Reading. Read the text “Just What We Are Looking For!!!” and do the tasks that follow.

Read the text “Just What We Are Looking For!!! ” and do the tasks that follow.

Just What We Are Looking For!!!

I left the hotel today at eight o’clock for an early appointment with the agent, who yesterday assured me he had found me just the house we were looking for. When I arrived he looked less convinced than I did. Even at that time of the morning, I was already irritable and despondent as I arrived at the first address. At first I walked past the house. Where it should have been was a wilderness of trees and overgrown grass. Then out of the green darkness stepped the agent. ‘Ah, there you are! It’s here, ’ he said. I stepped in through the broken-down gate, and walked up the dusty garden path. It immediately felt cooler and calmer. The agent rattled a large bunch of keys, and tried several in the door, talking to himself all the time, before he exclaimed, ‘Ah! ’

We let ourselves in and walked into a deliciously cool, but dusty house. He suggested I walk around by myself. I went into a gloomy living room downstairs and switched on the light, but nothing happened. The agent heard me clicking the switch and said, ‘Ah! No good. The switch needs mending. I’ll have an electrician repair it immediately.’ I peered into the darkness and made out the shape of a window on the far side. The agent walked over to the window and threw open the peeling shutters, the sunlight streamed in. A rather faded sofa and two battered armchairs sat around an open fireplace which hinted at log fires in winter. The curtains were stripy but more or less in shreds. Outside there was a terrace and beyond the trees, the dense undergrowth, the tall grass and the wild plants that were once the garden, were the mountains in the distance. I walked through into what must have been a kitchen, but only recognisable because of the antiquated equipment which I last saw during a visit to a local museum. I turned on the tap, and once again nothing happened. ‘The water needs to be reconnected. We’ll get the plumber to do it. It’s no problem, ’ the agent said.

Upstairs there were two bedrooms and a bathroom with low ceilings and which were, despite being hidden in the roof, still quite cool. The bathroom had no bath and not much room, but a beautiful view over the garden. The basin was filthy with the dirt of the years during which the place had been unoccupied. I sat on the brass bed in the dusty bedroom, and looked round, thinking, not bad, not bad at all. In my mind, I could see the house with new curtains and carpets, our own furniture, which had been in store for several months, books on the shelves, beds made up, lengthy lunches on the terrace, endless summers and warm winters. I could do most of the work myself.

I went down downstairs and the agent looked at me hopefully. It was worth the lengthy search, the dusty visits to endless houses, the depressing inspections of grim flats, to see his smile when I said to him, ‘It’s just what we’re looking for.’