Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [110]
“Because it would help show you what we were like,” Tommy said. “Because . . .”
“Because of course”—Madame cut in suddenly—“your art will reveal your inner selves! That’s it, isn’t it? Because your art will display your souls!” Then suddenly she turned to me again and said: “I go too far?”
She’d said this before, and I again had the impression she was staring at a spot on my sleeve. But by this point a faint suspicion I’d had ever since the first time she’d asked “I go too far?” had started to grow. I looked at Madame carefully, but she seemed to sense my scrutiny and she turned back to Tommy.
“All right,” she said. “Let us continue. What was it you were telling me?”
“The trouble is,” Tommy said, “I was a bit mixed up in those days.”
“You were saying something about your art. How art bares the soul of the artist.”
“Well, what I’m trying to say,” Tommy persisted, “is that I was so mixed up in those days, I didn’t really do any art. I didn’t do anything. I know now I should have done, but I was mixed up. So you haven’t got anything of mine in your gallery. I know that’s my fault, and I know it’s probably way too late, but I’ve brought some things with me now.” He raised his bag, then began to unzip it. “Some of it was done recently, but some of it’s from quite a long time ago. You should have Kath’s stuff already. She got plenty into the Gallery. Didn’t you, Kath?”
For a moment they were both looking at me. Then Madame said, barely audibly:
“Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?” She let that hang, and I thought I could see tears in her eyes again. Then she turned to me and asked: “Do we continue with this talk? You wish to go on?”
It was when she said this that the vague idea I’d had before became something more substantial. “Do I go too far?” And now: “Do we continue?” I realised, with a little chill, that these questions had never been for me, or for Tommy, but for someone else—someone listening behind us in the darkened half of the room.
I turned round quite slowly and looked into the darkness. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard a sound, a mechanical one, surprisingly far away—the house seemed to go much further back into the dark than I’d guessed. Then I could make out a shape moving towards us, and a woman’s voice said: “Yes, Marie-Claude. Let us carry on.”
I was still looking into the darkness when I heard Madame let out a kind of snort, and she came striding past us and on into the dark. Then there were more mechanical sounds, and Madame emerged pushing a figure in a wheelchair. She passed between us again, and for a moment longer, because Madame’s back was blocking the view, I couldn’t see the person in the wheelchair. But then Madame steered it around to face us and said:
“You speak to them. It’s you they’ve come to speak to.”
“I suppose it is.”
The figure in the wheelchair was frail and contorted, and it was the voice more than anything that helped me recognise her.
“Miss Emily,” Tommy said, quite softly.
“You speak to them,” Madame said, as though washing her hands of everything. But she remained standing behind the wheelchair, her eyes blazing towards us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Marie-Claude is correct,” Miss Emily said. “I’m the one to whom you should be speaking. Marie-Claude worked hard for our project. And the way it all ended has left her feeling somewhat disillusioned. As for myself, whatever the disappointments, I don’t feel so badly about it. I think what we achieved merits some respect. Look at the two of you. You’ve turned out well. I’m sure you have much you could tell me to make me proud. What did you say your names were? No, no, wait. I think I shall remember. You’re the boy with the bad temper. A bad temper, but a big heart. Tommy. Am I right? And you, of course, are Kathy H. You’ve done well as a carer. We’ve heard a lot about you. I remember, you see. I dare say I can remember you all.”
“What good does it do you or them?