Free Let Me Alone by Anna Kavan Page B

curling leaves. She was not very interested.
    ‘Pull it down more at the side,’ said a voice from the door.
    Anna looked up in surprise, and saw, leaning against the door which she had left slightly ajar, a handsome, large-eyed girl of about eighteen, smartly dressed, and somewhat haughty in her sophisticated assurance: Catherine Howard.
    Anna did not care for her. But of late she had been vaguely aware of her, coming and going on the outskirts of her daily life. A sort of mutual, subterranean recognition had passed between them.
    And now, on this spring morning, Catherine stood at the door of her room as she was trying on the hat. As usual, Anna rather resented her. She wanted to send her away. But Catherine came in calmly, as if by right; and as if by right, she touched the hat with her long, firm fingers, adjusting it over Anna’s smooth hair.
    ‘There. That’s better,’ she said. And she made Anna look again at her reflection.
    ‘Yes,’ said Anna grudgingly.
    She glanced from her own mirrored face to the face of the other girl. Catherine might have had southern blood in her, her big brown eyes were liquid with the soft haughtiness of the south. She was very confident and superior. Yet she followed Anna about a good deal, seeking her out. She even came to her room like this, unwelcomed, as if wanting something from her.
    She was proud and superior. But even so, she followed Anna about.
    ‘You have nice clothes, but you don’t know how to wearthem. You don’t take enough trouble over your appearance,’ she said.
    Then she went away, leaving Anna faintly irritated, faintly amused, and with a just perceptible stirring of interest in her mind. She was beginning to be interested in Catherine. But she thought very little about her, being so preoccupied with Sidney.
    They had become something more than friends, these two; so that they were only happy when they were together. If one went out of the room, the other was always impatiently waiting for a chance of going after her. It seemed that they only lived to be together.
    Nevertheless, it was with Catherine that Anna went to the dance. It was really the most foolish affair. A dance was being held at one of the big houses in the neighbourhood, and some of the elder girls had been given leave to go. Then suddenly there was a suspected case of infectious illness, and permission was withdrawn. Nobody from the school would attend.
    Anna was lounging over a book when she heard the news. Her face darkened. The outing, which had not interested her before, now became attractive.
    ‘Ridiculous, treating us like babies,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve a good mind to go all the same.’
    She looked up, and met the large, brilliant eyes of Catherine fixed upon her. For some reason, that bright regard filled her with a febrile irritation.
    ‘Yes, I will go!’ she exclaimed petulantly, as if in protest against authority. But really it was Catherine’s wide brown stare against which she was protesting.
    ‘Why not? I’ll go with you,’ said Catherine, in a matter-of-fact tone. She smiled a curious secretive smile, lifting the corner of her lip in secret triumph or scorn.
    Anna knew that she was behaving foolishly. That it was only her restlessness that had moved her to the irritable impulse. She did not want to go to the dance at all. But she had to see the thing through. If only to assert herself against Catherine’s large-eyed haughtiness, she had to go. The other girl roused her to such a pitch of unreasonable irritability.
    Anna spent the evening wondering why she had come, and what Rachel would have to say when she heard of the matter; for they could not hope to conceal it. She was rather rude to Catherine. But Catherine smiled her secretive smile and seemed quite content.
    ‘Why on earth did you want to come on this mad expedition?’ Anna asked her, with a good deal of antagonism in her voice and expression, a hint of offensiveness.
    ‘For the same reason as you did, I