9: The ChoirEliza was avoiding him. He had hardly seen her since the fight on Clifton Down. Their dinnertime trips to the park had ceased and when he went in search of her each day, she had always already left the school to eat her dinner elsewhere. In school hours they were occupied in their separate classrooms. During the quiet study periods, as his class scratched away at their slates in silence, he was reduced to moving close to the partition wall where he strained to hear the faint sound of her voice addressing the infants on the other side. When the bell rang at the end of classes she left at once, while Jack had to stay on to teach the monitors. Walking home every night he was keenly aware of her absence and tortured himself trying to think of a pretext to meet her. He walked past h
