Free Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble

Higginbotham
    The receipt of this letter threw Clara into ecstasy, for she had indeed observed his comings and goings, and had been suitably taken by his solid, rocky, regular features and by the dashing abandon of his hair style. She flashed the note around, proudly though covertly, and looked for him at the bus stop, but she could not look for him without some misgiving. She hated to admit it to herself, but there was something in the style and appearance of his note that would not do. The looseness of the syntax was a familiar symptom enough, but coupled with the handwriting it took on a more sinister light, for
the writing was one of those faint, regular, carefully looped hands which indicate an underlying antipathy to the written word. She knew, from looking at it, that they would not get on. But she passionately wanted to get on with him; she made every effort to entertain and to captivate, for in proximity he was even more dazzling than from a distance. Her excitement, as she sat next to him on the narrow dirty furry seat of the bus, was almost too much for her. But it would not do. He did not find her amusing, and she found him quite disastrously dull. She could not have said that she found him dull, because she did not know it, and was conscious only of her own failure, and her misery at her own personal inadequacy quite drowned any sensation of boredom. When he asked if he could see her again the next day, she would not have dreamed of declining; they saw each other for about a fortnight, and her enthusiasm for him increased with each meeting, though he said not a word of any interest in the whole two weeks. They had no level of communication at all, and a bus ride with him was an ordeal rather than a pleasure, for she had to rack her brains to reply to his remarks about the weather, the town’s football teams, the cinema, his headmaster, and so forth, but nevertheless when he wrote her a note saying:
    Dear Clara,
    I think it would be better if we stop seeing each other, I find I have a lot of work to do with my Alternative Maths,
    Yours ever,
    James
    she burst into floods of horrible tears, and cried for a whole day.
    It was on the rebound from Higginbotham that she took up with the first boy that she came near to liking. He was not nearly as beautiful, but on the other hand his preliminary note promised other qualities. It read:
    Dear Miss Maugham,
    I have had my eye on you for some time. Now that Higginbotham has been given the brush off, may I venture to approach you? I hope that you
won’t think I am
rushing in
, for I assure you that I am no
fool
, unlike certain other people. Nor am I an angel, exactly, you will find that out for yourself, that is if you give me a chance. There is a good film on at the Rex. This is a hint. I await your response.
    Yours in hope,
    Walter Ash
    Clara knew quite well who Walter Ash was, and therefore did not flash this letter around the classroom, as she knew he was not a great prestige catch; on the contrary, he had a reputation for being rather a bore. Nevertheless, she thought his note had possibility. The syntax was not perfect, perhaps, but it was a great deal better than Higginbotham’s, and the use of such lengthy phrases as ‘venture to approach’ and ‘await your response’ showed some acquaintance with the useful clichés of the language. The handling of the ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ theme, though not wholly elegant, showed ambition, and the assumption that Clara was responsible for the dismissal of Higginbotham showed courtesy, though she would have preferred his name to be left out of it altogether. All in all, she thought she would give Walter Ash a try, despite the fact that people said he was very conceited, and despite his appearance, which was slightly against him, as far as his ears went. Only slightly, however. There were girls who were prepared to put up with far far worse than Walter Ash’s ears.
    The evening at the cinema proved to