a bad choice. I was about to turn and flee when the owner emerged from a back room and stopped my retreat with an unenthusiastic “Yes?” A short conversation revealed that a single room with breakfast was for £19.50. It was entirely out of the question that I would stay the night in such a dismal place at such an exorbitant price, so I said:
“That sounds fine,” and signed in. Well, it’s so hard to say no.
My room was everything I expected it to be – cold and cheerless with laminated furniture, grubbily matted carpet, and those mysterious ceiling stains that bring to mind a neglected corpse in the room above. There was a tray of coffee things but the cups were disgusting, and the spoon was stuck to the tray.
The bathroom, faintly illuminated by a distant light activated by a length of string, had curling floor tiles and years of accumulated dirt packed into every corner. I peered at the yellowy tile around the bath and sink and realized what the landlord did with his phlegm. A bath was out of the question, so I threw some cold water on my face, dried it with a towel that had the texture of shredded wheat, and gladly took my leave.
И последний текст:
Reunion
The last time I saw my father was in Grand Central Station. I was going from my grandmother’s in the Adirondacks to a cottage on the Cape that my mother had rented, and I wrote my father that I would be in New York between trains for an hour and a half, and asked if we could have lunch together. His secretary wrote to say that he would meet me at the information booth at noon, and at twelve o’clock sharp I saw him coming through the crowd.
He was a stranger to me – my mother divorced him three years ago and I hadn’t been with him since – but as soon as I saw him I felt that he was my father, my flesh and blood, my future and my doom. I knew that when I was grown I would be something like him; I would have to plan my campaigns within his limitations. He was a big, good-looking man, and I was terribly happy to see him again.
He struck me on the back and shook my hand. “Hi, Charlie,” he said. “Hi, boy. I’d like to take you up to my club, but it’s in the Sixties, and if you have to catch an early train I guess we’d better get something to eat around here.” He put his arm around me, and I smelled my father the way my mother sniffs a rose. It was a rich compound of whiskey, after-shave lotion, shoe polish, woollens, and the rankness of a mature male. I hoped that someone would see us together. I wished that we could be photographed. I wanted some record of our having been together.
We went out of the station and up a side street to a restaurant. It was still early, and the place was empty. The bartender was quarrelling with a delivery boy, and there was one very old waiter in a red coat down by the kitchen door. We sat down, and my father hailed the waiter in a loud voice. “Kellner!” he shouted. “Garcon! You!” His boisterousness in the empty restaurant seemed out of place. “Could we have a little service here!” he shouted. Then he clapped his hands. This caught the waiter’s attention, and he shuffled over to our table.
“Were you clapping your hands at me?” he asked.
“Calm down, calm down,” my father said. “It isn’t too much to ask of you – if it wouldn’t be too much above and beyond the call of duty, we would like a couple of Beefeater Gibsons.”
“I don’t like to be clapped at,” the waiter said.
“I should have brought my whistle,” my father said. “I have a whistle that is audible only to the ears of old waiters. Now, take out your little pad and your little pencil and see if you can get this straight: two Beefeater Gibsons. Repeat after me: two Beefeater Gibsons.”
“I think you’d better go somewhere else,” the waiter said quietly.
“That,” said my father, “is one of the most brilliant suggestions I have ever heard. Come on, Charlie.”
I followed my father out of that restaurant into another. He was not so boisterous this time. Our drinks came, and he cross-questioned me about the baseball season. He then struck the edge of his empty glass with his knife and began shouting again. “Garcon! You! Could we trouble you to bring us two more of the same.”
“How old is the boy?” the waiter asked.
“That,” my father said, “is none of your business.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the waiter said, “but I won’t serve the boy another drink.”
“Well, I have some news for you,” my father said. “I have some very interesting news for you. This doesn’t happen to be the only restaurant in New York. They’ve opened another on the corner. Come on, Charlie.”
He paid the bill, and I followed him out of that restaurant into another…
Итак, по десятку фразовых глаголов на каждый текст. Поэтому их надо учить и знать.
Как мы поступим дальше? Я не хочу слыть занудой (в вашей жизни к 17 годам зануд и так уже было достаточно, да?) и сразу пичкать вас списком фразовых глаголов. Сначала я расскажу вам историю про двух девочек, двух мальчиков и одну собаку (если вы кошатник, то можете представить кота вместо собаки).
Итак, история будет такая. Жила-была девочка Катя. Училась Катя в 11 классе, была отличницей, умницей и красавицей. Серьезно, Катя была красивая как утренняя звезда, а пятерок у нее хватило бы, чтобы замостить Луну. Мама Кати работала в Газпроме, а папа работал в Лукойле. Как вы понимаете, у Кати было все хорошо. Понимали это и другие ее одноклассники и особенно Катю не любили, а скорее боялись и презирали. Еще бы! В том же классе учился Петя, балбес и двоечник, но симпатичный. Так случилось, что обалдуй Петя дружил с красивой и богатой Катей. Пете нравилась Катя, потому что она всем пацанам нравилась, а Кате нравился Петя потому, что он был весь такой неправильный, а в блогах Катя вычитала, что именно такой парень и должен быть у женщины-вамп,
