A Desirable Residence Read Online Free PDF

little good thing about living at the tutorial college, she thought grudgingly. At least they were nearer the centre of Silchester. But although she’d started off going there, she hadn’t ended up in the Cathedral Close. At some point on her journey she’d stopped concentrating, and had automatically started walking west, the way she used to go home from St Helen’s when she was little. And here she was, back in Russell Street.
    It was really weird—to think that she’d walked where her legs told her and not where she was intending to go. Like being hypnotized, or sleepwalking, or something. She would tell Genevieve in her next letter, she decided. It was so weird , she would begin. Or, no, It was so spooky . Genevieve always said everything was spooky. Now she’d be telling the people in Saudi Arabia how spooky everything was. Probably she’d be telling them how spooky they were. An image sprang into her mind of Genevieve, standing in the desert in her cut-off Levis, telling an Arabian man in a white dress he was really spooky, and she gave an involuntary giggle.
    Her cigarette lighter had been a goodbye present from Genevieve. She’d put it in a carved Indian box and wrapped it all up and actually given it to her in front of both sets of parents. Alice had nearly died when she opened the box and saw what was inside. And then, of course, her mother had gone on about what a lovely present, and could she have a look, and Alice had glared at Genevieve, who couldn’t stop laughing and said, ‘Oh yes, Alice, show your mum, go on.’ In the end, she’d had to scrumple up the wrapping-paper and shove the lighter inside it when no-one was looking and then retrieve it from the waste-paper basket the next morning.
    And now it lay warm in her hand, silver and chunky and rounded. Alice looked surreptitiously up and down the street. She would, she thought, go and have a quick cigarette in the garage. There couldn’t be anything wrong with that; it was still their garage. It was still their house come to that. She should have brought a front doorkey with her; then she could have gone and smoked in the kitchen if she’d wanted. Or the sitting-room. Anywhere.
    Trying to look as casual as possible—although surely she wasn’t doing anything wrong—she crossed the road to number twelve. The gate gave a familiar squeak as she pushed it open, and the rose bushes halfway up the path would have snagged her new black leggings if she hadn’t automatically dodged them. She skirted quickly across the front lawn, feeling stupidly guilty, and unlatched the gate to the back garden.
    Of course her parents hadn’t got round to mending the lock on the back door of the garage. She knew they wouldn’t have. Heaving her shoulder against it, she pushed it open and walked quickly into the familiar darkness. The piles of newspapers that used to make a comfortable seat for her and Genevieve had gone, but one corner was still dry enough to sit down. She fumbled for her cigarettes, cupped her hand around the smooth contours of her lighter, lit up, leant back and took a deep, long, comforting drag.

CHAPTER TWO
    Jonathan cleared his throat and looked around the room, an anxious smile hovering on his face.
    ‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘we’ve changed a few things.’ He paused, and looked around again. The staff of Silchester Tutorial College looked back at him. One or two gave nods of encouragement but none of them smiled. They were assembled in what had been the staff room at the tutorial college—a long, light room at the back of the building, which overlooked the small garden. In Miss Hapland’s day, this had been a charmingly furnished sitting-room with faded chintz armchairs, coffee maker and television, in which the staff had relaxed between lessons. Now it was a businesslike classroom, with brand-new white board, overhead projector and bookshelves.
    The members of staff had each come in that morning, clearly expecting to flop down