Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [29]
BUT I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT MY TAPE, Songs After Dark by Judy Bridgewater. I suppose it was originally an LP—the recording date’s 1956—but what I had was the cassette, and the cover picture was what must have been a scaled-down version of the record sleeve. Judy Bridgewater is wearing a purple satin dress, one of those off-the-shoulder ones popular in those days, and you can see her from just above the waist because she’s sitting on a bar-stool. I think it’s supposed to be South America, because there are palms behind her and swarthy waiters in white tuxedos. You’re looking at Judy from exactly where the barman would be when he’s serving her drinks. She’s looking back in a friendly, not too sexy way, like she might be flirting just a tiny bit, but you’re someone she knows from way back. Now the other thing about this cover is that Judy’s got her elbows up on the bar and there’s a cigarette burning in her hand. And it was because of this cigarette that I got so secretive about the tape, right from the moment I found it at the Sale.
I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham the guardians were really strict about smoking. I’m sure they’d have preferred it if we never found out smoking even existed; but since this wasn’t possible, they made sure to give us some sort of lecture each time any reference to cigarettes came along. Even if we were being shown a picture of a famous writer or world leader, and they happened to have a cigarette in their hand, then the whole lesson would grind to a halt. There was even a rumour that some classic books—like the Sherlock Holmes ones—weren’t in our library because the main characters smoked too much, and when you came across a page torn out of an illustrated book or magazine, this was because there’d been a picture on it of someone smoking. And then there were the actual lessons where they showed us horrible pictures of what smoking did to the insides of your body. That’s why it was such a shock that time Marge K. asked Miss Lucy her question.
We were sitting on the grass after a rounders match and Miss Lucy had been giving us a typical talk on smoking when Marge suddenly asked if Miss Lucy had herself ever had a cigarette. Miss Lucy went quiet for a few seconds. Then she said:
“I’d like to be able to say no. But to be honest, I did smoke for a little while. For about two years, when I was younger.”
You can imagine what a shock this was. Before Miss Lucy’s reply, we’d all been glaring at Marge, really furious she’d asked such a rude question—to us, she might as well have asked if Miss Lucy had ever attacked anyone with an axe. And for days afterwards I remember how we made Marge’s life an utter misery; in fact, that incident I mentioned before, the night we held Marge’s face to the dorm window to make her look at the woods, that was all part of what came afterwards. But at the time, the moment Miss Lucy said what she did, we were too confused to think any more about Marge. I think we all just stared at Miss Lucy in horror, waiting for what she’d say next.
When she did speak, Miss Lucy seemed to be weighing up each word carefully. “It’s not good that I smoked. It wasn’t good for me so I stopped it. But what you must understand is that for you, all of you, it’s much, much worse to smoke than it ever was for me.”
Then she paused and went quiet. Someone said later she’d gone off into a daydream, but I was pretty sure, as was Ruth, that she was thinking hard about what to say next. Finally she said:
“You’ve been told about it. You’re students. You’re . . . special. So keeping yourselves well, keeping yourselves very healthy inside, that’s much more important for each of you than