Leaving Grange Road Number 6

The next day Ms Jones introduced me to Susan. We had a very nice talk and Susan tried to make me feel at home. Her unfailing smile and her sing-song voice was a blessing as she moved around the place. Unfortunately for me it was summer time, and as Susan said, most researchers at the RCEAL were either on holiday or on seminars in America. So I did not discuss my topic with researchers from the center but finding myself all alone made me work harder on my thesis.

By the late afternoon, I heard loud voices in the kitchen, and I thought for a while that there might be some people with whom someone can talk. I made my way to the kitchen saluting them but they simply made me have a second thought. I could not stand it any more and after a few days I went to the porter’s lodge at Pembroke College and asked if it would be possible to have a switch to another place. The very polite man asked me to talk to Ms Adams, so I made my way to her office. I told her about my situation but I could see she was not very keen to help. I tried to explain my purpose behind spending all that money on a study trip to Cambridge but again she did not seem to get my point. I told her that I am Tunisian, and that we Tunisians are talkative and that finding myself in a place where you cannot talk to anyone would simply mean me being dead; a strategy which come to fruition.

In the first view, Grange Road Number 6 seemed perfect. It was calm and beautiful. It had a character of its own. For a hard-working person, that would be the right place, and may be that’s why all residents there were PhD students. I remember my first night there. I could not sleep well, and it was so cold even though it was the second of August. The cold was more of an internal feeling than of weather itself. It might be the feeling that I did not belong there, that I was the odd man out, the wrong one in the wrong place. An outcast, as it were.

Next morning (2)

The RCEAL was very quiet that day, and Ms Jones made sure that everything I needed was at my fingertip. I have to say that the support that I had there was unparalleled. I remember one librarian who worked at the Tunis university library and who, unlike the rest of his colleagues, insisted on him being treated to a cup of coffee in exchange for books students ask for, and because of the fear factor no one dared to report him.
By 3 P.M, I left the library to Grange Road number 6 and then back to the city center to do some shopping.
Shamma sent me a message. She tried to call but could not join me. I gave her a call at 10 PM and we talked about this and that before she wished me good night (she said: Layla Sa3iida which she learnt in Morocco). She spoke about the fudge store opposite to King’s College and recommended it.
The day before I e-mailed her: “I am in Cambridge, safe and sound. I have not yet been given access to the Internet at the college, may be this afternoon. I have not heard from you. I hope you are fine.”

Next morning

I woke up very early the next morning. That was a habit I always try to keep to. I remembered my grandfather who always insisted on the benefits of waking up very early: you never feel that you have done something worthwhile if you sleep in, my son!! Sleep early!! As early as chickens do if need be, but when you listen to the muezzin call for early Morning Prayer, then you have to get up!! That would make you healthy in mind and body, and that is one of those things that make a man worth his name!! May be that was one of the reasons why he kept a strong body all his life long. I could remember him climbing the big almond tree in his eighties!! That was one of those habits he tried to instill in us.

I had my shower and my breakfast, trying to envisage my coming encounter with the RCEAL staff. It was a walkable distance which I made in less than ten minutes. Ms Jones was the first person I met. She welcomed me with a big smile and helped me find my way around the place. “Susan was expecting you yesterday. Today is her day off”, she said. I apologized saying that it took me until three PM to find my hostel, and it did not seem to me appropriate to drop in that late.

Grange Road Number 6 - Part 2

By that time, I was very hungry, so I cobbled something together, and then I set out discovering the place. I made my way to West Road where I was supposed to spend the following twenty days reading for my thesis at the Research Center for English and Applied Linguistics. I could not find it easily but someone who happened to be walking the same way knew I was lost and helped me find my destination. Exhausted, I returned to Grange Road number six and slept. Though it was summer, my room which happened to be number one was very cold. The room was obviously very clean and everything was okay but I soon found out that the blanket I was given had a very large dirty yellow spot on one side, and because I could not find someone whom I could ask for a replacement, I just turned it up and pretended the spot did not exist. My solace was having a warm bath in the next morning. After one day, I came across my second neighbour, a Chinese with long hair and who tacitly made it clear that he wanted to be left alone.


At around 10 PM, I tried to give Shamma a call but I could not listen to it ringing on the other side.