Something that happened. A couple of months back, I had this talk with Miss Lucy. And I felt much better afterwards. But she said something, and it all felt much better. The thing is, it might sound strange. It did to me at first. Nothing wrong with it, she said. Spotting a girl I knew a few places back, I went over to her, leaving Tommy standing. I chatted with my friend—I think it was Matilda—as cheerfully as possible, and hardly looked his way for the rest of the time we were in the queue.
And by the time I sat down with my friends, I was trying to figure out how I could sneak off afterwards down to the pond without getting everyone curious. To get there you went out the back entrance, and down the narrow twisting path, pushing past the overgrown bracken that, in the early autumn, would still be blocking your way.
Or if there were no guardians around, you could take a short cut through the rhubarb patch. For a start you could be clearly seen from the house. And the way the sound travelled across the water was hard to predict; if people wanted to eavesdrop, it was the easiest thing to walk down the outer path and crouch in the bushes on the other side of the pond.
But since it had been me that had cut him off in the lunch queue, I supposed I had to make the best of it. It must have been a Friday or a weekend, because I remember we had on our own clothes.
About Miss Lucy telling you something? Oh that. She had a squat, almost bulldoggy figure, and her odd black hair, when it grew, grew upwards so it never covered her ears or chunky neck. She was superb at hockey, and could even hold her own with the Senior boys on the football pitch. I remember watching once when James B. Not mind what other people were saying. A couple of months ago now.
Maybe longer. But I now crouched down in front of Tommy, no longer pretending anything. Are you sure you got it right? We were in her room and she gave me a whole talk about it. But as they were walking from the house towards the Orangery— where the guardians had their living quarters—Tommy began to get an inkling this was something different. So Tommy had begun going through it all. It was quite possible Tommy was one of these. Something different. But she kept repeating it until eventually he began to understand.
It was wrong for anyone, whether they were students or guardians, to punish him for it, or put pressure on him in any way. But just you remember this. With rage. I could see her. She was furious. But furious deep inside. Not at me anyway, that was the most important thing! But she was angry all right.
Helped a lot. When you were saying earlier on, about how things seemed better for me now. You were asking earlier if something had happened. We can talk more about it soon. I was going to ask you about it. You mean she thinks we should be studying even harder than we are? What she was talking about was, you know, about us. Donations and all that. Maybe she was meaning something else completely, something else to do with me not being creative. You said she got angry. She was quiet, but she was shaking.
Was it when she got angry she started to say this other stuff? Why did she bring it up? Then suddenly she starts up about this other stuff. Why did she bring up donations? There must have been some reason, I suppose. Maybe one thing reminded her of the other. The fact was, my mind was going in various directions at once.
I keep thinking about all these things. Like why Madame comes and takes away our best pictures. She keeps coming here and taking away our best work. She must have stacks of it by now.
What is this gallery? Why should she have a gallery of things done by us? Outside, out there, they sell everything. Everyone talked about it as though it existed, though in truth none of us knew for sure that it did. I remember a time when I could only have been five or six, sitting at a low table beside Amanda C. All I remember is Amanda C. None of us are good enough for the Gallery yet. Straight to the Gallery with that one! Roger, as usual, was making us laugh and laugh.
Then Carole H. What could we do to her? So in the end we settled on a plan to put her theory to the test the next time Madame came to Hailsham.
The lead-up to her arrival began weeks before, with the guardians sifting through all our work—our paintings, sketches, pottery, all our essays and poems. Once the guardians started laying it out neatly, on tables and easels, like a miniature version of one of our Exchanges, then you knew Madame would be coming within a day or two. So as soon as we saw the stuff getting displayed in the billiards room, we decided to take turns keeping look-out.
This was a task made much easier by the way the grounds were laid out. Hailsham stood in a smooth hollow with fields rising on all sides. That meant that from almost any of the classroom windows in the main house—and even from the pavilion—you had a good view of the long narrow road that came down across the fields and arrived at the main gate. Days could sometimes go by without us seeing a vehicle coming down that narrow road, and the ones that did were usually vans or lorries bringing supplies, gardeners or workmen.
A car was a rarity, and the sight of one in the distance was sometimes enough to cause bedlam during a class. We were in Room 9—on the first floor at the front of the house—and when the whisper went around, poor Mr.
But as Mr. We had a hurried conference out on the landing, then followed the rest of the class down the stairs and loitered just inside the main doorway. We could see out into the bright courtyard, where Madame was still sitting behind the wheel, rummaging in her briefcase. Eventually she emerged from the car and came towards us, dressed in her usual grey suit, her briefcase held tightly to herself in both arms.
At a signal from Ruth we all sauntered out, moving straight for her, but like we were all in a dream.
What I mean is, until then, it had been a pretty light-hearted matter, with a bit of a dare element to it. Ruth had been right: Madame was afraid of us. But she was afraid of us in the same way someone might be afraid of spiders. It had never occurred to us to wonder how we would feel, being seen like that, being the spiders. Hannah looked ready to burst into tears.
Even Ruth looked really shaken. Who asks her to come here anyway? What I really wanted, I suppose, was to get straight all the things that happened between me and Tommy and Ruth after we grew up and left Hailsham. Take all this curiosity about Madame, for instance. At one level, it was just us kids larking about. After that day, mention of Madame became, while not taboo exactly, pretty rare among us. And this was something that soon spread beyond our little group to just about all the students in our year.
The topic of the Gallery, though, still cropped up every once in a while, so that when a few years later Tommy started telling me beside the pond about his odd talk with Miss Lucy, I found something tugging away at my memory. It was something Miss Lucy had once said to us during a class.
The tokens controversy was, I suppose, all part of our getting more acquisitive as we grew older. The Exchanges, with their system of tokens as currency, had given us a keen eye for pricing up anything we produced. When you come across old students from Hailsham, you always find them, sooner or later, getting nostalgic about their collections. At the time, of course, we took it all for granted. You each had a wooden chest with your name on it, which you kept under your bed and filled with your possessions—the stuff you acquired from the Sales or the Exchanges.
I can remember one or two students not bothering much with their collections, but most of us took enormous care, bringing things out to display, putting other things away carefully. The point is, by the time we were ten, this whole notion that it was a great honour to have something taken by Madame collided with a feeling that we were losing our most marketable stuff.
This all came to a head in the tokens controversy. It began with a number of students, mainly boys, muttering that we should get tokens to compensate when Madame took something away.
A lot of students agreed with this, but others were outraged by the idea. Arguments went on between us for some time, and then one day Roy J. Miss Emily, our head guardian, was older than the others. She wore her silvery hair tied back, but strands were always coming loose and floating around her. They would have driven me mad, but Miss Emily always ignored them, like they were beneath her contempt. But we considered her to be fair and respected her decisions; and even in the Juniors, we probably recognised that it was her presence, intimidating though it was, that made us all feel so safe at Hailsham.
It took some nerve to go and see her without being summoned; to go with the sort of demands Roy was making seemed suicidal. It was against this background that Polly T. We were in the library, sitting around the big oak table. I remember there was a log burning in the fireplace, and that we were doing a play-reading.
Then Miss Lucy had said that since everyone at Hailsham was talking about little else, we should forget the play-reading and spend the rest of the lesson exchanging our views about the tokens.
A very important reason. The atmosphere around the table had become one of deep embarrassment, and curious as we were to hear more, we wanted most for the talk to get away from this dodgy territory. The next moment, then, we were all relieved to be arguing again—a bit artificially perhaps—about the tokens.
The Sales were important to us because that was how we got hold of things from outside. But the truth was we all were. Actually there was some point in hanging about the van as it was being unloaded. What you did—if you were one of these Juniors—was to follow back and forth from the storeroom the two men in overalls carrying the big cardboard boxes, asking them what was inside.
And that was why, by the time of the actual Sale a week or so later, all sorts of rumours would be going around, maybe about a particular track suit or a music cassette, and if there was trouble, it was almost always because a few students had set their hearts on the same item.
The Sales were a complete contrast to the hushed atmosphere of the Exchanges. They were held in the Dining Hall, and were crowded and noisy. Except, as I say, every now and then, things would get out of hand, with students grabbing and tugging, sometimes fighting. Our day at Hailsham always began with an assembly, which was usually pretty brief—a few announcements, maybe a poem read out by a student.
But on a morning after a rowdy Sale, everything was different. It was partly her language. Her general drift was clear enough: we were all very special, being Hailsham students, and so it was all the more disappointing when we behaved badly. Beyond that though, things became a fog. What is it? What can it be that thwarts us? Oh no! And neither will Hailsham! How could Hailsham have been the way it was if the person in charge had been potty?
Miss Emily had an intellect you could slice logs with. Certainly, Miss Emily could be uncannily sharp. Hailsham was full of hiding places, indoors and out: cupboards, nooks, bushes, hedges. It was like she had some extra sense. Out you come. She never shouted like, say, Miss Lucy did when she got mad at you, but if anything Miss Emily getting angry was scarier. But usually with Miss Emily nothing too awful would come out of it.
She hardly ever put you in detention, made you do chores or withdrew privileges. But the thing was, there was no predicting with Miss Emily. And then there was the time I thought I was in hot water with her. The little footpath that went all round the back of the main house was a real favourite of mine. It followed all the nooks, all the extensions; you had to squeeze past shrubs, you went under two ivy-covered arches and through a rusted gate.
And all the time you could peer in through the windows, one after the other. I suppose part of the reason I liked the path so much was because I was never sure if it was out of bounds. But at the weekends or in the evenings—that was never clear.
Most students avoided it anyway, and maybe the feeling of getting away from everyone else was another part of the appeal. I think I was in Senior 3. As usual I was glancing into the empty rooms as I went past, and then suddenly I was looking into a classroom with Miss Emily in it. She was alone, pacing slowly, talking under her breath, pointing and directing remarks to an invisible audience in the room. I assumed she was rehearsing a lesson or maybe one of her assembly talks, and I was about to hurry past before she spotted me, but just then she turned and looked straight at me.
I froze, thinking I was for it, but then noticed she was carrying on as before, except now she was mouthing her address at me.
Then, natural as you like, she turned away to fix her gaze on some other imaginary student in another part of the room. I crept away along the path, and for the next day or so kept dreading what Miss Emily would say when she saw me. But she never mentioned it at all. What I want to do now is get a few things down about Ruth, about how we met and became friends, about our early days together. I can remember, at five or six, doing things with Hannah and with Laura, but not with Ruth.
I only have the one vague memory of Ruth from that early part of our lives. Then Ruth is standing there, not in the sand with the rest of us, but a few feet away. My guess is that I knew Ruth only very slightly at that point.
But she must already have made some impression on me, because I remember carrying on busily with whatever I was doing in the sand, absolutely dreading the idea of her turning her gaze on me. This absolutely delighted me, but I made a show of weighing her up before giving a reply. Or if you like, you could have any of the others.
You can ride Bramble, and if you like him, you can have him to keep. So I gave a shrug and went off with Ruth. The field was filled with playing children, some a lot bigger than us, but Ruth led the way through them very purposefully, always a pace or two in front. You take Bramble. Much more than that! She pointed to a section of the fence, and I began leading the horses to it, while Ruth seemed to get crosser and crosser with me, saying I was doing everything wrong.
I found out though over the next several days. When Ruth and I discussed it while I was caring for her down in Dover, she claimed it had been just a matter of two or three weeks—but that was almost certainly wrong.
She was probably embarrassed about it and so the whole thing had shrunk in her memory. My guess is that it went on for about nine months, a year even, around when we were seven, going on eight. I was never sure if Ruth had actually invented the secret guard herself, but there was no doubt she was the leader.
We believed Miss Geraldine was the best guardian in Hailsham, and we worked on presents to give her—a large sheet with pressed flowers glued over it comes to mind.
But our main reason for existing, of course, was to protect her. By the time I joined the guard, Ruth and the others had already known for ages about the plot to kidnap Miss Geraldine. We were never quite sure who was behind it.
We sometimes suspected certain of the Senior boys, sometimes boys in our own year. The woods were at the top of the hill that rose behind Hailsham House. Even so, you never really got away from them. There were all kinds of horrible stories about the woods. Once, not so long before we all got to Hailsham, a boy had had a big row with his friends and run off beyond the Hailsham boundaries. His body had been found two days later, up in those woods, tied to a tree with the hands and feet chopped off.
She kept hanging around outside the fences, pleading to be let back in, but no one let her. But her ghost was always wandering about the woods, gazing over Hailsham, pining to be let back in.
The guardians always insisted these stories were nonsense. You almost thought then you could hear the wind rustling the branches, and talking about it seemed to only make things worse. I remember one night, when we were furious with Marge K. At first she kept her eyes screwed shut, but we twisted her arms and forced open her eyelids until she saw the distant outline against the moonlit sky, and that was enough to ensure for her a sobbing night of terror.
It was hardly surprising then that we assumed the woods would be central in the plot to abduct Miss Geraldine. For some reason, we were satisfied this would keep any immediate danger at bay. One morning, for instance, we watched from a second-floor classroom Miss Eileen and Mr. Roger talking to Miss Geraldine down in the courtyard. After a while Miss Geraldine said goodbye and went off towards the Orangery, but we kept on watching, and saw Miss Eileen and Mr.
And yet, all the time, I think we must have had an idea of how precarious the foundations of our fantasy were, because we always avoided any confrontation. Sure enough, the guard was important to her. This had all helped get me fascinated, and I was soon longing to become engrossed myself in those ornate pieces. For the next several days, though, she sighed whenever I brought the subject up, or pretended she had something else really urgent to do.
When I finally cornered her one rainy afternoon, and we set out the board in the billiards room, she proceeded to show me a game that was a vague variant on draughts. At this, I stood up, packed up the set and walked off. It was maybe a day later, I came into Room 20 at the top of the house, where Mr. George had his poetry class. I remember having books in my hands, and that as I moved towards where Ruth and the others were talking, there was a strong patch of sun across the desk-lids they were sitting on.
I could see from the way they had their heads together they were discussing secret guard stuff, and although, as I say, the row with Ruth had been only the day before, for some reason I went up to them without a second thought. It was only when I was virtually right up to them—maybe there was a look exchanged between them—that it suddenly hit me what was about to happen.
Then about two days after this snub in Room 20, I was coming down the stairs of the main house when I found Moira B. We started talking—about nothing special—and wandered out of the house together.
It must have been the lunch break because as we stepped into the courtyard there were about twenty students loitering around chatting in little groups. My eyes went immediately to the far side of the courtyard, where Ruth and three of the secret guard were standing together, their backs to us, gazing intently towards the South Playing Field. I was trying to see what it was they were so interested in, when I became aware of Moira beside me also watching them.
For the next few seconds I felt something like acute embarrassment that the two of us should now be standing side by side, linked by our recent humiliations, actually staring our rejection in the face, as it were. How can they still believe in something like that? How come I heard them planning it myself, nothing to do with Ruth or anyone else?
So that just shows how much you know! Why was I so hostile to Moira B. Not for me, not for any of us. We were in Room 5 on the ground floor at the back of the house, waiting for a class to start.
Room 5 was the smallest room, and especially on a winter morning like that one, when the big radiators came on and steamed up the windows, it would get really stuffy. In fact, I think it was when I was squeezing up to let someone else in beside me that I first noticed the pencil case.
It was shiny, like a polished shoe; a deep tan colour with circled red dots drifting all over it. The zip across the top edge had a furry pom- pom to pull it. Where did you get that? Was it in the Sale? Ruth said nothing for a few seconds while she checked carefully the faces around her.
There could be no mistake about this because it had been building up for weeks. Still, I hated it when Ruth hinted in this way. But on that winter morning in Room 5, it had come at me straight out of the blue. I just stared at her, making no attempt to disguise my anger. Then luckily the guardian arrived and the class started. I was never the sort of kid who brooded over things for hours on end.
But after that morning in Room 5, I did go around in a bit of a trance. I even had one hazy fantasy where Miss Geraldine herself heard about it and gave Ruth a complete dressing-down in front of everyone. After days of this I started to think more solidly. She might have got it from another student, but that was unlikely. Ruth would never risk a story like hers knowing the pencil case had already knocked around Hailsham.
Provided I was right about the pencil case coming from a Sale, all I had to do was bluff. That was how Ruth and I came to have our conversation under the eaves. There was fog and drizzle that day. Anyway, as we were crossing the courtyard, the rain suddenly got heavier and since we were in no hurry, we tucked ourselves in under the eaves of the main house, a little to one side of the front entrance.
In the end, I decided to come straight out with it. You know, the register thing. Christopher C. And I was just turning over the pages of the register, just for something to do. You can see all the things people have bought. Then I glanced at Ruth and got a real shock. Now I saw how upset Ruth was; how for once she was at a complete loss for words, and had turned away on the verge of tears.
And suddenly my behaviour seemed to me utterly baffling. All this effort, all this planning, just to upset my dearest friend. A spontaneous hug, a secret letter, a gift? I now felt awful, and I was confused. Then after a few further seconds of silence, Ruth walked off into the rain. But this was one instance when she seemed just to cave in. It was like she was too ashamed of the matter—too crushed by it—even to be angry or to want to get me back.
The first few times I saw her after the conversation under the eaves, I was ready for at least a bit of huffiness, but no, she was completely civil, if a little flat. But the point is, I said it standing right behind Ruth, and I could see she was pleased. Then another time a few of us were leaving a classroom with Miss Geraldine, and I happened to find myself about to go out the door right after Miss Geraldine herself.
On that occasion, as far as I remember, Ruth looked puzzled and surprised for a split second, then gave me a quick nod and went past. Maybe it would all have got forgotten eventually; or maybe Ruth and I would have drifted apart. As it was, right out of the blue, a chance came along for me to put things right. We were in the middle of one of Mr. Then at one point a girl called Midge A. It was our usual gang with perhaps a couple of outsiders loitering nearby.
I keep it in my collection chest. Where did you get it? It was only later, when I replayed it all, that I appreciated how perfectly shaped a chance it was for me. I just came in before Midge or anyone else had the chance to notice Ruth was in a curious quandary.
But I kept my cool and went on, addressing only Midge. Midge shrugged again, and as far as I remember that was the end of it. Either she walked off, or else she started talking about something different.
But it was obvious from her manner towards me, not just over the next few days, but over the weeks that followed, how pleased she was with me. As it was, an opportunity did come along for her, about a month after the Midge episode, the time I lost my favourite tape.
What I want to talk about is the first tape, the one that disappeared. I should explain before I go any further this whole thing we had in those days about Norfolk. We kept it going for years and years—it became a sort of in-joke, I suppose—and it all started from one particular lesson we had when we were pretty young.
It was Miss Emily herself who taught us about the different counties of England. She had quite a collection of these picture calendars, and we got through most of the counties this way.
Very nice there. Eventually she came out of her dream and tapped the map again. Somehow this idea caught on and soon had become accepted fact virtually throughout our entire year. Sure enough, by the time we were twelve or thirteen, the Norfolk thing had become a big joke.
But my memory of it— and Ruth remembered it the same way—is that at the beginning, we believed in Norfolk in the most literal way; that just as lorries came to Hailsham with our food and stuff for our Sales, there was some similar operation going on, except on a grander scale, with vehicles moving all over England, delivering anything left behind in fields and trains to this place called Norfolk. Besides, we never bothered to examine our Norfolk theory in any detail.
We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel around the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk. Norfolk came to be a real source of comfort for us, probably much more than we admitted at the time, and that was why we were still talking about it—albeit as a sort of joke—when we were much older. And it was because of this cigarette that I got so secretive about the tape, right from the moment I found it at the Sale.
Even if we were being shown a picture of a famous writer or world leader, and they happened to have a cigarette in their hand, then the whole lesson would grind to a halt.
And then there were the actual lessons where they showed us horrible pictures of what smoking did to the insides of your body. We were sitting on the grass after a rounders match and Miss Lucy had been giving us a typical talk on smoking when Marge suddenly asked if Miss Lucy had herself ever had a cigarette.
Miss Lucy went quiet for a few seconds. But to be honest, I did smoke for a little while. For about two years, when I was younger. But at the time, the moment Miss Lucy said what she did, we were too confused to think any more about Marge.
When she did speak, Miss Lucy seemed to be weighing up each word carefully. Why is it so much worse for us? All it would have taken was just one more question about smoking. So why had we stayed silent that day? I suppose it was because even at that age—we were nine or ten—we knew just enough to make us wary of that whole territory.
We certainly knew— though not in any deep sense—that we were different from our guardians, and also from the normal people outside; we perhaps even knew that a long way down the line there were donations waiting for us. If we were keen to avoid certain topics, it was probably more because it embarrassed us. We hated the way our guardians, usually so on top of everything, became so awkward whenever we came near this territory.
It unnerved us to see them change like that. Oh baby, baby. Never let me go. I always tried to keep the tape wound to just that spot so I could play the song whenever a chance came by. There was a big machine in the billiards room, but I hardly ever played the tape in there because it was always full of people. The Art Room also had a player, but that was usually just as noisy. The only place I could listen properly was in our dorm.
What was so special about this song? The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance. There was one strange incident around this time I should tell you about here. Anyway, what I was doing was swaying about slowly in time to the song, holding an imaginary baby to my breast. I froze in shock. Then within a second or two, I began to feel a new kind of alarm, because I could see there was something strange about the situation.
She was out in the corridor, standing very still, her head angled to one side to give her a view of what I was doing inside. And the odd thing was she was crying. It might even have been one of her sobs that had come through the song to jerk me out of my dream.
But she just went on standing out there, sobbing and sobbing, staring at me through the doorway with that same look in her eyes she always had when she looked at us, like she was seeing something that gave her the creeps. As it was, she turned and the next moment I could hear her footsteps leaving the hut.
I realised the tape had gone on to the next track, and I turned it off and sat down on the nearest bed. And as I did so, I saw through the window in front of me her figure hurrying off towards the main house. But they. They don't want us doing it here, because it's. My guess, anyway, is that there wasn't nearly as much sex go ing on as people. If everyone who clai me d to be doing it really had been, then that's.
What I re me mber is that there was this discreet agree me nt among us all not. I must have seen at the ti me how all these claims being made around me. All the sa me , as that sum me r approached, I began to feel more. What I me an is, if Miss Emily was correct. And he'd hinted a few ti me s he'd like to have sex with me. Okay, a. I realise this may sound like I was getting obsessive, but I re me mber I also. The trouble. Margaret Drabble, had so me sex in them, but it wasn't ever very clear what.
We'd go t. A lot of them had sex in. Great Escape. By then, I was even feeling. I re me mber it being stifling that. What I me an is, I couldn't help thinking she represented what anyone. It was perfectly.
All this did, as I say, put me in a bit of a confusion, because until then I'd. I'd had it all sorted, and my preparations had go ne well. And I still. I think he would have. I saw Harry fleetingly a couple of years a go at the recovery centre in Wiltshire.
I'd been up most of the night, sorting all the. I suppose there's no reason I. We'd never had much to do. To him, if he re me mbered me at all,. I'd just be this daft girl who ca me up to him once, asked if he wanted sex,. When I me ntioned Hailsham he did a thumbs-up, but I could tell he. Looking at it now, I feel a bit sorry for Harry. I suppose I must have assu me d he was raring.
Because whe never I. Well, anyway, this era of putting Harry off lasted maybe a couple. Okay, it sounds a stupid way to listen to music, but it created a really go od.
After a while, provided you kept the sa me tape go ing over and over, it was. I can't re me mber that last sum me r without thinking about those.
Anyway, that's what I was up to with a few other girls when Ruth ca me up to. I could tell it was so me thing important, so I left. When we go t to our room, I sat down on Ruth's bed, close to the window—the. Maybe he did it just to give me a go od laugh.
Well you. It's ti me we grew. How you've go t guts and how you always do what you say you're go ing to do. He told me once if he was in a corner, he'd rather have you backing him than. So you see, it's go t to be you to our rescue. Tommy and I. After that, I re me mber us sitting on those beds, talking for so me ti me.
We talked about it all and she wanted my advice. This couldn't have been long after that ti me I'd. There's so me thing I want to talk to you about. As soon as I said this, he let the ball roll away and ca me to sit down beside. It was typical of Tommy that once he knew I was willing to talk, there was. I'm perfectly happy. I really am. I don't me an he did this ironically. He actually.
As I say, there would co me a ti me when. Until that afternoon I'd. Just take it from me , you don't do it that. You definitely don't! Look, you've go t to grow up. And you've go t to get. Things have been falling apart for me.
But I don't see what you me an,. Tommy still looked puzzled. Finally he did another little laugh, but this ti me. It's really so me thing else altogether. I just keep. Tommy and Miss Lucy at the start of that sum me r. Later, when I'd had ti me. Tommy had seen. But she was looking at me , like this, straight in the face, all serious.
Then she says we've go t to have a talk, a go od talk. I say fine, and so we go. And she tells me to. And I can tell she's re me mbering that ti me as well, because she.
That she'd done me a big disservice telling me not to worry about being. That might have. I shouldn't have said what I did.
Why should you be any different? Not in a sexy way. More like they used to do when. And that it wasn't too late,. I should start straight away, making up the lost ti me. I don't think I said. I was probably bright scar let ,.
I me an, it's not the sa me , is it,. We're go ing to. You've go t to get yourself sorted again, and. You're really lucky. Of all the people here, you've go t. I waited but Tommy gave no response, and again I felt so me thing like panic. We've go t to think about the next move really carefully. We're go ing to be leaving here soon. I could feel his eyes on me , but I didn't look up.
We might have go ne. I never go t to assess what kind of impact my talk with Tommy had had,. The sessions always go t us excited and worried all at. Then at the end of the. Earlier in the morning, one of the other Senior.
For the next. I im me diately set off to look for Tommy, because I desperately wanted him to. But when I stepped into the courtyard, I saw I was too. Ruth go t back together again, and I re me mber Ruth finding me a few days. And that was more or less the way things stayed throughout our. So me ti me s I'll be driving on a long weaving road across marshland, or maybe. But so me how—maybe we could see so me thing in the. Once we go t to the Cottages, though, the essays took on a new importance.
When I think about my essay today, what I do is go over it in so me detail: I. Just lately, I've even toyed with the idea of. But in the end, I suppose I'm not really serious about it. It's just a bit of. I think about the essay the sa me way I might a. Eight of us who left Hailsham that sum me r ended up at the Cottages. We certainly didn't think much about our lives beyond the. The Cottages were the remains of a farm that had go ne out of business years.
But it was never clear what. So I re me mber a lot of the ti me , outside the sum me r. We so me ti me s kept our Wellingtons on the. If we were. A few of us, for a ti me , even tried to think of. Cynthia E. For all our map lessons with Miss Emily, we. We'd watched them with. Hailsham, and we were just bewildered. If you'd told me then that within a. But at least it was the sum me r, not the way.
But he didn't, and all we could. In fact, looking back, I see they really. If so me one me ntions the Cottages today,. For the first weeks after we arrived, she made. The veteran couples never did anything showy in public, go ing.
There was, incidentally, so me thing I noticed about these veteran couples at. It first ca me to me watching this couple, Susie and Greg—probably. There was this particular thing Susie did whe never Greg set off on. I suppose she eventually had a. But those of us who'd arrived from Hailsham kept sitting. Even so, by that particular afternoon, there.
I'd go ne out of my way to find a quiet corner to myself, I'm pretty sure what. She studied the. Ruth, but now I was irritated. She'd done this to me a couple of ti me s before,. Okay, even at the ti me , I was vaguely. It was, as I say, a little ga me we all indulged in to so me extent. Even so, it was.
You know what I me an. A few months before I might have let it go at that—or probably wouldn't have. As soon as I said this I realised I'd made a mistake; that until I'd me ntioned.
You've still go t this idea. Us Hailsham lot, we have to stay together, a. I'm just talking about Chrissie and Rodney. It looks daft,. So me of the veterans hardly re me mber your. You never talk to anyone unless they're. But you can't expect me to hold your hand the whole ti me. You leave him stranded, looking like a. We've talked about this, and we've agreed. If he so me ti me s doesn't.
But we've agreed, he. You could say they were a sort of han go ver from those. Okay, this had never been. To me , it was a betrayal. Because there wasn't any doubt what she'd.
So me ti me s it was because he was interested in becoming a couple with you;. Or maybe it was because of the cold. When I re me mber sex at the Cottages, I think about doing it in freezing rooms. So me ti me s it go t so cold you just had to pile anything you could over.
I'd never been. And Ruth had been at her best: encouraging, funny, tactful, wise. Maybe it's just me anyway. There might be so me thing not quite. Because so me ti me s I just really, really need to do. Then it suddenly co me s on.
It was like. He started snogging me and I just wanted. Then suddenly it just ca me on, out of nowhere. I just really. Ruth shook her head. But it'll probably go away. This never occurred to me at the ti me , but I see now it's a possibility, and an. After all, im me diately before she made that. So me ti me s, as I said, she did things to impress the veterans at our expense.
But it seems to me Ruth believed, at so me level, she was doing all this on. She was struggling to beco me so me one else, and maybe felt the. At the ti me I didn't look at the larger picture or at my. I suppose, in general, I never appreciated in those days the. Thinking about this now, I'm reminded of so me thing she told me. Ruth, who was sitting up in bed, was quiet for a long ti me , the sunset falling.
My plan was I'd find a really go od wooden box for. But when we go t there, I could see none of the. I didn't go looking for a new box. My things all stayed in the holdall bag for. Ruth shook her head, and for the next few mo me nts see me d to be go ing. And I said, but it's go od stuff, really go od stuff. And he. I suppose he just.
But at least I didn't have to. I wish now I'd. As the autumn ca me on, and I go t more familiar with our surroundings, I. The veterans were never slow coming. If they had to be me ntioned, they go t me ntioned. Most commonly,. Then, maybe most me morably,. We'd never. When Ruth and I. If one turned up in a room,. Then you ca me back half an hour. Anyway, my point is that whe never one of these magazines turned up, people.
As I say, we never. So me ti me s he'd work himself into a comp let e state—you could see his. I re me mber one particular ti me when Keffers had collected up six or seven of. Sure enough, a few minutes later, I saw him. The light wasn't too go od, but there was a grimy window so me where behind.
I'll admit, there have been ti me s when I've looked at pictures like. But that's. It wasn't until I was nearing the end of the pile that I beca me certain there.
I'd left the. But there'd been no one there, and I'd just go ne on with what I. I waited for giggling, or maybe for two or three students to co me bursting into. He ca me towards me cautiously, then stopped a few steps away. Then he. I kept go ing through the pages, and for the next few seconds he stayed silent. But I saw you from my room. I saw you co me. He did another laugh, but then when I glanced up, I saw he was watching me.
Then I heard Tommy's steps coming nearer until he was right up to me. You've go t to. It doesn't really work if you go that. This ti me I did stop and look at him. But I did see you, that ti me last week, after. But I ca me back to get my jumper, and. That ti me in Charley's room, you had a strange face. Like you were sad,. I hadn't minded at all. I'd felt comforted,. Their idea of a joke. Forget I me ntioned it. But I could see she wanted me to drag it out of her, so I kept pressing until in.
At the sa me ti me , you could tell people were. So me. There were so me who thought it stupid to be concerned about possibles at all. All the sa me , whe never we heard reports of a. The way I re me mber it, sightings of possibles tended to co me in batches. Weeks could go by with no one me ntioning the subject, then one reported.
But every now and then, a sighting see me d to have substance to it—like the. When they'd me t up. Inside had been a lot of people, so me of them at their desks, so me. She made Rodney. Now they keep talking about driving me up there, but I don't know. I can't re me mber exactly what I said to her that night, but I was at that point.
That's why she often looked more like the Wicked. She'd been one of the veterans who'd really welco me d us when. Another thing that go t to me was the. I actually go t to. To me , at the ti me , this see me d just too. Looking back now, it feels like we spent ages in that stea me d-up kitchen after. Mind you, none of us pushed it too far. I don't re me mber anyone saying they. The talk was more likely.
So me ti me s, if it was late, I'd close my eyes and nestle. Anyway, to get back to my point, when this sort of talk was go ing on, it was.
We'd reached a. It took me a mo me nt to realise, so that by the ti me I turned back to her she. I thought maybe it was so me poor creature dead in the frost,. She went into all the details—the plants,. Of course, I didn't say anything. I'd pass them sitting together in the corner of a room and.
It took me a long ti me to. I never heard Ruth actually lie to veterans; it was more to do with. And of course, I didn't. And once it beca me clear she was comp let ely set on go ing, I told her I'd.
At first, she didn't seem too delighted, and there was even a hint. In the end, though, we all. He'd regularly go t cars this way in the past, but this particular ti me , the. Though things. And she'd talked a. That day before we went, I re me mber Ruth and I had been out for a stroll, and. Ruth was standing just in front of me , so I couldn't see her face, but.
I go t a glimpse of her face then, and that's when I. In the end, as I said, the vehicle crisis go t resolved, and early the next. That was what had felt natural, and we'd go t. So me ti me s, on the rare occasions she did lean back, I tried to get. We'd pulled over beside a big empty field, so. That way she could go on.
Now of all ti me s! I don't get it. Why do you. We go t there around lunch-ti me and left the Rover in a car park beside a. It had turned into a crisp, sunny day,. It see me d at first there was a sheer drop down to the. We took the table right at the back—which me ant the one stuck out closest to. I didn't have anything to compare it with at the ti me , but I.
There was one cardboard notice. But once. Martin, who'd left the Cottages the year before and was now living so me where. Thinking about it now, it occurs to me the.
Whe never they laughed, I laughed too just to be polite. Tommy see me d to be. There was a silence, then I heard Ruth let out an exasperated sigh. We can't just go. It occurred to me she didn't want the expedition. Of course, it. For a mo me nt, as he said this, the fear passed through me that we'd. Working in a nice office. I don't see how. You can all co me and visit. Ruth was nodding thoughtfully. It occurred to me that I should shoot Tommy. But this just me ant Tommy still didn't.
And so me thing told me we were coming to. What they were saying was that so me. It wasn't easy, but just so me ti me s they'd let you do it. So long as you. There was now a strange atmosphere around the table, a kind of tingle go ing.
And they went to see so me one and go t. This wasn't the first ti me I'd co me across the rumour about deferrals.
But I'd heard enough to get. We never talked. Ruth shrugged again. It wasn't so me thing we talked about. Tommy shook his head. And this ti me I. Ruth turned away from him. The veterans hadn't noticed anything because Ruth, at the sa me mo me nt,. When I go t outside, it was obvious the excite me nt from when we'd first arrived. It was a relief to co me out. Rodney was nodding, and I thought there was so me thing a little bit mocking.
Both veterans were now standing in the middle of the pave me nt, let ting. So we went into the Woolworth's, and im me diately I felt much more cheerful. Today, if I'm in a town and find myself with so me ti me to kill, I'll stroll.
I wasn't sure what to do: I didn't. Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Great book, Never Let Me Go pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone. Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
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