Actual 2025 AQA AS ENGLISH LITERATURE A 7711/2 Paper 2 Merged Question Paper + Mark Scheme

Section A: Unseen prose
Answer the question in this section.
0 1 Commonwealth by Ann Patchett was published in 2016. In this extract, set in America in
1964, Bert Cousins, married to Teresa, meets Beverly Keating at the christening party for
her baby daughter. Beverly’s husband, Fix, has asked Bert to bring the baby back down
to the party.
Examine the view that Patchett presents Bert’s feelings towards Beverly as being more
than casual.
Make close reference to the writer’s methods in your response.
[25 marks]
He started again. “Your husband asked me to find the baby.”
 Finished with her work, Beverly rearranged the baby’s dress and lifted her up
from the table. “Well, here she is,” she said. She touched her nose to the baby’s nose
and the baby smiled and yawned. “Somebody’s been awake a long time.” Beverly
turned towards the crib.
 “Let me take her out to Fix for a minute,” he said. “Before you put her down.”
 Beverly Keating tilted her head slightly to one side and gave him a funny look.
“Why does Fix need her?”
 It was everything, the pale pink of her mouth in the darkened pink room, the door
that was closed now though he didn’t remember closing it, the smell of her perfume which
had somehow managed to float gently above the familiar stench of the diaper pail. Had
Fix asked him to bring the baby back or just to find her? It didn’t make any difference.
He told her he didn’t know, and then he stepped towards her, her yellow dress its own
source of light. He held out his arms and she stepped into them, holding out the baby.
 “Take her then,” she said. “Do you have children?” But by then she was very
close and she lifted up her face. He put one arm under the baby, which meant he was
putting his arm beneath her breasts. It wasn’t a year ago she’d had this baby and while
he didn’t know what she’d looked like before it was hard to imagine she had ever looked
any better than this. Teresa never pulled herself together. She said it wasn’t possible,
one coming right after the next. Wouldn’t he like to introduce the two of them, just to
show his wife what could be done if you cared to try. Scratch that. He had no interest in
Teresa meeting Beverly Keating. He put his other arm around her back, pressed his
fingers into the straight line of her zipper. It was the magic of gin and orange juice. The
baby balanced between the two of them and he kissed her. That was the way this day
was turning out. He closed his eyes and kissed her until the spark he had felt in his
fingers when he touched her hand in the kitchen ran the entire shivering length of his
spine. She put her other hand against the small of his back while the tip of her tongue
crossed between his parted teeth. There was an almost imperceptible shift between
them. He felt it, but she stepped back. He was holding the baby. The baby cried for a
second, a single red-faced wail, and then issued a small hiccup and pressed into
Cousins’s chest.
 “We’re going to smother her,” she said, and laughed. She looked down at the
baby’s pretty face. “Sorry about that.”
 The small weight of the Keating girl was familiar in his arms. Beverly took a soft
cloth from the changing table and wiped over his mouth. “Lipstick,” she said, then she