"Ah, well, in my experience a shop is more work than a house." He can vaguely see the attempt to delay the conversation into something else,if only because he's quite savvy at doing the same. He wonders why she isn't keen to speak of it, but that's probably not an answer he'll get today. He'll do her the favor and follow the change in conversation.

"I keep my own flat up, that probably explains why it's such a travesty." That's actually not true, his place is almost painfully clean. Like nobody lived there at all. It just seems to meet the bachelor expectation that he not mind. It's a lie he hardly even thinks about as he tells it, though really, that's much like most of the lies he tells.