Read Online Never Let Me Go (Movie Tie-In Edition) by Kazuo Ishiguro - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kazuo Ishiguro
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defending Miss Geraldine; our activities always revolved around gathering more and more evidence concerning the plot itself. For some reason, we were satisfied this would keep any immediate danger at bay.
Most of our ‘evidence’ came from witnessing the conspirators at work. 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 Roger put their heads closer together to confer furtively, their gazes fixed on Miss Geraldine’s receding figure.
‘Mr Roger,’ Ruth sighed on that occasion, shaking her head. ‘Who’d have guessed he was in it too?’
In this way we built up a list of people we knew to be in on the plot – guardians and students whom we declared our sworn enemies. 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. We could decide, after intense discussions, that a particular student was a plotter, but then we’d always find a reason not to challenge him just yet – to wait until ‘we had in all the evidence’. Similarly, we always agreed Miss Geraldine herself shouldn’t hear a word of what we’d found out, since she’d get alarmed to no good purpose.
It would be too easy to claim it was just Ruth who kept the secret guard going long after we’d naturally outgrown it. Sure enough, the guard was important to her. She’d known about theplot for much longer than the rest of us, and this gave her enormous authority; by hinting that the real evidence came from a time before people like me had joined – that there were things she’d yet to reveal even to us – she could justify almost any decision she made on behalf of the group. If she decided someone should be expelled, for example, and she sensed opposition, she’d just allude darkly to stuff she knew ‘from before’. There’s no question Ruth was keen to keep the whole thing going. But the truth was, those of us who’d grown close to her, we each played our part in preserving the fantasy and making it last for as long as possible. What happened after that row over the chess illustrates pretty well the point I’m making.
I’d assumed Ruth was something of a chess expert and that she’d be able to teach me the game. This wasn’t so crazy: we’d pass older students bent over chess sets, in window seats or on the grassy slopes, and Ruth would often pause to study a game. And as we walked off again, she’d tell me about some move she’d spotted that neither player had seen. ‘Amazingly dim,’ she’d murmur, shaking her head. This had all helped get me fascinated, and I was soon longing to become engrossed myself in those ornate pieces. So when I’d found a chess set at a Sale and decided to buy it – despite it costing an awful lot of tokens – I was counting on Ruth’s help.
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. The distinguishing feature of chess, according to her, was that each piece moved in an L-shape – I suppose she’d got this from watching the knight – rather than in the leap-frogging way of draughts. I didn’t believe this, and I was really disappointed, but I made sure to say nothing and went along with her for a while. We spent several minutes knocking each other’s pieces off the board, always sliding the attacking piece in an ‘L’. This continueduntil the time I tried to take her and she claimed it wouldn’t count because I’d slid my piece up to hers in too straight a line.
At this, I stood up, packed up the set and walked
Most of our ‘evidence’ came from witnessing the conspirators at work. 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 Roger put their heads closer together to confer furtively, their gazes fixed on Miss Geraldine’s receding figure.
‘Mr Roger,’ Ruth sighed on that occasion, shaking her head. ‘Who’d have guessed he was in it too?’
In this way we built up a list of people we knew to be in on the plot – guardians and students whom we declared our sworn enemies. 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. We could decide, after intense discussions, that a particular student was a plotter, but then we’d always find a reason not to challenge him just yet – to wait until ‘we had in all the evidence’. Similarly, we always agreed Miss Geraldine herself shouldn’t hear a word of what we’d found out, since she’d get alarmed to no good purpose.
It would be too easy to claim it was just Ruth who kept the secret guard going long after we’d naturally outgrown it. Sure enough, the guard was important to her. She’d known about theplot for much longer than the rest of us, and this gave her enormous authority; by hinting that the real evidence came from a time before people like me had joined – that there were things she’d yet to reveal even to us – she could justify almost any decision she made on behalf of the group. If she decided someone should be expelled, for example, and she sensed opposition, she’d just allude darkly to stuff she knew ‘from before’. There’s no question Ruth was keen to keep the whole thing going. But the truth was, those of us who’d grown close to her, we each played our part in preserving the fantasy and making it last for as long as possible. What happened after that row over the chess illustrates pretty well the point I’m making.
I’d assumed Ruth was something of a chess expert and that she’d be able to teach me the game. This wasn’t so crazy: we’d pass older students bent over chess sets, in window seats or on the grassy slopes, and Ruth would often pause to study a game. And as we walked off again, she’d tell me about some move she’d spotted that neither player had seen. ‘Amazingly dim,’ she’d murmur, shaking her head. This had all helped get me fascinated, and I was soon longing to become engrossed myself in those ornate pieces. So when I’d found a chess set at a Sale and decided to buy it – despite it costing an awful lot of tokens – I was counting on Ruth’s help.
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. The distinguishing feature of chess, according to her, was that each piece moved in an L-shape – I suppose she’d got this from watching the knight – rather than in the leap-frogging way of draughts. I didn’t believe this, and I was really disappointed, but I made sure to say nothing and went along with her for a while. We spent several minutes knocking each other’s pieces off the board, always sliding the attacking piece in an ‘L’. This continueduntil the time I tried to take her and she claimed it wouldn’t count because I’d slid my piece up to hers in too straight a line.
At this, I stood up, packed up the set and walked
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