"But you can't learn a language only using dictionaries," Kit tells her, "it would improve your vocabulary if you already knew the language but without some prior knowledge or understanding of its structure it's useless."
Lola's shoulders deflate, "oh, I guess you're right."
She's such an idiot, she really thought— "I can teach you," Kit says, cutting through her thoughts.
Lola straightens and walks over to the sofa to sit down on its arm. "Really?"
Kit chews the inside of his cheek, then says, "yes, I don't mind, if it gets Henri to learn English. I'm fluent, I can teach you enough that you can have some basic conversation with Henri."
Lola's face breaks out into a bright grin. "That would be brilliant! Let's do that!" She glances around at all the books on the coffee table and on the sofa, "can we start now? Are you busy?"
"Yes, we can," Kit says, closing the book in his hand, "and no, I'm not busy, I was doing some annotation. I can continue later—"
"Annotation?" Lola says with a frown.
"Yes. I was making notes on this," Kit shows her the cover of the book he's been reading.
Songs of Innocence and Experience. It looks like one of those old, prissy books Granddad would love and Emmett would pretend to have read.
"What's it about?" Lola's nose scrunches up, "Why are you reading songs?"
Kit lets out a faint chuckle. He says, "it's a collection of twenty-six poems intended to explore the two contrary states of the human soul."
"Contrary?"
"Opposite," Kit says.
"Oh, and what are they?"
"What?"
"The two contrary states of the human soul," Lola says, quite curious now.
"Uh, the innocent, pastoral world of childhood," Kit says, organising the messy books into a neat pile on the table as he says, "against an adult world of corruption and repression."
Lola's eyes narrow. "Sounds...sad mate," she says, placing an elbow on her thigh and leaning forward to look at the other books Kit has on the table. Most of them are in French or Latin with only one or two in English. "Is this all poetry, then?"
Kit nods.
She looks at Kit then, despite how gloomy it is out, daylight still floods into this quiet corner from the huge, arched windows before the sofa. She wasn't close enough before or she didn't look at Kit long enough but she realises Kit's eyes are a warm brown, a little lighter than Lola's.
"Do you want to be a poet or somethin'?" Lola asks, picking up a book by a fella called Rumi.
"I don't have the talent for that," Kit says, "I just...like to read and, well, sometimes translate them sometimes."
"Translate 'em into what?"
"French to English, English to French, Latin to French."
It her turn to look confused. It sounds like torture. "Why?"
"I like it and it's a good way to practice my French and Latin," he says with a shrug. He puts his notebook and Songs of Experience and Innocence onto the coffee table, "I've done enough for today, do you want to start the lessons now?"
Lola grins, "yes, please."
"Great," Kit stands up, "I'm going to grab a few books from downstairs that Kit help and we get it on with it."
أنت تقرأ
We Return To Each Other
التاريخية"You've gone silent again," Henri cuts through her reverie, "you only do that when you are thinking of the war or-" A pause. Under the afternoon sun the sea sparkles in the distance. "Him. Are you?" Is there a difference? She wants to say. Instead...
