Never Let Me Go (Movie Tie-In Edition) (17 page)

I nodded slowly. ‘So that’s why they took away our art …’

‘It could be. Madame’s got a gallery somewhere filled with stuff by students from when they were tiny. Suppose two people come up and say they’re in love. She can find the art they’ve done over years and years. She can see if they go. If they match. Don’t forget, Kath, what she’s got reveals our souls. She could decide for herself what’s a good match and what’s just a stupid crush.’

I started to walk slowly again, hardly looking in front of me. Tommy fell in step, waiting for my response.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said in the end. ‘What you’re saying could certainly explain Miss Emily, what she said to Roy. And I suppose it explains too why the guardians always thought it was so important for us, to be able to paint and all of that.’

‘Exactly. And that’s why …’ Tommy sighed and went on with some effort. ‘That’s why Miss Lucy had to admit she’d been wrong, telling me it didn’t really matter. She’d said that because she was sorry for me at the time. But she knew deep down it
did
matter. The thing about being from Hailsham was that you had this special chance. And if you didn’t get stuff into Madame’s gallery, then you were as good as throwing that chance away.’

It was after he said this that it suddenly dawned on me, with a real chill, where this was leading. I stopped and turned to him, but before I could speak, Tommy let out a laugh.

‘If I’ve got this right, then, well, it looks like I might have blown my chance.’

‘Tommy, did you
ever
get anything into the Gallery? When you were much younger maybe?’

He was already shaking his head. ‘You know how useless I
was. And then there was that stuff with Miss Lucy. I know she meant well. She was sorry for me and she wanted to help me. I’m sure she did. But if my theory’s right, well …’

‘It’s only a theory, Tommy,’ I said. ‘You know what your theories are like.’

I’d wanted to lighten things a bit, but I couldn’t get the tone right, and it must have been obvious I was still thinking hard about what he’d just said. ‘Maybe they’ve got all sorts of ways to judge,’ I said after a moment. ‘Maybe the art’s just one out of all kinds of different ways.’

Tommy shook his head again. ‘Like what? Madame never got to know us. She wouldn’t remember us individually. Besides, it’s probably not just Madame that decides. There’s probably people higher up than her, people who never set foot in Hailsham. I’ve thought about this a lot, Kath. It all fits. That’s why the Gallery was so important, and why the guardians wanted us to work so hard on our art and our poetry. Kath, what are you thinking?’

Sure enough, I’d drifted off a bit. Actually, I was thinking about that afternoon I’d been alone in our dorm, playing the tape we’d just found; how I’d been swaying around, clutching a pillow to my breast, and how Madame had been watching me from the doorway, tears in her eyes. Even this episode, for which I’d never yet found a convincing explanation, seemed to fit Tommy’s theory. In my head, I’d been imagining I was holding a baby, but of course, there’d have been no way for Madame to know that. She’d have supposed I was holding a lover in my arms. If Tommy’s theory was right, if Madame was connected to us for the sole purpose of deferring our donations when, later on, we fell in love, then it made sense – for all her usual coldness towards us – she’d be really moved stumbling on a scene like that. All this flashed through my mind, and I was on the point of blurting it all out to Tommy. But I held back because I wanted now to play down his theory.

‘I was just thinking over what you said, that’s all,’ I said. ‘We should start going back now. It might take us a while to find the car park.’

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 away in the wind. I didn’t want to talk any more about Madame, the Gallery or any of the rest of it, so I got the Judy Bridgewater tape out from its little bag and gave it a good look-over.

‘Thanks for buying this for me,’ I said.

Tommy smiled. ‘If I’d got to that tape box and you were on the LPs, I’d have found it first. It was bad luck for poor old Tommy.’

‘It doesn’t make any difference. We only found it because you said to look for it. I’d forgotten about all this lost-corner stuff. After Ruth going on like that, I was in such a mood. Judy Bridgewater. My old friend. It’s like she’s never been away. I wonder who stole it back then?’

For a moment, we turned towards the street, looking for the others.

‘You know,’ Tommy said, ‘when Ruth said what she did earlier on, and I saw how upset you looked …’

‘Leave it, Tommy. I’m all right about it now. And I’m not going to bring it up with her when she comes back.’

‘No, that’s not what I was getting at.’ He took his weight off the car, turned and pressed a foot against the front tyre as though to test it. ‘What I meant was, I realised then, when Ruth came out with all that, I realised why you keep looking through those porn mags. Okay, I haven’t
realised
. It’s just a theory. Another of my theories. But when Ruth said what she did earlier on, it kind of clicked.’

I knew he was looking at me, but I kept my eyes straight ahead and made no response.

‘But I still don’t really get it, Kath,’ he said eventually. ‘Even if what Ruth says is right, and I don’t think it is, why are you looking through old porn mags for your possibles? Why would your model have to be one of those girls?’

I shrugged, still not looking at him. ‘I don’t claim it makes sense. It’s just something I do.’ There were tears filling my eyes now and I tried to hide them from Tommy. But my voice wobbled as I said: ‘If it annoys you so much, I won’t do it any more.’

I don’t know if Tommy saw the tears. In any case, I’d got them
under control by the time he came close to me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. This was something he’d done before from time to time, it wasn’t anything special or new. But somehow I did feel better and gave a little laugh. He let go of me then, but we stayed almost touching, side by side again, our backs to the car.

‘Okay, there’s no sense in it,’ I said. ‘But we all do it, don’t we? We all wonder about our model. After all, that’s why we came out here today. We all do it.’

‘Kath, you know, don’t you, I haven’t told anyone. About that time in the boiler hut. Not Ruth, not anyone. But I just don’t get it. I don’t get what it’s about.’

‘All right, Tommy. I’ll tell you. It may not make any more sense after you’ve heard it, but you can hear it anyway. It’s just that sometimes, every now and again, I get these really strong feelings when I want to have sex. Sometimes it just comes over me and for an hour or two it’s scary. For all I know, I could end up doing it with old Keffers, it’s that bad. That’s why … that’s the only reason I did it with Hughie. And with Oliver. It didn’t mean anything deep down. I don’t even like them much. I don’t know what it is, and afterwards, when it’s passed over, it’s just scary. That’s why I started thinking, well, it has to come from somewhere. It must be to do with the way I am.’ I stopped, but when Tommy didn’t say anything, I went on: ‘So I thought if I find her picture, in one of those magazines, it’ll at least explain it. I wouldn’t want to go and find her or anything. It would just, you know, kind of explain why I am the way I am.’

‘I get it too sometimes,’ said Tommy. ‘When I really feel like doing it. I reckon everyone does, if they’re honest. I don’t think there’s anything different about you, Kath. In fact, I get like that quite a lot …’ He broke off and laughed, but I didn’t laugh with him.

‘What I’m talking about’s different,’ I said. ‘I’ve watched other people. They get in the mood for it, but that doesn’t make them do things. They never do things like I’ve done, going with people like that Hughie …’

I might have started crying again, because I felt Tommy’s arm
going back around my shoulders. Upset as I was, I remained conscious of where we were, and I made a kind of check in my mind that if Ruth and the others came up the street, even if they saw us at that moment, there’d be no room for misunderstanding. We were still side by side, leaning against the car, and they’d see I was upset about something and Tommy was just comforting me. Then I heard him say:

‘I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Once you find someone, Kath, someone you really want to be with, then it could be really good. Remember what the guardians used to tell us? If it’s with the right person, it makes you feel really good.’

I made a movement with my shoulder to get Tommy’s arm off me, then took a deep breath. ‘Let’s forget it. Anyway, I’ve got much better at controlling these moods when they come on. So let’s just forget it.’

‘All the same, Kath, it’s stupid looking through those magazines.’

‘It’s stupid, okay. Tommy, let’s leave it. I’m all right now.’

I don’t remember what else we talked about until the others showed up. We didn’t discuss any more of those serious things, and if the others sensed something still in the air, they didn’t remark on it. They were in good spirits, and Ruth in particular seemed determined to make up for the bad scene earlier on. She came up and touched my cheek, making some joke or other, and once we got in the car, she made sure the jovial mood kept going. She and Chrissie had found everything about Martin comical and were relishing the chance to laugh openly about him now they’d left his flat. Rodney looked disapproving, and I realised Ruth and Chrissie were making a song and dance of it mainly to tease him. It all seemed good-natured enough. But what I noticed was that whereas before Ruth would have taken the opportunity to keep me and Tommy in the dark about all the jokes and references, throughout the journey back, she kept turning to me and explaining carefully everything they were talking about. In fact it got a bit tiring after a while because it was like everything being said in the car was for our – or at least my – special benefit. But I was
pleased Ruth was making such a fuss. I understood – as did Tommy – that she’d recognised she’d behaved badly before, and this was her way of admitting it. We were sitting with her in the middle, just as we’d done on the journey out, but now she spent all her time talking to me, turning occasionally to her other side to give Tommy a little squeeze or the odd kiss. It was a good atmosphere, and no one brought up Ruth’s possible or anything like that. And I didn’t mention the Judy Bridgewater tape Tommy had bought me. I knew Ruth would find out about it sooner or later, but I didn’t want her to find out just yet. On that journey home, with the darkness setting in over those long empty roads, it felt like the three of us were close again and I didn’t want anything to come along and break that mood.