- •In those days, I don’t think what the boys did amongst themselves never let me go
- •It was well into October by then, but the sun was out that day and I decided I could just about make out I’d gone strolling aimlessly down there and happened to come across Tommy.
- •Very nice there.”
- •I did, though, talk to Tommy about it a couple of years later.
- •I was holding something called Twenty Classic Dance Tunes.
- •I think in the end we must have absorbed quite a lot of information, because I remember, around that age, a marked
- •It wasn’t such a bad gash, and though he was sent to Crow Face to have it seen to, he was back almost straight away kazuo ishiguro
- •I could hear Tommy complaining that Crow Face hadn’t warned him of anything of that sort, but Christopher shrugged and said: “She thought you knew, of course. Everyone knows.” never let me go
- •I realise this may sound like I was getting obsessive, but I remember I also spent a lot of time re-reading passages from kazuo ishiguro
- •I shrugged, as though to say: “So what?” And that’s all there was to it. But afterwards I found myself thinking a lot about it.
- •I waited but Tommy gave no response, and again I felt something like panic coming over me. I leaned forward and said:
- •I never got to assess what kind of impact my talk with Tommy had had, because it was the very next day the news broke. It was midway through the morning and we’d been in kazuo ishiguro
- •It wasn’t obvious, but the longer we kept looking, the more it seemed he had something. The woman was around fifty, and had kept her figure pretty well. Her hair was darker than Ruth’s—
- •I laughed and punched his arm. He looked puzzled so I said:
- •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.”
- •I’d come down the path in a dreamy mood, reading off names on the stones, when I saw not only Ruth, but Tommy, on the bench under the willow.
- •It was just the way she said it, suddenly so false even an onlooker, if there’d been one, would have seen through it. I sighed with irritation and said:
- •I shrugged. “I’ve thought about it. But I’m not sure it’s such a great idea.”
- •In front of us there was open marshland as far as we could see.
- •I know it’s not supposed to work that way, but I reckon that’s what it was. Didn’t mind really. I’m a pretty good donor, but I was a lousy carer.”
- •I was so thrown by this, all I could find to say was a rather limp: “Forgive you for what?”
- •I was leaning on the steering wheel, so couldn’t see Tommy at all. He made a kind of puzzled humming sound, but didn’t say anything.
- •I’d stopped sobbing by now and started the engine. “That’s enough of all this,” I said. “We’ve got to get Tommy back. Then we need to be getting back ourselves.”
- •It was never far from Ruth’s mind, and that’s why, that very last time I saw her, even though she wasn’t able to speak, I knew what it was she wanted to say to me.
- •I stayed beside her like that for as long as they let me, three hours, maybe longer. And as I say, for almost all of that time, she never let me go
- •It had been an unusually busy period for
- •It’s just a bit of countryside.”
- •If she’d asked this in a certain way, like the whole idea was completely crazy, then I’m sure I’d have felt pretty devastated.
- •I didn’t know what to say, so just replied: “No, no.”
- •I thought she was going to leave it at that, so I asked: “Miss Emily, if it’s all right, we’d like to know about it, about what happened with Miss Lucy.”
- •In many ways we fooled you. I suppose you could even call it that.
- •I don’t know what made me say it. Maybe it was because I knew the visit would have to finish pretty soon; maybe I was getting curious to know how exactly Miss Emily and Madame felt never let me go
- •I’ve heard it once or twice since then. On the radio, on the television. And it’s taken me back to that little girl, dancing by herself.”
- •I’d spoken to Madame, but I could sense Tommy shifting next to me, and was aware of the texture of his clothes, of everything about him. Then Madame said:
- •In the few seconds after he said this, I realised I wasn’t surprised by it at all; that in some funny way I’d been waiting for it. But I was angry all the same and didn’t say anything.
- •It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives.
- •I remember the few weeks that came after that—the last few weeks before the new carer took over—as being never let me go
In the few seconds after he said this, I realised I wasn’t surprised by it at all; that in some funny way I’d been waiting for it. But I was angry all the same and didn’t say anything.
“It’s not just because the fourth donation’s coming up,” he went on. “It’s not just about that. It’s because of stuff like what NEVER LET ME GO
happened last week. When I had all that kidney trouble. There’s going to be much more stuff like that coming.”
“That’s why I came and found you,” I said. “That’s exactly why I came to help you. For what’s starting now. And it’s what Ruth wanted too.”
“Ruth wanted that other thing for us,” Tommy said. “She wouldn’t necessarily have wanted you to be my carer through this last bit.”
“Tommy,” I said, and I suppose by now I was furious, but I kept my voice quiet and under control, “I’m the one to help you.
That’s why I came and found you again.”
“Ruth wanted the other thing for us,” Tommy repeated. “All this is something else. Kath, I don’t want to be that way in front of you.”
He was looking down at the ground, a palm pressed against the wire-mesh fence, and for a moment he looked like he was listening intently to the sound of the traffic somewhere beyond the fog. And that was when he said it, shaking his head slightly:
“Ruth would have understood. She was a donor, so she would have understood. I’m not saying she’d necessarily have wanted the same thing for herself. If she’d been able to, maybe she’d have KAZUO ISHIGURO
wanted you as her carer right to the end. But she’d have understood, about me wanting to do it differently. Kath, sometimes you just don’t see it. You don’t see it because you’re not a donor.”
It was when he came out with this that I turned and walked off. As I said, I’d been almost prepared for the bit about not wanting me any more as his carer. But what had really stung, coming after all those other little things, like when he’d kept me standing in the Square, was what he’d said then, the way he’d divided me off yet again, not just from all the other donors, but from him and Ruth.
This never turned into a huge fight though. When I stalked off, there wasn’t much else I could do other than go back up to his room, and then he came up himself several minutes later. I’d cooled down by then and so had he, and we were able to have a better conversation about it. It was a bit stiff, but we made peace, and even got into some of the practicalities of changing carers.
Then, as we were sitting in the dull light, side by side on the edge of his bed, he said to me:
“I don’t want us to fight again, Kath. But I’ve been wanting to ask you this a lot. I mean, don’t you get tired of being a carer?
All the rest of us, we became donors ages ago. You’ve been doing NEVER LET ME GO
it for years. Don’t you sometimes wish, Kath, they’d hurry up and send you your notice?”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind. Anyway, it’s important there are good carers. And I’m a good carer.”
“But is it really that important? Okay, it’s really nice to have a good carer. But in the end, is it really so important? The donors will all donate, just the same, and then they’ll complete.”
“Of course it’s important. A good carer makes a big difference to what a donor’s life’s actually like.”
“But all this rushing about you do. All this getting exhausted and being by yourself. I’ve been watching you. It’s wearing you out. You must do, Kath, you must sometimes wish they’d tell you you can stop. I don’t know why you don’t have a word with them, ask them why it’s been so long.” Then when I kept quiet, he said:
“I’m just saying, that’s all. Let’s not fight again.” I put my head on his shoulder and said: “Yeah, well. Maybe it won’t be for much longer anyway. But for now, I have to keep going. Even if you don’t want me around, there are others who do.”
“I suppose you’re right, Kath. You are a really good carer.
You’d be the perfect one for me too if you weren’t you.” He did a
KAZUO ISHIGURO
laugh and put his arm round me, though we kept sitting side by side. Then he said: “I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong.
They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how I think it is with us.