Anna in London
Mrs. Bond is a widow. Her husband died two years ago. She has three children — two boys and a girl. Michael, the younger son, is thirteen years old. He goes to the local grammar school. Her elder son, John, is twenty-nine. He is an engineer. He works for a large oil company. His job often takes him abroad and he is now in Venezuela.
Mrs. Bond's daughter, Susan, is nineteen. She is studying at a business college in London. She will finish her course next year.
The Bond family live in Putney, a suburb of London.They have quite a large house. It has four bedrooms, a living-room, a diПing-room, a small study, a kitchen, a bathroom and two lavatories. There are also two empty rooms at the top of the house. Susan's parents bought the house when they got married. They paid eight hundred pounds for it. That was a lot of money in those days, but now the house is worth twenty times that amount!
Mrs. Bond likes the house but she sometimes thinks that she will have to sell it and buy something smaller. She has a part-time job at the local Public Library. The work is interesting, but the pay is not very good. So the big problem in the lives of the Bond family at the moment is money.
SUSAN. but, Mother, you've said many times that this house is too big for us. Why don't we let one of the two empty rooms upstairs?
MRS. BOND: We've discussed this before. Susan. I've told you I don't like the idea. I don't want a stranger in my house.
SUSAN: But we can get five pounds a week for that big back room.
MRS. BOND: That seems a lot. Remember, that the room's unfurnished.
SUSAN: Yes, but we've plenty of spare furniture. There's a wash-basin in the room and we can hire or buy an electric cooker. We can make that room look very nice.
MRS. BOND: Hm. Five pounds a week will help us a lot.
SUSAN: Then you agree?
Mrs. Bond thought for a moment. Then she мейд up her mind.
MRS. BOND: All right. We'll advertise in The Echo next week. (The Echo is the name of the local newspaper. It comes out once a week.)
That week the Bond family worked hard. They cleaned the big spare room at the back of the house. Michael painted the door and window frames. Susan мейд some new curtains. They took various pieces of furniture from the other rooms. Mrs. Bond bought an electric cooker. It was second-hand but it was a good one. By the beginПing of the following week, the room was ready. It really looked very attractive.
Anna Klein arrived in London from Hamburg exactly three weeks ago. This is her first visit to England — and she is not very happy.
Anna is working in the London sales office of Lufthansa, the big German airline. She is going to be in England for at least two years. She likes the job; she likes London. The reason she is not happy is that she cannot find a room of her own. She has looked at many flats but they have all been too expensive. At the moment she is staying with a cousin in Putney. The two girls do not get on well together. Anna knows that she must find a room of her own.
She likes Putney. The journey to her office only takes twenty minutes. So the question is: Can she find a room in Putney for a reasonable rent. On Tuesday, April 15th, Anna asked the manager for the morПing off. The manager said that she could have the whole day free. She left the house and got a bus to Putney Bridge. The sun shone brightly upon the water. The river looked very beautiful.