’
    Mrs Leatherby seemed to fade in and out. She was not always listening to herself. Zbigniew wondered what it was . . . wondered about the room he wasn’t supposed to be going into . . . wondered why it was she who was selling when it wasn’t her house. Then he got it. She was selling her mother’s house, and her mother was still alive. Not for long, obviously, or she wouldn’t be selling the house. But what it boiled down to, after all the rationalisations and justifications, was that she was getting builders’ quotations to renovate her mother’s house, in order to sell it after her mother’s death, while her mother was still in the house, dying. A feeling of wrongness grew in Zbigniew; a feeling that he was, by participating in this, doing something that he should not be doing.
    ‘I’m getting a few other people in,’ she said. ‘A few quotes. You were recommended . . . I told you that. Rough figures to start with then something more specific. I’ll have more idea later when . . . Well, anyway, thank you for coming. Look around a bit more if you like. I’ll be in the kitchen.’
    Moving much quicker than before, she