Mr. Rosenblum's List: Or Friendly Guidance for the Aspiring Englishman Read Online Free PDF Page B

gone down particularly badly. ‘Think they can buy their way in anywhere, don’t they?’ The club president had complained. ‘They make all this money on the black market, depriving us of things we need then sell them back to us. Worse than the blasted spivs in my opinion.’ He did not mention this to Jack.
    ‘I’m terribly sorry. You’ll have better luck with the next one. Try Blackheath.’
    Jack bowed his head; he did not tell him that Blackheath, the oldest of the English courses, was the very first he had approached. The office door swung open and Fielding, the factory manager entered, staggering under a swaying tower of files.
    ‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. Shall I come back later?’
    ‘No. It’s quite all right, I’m just leaving,’ said Mr Austen, relieved to have an excuse.
    Fielding dumped the pile of paperwork on the desk. ‘I need you to make a decision on these new machines, Mr Rosenblum.’
    ‘Leave them here. I’ll look at them later,’ said Jack, shooing away the young man.
    There was no room left in his mind for business; it was full with this latest disappointment. He was disconsolate and needed to wallow in a few minutes of misery. His usual ration was ten minutes; after that he would force himself to start thinking of solutions and a plan. As this was a particularly heinous disaster he allocated himself an extra five minutes of despondency. The clock read ten forty as he lowered his head into his hands and let out a sigh.
    At ten fifty-five Jack decided to get ready for the Sabbath, which involved pouring a large whisky and reading the paper. He settled into his armchair and flicked through The Times to the sports pages but something in the property section caught his eye: a large cottage with tangled roses growing up the walls and a thatched roof. He had only ever seen a thatch once before, on a train journey to the sea. Next to the picture of the house was another one of a view; it was grainy and slightly blurred, taken from the top of a hill looking down over a patchwork of fields that lay under a cloudless sky. The photograph was black and white but Jack could tell that it was the bluest sky he had ever seen. There were flowers at the front of the frame peeping out amongst the hedgerows and dots of sheep in the distance. He peered closely at the small print. ‘House offered for sale along with sixty acres of land. Splendid aspect. Apply Dorset office.’ Sixty acres. And in Dorset. He could hear the birds singing as he looked at that photograph and he hadn’t heard birds like that for a long time.
    There was a distant chime as the bells of Bow Church struck the half hour and hurriedly Jack got up, put on his hat and left the office. The golf course was the last item on his list, and pursuing the list had not led him wrong yet. He needed a plan.
    The carpet factory was situated in the East End in a large red-bricked Victorian warehouse with posters for ‘ Rabenstein Ltd. Kosher sausage manufacturer for first-class continental garlic sausage ’ and ‘Hats, Frocks and Fancies by Esther de Paris ’ pasted all over the walls. Jack sniffed: change was coming – he could smell it as a hint of turmeric and cumin mingled with the yeasty scent of baking challah . There were holes where buildings used to be; a single missing house in a terrace like a knocked out tooth in the mouth of a boxer, and vast craters filled with rubble. Such was the scale of the repairs that the clean up had barely started, and nature had crept back into the East End; there were patches of grass and wild flowers, green, white and yellow, springing up amongst the waste. A small clump of forget-me-nots poked up between broken pavement slabs and lilted in the wind next to a lamp post. These were memories of the meadows that once covered the ground and that still lurked deep beneath the concrete crust.
    He was considering this, alongside his other more serious concerns, when he walked right into an idea. He turned left