Read Online Engleby by Sebastian Faulks - Free Book Online Page A

warn you now. (Though you may never see it. It’s not obligatory. It won’t be on general release, so you’d need to go to a Film Soc special screening. But knowing you, you will. Like that rude book I warned you not to read and you went straight out and bought it.) Hannah is absolutely amazing and makes me look very inadequate. Even when someone else is speaking she seems to fill the screen. Alex is much better than I expected, though a bit eager in places.
There’s so much going on and not enough time to do it all. I’m doing extra French Lang (to help with document research) with a little old lady off Lensfield Road and when I walk back I see the posters in the cottage windows: University String Ensemble, ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore , Julius Caesar at the ADC, Newnham Madrigal Society, The Good Person of Szechwan at St John’s . . . I know it’s a cliché, but there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Of course Finals are a worry, but I try not to think about it (them) too much. If I do get a youknowwhat (like the Scottish play, can’t mention the word) it could cause more problems than it solves by more or less obliging me to go into what Rob calls ‘research’. So might be better off with ‘gentleman’s’ degree, Dad. Qué sera, sera, that’s what I say. What an original daughter you have!
I’m glad you enjoyed Penny Martin’s wedding. If you couldn’t get an invite to Princess Anne and Mark Phillips’s, I’m sure Brian and Gail’s was the second best place to be. Did Gail do her special cheesy things? Did Brian make a speech? In which case, is he still going?
It’s nearly midnight. Incidently (Sally again), I read in the paper that Grocer Heath is thinking of introducing a three-day week. I told Rob last night and he said, ‘I’m not doing an extra day’s work for anyone.’ I thought you might like that.
Now I really must stop and go to bed. Before I turn the light off, maybe one final blast, Dad, of ‘deafening popular music’ . . .
Later: Ah, that’s more like it. Long guitar solo by Jan Akkerman, max vol through the headphones. Now I can sleep easy.
Lots of love from your loving, very hard-working, rather poor and exceedingly cold (but happy) daughter,
Jen-Jen xxx
    There was one bit in Jennifer’s letter I really didn’t like, and I expect you can guess what it was. What I really didn’t like was: (!)
    Not even a word. A single vertical line and a dot, parenthesised.
    For the rest, I quite enjoyed it. Of course, like all students she was giving only an edited account of what was going on. No mention of drugs, or cigarettes, for instance – or sex.
    Duplicitous, you might call her. Tactful would probably be her own word.
    You couldn’t help but warm to her father, though, could you? I pictured him a bit like Mr Bennett in Pride and Prejudice . (‘Which reminds me, Dr Stanley, may I offer you four pages on “Mixed Motives for Marriage in the Novels of Jane Austen”? No? Are you quite sure?’)
    I put Jen’s letter away in the third drawer of my desk and locked it.
    Yes, Mr Arkland sounded nice. Did Jen have sisters, then, I wondered? If he was really a Mr Bennett type, then she must have. And he was MA, which meant that he had either done postgraduate work at an ordinary university or been to one of the ancient ones and paid five guineas to convert his B to an M.
    If the latter, he must be quite grand, because in his generation you got admitted not by competitive exam but only if you could pay the fees. They didn’t have grants in those days. Their address sounded modest enough, but now I came to think of it, Jennifer is what you’d call ‘well spoken’ – not stuck-up, and with plenty of student ‘yeah’s and ‘like’s, but not common. Not like me. She’s got a lovely voice, in fact. It sounds as though she’s always trying to suppress laughter out of consideration for the person she’s talking to. You want to tell her it’s all right, you don’t have to be polite,