Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro [97]
“I wonder how it got here,” I said. I’d raised my voice to let it get to the others and had expected an echo. But the sound was surprisingly close, like I was in a carpeted room.
Then I heard Tommy say behind me: “Maybe this is what Hailsham looks like now. Do you think?”
“Why would it look like this?” Ruth sounded genuinely puzzled. “It wouldn’t turn into marshland just because it’s closed.”
“I suppose not. Wasn’t thinking. But I always see Hailsham being like this now. No logic to it. In fact, this is pretty close to the picture in my head. Except there’s no boat, of course. It wouldn’t be so bad, if it’s like this now.”
“That’s funny,” Ruth said, “because I was having this dream the other morning. I was dreaming I was up in Room 14. I knew the whole place had been shut down, but there I was, in Room 14, and I was looking out of the window and everything outside was flooded. Just like a giant lake. And I could see rubbish floating by under my window, empty drinks cartons, everything. But there wasn’t any sense of panic or anything like that. It was nice and tranquil, just like it is here. I knew I wasn’t in any danger, that it was only like that because it had closed down.”
“You know,” Tommy said, “Meg B. was at our centre for a while. She’s left now, gone up north somewhere for her third donation. I never heard how she got on. Have either of you heard?”
I shook my head, and when I didn’t hear Ruth say anything, turned to look at her. At first I thought she was still staring at the boat, but then I saw her gaze was on the vapour trail of a plane in the far distance, climbing slowly into the sky. Then she said:
“I’ll tell you something I heard. I heard about Chrissie. I heard she completed during her second donation.”
“I heard that as well,” said Tommy. “It must be right. I heard exactly the same. A shame. Only her second as well. Glad that didn’t happen to me.”
“I think it happens much more than they ever tell us,” Ruth said. “My carer over there. She probably knows that’s right. But she won’t say.”
“There’s no big conspiracy about it,” I said, turning back to the boat. “Sometimes it happens. It was really sad about Chrissie. But that’s not common. They’re really careful these days.”
“I bet it happens much more than they tell us,” Ruth said again. “That’s one reason why they keep moving us around between donations.”
“I ran into Rodney once,” I said. “It wasn’t so long after Chrissie completed. I saw him in this clinic, up in North Wales. He was doing okay.”
“I bet he was cut up about Chrissie though,” said Ruth. Then to Tommy: “They don’t tell you the half of it, you see?”
“Actually,” I said, “he wasn’t too bad about it. He was sad, obviously. But he was okay. They hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years anyway. He said he thought Chrissie wouldn’t have minded too much. And I suppose he should know.”
“Why would he know?” Ruth said. “How could he possibly know what Chrissie would have felt? What she would have wanted? It wasn’t him on that table, trying to cling onto life. How would he know?”
This flash of anger was more like the old Ruth, and made me turn to her again. Maybe it was just the glare in her eyes, but she seemed to be looking back at me with a hard, stern expression.
“It can’t be good,” Tommy said. “Completing at the second donation. Can’t be good.”
“I can’t believe Rodney was okay about it,” Ruth said. “You