Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [44]
CHAPTER NINE
What happened was that a few days after they split, I was in the Art Room with some other girls, working on a still life. I remember it being stifling that day, even though we had the fan rattling behind us. We were using charcoal, and because someone had commandeered all the easels, we were having to work with our boards propped up on our laps. I was sitting beside Cynthia E., and we’d just been chatting and complaining about the heat. Then somehow we’d got onto the subject of boys, and she’d said, not looking up from her work:
“And Tommy. I knew it wouldn’t last with Ruth. Well, I suppose you’re the natural successor.”
She’d said it in a throwaway manner. But Cynthia was a perceptive person, and the fact that she wasn’t part of our group just gave her remark more weight. What I mean is, I couldn’t help thinking she represented what anyone with any distance on the subject would think. After all, I’d been Tommy’s friend for years until all this couples stuff had come up. It was perfectly possible that to someone on the outside, I’d look like Ruth’s “natural successor.” I just let it go, though, and Cynthia, who wasn’t trying to make any big point, said nothing else about it.
Then maybe a day or two later, I was coming out of the pavilion with Hannah when she suddenly nudged me and nodded towards a group of boys over on the North Playing Field.
“Look,” she said quietly. “Tommy. Sitting by himself.”
I shrugged, as though to say: “So what?” And that’s all there was to it. But afterwards I found myself thinking a lot about it. Maybe all Hannah had meant to do was point out how Tommy, since splitting with Ruth, looked a bit of a spare part. But I couldn’t quite buy this; I knew Hannah too well. The way she’d nudged me and lowered her voice had made it all too obvious she too was expressing some assumption, probably doing the rounds, about me being the “natural successor.”
All this did, as I say, put me in a bit of a confusion, because until then I’d been all set on my Harry plan. In fact, looking back now, I’m sure I would have had sex with Harry if it hadn’t been for this “natural successor” business. I’d had it all sorted, and my preparations had gone well. And I still think Harry was a good choice for that stage in my life. I think he would have been considerate and gentle, and have understood what I was wanting from him.
I saw Harry fleetingly a couple of years ago at the recovery centre in Wiltshire. He was being brought in after a donation. I wasn’t in the best of moods because my own donor had just completed the night before. No one was blaming me for that—it had been a particularly untidy operation—but I wasn’t feeling great all the same. I’d been up most of the night, sorting all the arrangements, and I was in the front reception getting ready to leave when I saw Harry coming in. He was in a wheelchair—because he was so weak, I found out later, not because he couldn’t actually walk—and I’m not sure he recognised me when I went up and said hello. I suppose there’s no reason I should have any special place in his memory. We’d never had much to do with each other apart from that one time. To him, if he remembered me at all, I’d just be this daft girl who came up to him once, asked if he wanted sex, then backed off. He must have been pretty mature for his age, because he didn’t get annoyed or go round telling people I was a tease, or any of that. So when I saw him being brought in that day, I felt grateful to him and wished I was his carer. I looked about, but whoever was his carer wasn’t even around. The orderlies were impatient to get him to his room, so I didn’t talk with him long. I just said hello, that I hoped he’d feel better soon, and he smiled tiredly. When I mentioned Hailsham he did a thumbs-up, but I could tell he didn’t recognise me. Maybe later, when he wasn’t so tired, or when the medication wasn’t so strong, he’d have tried to place me and remembered.
Anyway, I was talking about back then: about how after Ruth and Tommy split, all my