CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!   Anna groaned and covered her ears, staring down at her desk.   It was no good, she could still hear the overwhelmingCounty bray filling the room.  Upper class confidence exerting its right to disrupt.   It didn’t matter one jot to Celia Hartop that maybe, at least some of her classmates actually wanted to learn Spanish, a language she obviously had zero interest in, along with most of the other subjects in the curriculum.   From the very start, she’d made it no secret that she was interested in just one thing, killing time until she was old enough to become a nurse.   A nurse!  Anna’s eyes had bulged.  Weren’t nurses supposed to be caring?  She shuddered at the thought of Celia with a syringe.  She was the last person that should be allowed anywhere near the sick.  Anna wondered where she’s got the idea from, maybe days out with the local Hunt had taught her that she enjoyed the sight of suffering?   Meanwhile, she was alleviating her boredom by taunting the tutor she’d labelled a Commie, partly because of his views on the Spanish Civil War but also because he wore sandals and a Fair Isle cardigan.  For the life of her, Anna couldn’t see the connection, other than Celia and her ilk were so prejudiced that any break with tradition was a personal assault.  Surely, that was stereotyping to the nth degree.
‘Okay then, Mr Colledge, what do you think about the Hungarian uprising?  Do you think Khrushchev was right to send in the tanks and kill all those people?’
Sensing blood, Celia’s needle-sharp eyes glittered.
Anna raised her head and looked at her tutor who brushed his floppy hair away from his eyes as he opened his mouth to reply.  To her surprise, he seemed to be enjoying the debate - maybe his boredom matched Celia’s.   In any event, he was parrying her charges, obviously taking delight in exposing ignorance that would have shamed anyone with a thinner hide.   He was wasting his time, Anna thought. Celia’s resembled a rhino’s.  He’d never puncture her innate conviction that she’d been bred to be right.
            Anna couldn’t bear it any longer.  She loathed the mouthy Celia and her fawning coterie.  Most of all she loathed herself for not having the courage to stand up to her.  Her chair screeched as she stood up and began to stuff her books into her bag, making no attempt to hide her exasperation.  She glanced around the room but everyone’s eyes were fixed on the battle being played out before them.  All except one - a girl was looking at her and as their eyes collided, the girl winked and jerked her head towards the door.
            As they left the room, Celia’s voice followed them like a bad smell and the girl grinned.
            ‘Tally-ho,’ she said.
            Anna, flicked her a glance.  She didn’t know what to say. She’d never had any communication with the girl before although she had noticed her.  It was difficult not to.  Always dressed in black, the girl stood out against the froth of pastels and her shapeless tent dress didn’t succeed in hiding her looks, which were spectacular.   At close range they were no less so and Anna felt a twinge of envy as she glanced at the girl’s perfect profile, trying to find even the slightest flaw.  Abruptly, the girl turned to face her, a swirl of auburn hair following the sudden movement.
            ‘Don’t tell me you’ve only just noticed my second head!’
            To her horror, Anna felt her cheeks burn.  ‘Sorry.’ She muttered.  ‘It’s just that I was trying to remember your name. Don’t remember names very well.’  
            ‘Neither do I, but I know yours – it’s Anna isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.  How clever.’
            ‘Not really, I have a system.  Anna is ‘A’ for angelic – it’s because you’re nice,’ she explained.   ‘Celia is ‘C’ for codswallop – which is what she talks most of the time.  I’m Lucinda, by the way, although I prefer to be called Lucy.’
            If that was the case, Anna thought she must be ‘L’ for lovely.   At home, her Mum and Dad sometimes had a glass of sherry on special occasions and every time they did, her Dad would hold up his glass. ‘Just look at that,’ he’d say.  ‘Pure amber!’   Anna had the feeling he’d say the same thing about Lucy’s hair, although, in her opinion, her most striking asset was her eyes, deep blue, almost purple, the colour of bluebells in the shade.  It seemed grossly unfair that she also had delicate features and perfect skin.
            ‘Come on.’  Tucking her arm underneath Anna’s, Lucinda hurried her along.
            ‘Where are we going?’
            ‘Don’t know but we’re out of that class room with time to kill, so let’s make the most of it.’
            Anna allowed herself to be pulled along but she was puzzled.   Up until today, the girl hadn’t shown the slightest interest in her and Anna had put her down as being a cold fish but today she seemed completely different.  It could be that mutual dislike of Celia had united them but it still seemed slightly odd.
‘I know, what about a coffee?’
‘Never drink the stuff, but yeah that’s fine by me.’
It was too early for lunch but the cafeteria was open so Anna bought herself a milky coffee while Lucy fluttered her eyelashes at the youth behind the counter and wheedled a tap water.   Anna couldn’t help noticing that, as the boy looked into Lucy’s black-lashed eyes, he turned a muddy beetroot colour.  As they turned away, she glanced back and sure enough, he was standing staring as if mesmerised, a goofy look on his face.
She nudged Lucy’s arm.
‘He’s going to dream of you tonight,’ she said.
Lucinda uttered a shrill yelp of laughter and slightly startled, Anna swivelled her head and saw that the boy’s flush had deepened.
‘Ssssh’ she said. ‘I think he heard you.’
Lucy giggled.  ‘Sorry.  He’s sweet but not my type.  I prefer my men more dangerous.’
Anna grinned but later, when she recalled their conversation, icy water flowed the whole length of her spine, Lucy hadn’t known then what really dangerous men could do.
‘Shame we can’t get an early lunch,’ Anna said as they seated themselves at an empty booth.  
‘That’s OK by me.   I never eat it anyway.’
‘Never?'
‘Never.  The food here is rubbish.’
‘But what do you do with your lunch tickets?’
Each student was allowed one free lunch ticket daily which covered the cost of soup and a sweet. It could also be put towards the cost of the main meal but few bothered to pay the extra, preferring to spend their money on something other than food.
‘Sell them.  Our beloved Celia is a good customer.  She’s got to be good for something and she does love her stomach.’
For the first time Anna noticed how thin the girl was.  If she’d wanted, she could have easily circled her wrists between her thumb and middle fingers and her jutting collarbones were clearly visible beneath the flimsy material of her dress.   
‘But, don’t you get hungry?   Even if I have breakfast, I’m starving by lunch time.’
‘Breakfast – what’s that?  Couldn’t possibly eat that early.’
‘So, no breakfast, no lunch – how do you last until supper?  Please tell me you have supper.’
‘Sure.  I really pig out.’
‘Somehow, I doubt that.  Come on, what do you have?’
Lucy slumped in her seat while her fingers played with her waterglass.  ‘What’s it to you what I eat.  I exist, don’t I?  But if you must know, sometimes I have soup, sometimes a jam sandwich.  I love jam, especially strawberry.’
‘Hardly a balanced diet, is it?’
‘Who are you, my mother?’
‘Now you mention it – doesn’t your Mum worry about you not eating properly?’
Lucy’s eyelids closed and when she opened them, her eyes had a queer, metallic glitter.
‘She might, I suppose, if she cared a hoot.  But as she doesn’t and as I can’t remember when I last saw her, she doesn’t figure in the equation.’
‘So, you don’t live with her?’
‘Nope.  The YWCA is the place I call home.’
Anna stared, not knowing what to say.   Her own relationship with her mother wasn’t easy but even so, she couldn’t imagine not living with her.  She opened her mouth to probe further but then closed it.  Lucy was right.  It really was none of her business and obviously Lucy was resenting what she saw as ‘nosiness’.   All the same she was worried about her although she didn’t quite know why, after all, they’d only just met.  Anna  wondered if it was possible that they might become friends.  She looked down at the table, she’d never really had a close friend.  Alec’s behaviour was enough to scare them off.   Although there had been Greta.  She’d been the exception – their friendship had lasted a few years but eventually her brother had even managed to ruin that.  Although it had been a long time ago, she still felt a hot flush of shame whenever she thought about the way it had ended and even now her nights were disturbed by small slips of folded over paper fluttering around her like a cloud of cabbage white butterflies.  Not so innocent as butterflies though.  She felt sick as she remembered the words –  nasty words, venomous words.  Not hers, although everybody had thought they were.   She came to and looked up as Lucy’s chair creaked.
‘Right, I’m off.   Things to do, people to see and all that jazz.  Are you coming?’
‘Yeah, sure.  Hang on a minute.’
Hastily, Anna swallowed the dregs of her coffee.  As she followed Lucy out of the canteen she made a solemn vow never to mention her in front of Alex.  If they did become close, Lucy would have to remain her secret.