Where Everything Seems Double by Penny Freedman (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📗

of me and I can see how thin she is – her shoulder blades sharp and angular under her cotton sweater. Is she ill or just sad? What did that coughing fit mean? Coughs can sound worse than they are, can’t they? Can’t they?

The bar at the hotel is rather overbearing. It has big windows all along the side that faces the lake, but they are draped with heavy, elaborately swagged curtains, and dark oak beams loom from the ceiling. However, we find Dumitru in a patch of sunlight, at the end of the bar, near an open door that leads out into the garden. He is dark and tanned, with that fine-featured Italian look that a lot of Romanians have. (I have had a few Romanian students, but mainly observed this from television footage of their revolution in 1989 that ended in the trial and execution of Ceauşescu and liberation from communism. It was all very inspiring but was given an edge of unreality for me because the young protestors all looked like beautiful Hollywood extras.)

Eve introduces us, he shakes my hand and gives me a dazzling flash of white teeth and then offers us both a drink. Eve declines, fidgeting to be off back to her studio, and I look at my watch and hesitate. Eleven-thirty. Coffee time, but I overdosed at breakfast, where refills were circulated assiduously, and it is too early for alcohol. Dumitru seems to read my mind.

‘Is very nice iced tea,’ he says, ‘for a warm morning. Perhaps in the garden?’

I note the classic inversion of ‘Is very nice iced tea’, which is what Italians do a lot. Romanian is not a Slavic language – it is a Romance language, as its name implies, with its roots in Latin, and its history as the Roman province of Dacia. Confusingly, though, its pronunciation is strongly Slavic-influenced, and it is written in the Cyrillic alphabet. So English presents some challenges for Dumitru and I’m about to find out what they are.

Eve departs; I accept the offer of iced tea, Dunitru has a muttered conversation with a fellow barman and we go out into the garden, where we seat ourselves at a table near the entrance to the bar. ‘Is not busy yet,’ Dumitru says, as he stirs sugar into his espresso, ‘but Gheorghe will call me if he needs.’

Talking turns out to be very easy. Dumitru, who has already done two years of a social sciences degree in Romania, wants really to be a book illustrator. It has, he says, been his dream since he was a child, but it was impossible to pursue it in Romania. He came to the UK with the naïve hope of studying at Chelsea College of Art but followed a girl he met up here to Cumbria, and has adjusted his ambitions to the college in Carlisle, which offers, he says, a course perfect for him. He has been here for a year, one of the few temporary staff to be kept on over the winter. The girl has moved on – ‘Scotland, I think,’ he says vaguely – and appears to be not much missed. His spoken English and listening skills have improved and he scored the necessary 5.5 in them in a recent International English Language (IELTS) test. It is his writing that is the problem. Partly this is because he doesn’t get a chance to practise, partly it is because English spelling defeats him, and partly, he says, ‘My fingers are made for drawing. This is how I express.’

Time is not on our side. He has a provisional place at the college to start in October but he will need to retake his writing test before then and get his 5.5 (or 5.0 at least – I think they will stretch a point for an art course). If he can start this year, before we leave the EU, then he will pay fees as a home student; if he has to postpone until next year, he will be paying a lot more as an international student. He has some money, a legacy from his grandmother, and he will go on working at the hotel in the evenings and at weekends, but the extra money could be beyond him. None of this did Eve tell me, of course, in her airy reference to his ‘needing a bit of help’, and I don’t plan to be here for more than a week at most. Even the most intensive work can’t do wonders in that time, and how intensive can we be with Dumitru’s full-time job (not to mention his moonlighting as a fairy henchman) and my duties as grandmother and gumshoe?

‘It will be a challenge,’ I say, and he raises a hand to brandish an imaginary sword.

‘I accept!’ he says, and we shake hands.

‘To start with, I need to see something that you’ve written. You must have written a personal statement for your application to the college, but I suppose someone helped you with that?’

He shrugs. ‘Of course,’ he says.

‘Then write something about the play – about A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s all right, you don’t have to tell me the story – I know it already – just write about what you do in it – what you do, what you wear and so on. And a bit about how you feel about it – whether you enjoy it – if you can.’

He looks reluctant so I am brisk. ‘Have you got any free time today?’

‘This afternoon I have a break. Two hours.’

‘Perfect. Write the piece for me and leave it at the reception desk for me to collect. I’m seeing the play tonight so I can check if you are telling the truth.’

He opens his arms in a gesture of surrender. ‘I am in your hands,’ he says.

‘Good idiom,’ I tell him. ‘Do you know what an idiom is? No? Then I’ll tell you tomorrow. When are you free?’

We settle for the post-breakfast lull tomorrow morning, when