One Morning in Robyn Penrose's Life

Robyn rises somewhat later than Vic this dark January Monday. Her alarm clock, a replica of an old-fashioned instrument pur­chased from Habitat, with an analogue dial and a little brass bell on the top, rouses her from a deep sleep at 7.30. Unlike Vic, Robyn in­variably sleeps until woken. Then worries rush into her conscious­ness, as into his; but she deals with them in a rational, orderly man­ner. This morning she gives priority to the fact that it is the first day of the winter term, and that she has a lecture to deliver and two tu­torials to conduct. She always feels a twinge of anxiety at the begin­ning of a new term. She sits up in bed for a moment, doing some complicated breathing and flexing of the abdominal muscles, learned in yoga classes, to calm herself.

She was born, and christened Roberta Anne Penrose, in Melbourn, Australia, nearly thirty-three years ago, but left that country at the age of five to accompany her parents to England. Robyn had a comfortable childhood. She attended an excellent grammar school which she left with four A grades at A-level. Though urged by the school to apply for a place at Oxbridge, she chose instead to go to Sussex University.

Robyn kicks off the duvet and gets out of bed. She goes to the window, pulls back the curtain, and peers out. She looks up at the grey clouds scudding across the sky. A gust of wind rattles the sash window and the draught makes Robyn shiver. Clutching herself, she skips to the door from rug to rug, like a Scottish country dancer, across the landing and into the bathroom. She pulls the nightdress over her head and steps into the bath, not first pulling the chain of the toilet because that would affect the temperature of the water coming through the showerhead on the end of a flexible tube, with which she now hoses herself down. She steps from the bath, stretch­ing for a towel in one of those ungainly postures so beloved of Im­pressionist painters.

Robyn, a dressing-gown over her underclothes and slippers on her feet, descends the short dark staircase to the ground floor and goes into her narrow and extremely untidy kitchen. She lights the gas stove, and makes herself a breakfast of muesli, wholemeal toast and decaffeinated coffee. The sound of the Guardian dropping on to the doormat sends her scurrying to the front door. Robyn scans the front-page headline of the Guardian, but does not linger over the text beneath. She puts her soiled breakfast things in the sink, already crammed with the relics of last night's supper, and hurries upstairs.

Robyn straightens the sheet on the bed, shakes and spreads the duvet. She sits at her dressing-table and vigorously brushes her hair, a mop of copper-coloured curls. Now she robs moisturizer into her facial skin as protection against the raw wintry air outside, coats her lips with lip-salve, and brushes some green eyeshadow on her eye­lids. Her simple cosmetic operations completed, she dresses herself in green tights, a wide brown tweed skirt and a thick sweater loosely knitted in muted shades of orange, green and brown. She takes from the bottom of her wardrobe a pair of half-length fashion boots in dark brown leather and sits on the edge of the bed to pull them on.

Robyn goes into her long narrow living-room, which also serves as her study. She lifts from the floor a leather bag, and begins to load it with the things she will need for the day.

Returning to the kitchen, Robyn turns down the thermostat of the central heating and checks that the back door of the house is locked and bolted. In the hall she wraps a long scarf round her neck and puts on a cream-coloured quilted cotton jacket. Outside, in the street, her car is parked, a red six-year-old Renault Five. Robyn turns the ignition key, holding her breath as she listens to the starter's bronchial wheeze, then exhales with relief as the engine fires.

She drives through the gates of the University, parks her car in one of the University's car parks, and makes her way to the English Department. She passes into the foyer of the Arts Block. There are several students slouching against the wall, or sitting on the floor, outside her room. Robyn gives them a wry look as she approaches, having a pretty good idea of what they want.

'Hallo', she says, by way of a general greeting as she fishes for her door key in her coat pocket. 'Who's first?'

Eventually they are all dealt with, and Robyn is free to prepare for her lecture at eleven. She opens her bag, pulls out the folder containing her notes, and settles to work.

(Extractfrom "Nice Work" by David Lodge. Abridged)

Discussion points.

1. How does Robyn's morning differ from Vic's?

2. What kind of person is Robyn? Prove your point.

3. Imagine what else Robyn will do on this day. How will her day end?

Text3

The Day before You Came

I must have left my house at eight because I always do,

My train, I'm certain, left the station

Just when it was due.

I must have read the morning paper going into town,

And having gotten through the editorial,

No doubt, I must have frowned.

I must have made my desk around a quarter after nine,

With letters to be read

And heaps of papers waiting to be signed.

I must have gone to lunch at half past twelve or so,

The usual place, the usual bunch,

And still on top of this, I'm pretty sure, it must have rained

The day before you came.

I must have lit my seventh cigarette at half past two

And at that time I never even noticed I was blue,

I must have kept on dragging through the business of the day

Without even knowing anything,

I hid a part of me away;

At five I must have left, there's no exception to the rule,

A matter of routine — I've done it ever since

I've finished school.

A train back home again —

Undoubtedly I must have read the evening paper then.

Oh, yes, I'm sure my life was well within it's usual frame

The day before you came

I must have opened my front door at eight o'clock or so

And stopped along the way to buy some Chinese food to go.

I'm sure I had my dinner watching something on TV —

There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that

I did not see. I must have gone to bed around a quarter after ten:

I need a lot of sleep and so I like to be in bed by then;

I must have read a while the latest one by Marilyn French

Or something in that style,

It's funny, but I had no sense of living without aim

The day before you came.

And turning out the light I must have yawned

And snuggled up for yet another night,

And rattling on the roof

I must have heard the sound of rain

The day before you came.

(A Song by ABBA)

DOMESTIC CHORES

Text 1

Dishwashers

Over the last fifty years housework has been made considerably easier by the invention of an increasing number of labour-saving de­vices and appliances, mostly electrical, which have drastically cut down the amount of time and effort previously needed to do the everyday household chores. For many years now there have been vacuum cleaners, electric irons, washing machines and floor-polishers; now we have electric potato-peelers and even electric carving knives. We can buy cookers that will switch themselves on and produce a meal that is ready to eat the minute we-get back home. If we have one of those electric pop-up toasters, we can make toast at the breakfast table itself. Mashed potatoes can be quickly and effortlessly made with a mixer, which usually has a variety of attachments that enable you to make all sorts of other more exotic things like fresh orange juice or real mayonnaise. And a tumble-drier can save you from the frustration of hanging out the washing only to have to bring it in again ten minutes later when menacing storm-clouds loom over.

Probably the most important piece of electrical equipment to become widely used in the last twenty years is the dishwasher. Washing up by hand is not only a time-consuming task (it can take longer than eating the meal itself), but also an extremely boring one, particularly when you are on your own, and it also ruins your hands. Dishwashers come in a range of different sizes and models to suit your purse, the size of your family, and the layout of the kitchen. They can be stood on the floor or on a worktop, or they can be mounted on a wall. And their capacity ranges from six to twelve place-settings. If you buy one, it is worth having it plumbed into the main water supply to save you having to connect robber pipes to your taps each time you use it. All you have to do is load the dirty dishes, glasses and cutlery into the racks inside the machine, pour in some special detergent powder, close the door and switch it on; it does the rest by itself while you get on and do more interesting things. Of course, most dishwashers can't accommodate large saucepans and frying pans, and you do have to scrape all scraps of solid food from the dishes before you put them in to avoid blocking the filters, but the machine will wash almost everything else and get rid of even the most stubborn egg and lipstick stains. When the washing cycle is over, the machine dries the plates and glasses with its own heat, and indeed they can be left inside until they are needed for the next meal.

If you buy a medium-sized dishwasher, you probably won't need to wash up more than once a day. The drawback of this, ofcourse, is that you have to have enough dishes, cutlery, etc. to last three or four meals. So it can happen that people who buy a dish­washer have to buy new china and glasses, either because they ha­ven't got enough or because the ones they've got don't fit the ma­chine. This extra expense may not only be necessary, but also desir­able, for one has to remember that dishwashers can be quite noisy. This means that many people prefer only to use their machine once a day, preferably last thing at night, when you can just shut the kitchen door on it and go to bed.

(From "Meanings into Words" by Adrian Doff, Christopher Jones and Keith Mitchell)

I. Read the text "Dishwashers" and express your agreement or disagree­ment with the following claims about dishwashers.

1. They cannot be stood on the floor.

2. You can hang them on the wall.

3. You cannot use them for washing cutlery.

4. You do not need any detergent powder for washing up.

5. There is a special place in any dishwasher for large sauce­pans and frying pans.

6. They get rid of most stubborn stains and of scraps of solid food.

7. Hot air flowing through dishes dries them.

8. Dishwashers can be quite noisy.

II. Work in pairs. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a dishwasher. One of you prefers to have it while the other is not fond of electrical appliances in general.

III. Work in pairs. Explain to each other in you own words the advantages and disadvantages of:

1. vacuum cleaners;

2. automatic cookers;

3. electric toasters;

4. mixers.

IV. Work in groups. Give your opinion on the use of labour saving devices. If you are in favour of this sort of appliances, use:

To make housework considerably easier; to cut down the amount of time and effort; to save one a lot of bother; labour and time consuming task; to do the everyday household chores; to switch themselves on/off; to save smb. from doing smth; extremely boring; to ruin one's hands; can be stood on the floor or on a worktop; can be mounted on a wall; to load the dirty dishes, etc. into; the racks inside the machine; pour in some detergent powder; to do the rest by itself; to dry the plates, etc.; the washing cycle; to be worth buying;

If you are not in favour of them, use:

To suit one's purse; the layout of one's kitchen; can't accom­modate large saucepans and frying pans; to have to scrape all scraps of solid food from the dishes; to block the filters; to have enough dishes, cutlery, etc. to fit the machine; extra expense, noisy; get out of order; to be not worth buying; to repair; to take away much use­ful and valuable physical activity; to need exercise.

Text 2

So great is our passion for doing things ourselves, that we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labour. No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for there are countless do-it-yourself publications. Armed with the right tools and materials, newly-weds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes. Men of all ages spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces, laying out their own gardens; build­ing garages and making furniture. Some really keen enthusiasts go so far as to build their own record players and radio transmitters. Shops cater for the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices, but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home.

Wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resource­ful and versatile. Even husbands who can hardly drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics. When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged, or vacuum cleaners fail to operate, wives automatically as­sume that their husbands will somehow put things right. The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game is that sometimes husbands live under the delusion that they can do anything even when they have been repeatedly proved wrong. It is a question of pride as much as anything else.

(Extract from "Developing Skills" by L. G.Alexander)

SHOPPING FOR FOOD

Text Sweet Sixteen

Sixteen soft pink blankets fold inwards over sixteen soft warm smiling babies. Sixteen dark-haired young mothers meet their six­teen babies' soft smiling mouths in a kiss.

Naomi looks round to see the cluster of other mothers, like her­self, mesmerised by Granada TV Rental's windows*. The cluster breaks, and its various components span out across the cool maible floor.

* Granada TV Rental — the name of a supermarket.

Lucy strains to stand up in her pushchair. Naomi eases her out of the canvas straps and settles her on the red seat of the silver trol­ley. She pauses momentarily, to decide which is to be the first aisle of the journey; should she start with soft drinks, vegetables, frozen foods, tins — she decides on fruit juice.

As they wheel past the rack of special-offer Mars bars, Naomi gently deflects Lucy's outstreched hand, her thumb briefly stroking the soft palm of Lucy's hand. I could do the shopping with my eyes shut, thinks Naomi, once a week for how many weeks, everything always in the same place. She turns the trolley to the right, to the fridge where the pineapple juice cartons — she stops. The open maw of the fridge gapes. It is empty. Ah well. Perhaps they have run out of cartons of fmit juice.

She decides to do dairy products next; cream, butter, some yo­ghurt — but instead, on the racks where the dairy products used to be, she finds pizzas, steak and kidney pies in transparent wrappings, and further on packets of frozen raspberries. Something is wrong. She begins to collect, feeling uneasy that it isn't in the order of her choice, worried that if she leaves things now to go on to another aisle, they will have disappeared when she gets back.

She wheels on, to where she expects to find the vegetable racks: the net bags of apples, avocados. But instead there are long spa­ghetti packets, rice, curled pasta. Again she collects, panic begin­ning to rise. She mustn't show it to Lucy, who is happy being wheeled at such sightseeing speed.

Naomi makes confidently for the cold meat counter; it is dark, piled up with towers of soft toilet paper; the plastic box where scraps of meat were sold cheaply, the ends of cuts, is upside down, empty. For the first time she notices the other women. They walk fast, their heads slightly bent, cradling highpiled baskets, anxiety on their faces, grabbing cereals, bread, soap powders, cleansers, hurrying past pensioners, running, running.

Lucy now has a fist in her. mouth, enjoying the game.

Naomi speeds up to join the pace, taking what she can whe­rever she can, until she arrives at the back of the floor space, at the point where the soft drinks used to be. Naomi gasps. The once smooth space is now a raw gash, copper cables twisting like thick muscle fibre, clinging to the broken brick and plaster gaps in the walls.

Naomi hears a voice saying. Nothing is where it was. Lucy gig­gles and she realises that she has spoken out loud. She looks round. No one seems to have heard her. They are all too busy. Naomi looks down at the trolley. It is full of everything she has meant to buy, but none of it is in the right order.

Naomi wheels the trolley slowly towards the cash tills. Lucy, sensitive to the change in pace, stops giggling; she is now pale and still. Naomi joins a queue at a cash till, watching the other women.

Naomi stands behind a woman who fumbles for her cheque book. Naomi watches paper bags, plastic carriers, boxes and baskets flash between the tills and the plate glass window.

Naomi's turn comes. She lifts a bottle of lemon and lime out of the trolley. The outside is sticky. Naomi moves her index and se­cond fingers to a dry part of the bottle, her hand slips, the bottle falls, its soft edge knocks against the rim of the conveyor belt and bursts.

Thick, bright green liquid squirts luminously back into the trol­ley, over tins of tuna fish. Lucy claps her hands in delight, and reaching into the trolley, she lifts a packet of white flour and drops it with a dull thud on the floor. A white cloud powders the feet of the women. Lucy giggles. Naomi feels a cloud of answering laughter rise in her, tries to keep it down, looks up and catches the eye of the woman queuing behind her. The woman smiles, ruffles Lucy's hair and then lifts a bag of tomatoes from her own baskets and hurls it overarm against the special offer of tea bags. Red seed drips down against the green boxes.

The women look at one another. Suddenly bits of flattened, squared ham fly free of their jellied, cellophane packets, duck pate bursts out of its blue pottery bowls, salt and vinegar crisps crackle underfoot, sliding through white cottage cheese.

The lights of the cash tills spark white, the women sitting at the money machines aren't sure which way to turn, one picks up a cu­cumber and slides it along the floor, into a welcoming pool of rasp­berry yoghurt.

Outside the plate glass window red and blue lights flash as pale men in dark blue peer through the window at all Christmas and birthday and anniversary celebrations in one.

Ten feet away, sixteen dark-haired mothers smile at their babies for the sixteenth time and enfold them in sixteen warm, pink blan­kets.

(Story by Michelene Wandor. Abridged)

I. Answer the questions.

1. Where does Naomi see sixteen mothers first?

2. Who is Lucy?

3. How old can Lucy be?

4. What aisle does Naomi choose to be the first one?

5. Does the sight in front of her eyes meet her expectations?

6. What does she decide to do next?

7. What does Naomi see on the racks where the dairy products used to be?

8. What does Naomi find on the vegetable racks?

9. What kind of box does she find empty?

10. Does Naomi notice the other women?

11. Does Naomi manage to collect everything she has meant to buy?

12. What does Naomi see at a cash till?

13. What happens when Naomi lifts a bottle of lemon and lime?

14. Why does Lucy drop a packet of white flour?

15. How does the woman behind her react?

16. What do the other women start doing?

17. How do the women sitting at the cash tills react?

18. What do the phrases "red and blue lights flash" and "pale men in dark blue" mean?

19. Why is the story called Sweet Sixteen?

II. Discussion points.

1. Do you find the end quite unexpected?

2. Was it an abnormal reaction on the part of the customers?

3. What caused this sort of reaction, in your opinion?