'You don't mind walking?'

'You don't mind walking?' he asks, as they descend the stairs to the lobby.
'No, not at all.'
'There is a shuttle bus in...'He glances at a chunky stainless steel watch.?About ten minutes.'
'No, I like to walk,' she says. 'It's the only exercise I get'
'Me too. I always walk on campus unless its raining.'
It isn't raining outside, but looks as if it might soon. A damp wind is blowing across the campus under scudding grey clouds. They walk along the path that skirts the lake, moving into single file every now and again as a tinkling bell warms them of the approach of a cyclist. It being a Wednesday afternoon, there is evidence of sporting activity. Shouts and cries carry faintly from the playing fields on the eastern perimeter, and a rugby ball rises and falls in a spinning arc against the sky. On the lake, some students in wetsuits are windsurfing. The brightly coloured shards of their sails against the dark water make a pleasant picture, but the lake is hardly big enough for the purpose: no sooner have the craft got up some speed than they have to make quick turns to avoid hitting the bank, or each other. Capsizes are frequent.
' I know what this place reminds me of,' Helen says suddenly. ? Gladeworld. Have you ever been?
'N0, what is it.?'
'A sort of up-market holiday village. I went with my sister's family last summer. It was in a biggish bit of wooded country, surrounded by a wire fence. You live in little houses built between the trees. In the middle there's a huge plastic dome with a kind of swimming pool cum botanical gardens underneath it with a lots of water chutes and whirlpools and suchlike. And there's a supermarket and restaurants and sports halls - and an artificial lake for sailing and windsurfing that isn't quite big enough. That's what reminded me. That and the bicycles. You're not allowed to drive your car at Gladeworld once you've unloaded it. Everybody rents bicycles, or walks. Everything you need for your holiday is inside the fence. You never need to go outside.'
From the book ?thinks', by David Lodge

Coming here

Coming here was a terrible mistake, I want to run away, I want to scuttle back home to London - home, yes, that's my home, not this little tatty little box. Do I dare ? Why not ? I haven't really started yet. I haven't met any students, or taken any of the University's money. They'll easily find someone else to do the job - there are a lots of excellent writers around who would jump at it. Why not just leave, tomorrow morning early ? I see myself creeping out of the house before it's light, like a thief, loading my things into the car, shutting the boot lid softly, softly, so as not to alert anybody, leaving a note for Jasper Richmond on the table in the living-room with the house keys. "Sorry, it was a terrible mistake, all my fault, I should never have applied for the post, please forgive me.' And then pulling the door shut on this Scandinavian rabbit hutch and driving away along the empty service road, scarves of mist round the throats of the street lamps, slowing down at the exit barrier to give a wave to the security man yawning in his brightly-lit glazed sentry box. He nods back, suspects nothing, raises the barrier to let me out, like Checkpoint Charlie in a cold war spy film, and I'm free! Down the avenue, on to the main road, on to the M5, the M42, the M40, London, Bloomfield Crescent, home
except that 58 Bloomfield Crescent has been rented for the next three months to an American art historian on sabbatical and his wife who arrive next Friday. Never mind, send them a fax, ? Sorry, all off, change of plan, house not available after all.'Could they sue me? There's no legal contract, but perhaps our correspondence would count as one... Oh, what's the point in pursuing this futile line of speculation when we all know (by 'we' I mean my neurotic self and my more rational observing , recording self) we know, don't we, that this is just a fantasy? And that the real reason I won't run away tomorrow morning is not because of possible litigation by my American Tenants (or for that matter by the University of Gloucester, who could undoubtedly sue me for breach of contract, thought I very much doubt if they would bother) but because I haven't got the courage to do it. Because I couldn't bear the guilt, the shame, the ignominy, of knowing that everybody I know knew that I had funked it, panicked, run away . Imagine to having to ring up Paul and Lucy to tell them, and hearing the disappointment in their voices even as they tried to be supportive of their mad mother. Imagine seeing the ill-concealed smirks and smiles of people at literary parties, as they whispered to each other over their their glasses of white wine. 'That's Helen Reed, did you know she went to be a writer in Residence at Gloucester University and ran away on the first day of the semester because she couldn't face it either,' And they might add, ' not that I blame her, I'm sure I couldn't face it either,' but nevertheless they would despise me and I would despise myself.
It was a nice fantasy while it lasted, though. I even chose the tape I would play in the car on the M5, the Vivaldi wind concerti, with their sprightly, cheerful allegro
From the book "Thinks" by David Lodge