Rental block

Dartmoor, said the box ad. One-bedroom cottage. Five hundred pounds a month. I called the number and an elderly woman answered. 

I’m interested in renting the cottage, I said. Is it still available? Are you single? she said. I am, I said. You don’t have a girlfriend? Sadly not, I said. This was good, she said, because the house is suitable for one person only. She didn’t want partners living there as well. If I found myself a partner during my tenancy, they could stay overnight, but only occasionally. Are you certain you don’t have a girlfriend? she said. You’re not gay, are you?

No, I’m not gay, I said. I’m just on my own and more or less celibate. I have no sex life. I touch myself occasionally. That’s about as far as it goes. Well, I don’t agree with celibacy, either, she said. How old are you? Fifty-one, I said. Your active years might be pretty much behind you now, she said, but I don’t think celibacy does anybody any good. It has peculiar consequences. Just look at all those priests in America. It was a risk I was willing to take, I said. And if I blew up and had a woman to stay, or started eyeing up the wild ponies, I’d report it straightaway, I said.

How tall are you? she said. Six foot, I said. Well, 5’8” is the maximum height, really, she said. The ceilings are low and people over 5’8” bang their heads on the beams. It is possible, of course, to accustom oneself to stooping, so it is not an absolute rule. I once had a very good, quiet tenant who was six-foot-two-and-a-half. He committed suicide. But it was because he was in debt.