“Someone’s at the door!”
Sally’s plaintive cry bounced off the bathroom ceiling and echoed around the house.
Nestled into his armchair in his dressing gown and slippers, Mark paid no attention to either his wife or the front door. He had heard the imitation clarinet warble of their battery-powered door chime but had chosen to do nothing about it.
In all likelihood it would be just like all the other knocks on the door that had punctuated his retirement in the last nine months: offers of trees to be cut back or block paving restored, usually by travellers, passing through.
He straightened his newspaper with a vigorous shake and carried on reading. Or tried to.
The front door went again, this time accompanied by a rap of knuckles.
He sniffed and focused again on the paper. It was just past eight in the morning. Anybody with a genuine reason to speak to him at this time would call him on his phone.
Since he’d retired, one day had been pretty much like another. Only Sunday stood apart due to his insistence on attending their quaint suburban Anglican church for the morning service; he and his wife were part of a declining – and increasingly elderly – congregation. Yesterday had been the debut of the new vicar. He was a young progressive type who’d rubbed Mark up the wrong way. He’d said as much to Sally on the walk home.
“Well, he’s certainly different from Frank,” she’d observed.
Frank, who had died in harness, was from the old school – a smoker and a regular fixture in the pub.
“Was it really necessary for him to bring up Brexit?” Mark had asked. The new vicar’s sermon had been all about compassion and tolerance. Mark had felt as if the congregation was being lambasted for a dearth of these virtues.
As they continued their journey home, Sally had turned to her conversation with another churchgoer. “Alison said she and Doug are selling up. Moving down to the coast.”
“Why on earth would they want to do that?” Mark had asked.
“She said that now that the children had flown the nest, they’d found they were rattling around. Time to downsize, she said.”
“Rattling around, my foot,” Mark had thought. Doug was a failure. He’d tried to set himself up as a business consultant of some sort but had never really made a living as far as Mark could figure out.
“That’s what comes,” he’d said to Sally, “of using your house as a cashpoint. All those holidays, new cars and bathrooms. Chickens have a habit of coming home to roost.”
Leaning back in his armchair, he shook out his paper defiantly. They weren’t rattling around. Not even with five bedrooms. Far from it. He hadn’t built up his pension pot only to find that he needed to downsize in retirement. Quite the opposite. He’d built enough cash to expand the house even more. He’d long fancied a conservatory and stopping work was the perfect opportunity to do it. Only he’d been thwarted by the bloody council.
‘REFUSED’
One simple word on the council website.
There’d been no opportunity to make his case at the planning meeting. Just outright refusal. Mark had been raging about it ever since. For some reason, that blasted case officer had taken against him. Angus Beeney was his name. A short, weaselly little chap that had barely made eye-contact when he came to the house for the site visit. The little worm had oozed antipathy.
Beeney had, in the course of his duties, consulted the council’s tree officer who’d advised that the proposed construction would infringe the root protection area of the neighbour’s willow. REFUSED. As Mark had raged to Sally at the time, the tree was unprotected so why was it his problem if the roots came into his garden?
And here he was on a Monday morning, failing to take in anything in the newspaper, ruminating on Angus Beeney’s out of hand refusal and seething at the ward councillor’s failure to return his call. What could he do next? Appeal the decision? It could all get very costly.
There it was again. The ersatz clarinet doorbell and a rap of knuckles on the front door, this time considerably harder.
Mark sighed and stood up. He folded the newspaper neatly and laid it across the armrest of his chair before walking towards the front door, tightening the dressing gown rope around his waist.
He took a deep breath and opened the door.
“You!”
“Good morning, Mark. I’m Angus Bleeney.”
“I know who you are.” Mark fumed silently for a moment, unsure what to say next. “I’m not going to take your refusal lying down you know.”
“I haven’t come about your planning application,” said Angus. He clutched a clipboard to his chest. Mark noticed that he was better dressed than the last time he’d come. Rather than jeans, a polo-shirt and zip-up jacket, he now wore a dark two-piece suit and an open-necked shirt.
“You haven’t?” asked Mark.
Angus shook his head. “I’ve moved on from the planning department,” he said. “In fact,” he went on, standing slightly taller, “I’ve been promoted.”
Mark blinked. “Congratulations,” he said drily.
“Thank you.”
Conscious that he was standing in his open doorway in his dressing gown, Mark cleared his throat. “What’s your new job?”
“As of the first of this month,” said Angus, “my new role is Chief Billeting Officer.”
“Chief what?”
“Chief Billeting Officer,” repeated Mark, with emphasis on the second word. “In light of the new emergency housing legislation, the council has executed its emergency housing strategy.” He coughed lightly into his fist. “That’s why I’m here.”
Mark’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with me,” he said defiantly.
“I’m afraid,” said Angus smoothly, “that it’s got everything to do with you.”
“How?”
“Because your property is in the first tranche for implementation of the council’s spare bedroom strategy.”
“Spare bedroom strategy?” spluttered Mark.
“It’s happening all over the country,” said Angus with a smile. “We’ve got ten million spare bedrooms and do you want to know an interesting fact about them?”
“What?”
“Most are never used.” Mark opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. “Did you know,” Angus continued, “that two fifths of homeowners over sixty-five live in a home larger than they need.”
“I’m sixty,” said Mark weakly. “And surely it’s up to me what sort of home I need.”
Angus shook his head. “Housing emergency, mate!”
“I’m not your mate,” Mark said weakly.
Angus glanced down at his clipboard and squinted. “Remind me how many spare bedrooms you’ve got.”
“I don’t have to give you that information,” spluttered Mark.
“Actually,” said Angus, looking down again, “we have that already. Yes, this is a five bedroom property with two of you on the electoral register.” He looked up at Mark. “Out of your four spare bedrooms, how many are en suite?”
Mark swayed on his feet. He felt a little unsteady. “Two.”
“Excellent,” said Angus, making a note on his clipboard. He pulled a mobile phone from his inside jacket pocket and tapped on the screen, then held it to his ear.
“What’s going on?” asked Sally, appearing at the door wrapped in a bath towel.
“I’m at seventy-four Rushdene,” Angus said into his phone. “We’re looking at four available rooms, two en suite.” He nodded. “My thinking exactly. When can you get them here?” He scribbled on his clipboard. “Yes, I’m at the property now.”
“Get who where?” asked Sally.
“Can you explain what’s going on?” asked Mark, trying to sound indignant but instead hearing himself as weak and faint.
Angus returned his phone to his jacket pocket and glanced at Mark. “We’re assigning a housing emergency case to your property. With immediate effect.”
“But an Englishman’s home is his castle,” insisted Mark. “I’m not agreeing to any assignation of my property.”
Angus smiled. “We don’t need your permission. I’m taking enforcement action under powers awarded to the Council by the Emergency Housing Act of 2025.”
“Over my dead body!” said Sally, clutching her bath towel to her sternum.
A black mini-van with tinted windows arrived. The sliding door flew open and a family of five people stepped out. To Mark, the family appeared middle-Eastern in origin. A man and his head-scarf-wearing wife, possibly in their thirties, two small children and an elderly woman, also in her headscarf. Both the husband and wife carried large plastic laundry bags which they struggled to carry up the driveway.
“Follow me,” said Angus to the new arrivals.
“They’re not coming in here!” said Mark.
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what’s happening,” said Angus. “They’re viewing your first en suite and, if they accept it, we’ll get the emergency housing team to prep the room with bedding and general housing equipment.”
“For all of them?” asked Sally.
“Both of your en suites meet our requirements for family rooms.”
“And the rooms that aren’t en suite?”
“They’ll be dorms for single men,” said Angus. “They’ll have to share the bathroom on the landing.”
“These people,” said Mark. “Where are they from?”
“Gaza,” said Angus. “They need to come in and view your bedroom.”
“No!” said Mark firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m afraid,” said Angus, “that you’ve got no choice in the matter. Now, please make way for the viewing to take place.”
Mark seethed and narrowed his eyes at Angus. “I’ll knock your bloody block off before you set foot in my house.”
Angus sighed and removed his phone from his jacket pocket once again. “The council has a zero tolerance policy regarding threats of violence towards its co-workers. I’m notifying the police.”
***
It was midday when the vicar arrived.
Still in his dressing gown, Mark was sat on his doorstep, the front door open as it had been all morning.
The road was quiet but for the crackle of the police officer’s radio and the chatter of the newly arrived family in the upstairs bedroom.
Sally had retreated to the en suite bathroom used by her and her husband where she had vomited in the sink and now wept quietly, sitting on the toilet.
Mark looked up at the vicar. Bitterness was etched across his face. “I’m not sure pastoral care from you is going to be of any use at this point,” he muttered. “The country’s finished and my home is being given over to bloody asylum seekers.”
It was now very warm and the vicar ran a forefinger around the inside of his dog collar. “Have some compassion,” he said to Mark. “Have you any idea what these poor people have been through to get here?”
Mark opened his mouth to say something but before he could speak, the vicar said: “Besides, I haven’t come here to see you.”
Mark looked at the vicar, mystified. “Then who have you come here to see?”
The vicar glanced at his phone. “I’m looking for Ahmed. Apparently, he’s looking to convert to Christianity.” He looked at Mark. “You don’t have an Ahmed by any chance?”