UNIT FOUR

"What's for tea, then?"
His wife looked up again from her knitting. "There's two kippers in the oven." He did not move, sat morosely fingering a knife and fork. "Well?" he demanded. "Do I have to wait all night for a bit of summat t'eat?"
Quietly she took a plate from the oven and put it before him. Two brown kippers lay steaming across it. "One of these days," he said, pulling a long strip of white flesh from the bone, "we'll have a change." "That's the best I can do," she said, her deliberate patience no way to stop his grumbling - though she didn't know what else would. And the fact that he detected it made things worse.
"I'm sure it is," he retorted. The coal bucket clattered from the parlour where the girl was making the fire. Slowly, he picked his kippers to pieces without eating any. The other two children sat on the sofa watching him, not daring to talk. On one side of his plate he laid bones, on the other, flesh. When the cat rubbed against his leg he dropped pieces of fish for it onto the lino, and when he considered it had eaten enough he kicked it away with such force that its head knocked against the sideboard. It leapt onto a chair and began to lick itself, looking at him with greedy surprised eyes.
He gave one of his boys sixpence to fetch a Football Guardian. "And be quick about it," he called after him. He pushed his plate away, and nodded towards the mauled kippers. "I don't want this. You'd better send somebody out for some pastries. And mash some fresh tea," he added as an afterthought, "that pot's stewed."

He had gone too far. Why did he make Saturday afternoon such hell on earth? Anger throbbed violently in her temples. Through the furious beating of her heart she cried out: "If you want some pastries you'll fetch 'em yourself. And you'll mash your own tea as well." "When a man goes to work all week he wants some tea," he said, glaring at her. Nodding at the boy: "Send him out for some cakes."
The boy had already stood up. "Don't go. Sit down," she said to him. "Get 'em yourself," she retorted to her husband. "The tea I've already put on the table's good enough for anybody. There's nowt wrong wi' it at all, and then you carry on like this. I suppose they lost at the match, because I can't think of any other reason why you should have such a long face." He was shocked by such a sustained tirade, stood up to subdue her. "You what?" he shouted. "What do you think you're on wi'?" Her face turned a deep pink. "You heard," she called back. "A few home truths might do you a bit of good." He picked up the plate of fish and, with exaggerated deliberation, threw it to the floor. "There," he roared, "That's what you can do with your bleeding tea." "You're a lunatic," she screamed. "You're mental." He hit her once, twice, three times across the head, and knocked her to the ground. The little boy wailed, and his sister came running in from the parlour……………

1. Why is the husband angry when he arrives home?

2. What does he do when he comes in?

3. How do his wife and children react?

4. How does he treat the cat?

5. Does he eat the kippers?

6. What does he want instead?

7. How does his wife react now?

8. Why is he surprised?

9. What does he do with the plate of fish?

10. How does the episode end?

This passage, from The Match, by Alan Sillitoe, is chosen to contrast with the previous one; the major elements of the contrast should be clear. It may take some time to resolve the genuine language problems presented here. Once the comprehension exercise is complete, go straight on to get the class to discuss the differences between the behaviour shown here, and that in the previous passage, either together, or working in small groups. Perhaps to finish off, ask the students to write an account of the incident from the point of view of the little boy (i.e. in the first person, as he sees it.)