Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [119]
A few minutes later, he said suddenly: “Kath, can we stop? I’m sorry, I need to get out a minute.”
Thinking he was feeling sick again, I pulled up almost immediately, hard against a hedge. The spot was completely unlit, and even with the car lights on, I was nervous another vehicle might come round the curve and run into us. That’s why, when Tommy got out and disappeared into the blackness, I didn’t go with him. Also, there’d been something purposeful about the way he’d got out that suggested even if he was feeling ill, he’d prefer to cope with it on his own. Anyway, that’s why I was still in the car, wondering whether to move it a little further up the hill, when I heard the first scream.
At first I didn’t even think it was him, but some maniac who’d been lurking in the bushes. I was already out of the car when the second and third screams came, and by then I knew it was Tommy, though that hardly lessened my urgency. In fact, for a moment, I was probably close to panic, not having a clue where he was. I couldn’t really see anything, and when I tried to go towards the screams, I was stopped by an impenetrable thicket. Then I found an opening, and stepping through a ditch, came up to a fence. I managed to climb over it and I landed in soft mud.
I could now see my surroundings much better. I was in a field that sloped down steeply not far in front of me, and I could see the lights of some village way below in the valley. The wind here was really powerful, and a gust pulled at me so hard, I had to reach for the fence post. The moon wasn’t quite full, but it was bright enough, and I could make out in the mid-distance, near where the field began to fall away, Tommy’s figure, raging, shouting, flinging his fists and kicking out.
I tried to run to him, but the mud sucked my feet down. The mud was impeding him too, because one time, when he kicked out, he slipped and fell out of view into the blackness. But his jumbled swear-words continued uninterrupted, and I was able to reach him just as he was getting to his feet again. I caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight, caked in mud and distorted with fury, then I reached for his flailing arms and held on tight. He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting and I felt the fight go out of him. Then I realised he too had his arms around me. And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field, for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night.
When at last we pulled apart, he muttered: “I’m really sorry, Kath.” Then he gave a shaky laugh and added: “Good job there weren’t cows in the field. They’d have got a fright.”
I could see he was doing his best to reassure me it was all okay now, but his chest was still heaving and his legs shaking. We walked together back towards the car, trying not to slip.
“You stink of cow poo,” I said, finally.
“Oh God, Kath. How do I explain this? We’ll have to sneak in round the back.”
“You’ll still have to sign in.”
“Oh God,” he said, and laughed again.
I found some rags in the car and we got the worst of the muck off. But I’d taken out of the boot, just while I was searching for the rags, the sports bag containing his animal pictures, and when we set off again, I noticed Tommy brought it inside with him.
We travelled some way, not saying much, the bag on his lap. I was waiting for him to say something about the pictures; it even occurred to me he was working up to another rage, when he’d throw all the pictures out of the window. But he