Free A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin

oftener. Once a week he will sit down with his dictionary and grammar-book, with a clean sheet of blotting-paper and a razor-blade to scratch out his mistakes , and write simply sheets. Of course he’ll be married. And his wife will say: ‘Who is this Katherine you are always writing to? Leave your letter and take me to a music-hall.’ And he will say: ‘Later, dear, later: I have still to describe Canterbury Cathedral.’ And then she will be very sad, and cry, and they will quarrel and part. You will stop writing, perhaps you will move, perhaps you will die—it will all make no difference. He will go on writing about his punctures and the watercress for tea.” Several times Katherine vowed that she would just stop writing, or tell him gently but firmly that she found herself toobusy to continue the correspondence. But somehow she never did. And so they kept it up for over a year.
    Then, on the first of June, another letter arrived. There was nothing remarkable about the outside of it, and she carried it about unopened with her all day, for she made an affectation among her friends of being completely indifferent to him. Late in the afternoon, on the way home from school, she opened it: it contained an invitation for her to spend a holiday in England. She felt as if she had been holding a live hand-grenade without knowing what it was. It was unbelievable. Sitting in her bedroom, she scanned it for any trace of insincerity, but found none. The invitation was in perfect good faith.
    She sat trembling for a while, and swallowed several times. It never entered her head to accept it: that was the only saving point in the whole business. She had never spent a holiday away from her family in her life, and if she did, the companion she would choose would be a really close friend. The best line of action seemed to be to say nothing about it, simply refusing the offer when she wrote back. But incautiously she mentioned it to her parents, who congratulated her on her luck. Not everyone, they said, has a chance to go to England.
    “But I don’t want to go to England!”
    There was a great deal to settle: dates, routes, questions of luggage, clothes. After a short conclusive argument Katherine sat down to write a letter of acceptance and thanks. Rebelliously, she wrote it on the house notepaper, and not on her own lettuce-coloured kind she kept upstairs. This made it seem unreal, but the reality rushed back as soon as she had irrevocably posted it, and for the next few days she grumbled incessantly. Her father scolded her for ingratitude.
    “But I want to spend my holidays with you,” she argued. “I’m terrified of going abroad! And I’m afraid of the journey.”
    He said: “Rubbish!”
    To her it seemed an ordeal; to her parents, a privilege; but to her friends it was a farce. She could not help laughing when she admitted it, and they all lay back and shrieked together. No-one suggested that there was anything romantic or even exciting about it. It was generally agreed that Katherine was in for an exhausting three weeks, the greater proportion of which would be spent on the rear seat of a bicycle made for two, pedalling miserably through the rain (it always rained in England) in search of bigger and better cathedrals. No doubt he would ask her to give him language lessons. There would be huge, badly-cooked meals, based invariably on roast beef: she would come back looking enormous.
    Yet as she thought it over that night in bed, her apprehension returned, and with it a certain wonder. After all, it was a gesture of friendship. It startled her that this unknown boy in England should think of her, adding month by month to the conception he had of her in his mind, until now he proposed that arrangements should be made and machinery put into motion so that they could meet. It was fascinating. How little she had thought of him, and how shallow her ideas had been: she scrambled up, put the light on, and took out his letters from