Chapters 23 and 24

Vocabulary work

I. Learn the following words and expressions:

- doughnut - pastry - cracker - to itch - to put up with smth. - to snub - parcel - mischief - handy - hospitality - appalled - New Year’s Eve - unruly (hair)

- unreciprocated - to rely on smth. - witty - bouncer - opportunity - inevitable - to exaggerate - get the hang of smth. - understatement - glacier - woe - desperation - ambiguity

II. Answer the questions:

1. How did the Christmas dinner at Marcus and Fiona’s continue? What did Clive and Fiona argue about?

2. Describe the meeting of Suzie and Will. Why did Will want to leave?

3. What happened to Will on New Year’s Eve?

4. Why did Will start describing Marcus while talking to Rachel?

III. State who these words belong to. Translate and reproduce the situations in which they are used:

1. “What, you thought I’d given up dope the day we separated? Why would I do that?”

2. “Unfortunately I can never have a conversation with Marcus’s father without your mother being present, for reasons I have yet to fathom.”

3. “God, spot the childless person here.”

4. “I’m not sure that’s how the whole hospitality thing works.”

5. “I know a twelve-year-old who’d kill you for saying that.”

6. “Not at this table. Not in this city. Not in this country. He gives me his phone number when he moves.”

7. “You change your mind about people.”

IV. Translate into English:

- довольно скучно;

- сердиться на кого-л.;

- подозревать что-л.;

- покраснеть;

- свободный стул;

- притворяться;

- не общаться с гостями и не пожимать рук;

- поддерживать связь с кем-л.;

- усмехнуться с любовью.

Oral practice

V. Comment on the following:

1. It was good having a mum and dad who didn’t decide things together. (p. 164)

2. Will had never wanted to fall in love. When it had happened to friends it had always struck him as a peculiarly unpleasant-seeming experience, what with all the loss of sleep and weight, and the unhappiness when it was unreciprocated, and the suspect, dippy happiness when it was working out. These were people who could not control themselves, or protect themselves… (p. 171)

3. The most interesting thing about his life, he realized, was Marcus. (p. 174)

VI. Give a good literary translation of the following:

1. “The row changed the atmosphere, though. Clive and Fiona agreed to have a proper conversation about the dope thing some other time, Fiona and Lindsey snapped at each other a couple of times, and even Will seemed different, although none of it had had anything to do with him. Marcus reckoned Will had been having a good time up until then, but afterwards he seemed apart from it all, whereas before he’d been one of the family. It was almost like he was laughing at them for rowing, for reasons Marcus couldn’t understand.” (p. 166)

2. “If there was a disadvantage to the life he had chosen for himself, a life without work and care and difficulty and detail, a life without context and texture, then he had finally found it: when he met an intelligent, cultured, ambitious, beautiful, witty and single woman at a New Year’s Eve party, he felt like a blank twit, a cypher, someone who had done nothing with his whole life apart from watch Countdown and drive around listening to Nirvana records. That had to be a bad thing, he reckoned. If you were falling in love with someone beautiful and intelligent and all the rest of it, then feeling like a blank twit put you at something of a disadvantage.” (p. 171-172)

3. “Will raised his eyes skywards and chuckled fondly, and the misapprehension was cast in concrete. It wasn’t his fault, this conversation. He hadn’t lied once in the entire minute and a half. OK, he had been speaking more figuratively than the expression usually implied when he had said that Marcus would kill her. And OK, the rolling eyes and the fond chuckle did suggest a certain amount of parental indulgence. But he hadn’t actually said that Marcus was his son. That was one hundred per cent her interpretation.” (p. 175)

VII. Agree or disagree with the following statements:

1. Clive and Lindsey had a fight.

2. It was the first time Suzie and Will met since everyone learned the truth about his non-existent son.

3. Megan gave Will her present.

4. Marcus wanted Will to leave because he thought Will was tired.

5. Will fell in love on New Year’s Day.

6. Rachel wrote children’s books.

7. Will said Marcus was his son.

8. Rachel suggested that they get Ali and Marcus together.

VIII. Retell the 23^rd Chapter as if you were:

1. Marcus

2. Will

3. Lindsey’s mother

Retell the 24^th Chapter as if you were:

1. Will

2. Rachel.

Writing

IX. Write a one-page summary of the Chapters 23,24.

X. Make up your own story (8-10 sentences) using your active vocabulary.