Applying for a future

I’d heard about the latest shared ownership scheme from a friend, who’d heard about it from a gal in their office, whose boyfriend knew a bloke who hated his job and thus had decided to become a whistleblower on behalf of struggling first time home buyers across the universe.

It was dirt cheap and within easy reach of my office; a bargain considering today’s extortionate house prices. All you had to do at first was to participate in an informal twenty-minute interview with the housing association. Why not?

The interview was with the association’s resident representative and one of their mortgage brokers. It was held in what they called the ‘Homely Hub’ – a conference room adorned with bean bag chairs, beige walls, the air con set to sedate, wind chimes, and whale song piping through the PA system. I was immediately on edge and felt guilty for being so gullible.

‘We pride ourselves on being able to offer truly affordable homes for the Londoner of today,’ the resident rep – Barry – told me, leaning forward in his bean bag as if he and it were one. He maintained non-blinking eye contact with me while not wearing a tie or any designer cologne, but looking as if should be wearing one and reeking of the stuff. The mortgage broker was a woman. She wore jeans, a tailored shirt and glasses. She smiled at me once and tapped furiously at her iPad.

‘Do you have any dependents?’ Barry asked.

London sunlight cast itself over the sparkling water jug and glasses basking themselves on the coffee table. Errant sunbeams exposed almost imperceptible lint floating around in the air. Dependents. Didn’t it depend on who you classed as a dependent? The mother who championed your individuality but relied on you in ways because her health let her down from time to time? The friend who was looking to find themselves in the beds of men she met in the copious bars scattered throughout the capital, but nine times out of ten ended up with her face buried into your shoulder, which later led to her tears leaving mascara stains on your flatmate's sofa cushions? The man who made you feel alive each and every time he looked at you in that way, then cemented it by squeezing you to his chest until you couldn’t breathe while whispering in your ear that you were free to live your life, even if he couldn’t be a part of it?

‘No,’ I said.

The mortgage broker stabbed at her iPad.

‘Umm hmm. How much do you have saved?’

A pointless question. If I didn’t have a shot at the property, I wouldn’t be here being scrutinised.
Or, maybe I was selected to make it look as if it’d been a fair and open application process. Or maybe they were bored and needed to fill their day with something to do.

‘Enough to place a modest deposit,’ I answered honestly, because I’d been saving for nearly a year and it wasn’t enough to cover a month's rent.

Barry’s face lit up brighter than the morning sun. He leaned forward again like the friend who actually listens and isn’t just waiting to take their turn to download their problems on anyone who would listen. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said. ‘Have you saved enough for the future? The children? The kitchen redesign? The wedding?’

For a second, I thought he was talking to someone else. I poured myself some water. It tasted like perfumed clouds. ‘I’m…not sure how to answer that.’

The mortgage broker was a scribe.

Barry leaned back in his bag. ‘OK, let’s put it this way – where do you see yourself in two years’ time?’

Gentle elevator music replaced the whale song and poured into the conference room. I could swear the sunlight dimmed. I caught a whiff of freshly cut grass and bread being baked.

‘Maybe even three years,’ Barry offered, conciliatory.

Two or three years’ time. It might as well have been minutes, or seconds. In that moment, I saw myself as a contestant on Mastermind doing a poor job of answering questions in my personally chosen category of Netflix shows. After that came the dread, followed by the hope. It slid down my oesophagus into my gut, making room at its base where the bottom of the unknown dwelled. A very empty, bloated feeling.

On the face of it, the next few years, or even that night, was me on a sofa, facing a window that blasted a raging sunset, a large glass of white wine in hand, the TV remote in another, before I placed it absently down on top of my copy of an Orhan Pamuk novel.

I cast a glance to my left and saw the taut back of my man at the sink, washing up and drying his hands on the tea towel draped over the handle of the oven door, despite saying we’d leave it until the morning; before he turns to look at me and smiles, while his phone goes off and the life he had before me interrupts whatever we are, which I desperately yearn for as he answers, despite myself.

I look right. I’m alone and sitting at my Ikea dining table at my laptop, furiously writing what I believe to be the next bestselling novel - drunk. I’m ignoring my phone and the messages waiting for me on Whatsapp threads. I’m looking forward to going to bed, to welcome the watchful darkness, silently staring at the ceiling and knowing, one way or another, that whatever it is will be OK, because it couldn’t be anything else. Could it.

These other lives. The expectations of the future. All so affordable and promoted as much as within reach. If I close my eyes I can see them as clear as the billboards.

‘I…I don’t know. Another promotion?’ I manage.

Barry nods. The right answer. The mortgage broker is still.

It’s over. I can leave. They’d be in touch shortly. Of course, there is a waiting list. Other souls lining up to try to touch what they imagine could be better for them and theirs. One day, somehow. If we're successful, the reservation fee is non-refundable.

Outside, winter wraps itself around me and grips every pore on my body. I’m not entirely sure if I’ve just applied for a home, or for something else entirely - like another set of wasted hopes.