Dating Empty Rooms

I decide to wear a shirt, but no jacket, with dark jeans. I need to appear smooth, suave and yet casual and easygoing, with a touch of the urbane. 

I aim to arrive at the agreed destination around 5 minutes before the time. Sadly, I yet again overestimate my ability to navigate an area that I have spent the last 4 years living in. 

I arrive five minutes late and am standing outside the house, wondering if the person sitting in the white van opposite me is going to get out to greet me or kidnap me and sell me to a Texan oil baron.

The van drives away, leaving me to study the outside of the house. I have seen so many now that I am beginning to wonder if the door is just a portal into the same two-up two-down Victorian terrace that hasn't updated its interior since 1975.

I hear her arriving, clip board already in hand. She is the fountain of knowledge as long as its printed on that piece of paper.

We exchange hellos. She obviously spent a lot less time on her outfit than I did. I find it amusing that the coat I'm wearing has a badge with 'Gobshite' written on it.

She takes me inside. The living room is immediately next to the door, the furniture is sad and old. What is even sadder is that the place is supposed to be unfurnished. "Oh that's nice" I say in a moment of awkward weakness.

She takes me up into the bedroom, which presents its bed the way that a cat might present a dead animal on your doorstep. It wants to be proud of it, but it can't hide the fact that it's a single bed and still charging £550 a month in rent. Once again I comment on how nice it is.

There are no housemates, although the lady assures me that there are. I can see evidence of some presence from the faint noises of televisions and the smell of something evil in a pot, but I know that is all I will ever sense of them.

We step outside the house and stand under the lamp light. I look her in the eye and say that I very much enjoyed seeing the house and that I will definitely consider it. I even promise that I will call. 

Neither of us seem convinced.