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Authors: Kazuo Ishiguro
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puffed out.'
Boris, who indeed was struggling again, gave no sign of having heard.
'Better slow down for the little slowcoach,' Geoffrey Saunders said. 'It's just that I was a little unlucky in love at one stage. A lot of people in this town assume I'm homosexual. Just because I live alone in a rented room. I minded that at first, but I don't any more. All right, they mistake me for a homosexual. So what? As it happens, my needs are met by women. You know, the sort you pay. Perfectly adequate for me, and I'd say some of them are quite decent people. All the same, after a while, you start to despise them and they start to despise you. Can't help it. I know most of the whores in this town. I don't mean I've slept with them all. Not by any means! But they know me and I know them. I'm on nodding terms with a lot of them. You probably think I lead a miserable existence. I don't. It's just a matter of how you look at things. Occasionally friends come to visit me. I'm quite capable of entertaining them over a cup of tea. I do it quite well and they often say afterwards how much they enjoyed popping round.'
The road had been descending steeply for a while, but it now levelled, and we found ourselves in what appeared to be an abandoned farmyard. All about us in the moonlight there loomed the dark shapes of barns and outhouses. Sophie was continuing to lead the way, but she was now some distance in front and often I would glimpse her figure only as it disappeared around the edge of some broken building.
Fortunately Geoffrey Saunders seemed to know his way well, navigating a route through the dark with barely a thought. As I followed close behind him, a certain memory came back to me from our schooldays, of a crisp winter's morning in England, with an overcast sky and frost on the ground. I had been fourteen or fifteen and had been standing outside a pub with Geoffrey Saunders somewhere deep in the Worcestershire countryside. We had been paired together to mark a cross-country run, our task being simply to point the runners, as they emerged out of the mist, in the correct direction across a nearby field. I had been unusually upset that morning, and after fifteen minutes or so of our standing there together staring quietly into the fog, in spite of my best efforts, I had burst into tears. I had not known Geoffrey Saunders well at that point, though like everyone else I had always been keen to make a good impression on him. I had thus been quite mortified and my initial impression, once I had finally brought my emotions under control, had been that he was ignoring me with the utmost contempt. But then Geoffrey Saunders had begun to speak, at first without looking in my direction, then eventually turning to me. I could not now bring to mind just what it was he had said on that foggy morning, but I could recall well enough the impact his words had had. For one thing, even in my state of self-pity, I had been able to recognise the remarkable generosity he was displaying, and had felt a profound gratitude. It was also at that moment I had first realised, with a distinct chill, that there was another side to the school golden boy - some deeply vulnerable dimension that would ensure he would never live up to the expectations that had been placed on him. As we continued to walk together through the dark, I tried once more to remember just what he had said that morning, but to no avail.
With the ground levelling, Boris seemed to recover a little breath and he had once more begun to whisper. Now, perhaps encouraged by a sense that we were about to reach our destination, he found the energy to kick a stone in his path, exclaiming out loud as he did so: 'Number Nine!' The stone skipped across the rough ground and landed in water somewhere in the darkness.
'That's a bit more like it,' Geoffrey Saunders said to Boris. 'Is that your position? Number Nine?'
When Boris failed to answer, I said quickly: 'Oh no, it's just his favourite
Boris, who indeed was struggling again, gave no sign of having heard.
'Better slow down for the little slowcoach,' Geoffrey Saunders said. 'It's just that I was a little unlucky in love at one stage. A lot of people in this town assume I'm homosexual. Just because I live alone in a rented room. I minded that at first, but I don't any more. All right, they mistake me for a homosexual. So what? As it happens, my needs are met by women. You know, the sort you pay. Perfectly adequate for me, and I'd say some of them are quite decent people. All the same, after a while, you start to despise them and they start to despise you. Can't help it. I know most of the whores in this town. I don't mean I've slept with them all. Not by any means! But they know me and I know them. I'm on nodding terms with a lot of them. You probably think I lead a miserable existence. I don't. It's just a matter of how you look at things. Occasionally friends come to visit me. I'm quite capable of entertaining them over a cup of tea. I do it quite well and they often say afterwards how much they enjoyed popping round.'
The road had been descending steeply for a while, but it now levelled, and we found ourselves in what appeared to be an abandoned farmyard. All about us in the moonlight there loomed the dark shapes of barns and outhouses. Sophie was continuing to lead the way, but she was now some distance in front and often I would glimpse her figure only as it disappeared around the edge of some broken building.
Fortunately Geoffrey Saunders seemed to know his way well, navigating a route through the dark with barely a thought. As I followed close behind him, a certain memory came back to me from our schooldays, of a crisp winter's morning in England, with an overcast sky and frost on the ground. I had been fourteen or fifteen and had been standing outside a pub with Geoffrey Saunders somewhere deep in the Worcestershire countryside. We had been paired together to mark a cross-country run, our task being simply to point the runners, as they emerged out of the mist, in the correct direction across a nearby field. I had been unusually upset that morning, and after fifteen minutes or so of our standing there together staring quietly into the fog, in spite of my best efforts, I had burst into tears. I had not known Geoffrey Saunders well at that point, though like everyone else I had always been keen to make a good impression on him. I had thus been quite mortified and my initial impression, once I had finally brought my emotions under control, had been that he was ignoring me with the utmost contempt. But then Geoffrey Saunders had begun to speak, at first without looking in my direction, then eventually turning to me. I could not now bring to mind just what it was he had said on that foggy morning, but I could recall well enough the impact his words had had. For one thing, even in my state of self-pity, I had been able to recognise the remarkable generosity he was displaying, and had felt a profound gratitude. It was also at that moment I had first realised, with a distinct chill, that there was another side to the school golden boy - some deeply vulnerable dimension that would ensure he would never live up to the expectations that had been placed on him. As we continued to walk together through the dark, I tried once more to remember just what he had said that morning, but to no avail.
With the ground levelling, Boris seemed to recover a little breath and he had once more begun to whisper. Now, perhaps encouraged by a sense that we were about to reach our destination, he found the energy to kick a stone in his path, exclaiming out loud as he did so: 'Number Nine!' The stone skipped across the rough ground and landed in water somewhere in the darkness.
'That's a bit more like it,' Geoffrey Saunders said to Boris. 'Is that your position? Number Nine?'
When Boris failed to answer, I said quickly: 'Oh no, it's just his favourite
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