Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [78]
We began to retrace our steps down the slope, but we knew we still had time and didn’t hurry.
“Tommy,” I asked, after we’d been walking for a while. “Have you said any of this to Ruth?”
He shook his head and went on walking. Eventually he said: “The thing is, Ruth believes it all, everything the veterans are saying. Okay, she likes to pretend she knows much more than she does. But she does believe it. And sooner or later, she’s going to want to take it further.”
“You mean, she’ll want to . . .”
“Yeah. She’ll want to apply. But she hasn’t thought it through yet. Not the way we just did.”
“You’ve never told her your theory about the Gallery?”
He shook his head again, but said nothing.
“If you tell her your theory,” I said, “and she buys it . . . Well, she’s going to be furious.”
Tommy seemed thoughtful, but still didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until we were back down in the narrow side-streets that he spoke again, and then his voice was suddenly sheepish.
“Actually, Kath,” he said, “I have been doing some stuff. Just in case. I haven’t told anyone, not even Ruth. It’s just a start.”
That was when I first heard about his imaginary animals. When he started to describe what he’d been doing—I didn’t actually see anything until a few weeks later—I found it hard to show much enthusiasm. In fact, I have to admit, I was reminded of the original elephant-in-the-grass picture that had started off all Tommy’s problems at Hailsham. The inspiration, he explained, had come from an old children’s book with the back cover missing which he’d found behind one of the sofas at the Cottages. He’d then persuaded Keffers to give him one of the little black notebooks he scribbled his figures in, and since then, Tommy had finished at least a dozen of his fantastic creatures.
“The thing is, I’m doing them really small. Tiny. I’d never thought of that at Hailsham. I think maybe that’s where I went wrong. If you make them tiny, and you have to because the pages are only about this big, then everything changes. It’s like they come to life by themselves. Then you have to draw in all these different details for them. You have to think about how they’d protect themselves, how they’d reach things. Honest, Kath, it’s nothing like anything I ever did at Hailsham.”
He started describing his favourites, but I couldn’t really concentrate; the more excited he got telling me about his animals, the more uneasy I was growing. “Tommy,” I wanted to say to him, “you’re going to make yourself a laughing stock all over again. Imaginary animals? What’s up with you?” But I didn’t. I just looked at him cautiously and kept saying: “That sounds really good, Tommy.”
Then he said at one point: “Like I said, Kath, Ruth doesn’t know about the animals.” And when he said this, he seemed to remember everything else, and why we’d been talking about his animals in the first place, and the energy faded from his face. Then we were walking in silence again, and as we came out onto the High Street, I said:
“Well, even if there’s something to your theory, Tommy, there’s a lot more we’ll have to find out. For one thing, how’s a couple supposed to apply? What are they supposed to do? There aren’t exactly forms lying about.”
“I’ve been wondering about all of that too.” His voice was quiet and solemn again. “As far as I can see, there’s only one obvious way forward. And that’s to find Madame.”
I gave this a think, then said: “That might not be so easy. We don’t really know a thing about her. We don’t even know her name. And you remember how she was? She didn’t like us even coming near her. Even if we did ever track her down, I don’t see her helping much.”
Tommy sighed. “I know,” he said. “Well, I suppose we’ve got time. None of us are in any particular hurry.”
BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK TO THE CAR PARK, the afternoon had clouded over and was growing pretty chilly. There was no sign of the others yet, so Tommy and I leaned against our car and looked towards the mini-golf course. No one was playing and the flags were fluttering