A Desirable Residence - By Madeleine Wickham Page 0,17
Here, there was none, so they unquestioningly arranged themselves every morning on whichever stools and surfaces were to hand. Jonathan had taken to wedging himself in beside the fridge, from where he could reach the toaster on the peeling Formica counter opposite. He was a prodigious breakfast-eater, cramming in as many as eight or ten slices of toast every morning—and still, as Liz often complained, keeping his thin, bony shape. Alice had inherited his skinny figure, and ate similar effortless quantities of food. Liz, on the other hand, was getting quite concerned about the width of her hips. This morning, she was leaning against the sink, carefully munching a banana, and trying not to exclaim as Alice helped herself to another huge bowl of cereal.
It was as she poured milk over her second lot of Grape Nuts that Alice remembered about skiing. Closing the carton, she suddenly said, with no preamble, ‘Can I go skiing with the school? It’s in January,’ and began spooning cereal into her mouth. She had no particular desire to go skiing, which she imagined, rather abstractly, to be an effortless and boring slide down a hill. But they had been told to ask their parents about it, so she did. Jonathan put another piece of bread in the toaster and looked at her.
‘Is it very expensive, Alice?’
‘Six hundred pounds.’ Jonathan drew in his breath sharply.
‘Well, we’ll have to see,’ he said. ‘Mummy and I will talk about it. You know we haven’t got an awful lot of money at the moment. But if you really want to go—’
‘What do you mean?’ Liz’s voice cut across his. ‘What’s there to talk about? It doesn’t matter if she wants to go or not; we can’t afford it. Sorry, Alice.’
‘OK,’ said Alice.
‘We may be able to, for something special.’ Jonathan raised meaningful eyes to Liz’s. He looked exhausted, she thought. And she felt shattered herself. The first week of term at the Silchester Tutorial College had been a frantic round of lessons, administrative hiccups, meetings with parents, and unforeseen hassles.
‘Don’t be silly, Jonathan. We haven’t got a spare six hundred pounds. And a skiing holiday is hardly a priority at the moment.’ Jonathan ignored her.
‘Are all your friends going?’ he asked Alice. Alice shrugged.
‘Dunno.’ She wasn’t entirely sure who her friends were, now Genevieve wasn’t there any more. At the moment she was spending her break-times hesitantly hanging out with the crowd that she and Genevieve had sometimes dabbled in. But really, they’d been Genevieve’s friends, not hers. And she was beginning to think she might prefer to go around with a couple of the others. But their set was already pretty much established. And she wasn’t part of it. It was all a bit difficult.
‘This could be a real opportunity for Alice,’ Jonathan was saying to Liz.
‘Rubbish,’ said Liz brusquely. ‘An opportunity to learn how to ski? Send her to a dry ski slope, then.’
‘S’all right,’ said Alice. ‘I don’t really want to go. I just thought I’d tell you.’
‘It won’t be like this for ever,’ Jonathan said to Alice, in what seemed to Liz an unnecessarily weary-sounding voice. ‘I promise, you’ll be able to go skiing next year. When we’ve sold the house.’ He shot a look at Liz. ‘Or whatever it is we’re doing with it.’
‘You know perfectly well what we’re doing with it,’ said Liz, in a voice which sounded more assertive than she felt. ‘We’re letting it out until the market picks up.’ She stopped, and racked her brains for something else to say. Every time they talked about letting out the house, she tried to recall the confident phrases which that nice estate agent had used; tried to think of words which would inspire Jonathan with the same enthusiasm for the plan. But they seemed to have vapourized, leaving her with only the bare facts to cling to. They were going to let the house out. Beyond that, nothing. She had heard no word from the estate agent since their first meeting; the tenants whom he had promised had so far failed to materialize. Even she was beginning to have sneaking doubts about the project.
Jonathan was deliberately silent. He took a piece of toast from the toaster, and began to butter it carefully. Liz watched in mounting exasperation. Eventually she could bear it no longer.
‘Stop looking like that!’ she exclaimed.
‘Like what?’
‘Like, I’m not going to say anything, even though I’m thinking what an idiot my wife is.’