It's been about a month now, and my house still has a room empty. I sometimes wonder how Zinka is faring...
I live in a houseshare, so who I live with is not up to me, but the general gorgeousness of my house and the big garden have made up for it so far.
When I moved in four months ago, I was living with a French Pharmacology student called Armelle, a Malaysian Post Office Night worker who said his name was Danny, and Zinka.
Well, I think that was his name.
Zinka introduced himself, wearing socks, sandals and pyjama bottoms shortly after I moved in. He told me he was studying English in order to take a Masters course in business at the nearby University of Hertfordshire, having recieved his undergraduate degree in his home town of Shanghai. It took me a long time to find this out, as our conversations tended to drag on a bit.
Our first little chat took about a week.
Here's a snippet:
Scene One: Kitchen, late afternoon.
ME: Hello! How are you?
ZINKA: Fine.
ME: Where are you from?
ZINKA: Oh.
{awkward pause}
ZINKA: See you.
{ZINKA leaves quickly}
Scene Two: Kitchen, the next day, teatime.
ME: Hello! How are you today?
ZINKA: I am from Shanghai.
ME: Oh right!
ZINKA: Where are you from?
ME: I am from the Isle of Wight, in the South.
ZINKA: Oh.
ME: Are you a student?
ZINKA: Oh.
{awkward pause}
ZINKA: See you.
{ZINKA leaves quickly}
Scene Three: The next day, about 6pm. Kitchen.
ZINKA: You are from Isle of Wight?
ME: Yes.
...and so on. It carried on for a few weeks, and we were discussing universities and jobs in Britain. This was the last time it happened;
ME: Hello Zinka. How are things?
ZINKA: What you think of employment situation in Great Britain?
ME: Well it's a difficult situation at the moment. We've got an incredibly strong pound and interest rates are way down. Property prices are high and businesses are trimming their sails. You know I said I was unemployed for nine months? Well that was mostly due to me missing the graduate recruitment season....ETC.
ZINKA: Oh.
We didn't talk much after that.
He used to knock before coming in when I was in the kitchen, which always used to make me wonder what he thought I was getting up to...perhaps my copy of 'The Naked Chef' was a bit of a worrier when I moved in? It also started to make me worried about what he did in the kitchen. Should I knock, just in case?
Zinka was a great one for keeping me on my toes. Danny's hours are unusual, but I can sleep through him coming home at 6am now. Zinka kept his own time...lived by his own rules.
One morning I woke up at 6:45 and wandered into the kitchen in search of coffee and Virginie Ledoyen (you never know), and as I stared out of the kitchen window he appeared, wraith-like in the morning mist, wearing his pyjama bottoms and carrying some shopping.
Other nights he would phone home at 3am, having a good old laugh with his Mum in Shanghai, and fair play to him.
After living with him for three months, he knocked on my door (still wearing the same pyjama trousers) and told me he was moving out because he had a place at the University of Reading.
Despite his chronic fear of talking to me, it turned out that he had been living in Hatfield learning English for eighteen months.
He must have had a reasonable standard of English, or he wouldn't have got into Reading.
I started thinking about all our conversations.
Am I that scary?
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