INT. RENTAL FLAT - LIVING ROOM - DAY
Robin stands beside the green wall with the tenancy agreement folded in one hand. The landlord's clipboard is already out.
Right. I'm going to stay calm, because I've read the tenancy agreement, and it says 'reasonable', and I'd like to be reasonable in front of you so that when you aren't, later, in an email, it's noted.
The wall is green. I accept the wall is green. It's called Deep Fern, it was thirty two pounds, and I did the cutting in with a two inch brush and it is, by any standard, a beautiful edge. Your last tenant left a Blu Tack constellation. I've left craftsmanship.
Now. Why is it green. You'll remember November. You'll remember it because I emailed you on the fourth, and the eleventh, and the nineteenth, and after that I stopped using dates and just used the word 'still'. Behind that wall is the pipe from the bathroom upstairs. There was a shape on the plaster the size of a dinner plate, and by Christmas it was the size of a dinner party, and it was brown, and it had ambitions.
Magnolia does not cover a brown shape. I tried. Three coats. It came back through like a face in a horror film, faintly, at night, when I had guests. Deep Fern is the only colour in the shop that covers a damp stain. I know this because the man in the shop said, 'What are you covering,' and I described it, and he went and got this one without another word.
So the way I see it, the wall is green because you didn't fix a pipe, and I would rather have a green wall than a brown ceiling, and my deposit is eight hundred and fifty pounds. I've left the tin in the cupboard under the sink. There's enough for one more coat. You'll need it around February.