Farzaneh and The Moon by Matt Wilven

Author:Matt Wilven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Legend Press Ltd

FIVE

We find a one-bedroom basement flat near London Fields. It’s on a terraced street lined with large ash trees that have been cut down to leafless stubs. Each three-storey townhouse has a bay window; half of them destitute and ageing, the rest renovated and freshly painted. The window above our basement is tastefully rundown by a landlord who obviously cares about their property, but not too much. The flat has either been recently converted or spruced up after a period without tenants. It has freshly whitewashed living room walls, aquamarine tiles with bright white grout in the bathroom, a newly fitted kitchen and cheap but functional modern furnishings. Being the basement, we also get the access to the small back garden.

The disparity between our neighbours seems typical for this part of Hackney. There are house-rich poor people who have lived on the street for over thirty years, working class people who bought their first house here over twenty years ago, middle-class people who moved here within the last ten years and a silent majority of young and aging renters. There are also two small chunks of social housing, each with six flats, built into the hollows of houses that were destroyed by bombs in the blitz.

London housing hadn’t sparked my interest in any significant way while I lived in student accommodation. I knew that rents were unreasonably high but my rent and bills just came straight out of my student loan payments at the start of each semester. Housing seemed connected to a culture of studying. Now it feels like I’m really here, living in the city, because I’m contracted to pay seven hundred and fifty pounds a month for half of a one bedroom flat – before bills. The hardship this will bring contains the thrill of a challenge. There are people on this street who live in basements and also own expensive German cars. If I want to stay here, I will need a full-time job in place before I graduate. There is zero leeway.

Moving in with Farzaneh should have been exciting. It should have given me a sense of union and joy. Instead, she has been distracted and irritable. The day we moved in, she broke down in tears while I was carrying a box into the bedroom with a head full of hopes. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I consoled myself with the idea that moving house was stressful.

“I don’t think I want them to come,” says Farzaneh.

“We can’t back out. They’re due any minute.”

“It seems phoney.”

“We’re just having a couple of friends over. It doesn’t have to mean we’re middle-class sell-outs, or whatever it is that’s bothering you. It’s just some friends hanging out in a garden.”

“I don’t see why we couldn’t just go to the park.”

“Because we’ve got a new place and we want to have a drink and break some bread. Can you try to be just a little bit positive?”

“I don’t even know them.”

“You know Jake.”

“Do I?”

“You’ll get to know them.

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