I’ve been paid a visit by Auntie B, a delightful woman I’ve known my whole life, though I’m not sure how we’re related. She just wants what’s best for me, she says between insults, and she and my mother are getting concerned about my childlessness. “Your age and no baby – very sad!” she says, like my own pocket Trump.
Mum nods emphatically, and I can tell from her eyes that she’s about to say something she knows will annoy me: “When I was your age” – Boom! There it is! – “I’d had three children.”
I assume the usual positions: I say I have a rented room in a shared property that’s no place for a newborn, then pirouette into a point about rental insecurity. I’ll finish with “home ownership is a distant dream” jazz hands, after a quick twirl of “social housing waiting lists”. And I remind her that my partner’s parents own a house they’ve said we can have when you-know-what happens; that I’m sure I have very strong ovaries that will last that long; and is that the time? Got to go, no, of course I’m not changing the subject.
As an encore, Mum tells Auntie B my priorities are all wrong. What she doesn’t realise is, I dream of being able to afford a family home, such as this £395,000 four-bed semi in Somerset: near enough to a city (Bath) for work, far enough for peace, plus an annexe with its own entrance. Perfect for when I’m older. Or that inevitable moment when my own kids can’t get on the housing ladder.
