Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [59]
I waited for giggling, or maybe for two or three students to come bursting into the barn, eager to make the best of having caught me with a pile of porn mags. But nothing happened. So I called out, in what I tried to make a weary tone:
“Delighted you could join me. Why be so shy?”
There was a little chuckle, then Tommy appeared at the threshold. “Hi, Kath,” he said sheepishly.
“Come on in, Tommy. Join in the fun.”
He came towards me cautiously, then stopped a few steps away. Then he looked over to the boiler, and said: “I didn’t know you liked that sort of stuff.”
“Girls are allowed too, aren’t we?”
I kept going through the pages, and for the next few seconds he stayed silent. Then I heard him say:
“I wasn’t trying to spy on you. But I saw you from my room. I saw you come out here and pick up that pile Keffers left.”
“You’re very welcome to them when I’ve finished.”
He laughed awkwardly. “It’s just sex stuff. I expect I’ve seen them all already.” He did another laugh, but then when I glanced up, I saw he was watching me with a serious expression. Then he asked:
“Are you looking for something, Kath?”
“What do you mean? I’m just looking at dirty pictures.”
“Just for kicks?”
“I suppose you could say that.” I put down one mag and started on the next one.
Then I heard Tommy’s steps coming nearer until he was right up to me. When I looked up again, his hands were hovering fretfully in the air, like I was doing a complicated manual task and he was itching to help.
“Kath, you don’t . . . Well, if it’s for kicks, you don’t do it like that. You’ve got to look at the pictures much more carefully. It doesn’t really work if you go that fast.”
“How do you know what works for girls? Or maybe you’ve looked these over with Ruth. Sorry, not thinking.”
“Kath, what are you looking for?”
I ignored him. I was nearly at the end of the pile and I was now keen to finish. Then he said:
“I saw you doing this once before.”
This time I did stop and look at him. “What’s going on here, Tommy? Has Keffers recruited you for his porn patrol?”
“I wasn’t trying to spy on you. But I did see you, that time last week, after we’d all been up in Charley’s room. There was one of these mags there, and you thought we’d all left and gone. But I came back to get my jumper, and Claire’s doors were open so I could see straight through to Charley’s room. That’s how I saw you in there, going through the magazine.”
“Well, so what? We all have to get our kicks some way.”
“You weren’t doing it for kicks. I could tell, just like I can now. It’s your face, Kath. That time in Charley’s room, you had a strange face. Like you were sad, maybe. And a bit scared.”
I jumped off the workbench, gathered up the mags and dumped them in his arms. “Here. Give these to Ruth. See if they do anything for her.”
I walked past him and out of the barn. I knew he’d be disappointed I hadn’t told him anything, but at that point I hadn’t thought things through properly myself and wasn’t ready to tell anyone. But I hadn’t minded him coming into the boiler hut after me. I hadn’t minded at all. I’d felt comforted, protected almost. I did tell him eventually, but that wasn’t until a few months later, when we went on our Norfolk trip.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I want to talk about the Norfolk trip, and all the things that happened that day, but I’ll first have to go back a bit, to give you the background and explain why it was we went.
Our first winter was just about over by then and we were all feeling much more settled. For all our little hiccups, Ruth and I had kept up our habit of rounding off the day in my room, talking over our hot drinks, and it was during one of those sessions, when we were larking around about something, that she suddenly said:
“I suppose you’ve heard what Chrissie and Rodney have been saying.”
When I said I hadn’t, she did a laugh and continued: “They’re probably just having me on. Their idea of a joke. Forget I mentioned it.”
But I could see she wanted me to