The "Girl and the Church"

There was already quite a queue when I got to my MP's surgery and I was relieved the school had taken my son into its after school club for me so I could just relax. I pick up my keys for the shed. At last at last! I hug the woman I'm so pleased. "Ooh I've never been hugged before," she says.

I chat to a man next to me, for I am after him, and await my turn.

As I give my MP my details she remembers that I was at her informal coffee evening and tells me she's already written to the housing chief and will contact me when she gets a reply and prepares to see me out.

I need to remind her who I am, to properly remember who I am.

"I don't know if you remember, but years ago, years ago when I was writing to Dobbie, you called me "the Girl and the Church" (at the time I thought, blimey, my letters have been passed around...). Recognition flickers and she settles back into her seat.

"I'm not that girl anymore. I'm the Woman in the Tower now." I've got her attention. I tell her the events of the morning, that I'm not racist, I know the needs of immigrant families as well as anyone, more possibly, but that it hurts that these families are being shortlisted ahead of me and my son.

"I'm retracing all my old steps. The Girl and the Church wrote to Dobbie, quite a few times," and my MP nods, she does remember. "She wrote to Tony Blair, I was very depressed at the time. Now I'm writing letters to the Council, this week I wrote to Gordon Brown. What else can I do? I'm so tired of this."

"Stop writing!" she says, not unkindly. "It's wasting your energy."
"How?"
"Because they don't have the time to read and answer them all." (That's about right, I've not heard from OO7 and I only sent him one email. Needs and access on the other hand has gotten quite a few.... and no, her answers haven't been forthcoming since I shoved in my Big Questions)

She gets up, it's time for me to leave. "I really enjoyed coming to your informal evening by the way. It was really interesting."
"Come again," she says. "Bring your son."
"Oh, I can't, they're on school nights." She nods her head. "But I could get a boyfriend and he could babysit," I laugh.

"I marked it "Urgent" on the envelope," she says.
"Did you? Oh thanks!"

Now I don't know if she did, so cynical have I become, but I hope and will trust she did. More than that, I hope he pays bloody attention. I like my MP now (she was quite abrasive when I met her four years ago), I'd go and listen to her again and again on local and national issues. I admire Dobbie in a different way though I probably wouldn't go and listen to him talk informally again and again. I certainly wouldn't go and listen to any of the councillors I've met. I rang a Tory one last week and left my name and number as requested and she hasn't got back to me.

Two African mothers with children are waiting for my MP outside. I don't envy her, this country's in a fucking mess.

Yesterday I felt quite hopeful that I might get one of those flats. Tonight I don't, I've crashed again. One can only hope, can only hope.