Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [11]
When she’d first asked him to come to her study after Art Appreciation, Tommy explained, he’d expected yet another lecture about how he should try harder—the sort of thing he’d had already from various guardians, including Miss Emily herself. But as they were walking from the house towards the Orangery—where the guardians had their living quarters—Tommy began to get an inkling this was something different. Then, once he was seated in Miss Lucy’s easy chair—she’d remained standing by the window—she asked him to tell her the whole story, as he saw it, of what had been happening to him. So Tommy had begun going through it all. But before he was even half way she’d suddenly broken in and started to talk herself. She’d known a lot of students, she’d said, who’d for a long time found it very difficult to be creative: painting, drawing, poetry, none of it going right for years. Then one day they’d turned a corner and blossomed. It was quite possible Tommy was one of these.
Tommy had heard all of this before, but there was something about Miss Lucy’s manner that made him keep listening hard.
“I could tell,” he told me, “she was leading up to something. Something different.”
Sure enough, she was soon saying things Tommy found difficult to follow. But she kept repeating it until eventually he began to understand. If Tommy had genuinely tried, she was saying, but he just couldn’t be very creative, then that was quite all right, he wasn’t to worry about it. It was wrong for anyone, whether they were students or guardians, to punish him for it, or put pressure on him in any way. It simply wasn’t his fault. And when Tommy had protested it was all very well Miss Lucy saying this, but everyone did think it was his fault, she’d given a sigh and looked out of her window. Then she’d said:
“It may not help you much. But just you remember this. There’s at least one person here at Hailsham who believes otherwise. At least one person who believes you’re a very good student, as good as any she’s ever come across, never mind how creative you are.”
“She wasn’t having you on, was she?” I asked Tommy. “It wasn’t some clever way of telling you off?”
“It definitely wasn’t anything like that. Anyway . . .” For the first time he seemed worried about being overheard and glanced over his shoulder towards the house. The Juniors at the window had lost interest and gone; some girls from our year were walking towards the pavilion, but they were still a good way off. Tommy turned back to me and said almost in a whisper:
“Anyway, when she said all this, she was shaking.”
“What do you mean, shaking?”
“Shaking. With rage. I could see her. She was furious. But furious deep inside.”
“Who at?”
“I wasn’t sure. Not at me anyway, that was the most important thing!” He gave a laugh, then became serious again. “I don’t know who she was angry with. But she was angry all right.”
I stood up again because my calves were aching. “It’s pretty weird, Tommy.”
“Funny thing is, this talk with her, it did help. Helped a lot. When you were saying earlier on, about how things seemed better for me now. Well, it’s because of that. Because afterwards, thinking about what she’d said, I realised she was right, that it wasn’t my fault. Okay, I hadn’t handled it well. But deep down, it wasn’t my fault. That’s what made the difference. And whenever I felt rocky about it, I’d catch sight of her walking about, or I’d be in one of her lessons, and she wouldn’t say anything about our talk, but I’d look at her, and she’d sometimes see me and give me a little nod. And that’s all I needed. You were asking earlier if something had happened. Well, that’s what happened. But Kath, listen, don’t breathe a word to anyone about this, right?”
I nodded, but asked: “Did she make you promise that?”
“No, no, she didn’t make me promise anything. But you’re not to breathe a word. You’ve got to really promise.”
“All right.” The girls heading for the pavilion had spotted me and were waving and calling. I waved back and said to Tommy: “I’d better go. We can talk more about it soon.”
But Tommy ignored