Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go

“Ruth, you know, I think sometimes, when you’re in a couple, you don’t see things as clearly as maybe someone can from the outside. Just sometimes.”

She nodded. “That’s probably right.”

“I don’t want to interfere. But sometimes, just lately, I think Tommy’s been quite upset. You know. About certain things you’ve said or done.”

I was worried Ruth would get angry, but she nodded and sighed. “I think you’re right,” she said in the end. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot too.”

“Then maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. I should have known you’d see what was happening. It’s not my business really.”

“But it is, Kathy. You’re really one of us, and so it’s always your business. You’re right, it hasn’t been good. I know what you mean. That stuff the other day, about his animals. That wasn’t good. I told him I was sorry about that.”

“I’m glad you talked it over. I didn’t know if you had.”

Ruth had been picking at some moulding flakes of wood on the bench beside her, and for a moment she seemed completely absorbed in this task. Then she said:

“Look, Kathy, it’s good we’re talking now about Tommy. I’ve been wanting to tell you something, but I’ve never quite known how to say it, or when, really. Kathy, promise you won’t be too cross with me.”

I looked at her and said: “As long as it’s not about those T-shirts again.”

“No, seriously. Promise you won’t get too cross. Because I’ve got to tell you this. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I kept quiet much longer.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Kathy, I’ve been thinking this for some time. You’re no fool, and you can see that maybe me and Tommy, we might not be a couple forever. That’s no tragedy. We were right for each other once. Whether we always will be, that’s anyone’s guess. And now there’s all this talk, about couples getting deferrals if they can prove, you know, that they’re really right. Okay, look, what I wanted to say, Kathy, is this. It’d be completely natural if you’d thought about, you know, what would happen if me and Tommy decided we shouldn’t be together any more. We’re not about to split, don’t get me wrong. But I’d think it was completely normal if you at least wondered about it. Well, Kathy, what you have to realise is that Tommy doesn’t see you like that. He really, really likes you, he thinks you’re really great. But I know he doesn’t see you like, you know, a proper girlfriend. Besides…” Ruth paused, then sighed. “Besides, you know how Tommy is. He can be fussy.”

I stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“You must know what I mean. Tommy doesn’t like girls who’ve been with… well, you know, with this person and that. It’s just a thing he has. I’m sorry, Kathy, but it wouldn’t be right not to have told you.”

I thought about it, then said: “It’s always good to know these things.”

I felt Ruth touch my arm. “I knew you’d take it the right way. What you’ve got to understand, though, is that he thinks the world of you. He really does.”

I wanted to change the subject, but for the moment my mind was a blank. I suppose Ruth must have picked up on this, because she stretched out her arms and did a kind of yawn, saying:

“If I ever learn to drive a car, I’d take us all on a trip to some wild place. Dartmoor, say. The three of us, maybe Laura and Hannah too. I’d love to see all the bogs and stuff.”

We spent the next several minutes talking about what we’d do on a trip like that if we ever went on one. I asked where we’d stay, and Ruth said we could borrow a big tent. I pointed out the wind could get really fierce in places like that and our tent could easily blow away in the night. None of this was that serious. But it was around here I remembered the time back at Hailsham, when we’d still been Juniors and we were having a picnic by the pond with Miss Geraldine. James B. had been sent to the main house to fetch the cake we’d all baked earlier, but as he was carrying it back, a strong gust of wind had taken off the whole top layer of sponge, tossing it into the rhubarb leaves. Ruth said she could only vaguely remember the incident, and I’d said, trying to clinch it for her memory:

“The thing was, he got into trouble because that proved he’d been coming down through the rhubarb patch.”

And that was when Ruth looked at me and said: “Why? What was wrong with that?”

It was just the way she said it, suddenly so false even an onlooker, if there’d been one, would have seen through it. I sighed with irritation and said:

“Ruth, don’t give me that. There’s no way you’ve forgotten. You know that route was out of bounds.”

Maybe it was a bit sharp, the way I said it. Anyway, Ruth didn’t back down. She continued pretending to remember nothing, and I got all the more irritated. And that was when she said:

“What does it matter anyway? What’s the rhubarb patch got to do with anything? Just get on with what you were saying.”

After that I think we went back to talking in a more or less friendly way, and then before long we were making our way down the footpath in the half-light back to the Cottages. But the atmosphere never quite righted itself, and when we said our goodnights in front of the Black Barn, we parted without our usual little touches on the arms and shoulders.

It wasn’t long after that I made my decision, and once I’d made it, I never wavered. I just got up one morning and told Keffers I wanted to start my training to become a carer. It was surprisingly easy. He was walking across the yard, his Wellingtons covered in mud, grumbling to himself and holding a piece of piping. I went up and told him, and he just looked at me like I’d bothered him about more firewood. Then he mumbled something about coming to see him later that afternoon to go through the forms. It was that easy.

It took a little while after that, of course, but the whole thing had been set in motion, and I was suddenly looking at everything—the Cottages, everybody there—in a different light. I was now one of the ones leaving, and soon enough, everyone knew it. Maybe Ruth thought we’d be spending hours talking about my future; maybe she thought she’d have a big influence on whether or not I changed my mind. But I kept a certain distance from her, just as I did from Tommy. We didn’t really talk properly again at the Cottages, and before I knew it, I was saying my goodbyes.

For the most part being a carer’s suited me fine. You could even say it’s brought the best out of me. But some people just aren’t cut out for it, and for them the whole thing becomes a real struggle. They might start off positively enough, but then comes all that time spent so close to the pain and the worry. And sooner or later a donor doesn’t make it, even though, say, it’s only the second donation and no one anticipated complications. When a donor completes like that, out of the blue, it doesn’t make much difference what the nurses say to you afterwards, and neither does that letter saying how they’re sure you did all you could and to keep up the good work. For a while at least, you’re demoralised. Some of us learn pretty quick how to deal with it. But others—like Laura, say—they never do.

Then there’s the solitude. You grow up surrounded by crowds of people, that’s all you’ve ever known, and suddenly you’re a carer. You spend hour after hour, on your own, driving across the country, centre to centre, hospital to hospital, sleeping in overnights, no one to talk to about your worries, no one to have a laugh with. Just now and again you run into a student you know—a carer or donor you recognise from the old days—but there’s never much time. You’re always in a rush, or else you’re too exhausted to have a proper conversation. Soon enough, the long hours, the travelling, the broken sleep have all crept into your being and become part of you, so everyone can see it, in your posture, your gaze, the way you move and talk.