Anna Kavan - Let Me Alone

‘You really are extremely intelligent,’ she said to Anna. ‘Far more intelligent than I am.’

She was all devotion as she said it, and under the black, tilted eyebrows the amber-coloured eyes looked out soft with a peculiar romantic affection. But the next moment she was laughing again, laughing her sharp ironic laugh and swaggering off with the same derisive, detached expression as before; mocking herself and Anna and the whole world.

Proud and diffident Sidney, with her protective aggressiveness, and her cynicism, and her admiration for the other girl which must always be hidden away. She had a burning attachment to Anna. And yet she was not quite sure that at the same time, in some portion of her brain, she didn’t despise her a little. Or perhaps pity her; which was much the same thing.

Anna was going to Oxford in the autumn; to Somerville. She and Rachel had decided it between them, and Lauretta had been persuaded to agree. At the end of the Easter term Anna had already passed the necessary examinations and was eager to go. But she had to wait till the autumn. So a restlessness came upon her, a feeling of suspense. The summer months lay before her like an empty interval, pleasant enough, but without much significance. She was restless.

Spring was already well on the way. A clear sky, with blue shadows on the low hills that had taken the place of mountains in her life. A few bright leaves poking up, and mauve and yellow heads of crocus in the grass.

Anna was in her bedroom, trying on a hat that had just come by post. Lauretta was generous with presents of this kind. Casually, Anna stood in front of the mirror looking at the hat which was made of fine straw with an uneven brim and a little fringe of softly 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 wear them. 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 suppose,’ replied Catherine smoothly.

Anna watched her in her handsome, rather tense, rather aggravating self-confidence, with suspicion and bewilderment. She could not understand what it was about Catherine that acted upon her as such an irritant. Whether it was the way she moved about the lighted room in bold, challenging triumph, enjoying the illicit occasion; or the peculiar mock-meekness in her large brown eyes when she looked at Anna, as at a superior.

‘It’s really rather absurd at our age to be treated like children in the nursery,’ Catherine said. ‘We ought both of us to be up at Oxford.’

And she went on to talk about some verses that Anna had written and which Rachel had sent to a friend of hers, a publisher at Oxford. It was possible that he might decide to publish them.

Anna looked at her more amicably. Was it possible that this proud, accomplished, independent creature admired her? Yes, there was admiration in Catherine’s eyes, an incongruous, almost servile admiration behind the insolence. And Anna could feel, under the haughty, indifferent manner, the will of the other girl reaching out towards her. She was flattered. It gratified her, in spite of her irritation, that she could make Catherine admire her.

But the next day she was all irritation again. She simply couldn’t conceive why she had gone to the dance. She hadn’t enjoyed herself in the least. The whole incident seemed inexplicable and stupid.

In the middle of the morning Rachel sent for her. Anna went into the study where she had once spent so much of her time. It seemed quite natural to be there again. Rachel was sitting at the bureau. As usual, she was dressed in bright colours; a loose tunic of vivid blue over her skirt, with long, very full sleeves heavily embroidered — something like an elaborate priestly vestment.

‘You sent for me?’ Anna asked quietly.

‘Yes,’ replied Rachel, turning towards her.

Anna came closer, and glanced round at the attractive, familiar room as if in recognition. The glance of familiarity was distasteful to Rachel, seeming to imply Anna’s natural right to the freedom of the room. She gave the girl a strange look from her hazel eyes.