The odd thing about our Norfolk trip was that once we got back, we hardly talked about it. So much so that for a while all kinds of rumours1 went around about what we'd been up to. Even then, we kept pretty quiet, until eventually people lost interest.
I'm still not sure why this happened. Perhaps we felt it was up to Ruth, that it was her call how much got told, and we were waiting to take our cue from her. And Ruth, for one reason or another--maybe she was embarrassed how things had turned out with her possible, maybe she was enjoying the mystery--had remained completely closed on the subject. Even among ourselves, we avoided talking about the trip.
This air of secrecy2 made it easier for me to keep from telling Ruth about Tommy buying me the Judy Bridgewater tape. I didn't go as far as actually hiding the thing. It was always there in my collection, in one of my little piles next to the skirting board. But I always made sure not to leave it out or on top of a pile. There were times when I wanted badly to tell her, when I wanted us to reminisce about Hailsham with the tape playing in the background. But the further away we got from the Norfolk trip, and I still hadn't told her, the more it came to feel like a guilty secret. Of course, she did spot the tape in the end, much later, and it was probably a much worse time for her to find it, but that's the way your luck sometimes goes.
As spring came on, there seemed to be more and more veterans leaving to start their training, and though they left without fuss in the usual way, the increased numbers made them impossible to ignore. I'm not sure what our feelings were, witnessing these departures. I suppose to some extent we envied the people leaving. It did feel like they were headed for a bigger, more exciting world. But of course, without a doubt, their going made us increasingly uneasy.
Then, I think it was around April, Alice F. became the first of our Hailsham bunch to leave, and not long after that Gordon C. did too. They'd both asked to start their training, and went off with cheerful smiles, but after that, for our lot anyway, the atmosphere at the Cottages changed forever.
Many veterans, too, seemed affected3 by the flurry of departures, and maybe as a direct result, there was a fresh spate4 of rumours of the sort Chrissie and Rodney had spoken about in Norfolk. Talk went around of students, somewhere else in the country, getting deferrals because they'd shown they were in love--and now, just sometimes, the talk was of students with no connections to Hailsham. Here again, the five of us who'd been to Norfolk backed away from these topics: even Chrissie and Rodney, who'd once been at the centre of just this sort of talk, now looked awkwardly away when these rumours got going.
The "Norfolk effect" even got to me and Tommy. I'd been assuming, once we were back, we'd be taking little opportunities, whenever we were alone, to exchange more thoughts on his theory about the Gallery. But for some reason--and it wasn't any more him than me--this never really happened. The one exception, I suppose, was that time in the goosehouse, the morning when he showed me his imaginary animals.
THE BARN WE CALLED THE GOOSEHOUSE was on the outer fringes of the Cottages, and because the roof leaked badly and the door was permanently6 off its hinges, it wasn't used for anything much other than as a place for couples to sneak7 off to in the warmer months. By then I'd taken to going for long solitary8 walks, and I think I was setting out on one of these, and had just gone past the goosehouse, when I heard Tommy calling me. I turned to see him in his bare feet, perched awkwardly on a bit of dry ground surrounded by huge puddles9, one hand on the side of the barn to keep his balance.
"What happened to your Wellies, Tommy?" I asked. Aside from his bare feet, he was dressed in his usual thick jumper and jeans.
"I was, you know, drawing..." He laughed, and held up a little black notebook similar to the ones Keffers always went around with. It was by then over two months since the Norfolk trip, but I realised as soon as I saw the notebook what this was about. But I waited for him to say: "If you like, Kath, I'll show you."
He led the way into the goosehouse, hopping10 over the jaggy ground. I'd expected it to be dark inside, but the sunlight was pouring through the skylights. Pushed against one wall were various bits of furniture heaved out over the past year or so--broken tables, old fridges, that kind of thing. Tommy appeared to have dragged into the middle of the floor a two-seater settee with stuffing poking11 out of its black plastic, and I guessed he'd been sitting in it doing his drawing when I'd gone past. Just nearby, his Wellingtons were lying fallen on their sides, his football socks peeking12 out of the tops.
Tommy jumped back onto the settee, nursing his big toe. "Sorry my feet poo a bit. I took everything off without realising. I think I've cut myself now. Kath, do you want to see these? Ruth looked at them last week, so I've been meaning to show you ever since. No one's seen them apart from Ruth. Have a look, Kath."
That was when I first saw his animals. When he'd told me about them in Norfolk, I'd seen in my mind scaled-down versions of the sort of pictures we'd done when we were small. So I was taken aback at how densely13 detailed14 each one was. In fact, it took a moment to see they were animals at all. The first impression was like one you'd get if you took the back off a radio set: tiny canals, weaving tendons, miniature screws and wheels were all drawn15 with obsessive16 precision, and only when you held the page away could you see it was some kind of armadillo, say, or a bird.
"It's my second book," Tommy said. "There's no way anyone's seeing the first one! It took me a while to get going."
He was lying back on the settee now, tugging17 a sock over his foot and trying to sound casual, but I knew he was anxious for my reaction. Even so, for some time, I didn't come up with wholehearted praise. Maybe it was partly my worry that any artwork was liable to get him into trouble all over again. But also, what I was looking at was so different from anything the guardians18 had taught us to do at Hailsham, I didn't know how to judge it. I did say something like: "God, Tommy, these must take so much concentration. I'm surprised you can see well enough in here to do all this tiny stuff." And then, as I flicked19 through the pages, perhaps because I was still struggling to find the right thing to say, I came out with: "I wonder what Madame would say if she saw these."
I'd said it in a jokey tone, and Tommy responded with a little snigger, but then there was something hanging in the air that hadn't been there before. I went on turning the pages of the notebook--it was about a quarter full--not looking up at him, wishing I'd never brought up Madame. Finally I heard him say: "I suppose I'll have to get a lot better before she gets to see any of it."
I wasn't sure if this was a cue for me to say how good the drawings were, but by this time, I was becoming genuinely drawn to these fantastical creatures in front of me. For all their busy, metallic20 features, there was something sweet, even vulnerable about each of them. I remembered him telling me, in Norfolk, that he worried, even as he created them, how they'd protect themselves or be able to reach and fetch things, and looking at them now, I could feel the same sort of concerns. Even so, for some reason I couldn't fathom21, something continued to stop me coming out with praise. Then Tommy said: "Anyway, it's not only because of all that I'm doing the animals. I just like doing them. I was wondering, Kath, if I should go on keeping it secret. I was thinking, maybe there's no harm in people knowing I do these. Hannah still does her watercolours, a lot of the veterans do stuff. I don't mean I'm going to go round showing everyone exactly. But I was thinking, well, there's no reason why I should keep it all secret any more."
At last I was able to look up at him and say with some conviction: "Tommy, there's no reason, no reason at all. These are good. Really, really good. In fact, if that's why you're hiding in here now, it's really daft."
He didn't say anything in response, but a kind of smirk22 appeared over his face, like he was enjoying a joke with himself, and I knew how happy I'd made him. I don't think we spoke5 much more to each other after that. I think before long he got his Wellingtons on, and we both left the goosehouse. As I say, that was about the only time Tommy and I touched directly on his theory that spring.
THEN THE SUMMER CAME, and the one year point from when we'd first arrived. A batch23 of new students turned up in a minibus, much as we'd done, but none of them were from Hailsham. This was in some ways a relief: I think we'd all been getting anxious about how a fresh lot of Hailsham students might complicate24 things. But for me at least, this non-appearance of Hailsham students just added to a feeling that Hailsham was now far away in the past, and that the ties binding25 our old crowd were fraying26. It wasn't just that people like Hannah were always talking about following Alice's example and starting their training; others, like Laura, had found boyfriends who weren't Hailsham and you could almost forget they'd ever had much to do with us.
And then there was the way Ruth kept pretending to forget things about Hailsham. Okay, these were mostly trivial things, but I got more and more irritated with her. There was the time, for instance, we were sitting around the kitchen table after a long breakfast, Ruth, me and a few veterans. One of the veterans had been talking about how eating cheese late at night always disturbed your sleep, and I'd turned to Ruth to say something like: "You remember how Miss Geraldine always used to tell us that?" It was just a casual aside, and all it needed was for Ruth to smile or nod. But she made a point of staring back at me blankly, like she didn't have the faintest what I was talking about. Only when I said to the veterans, by way of explanation: "One of our guardians," did Ruth give a frowning nod, as though she'd just that moment remembered.
I let her get away with it that time. But there was another occasion when I didn't, that evening we were sitting out in the ruined bus shelter. I got angry then because it was one thing to play this game in front of veterans; quite another when it was just the two of us, in the middle of a serious talk. I'd referred, just in passing, to the fact that at Hailsham, the short-cut down to the pond through the rhubarb patch was out of bounds. When she put on her puzzled look, I abandoned whatever point I'd been trying to make and said: "Ruth, there's no way you've forgotten. So don't give me that."
Perhaps if I hadn't pulled her up so sharply--perhaps if I'd just made a joke of it and carried on--she'd have seen how absurd it was and laughed. But because I'd snapped at her, Ruth glared back and said: "What does it matter anyway? What's the rhubarb patch got to do with any of this? Just get on with what you were saying."
It was getting late, the summer evening was fading, and the old bus shelter felt musty and damp after a recent thunderstorm. So I didn't have the head to go into why it mattered so much. And though I did just drop it and carry on with the discussion we'd been having, the atmosphere had gone chilly27, and could hardly have helped us get through the difficult matter in hand.
But to explain what we were talking about that evening, I'll have to go back a little bit. In fact, I'll have to go back several weeks, to the earlier part of the summer. I'd been having a relationship with one of the veterans, a boy called Lenny, which, to be honest, had been mainly about the sex. But then he'd suddenly opted28 to start his training and left. This unsettled me a little, and Ruth had been great about it, watching over me without seeming to make a fuss, always ready to cheer me up if I seemed gloomy. She also kept doing little favours for me, like making me sandwiches, or taking on parts of my cleaning rota.
Then about a fortnight after Lenny had gone, the two of us were sitting in my attic29 room some time after midnight chatting over mugs of tea, and Ruth got me really laughing about Lenny. He hadn't been such a bad guy, but once I'd started telling Ruth some of the more intimate things about him, it did seem like everything to do with him was hilarious30, and we just kept laughing and laughing. Then at one point Ruth was running a finger up and down the cassettes stacked in little piles along my skirting board. She was doing this in an absent-minded sort of way while she kept laughing, but afterwards, I went through a spell of suspecting it hadn't been by chance at all; that she'd noticed it there maybe days before, perhaps even examined it to make sure, then had waited for the best time to "find" it. Years later, I gently hinted this to Ruth, and she didn't seem to know what I was talking about, so maybe I was wrong. Anyway, there we were, laughing and laughing each time I came out with another detail about poor Lenny, and then suddenly it was like a plug had been pulled out. There was Ruth, lying on her side across my rug, peering at the spines31 of the cassettes in the low light, and then the Judy Bridgewater tape was in her hands. After what seemed an eternity32, she said: "So how long have you had this again?"
I told her, as neutrally as I could, about how Tommy and I had come across it that day while she'd been gone with the others. She went on examining it, then said: "So Tommy found it for you."
"No. I found it. I saw it first."
"Neither of you told me." She shrugged33. "At least, if you did, I never heard."
"The Norfolk thing was true," I said. "You know, about it being the lost corner of England."
It did flash through my mind Ruth would pretend not to remember this reference, but she nodded thoughtfully.
"I should have remembered at the time," she said. "I might have found my red scarf then."
We both laughed and the uneasiness seemed to pass. But there was something about the way Ruth put the tape back without discussing it any further that made me think it wasn't finished with yet.
I don't know if the way the conversation went after that was something controlled by Ruth in the light of her discovery, or if we were headed that way anyway, and that it was only afterwards Ruth realised she could do with it what she did. We went back to discussing Lenny, in particular a lot of stuff about how he had sex, and we were laughing away again. At that point, I think I was just relieved she'd finally found the tape and not made a huge scene about it, and so maybe I wasn't being as careful as I might have been. Because before long, we'd drifted from laughing about Lenny to laughing about Tommy. At first it had all felt good-natured enough, like we were just being affectionate towards him. But then we were laughing about his animals.
As I say, I've never been sure whether or not Ruth deliberately34 moved things round to this. To be fair, I can't even say for certain she was the one who first mentioned the animals. And once we started, I was laughing just as much as she was--about how one of them looked like it was wearing underpants, how another had to have been inspired by a squashed hedgehog. I suppose I should have said in there somewhere that the animals were good, that he'd done really well to have got where he had with them. But I didn't. That was partly because of the tape; and maybe, if I have to be honest, because I was pleased by the notion that Ruth wasn't taking the animals seriously, and everything that implied. I think when we eventually broke up for the night, we felt as close as we'd ever done. She touched my cheek on her way out, saying: "It's really good the way you always keep your spirits up, Kathy."
So I wasn't prepared at all for what happened at the churchyard several days later. Ruth had discovered that summer a lovely old church about half a mile from the Cottages, which had behind it rambling35 grounds with very old gravestones leaning in the grass. Everything was overgrown, but it was really peaceful and Ruth had taken to doing a lot of her reading there, near the back railings, on a bench under a big willow36. I hadn't at first been too keen on this development, remembering how the previous summer we'd all sat around together in the grass right outside the Cottages. All the same, if I was headed that way on one of my walks, and I knew Ruth was likely to be there, I'd find myself going through the low wooden gate and along the overgrown path past the gravestones. On that afternoon, it was warm and still, and 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.
Ruth was actually sitting on the bench, while Tommy was standing37 with one foot up on its rusty38 armrest, doing a kind of stretching exercise as they talked. It didn't look like they were having any big conversation and I didn't hesitate to go up to them. Maybe I should have picked up something in the way they greeted me, but I'm sure there wasn't anything obvious. I had some gossip I was dying to tell them--something about one of the newcomers--and so for a while it was just me blabbing on while they nodded and asked the odd question. It was some time before it occurred to me something wasn't right, and even then, when I paused and asked: "Did I interrupt something here?" it was in a jokey sort of way.
But then Ruth said: "Tommy's been telling me about his big theory. He says he's already told you. Ages ago. But now, very kindly39, he's allowing me to share in it too."
Tommy gave a sigh and was about to say something, but Ruth said in a mock whisper: "Tommy's big Gallery theory!"
Then they were both looking at me, like I was now in charge of everything and it was up to me what happened next.
"It's not a bad theory," I said. "It might be right, I don't know. What do you think, Ruth?"
"I had to really dig it out of Sweet Boy here. Not very keen at all on letting me in on it, were you, sweety gums? It was only when I kept pressing him to tell me what was behind all this art."
"I'm not doing it just for that," Tommy said sulkily. His foot was still up on the armrest and he kept on with his stretching. "All I said was, if it was right, about the Gallery, then I could always try and put in the animals..."
"Tommy, sweety, don't make a fool of yourself in front of our friend. Do it to me, that's all right. But not in front of our dear Kathy."
"I don't see why it's such a joke," Tommy said. "It's as good a theory as anyone else's."
"It's not the theory people will find funny, sweety gums. They might well buy the theory, right enough. But the idea that you'll swing it by showing Madame your little animals..." Ruth smiled and shook her head.
Tommy said nothing and continued with his stretching. I wanted to come to his defence and was trying to think of just the right thing that would make him feel better without making Ruth even more angry. But that was when Ruth said what she did. It felt bad enough at the time, but I had no idea in the churchyard that day how far-reaching the repercussions40 would be. What she said was: "It's not just me, sweety. Kathy here finds your animals a complete hoot41."
My first instinct was to deny it, then just to laugh. But there was a real authority about the way Ruth had spoken, and the three of us knew each other well enough to know there had to be something behind her words. So in the end I stayed silent, while my mind searched back frantically42, and with a cold horror, settled on that night up in my room with our mugs of tea. Then Ruth said: "As long as people think you're doing those little creatures as a kind of joke, fine. But don't give out you're serious about it. Please."
Tommy had stopped his stretching and was looking questioningly at me. Suddenly he was really child-like again, with no front whatsoever43, and I could see too something dark and troubling gathering44 behind his eyes.
"Look, Tommy, you've got to understand," Ruth went on. "If Kathy and I have a good laugh about you, it doesn't really matter.
Because that's just us. But please, let's not bring everyone else in on it."
I've thought about those moments over and over. I should have found something to say. I could have just denied it, though Tommy probably wouldn't have believed me. And to try to explain the thing truthfully would have been too complicated. But I could have done something. I could have challenged Ruth, told her she was twisting things, that even if I might have laughed, it wasn't in the way she was implying. I could even have gone up to Tommy and hugged him, right there in front of Ruth. That's something that came to me years later, and probably wasn't a real option at the time, given the person I was, and the way the three of us were with each other. But that might have done it, where words would only have got us in deeper.
But I didn't say or do anything. It was partly, I suppose, that I was so floored by the fact that Ruth would come out with such a trick. I remember a huge tiredness coming over me, a kind of lethargy in the face of the tangled45 mess before me. It was like being given a maths problem when your brain's exhausted46, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up. A voice went: "All right, let him think the absolute worst. Let him think it, let him think it." And I suppose I looked at him with resignation, with a face that said: "Yes, it's true, what else did you expect?" And I can recall now, as fresh as anything, Tommy's own face, the anger receding47 for the moment, being replaced by an expression almost of wonder, like I was a rare butterfly he'd come across on a fence-post.
It wasn't that I thought I'd burst into tears or lose my temper or anything like that. But I decided48 just to turn and go. Even later that day, I realised this was a bad mistake. All I can say is that at the time what I feared more than anything was that one or the other of them would stalk off first, and I'd be left with the remaining one. I don't know why, but it didn't seem an option for more than one of us to storm off, and I wanted to make sure that one was me. So I turned and marched back the way I'd come, past the gravestones towards the low wooden gate, and for several minutes, I felt as though I'd triumphed; that now they'd been left in each other's company, they were suffering a fate they thoroughly49 deserved.
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rumours
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secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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spate
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| n.泛滥，洪水，突然的一阵 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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sneak
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| vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行 | |
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solitary
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puddles
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hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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peeking
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| v.很快地看( peek的现在分词 )；偷看；窥视；微露出 | |
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densely
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| ad.密集地；浓厚地 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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obsessive
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| adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的 | |
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tugging
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| n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 ) | |
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guardians
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| 监护人( guardian的名词复数 )； 保护者，维护者 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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fraying
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| v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的现在分词 ) | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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opted
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| v.选择，挑选( opt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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hilarious
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| adj.充满笑声的，欢闹的；[反]depressed | |
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spines
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| n.脊柱( spine的名词复数 )；脊椎；（动植物的）刺；书脊 | |
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eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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rusty
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| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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repercussions
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| n.后果，反响( repercussion的名词复数 )；余波 | |
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hoot
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| n.鸟叫声，汽车的喇叭声； v.使汽车鸣喇叭 | |
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42
frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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43
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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44
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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45
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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46
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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47
receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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48
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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49
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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