Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [68]
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When I got outside, it was obvious the excitement from when we’d first arrived had evaporated completely. We walked in silence, Rodney leading the way, through little backstreets hardly penetrated by the sun, the pavements so narrow we often had to shuffle along in single file. It was a relief to come out onto the High Street where the noise made our rotten mood less obvious. As we crossed at a pelican to the sunnier side, I could see Rodney and Chrissie conferring about something and I wondered how much of the bad atmosphere had to do with their believing we were holding back on some big Hailsham secret, and how much was just to do with Ruth’s having a go at Tommy.
Then once we’d crossed the High Street, Chrissie announced she and Rodney wanted to go shopping for birthday cards. Ruth was stunned by this, but Chrissie just went on:
“We like buying them in big batches. It’s always cheaper in the long run. And you’ve always got one handy when it’s someone’s birthday.” She pointed to the entrance of a Woolworth’s shop. “You can get pretty good cards in there really cheap.”
Rodney was nodding, and I thought there was something a little bit mocking around the edges of his smile. “Of course,” he said, “you end up with a lot of cards the same, but you can put your own illustrations on them. You know, personalise them.”
Both veterans were now standing in the middle of the pavement, letting people with pushchairs move round them, waiting for us to put up a challenge. I could tell Ruth was furious, but without Rodney’s co-operation there wasn’t much that could be done anyway.
So we went into the Woolworth’s, and immediately I felt much more cheerful. Even now, I like places like that: a large store with lots of aisles displaying bright plastic toys, greeting cards, loads of cosmetics, maybe even a photo booth. Today, if I’m in a town and find myself with some time to kill, I’ll stroll into somewhere just like that, where you can hang around and enjoy yourself, not buying a thing, and the assistants don’t mind at all.
Anyway, we went in and before long we’d wandered apart to look at different aisles. Rodney had stayed near the entrance beside a big rack of cards, and further inside, I spotted Tommy under a big pop-group poster, rummaging through the music cassettes. After about ten minutes, when I was somewhere near the back of the store, I thought I heard Ruth’s voice and wandered towards it. I’d already turned into the aisle—one with fluffy animals and big boxed jigsaws—before I realised Ruth and Chrissie were standing together at the end of it, having some sort of tête-à-tête. I wasn’t sure what to do: I didn’t want to interrupt, but it was time we were leaving and I didn’t want to turn and walk off again. So I just stopped where I was, pretended to examine a jigsaw and waited for them to notice me.
That was when I realised they were back on the subject of this rumour. Chrissie was saying, in a lowered voice, something like:
“But all that time you were there, I’m amazed you didn’t think more about how you’d do it. About who you’d go to, all of that.”
“You don’t understand,” Ruth was saying. “If you were from Hailsham, then you’d see. It’s never been such a big deal for us. I suppose we’ve always known if we ever wanted to look into it, all we’d have to do is get word back to Hailsham . . .”
Ruth saw me and broke off. When I lowered the jigsaw and turned to them, they were both looking at me angrily. At the same time, it was like I’d caught them doing something they shouldn’t, and they moved apart self-consciously.
“It’s time we were off,” I said, pretending to have heard nothing.
But Ruth wasn’t fooled. As they came past, she gave me a really dirty look.
So by the time we set off again, following Rodney in search of the office where he’d seen Ruth’s possible the month before, the atmosphere between us was worse than ever. Things weren’t helped either by Rodney repeatedly