Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [8]
For a while he’d only had to suffer during art lessons—though that was often enough, because we did a lot of art in the Juniors. But then it grew bigger. He got left out of games, boys refused to sit next to him at dinner, or pretended not to hear if he said anything in his dorm after lights-out. At first it wasn’t so relentless. Months could go by without incident, he’d think the whole thing was behind him, then something he did—or one of his enemies, like Arthur H.—would get it all going again.
I’m not sure when the big temper tantrums started. My own memory of it is that Tommy was always known for his temper, even in the Infants, but he claimed to me they only began after the teasing got bad. Anyway, it was those temper tantrums that really got people going, escalating everything, and around the time I’m talking about—the summer of our Senior 2, when we were thirteen—that was when the persecution reached its peak.
Then it all stopped, not overnight, but rapidly enough. I was, as I say, watching the situation closely around then, so I saw the signs before most of the others. It started with a period—it might have been a month, maybe longer—when the pranks went on pretty steadily, but Tommy failed to lose his temper. Sometimes I could see he was close to it, but he somehow controlled himself; other times, he’d quietly shrug, or react like he hadn’t noticed a thing. At first these responses caused disappointment; maybe people were resentful, even, like he’d let them down. Then gradually, people got bored and the pranks became more half-hearted, until one day it struck me there hadn’t been any for over a week.
This wouldn’t necessarily have been so significant by itself, but I’d spotted other changes. Little things, like Alexander J. and Peter N. walking across the courtyard with him towards the fields, the three of them chatting quite naturally; a subtle but clear difference in people’s voices when his name got mentioned. Then once, towards the end of an afternoon break, a group of us were sitting on the grass quite close to the South Playing Field where the boys, as usual, were playing their football. I was joining in our conversation, but keeping an eye on Tommy, who I noticed was right at the heart of the game. At one point he got tripped, and picking himself up, placed the ball on the ground to take the free kick himself. As the boys spread out in anticipation, I saw Arthur H.—one of his biggest tormentors—a few yards behind Tommy’s back, begin mimicking him, doing a daft version of the way Tommy was standing over the ball, hands on hips. I watched carefully, but none of the others took up Arthur’s cue. They must all have seen, because all eyes were looking towards Tommy, waiting for his kick, and Arthur was right behind him—but no one was interested. Tommy floated the ball across the grass, the game went on, and Arthur H. didn’t try anything else.
I was pleased about all these developments, but also mystified. There’d been no real change in Tommy’s work—his reputation for “creativity” was as low as ever. I could see that an end to the tantrums was a big help, but what seemed to be the key factor was harder to put your finger on. There was something about Tommy himself—the way he carried himself, the way he looked people in the face and talked in his open, good-natured