Never Let Me Go

Part 3

Chapter 18

The reflective narrative moves closer to the present day. Kathy is proud of her work as a carer and feels she has the right temperament for it. She is proud of the fact that she is bold enough to stand up to doctors on behalf of her patients, a sign that she has moved from the quiet schoolgirl at Hailsham who was under Ruth’s control, to the struggling young adult at the Cottages who resisted Ruth, to a confident adult. When she meets Laura, a former Hailsham student, she hears how difficult Laura has found her job as a carer. Kathy also learns that Ruth had a difficult first donation and is struggling. Ruth apparently has had multiple carers due to personal clashes. Laura suggests that Kathy become her carer.

Laura and Kathy discuss Hailsham, as the latest news is that the school has closed. Kathy, in another conversation with Roger C, had wondered what will happen to all of the students and Roger mistakes her concern for the students who are currently enrolled at Hailsham, but Kathy had been thinking of her own cohort who had already drifted apart. Kathy reinforces this with a metaphor of a clown with a bunch of balloons unravelling and floating away. Kathy realises that there are things she has always thought she would find time to do, but the closure of Hailsham convinces her to act. Kathy becomes Ruth’s carer while Ruth is recovering in Dover. The two old friends try to be friendly toward one another, but Kathy admits that their conversations often stagnate and after Kathy sees Ruth’s unusual reaction when she surprises her, Kathy believes Ruth doesn’t trust her. This may reveal Ruth’s own guilt about her secret that she had treated Kathy poorly and deliberately kept Kathy and Tommy apart.

In a typical style for Ruth, she suggests that she and Kathy visit a stranded boat but really has an ulterior motive as the boat is located near where Tommy is recovering from donations and Ruth hopes to get the three of them together. Kathy agrees and plans the trip.

Chapter 18 Quotes

For the most part being a carer’s suited me fine. You could even say it’s brought the best out of me. Chapter 18

They don’t know what to say to the whitecoats, they can’t make themselves speak up on behalf of their donor. (About struggling carers) Chapter 18

It was that exchange, when we finally mentioned the closing of Hailsham, that suddenly brought us close again, and we hugged, quite spontaneously, not so much to comfort one another, but as a way of affirming Hailsham, the fact that it was still there in both our memories. (Laura and Kathy) Chapter 18

I’d meant us, all the students who’d grown up with me and were now spread across the country, carers and donors, all separated now but still somehow linked by the place we’d come from. Chapter 18

It was like she’d been waiting and waiting for me to do something to her, and she thought the time had now come. (About Ruth) Chapter 18

Chapter 19

When Kathy takes Ruth to see Tommy, it is Kathy that leaves the car to hug him, showing her deep connection, while Ruth waits in the car and receives a small kiss on the cheek, revealing their status as a couple has disintegrated. While travelling to see the boat, Ruth talks about random subjects until Kathy interrupts an extended anecdote. Tommy laughs and says he agrees with Kathy about not wanting to hear any more of the story, and this brings Tommy and Kathy closer together, as they have finally agreed to stand up to Ruth. As they walk, Kathy notices Tommy is limping slightly, but otherwise seems fit. Ruth, on the other hand, is short of breath and panics when they have to cross a fence. Tommy and Kathy help Ruth, who is far weaker than she admits, and they find the stranded boat. Ruth thinks the beached boat is beautiful, whereas Tommy compares it with Hailsham after its closing as a relic. Ruth says she also dreams of Hailsham, before the conversation turns to the veterans from the Cottages and Ruth mentions that Chrissie completed after only her second donation. Kathy says she saw Rodney, who seemed to have come through Chrissie’s completion well. Ruth accuses Kathy of assuming too much because she isn’t a donor.

Prompted by a billboard with a picture of an office on it and the suggestion she could have worked in an office, Ruth finally admits to the other two what she wanted to say. She realises that she could never have worked in an office, reality has now become more apparent at the end of Ruth’s life. She also faces her past relationship with Kathy and Tommy with an apology to Kathy for having been awful to her about her sexual urges. Ruth confesses she was the same way and slept with some of the veterans too. Then Ruth says she is most sorry for deliberately keeping Tommy and Kathy apart from each other. Kathy starts crying because she has always had feelings for Tommy and now thinks it’s too late to do anything about being with Tommy. Ruth gives Tommy a piece of paper with Madame’s address written on it, in case Kathy changes her mind and they can apply for a delay to be together. In this way, Ruth admits she knew that Tommy and Kathy were truly a couple in love and that she had selfishly interfered so that she would not be alone. Ruth has always been a complex individual with contradictory actions and impulses. Later, as Ruth is close to completing after her second donation, she tries to convince Kathy to be Tommy’s carer. Just before Ruth completes, Kathy promises her she will.

Chapter 19 Quotes

Beside me Ruth, for a second, seemed to panic. What do we do?’ she went. ‘Do we get out? No, no, let’s not get out. Don’t move, don’t move.’ (Kathy and Ruth arrive at Tommy’s recovery centre) Chapter 19

But I have to be honest: at that instant I wasn’t really thinking about Ruth. My heart had done a little leap, because in a single stroke, with that little laugh of agreement, it felt as though Tommy and I had come close together again after all the years. Chapter 19

‘Maybe this is what Hailsham looks like now. Do you think?’ (Tommy compares the boat to Hailsham) Chapter 19

‘I bet he was cut up about Chrissie though,’ said Ruth. Then to Tommy: ‘They don’t tell you the half of it, you see?’ (About Rodney after Chrissie completed) Chapter 19

‘I was pretty much ready when I became a donor. It felt right. After all, it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, isn’t it?’ (Ruth) Chapter 19

‘Kathy,’ she said, ‘I don’t really expect you to forgive me ever. I can’t even see why you should. But I’m going to ask you to all the same.’ (Ruth) Chapter 19

‘The main thing is, I kept you and Tommy apart.’ Her voice had dropped again, almost to a whisper. ‘That was the worst thing I did.’ (Ruth) Chapter 19

It wasn’t until a few days later I came to see what a difference that trip had made. All the guardedness, all the suspicions between me and Ruth evaporated, and we seemed to remember everything we’d once meant to each other. Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Kathy becomes Tommy’s carer after he has given his third donation and is recovering at the Kingsfield centre. They spend their afternoons relaxing, reading and talking, and eventually become more intimate. Although they are now happy together, they know that they waited until it was too late. After becoming Tommy’s carer, he is drawing more imaginary animals and asks for Kathy’s opinion. Kathy feels relieved that Tommy has moved past the tension that arose about his drawings at the Cottages. She also realises that Tommy is preparing to apply for a deferral but thinks his drawing looked strained, as if they were copied. Kathy tells Tommy that she has visited Madame’s address and they decide to visit.

Chapter 20 Quotes

‘Yes, we’re doing this now and I’m glad we’re doing it now. But what a pity we left it so late.’ (Kathy perceiving Tommy’s thoughts) Chapter 20

But something was definitely gone, and they looked laboured, almost like they’d been copied. (Tommy’s drawings) Chapter 20

So that feeling came again, even though I tried to keep it out: that we were doing all of this too late; that there’d once been a time for it, but we’d let that go by, and there was something ridiculous, reprehensible even, about the way we were now thinking and planning. Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Visiting Madame is reminiscent of the visit to Norfolk. Kathy recognises the similarity when she and Tommy follow Madame down the street, recalling the way they followed Ruth’s possible in Norfolk and revealing that Kathy and Tommy are still involved in a version of that initial hopeful search. Just as Ruth, Chrissie, and Rodney did in Norfolk, they seek the possibility of more time as well as the possibility of learning about who they are. The visit to Madame shows their fate. Despite the five clones visiting Norfolk, on their visit to the boat Chrissie and Rodney were noticeably missing, on this trip, Ruth is noticeably absent. Five have become two, emblematising the shrinking of hope.

Although Madame seems shocked at first and draws back from them, as she did long ago at Hailsham, she soon relaxes and welcomes them inside. Kathy and Tommy enter Madame’s house and notice a picture of Hailsham on the wall, suggesting that Hailsham remains important to Madame’s own memory. It also emphasizes the ghostliness of Hailsham, which now exists only in memories and images. The interaction with Madame herself does not provide answers, and like the entire clone experience they are always left in the dark. Miss Emily, who has been watching from another room, appears unexpectedly, replicating the mystery and surveillance at Hailsham.

Chapter 21 Quotes

I think we were both reminded of that day we’d followed Ruth’s possible through another town. Chapter 21

I don’t know if she recognised us at that point; but without doubt, she saw and decided in a second what we were, because you could see her stiffen—as if a pair of large spiders was set to crawl towards her. Chapter 21

Her voice sounded almost sarcastic, but then I saw, with a kind of shock, little tears in her eyes as she looked from one to the other of us.
‘You believe this? That you’re deeply in love?’ (Madame) Chapter 21

‘Poor creatures. What did we do to you? With all our schemes and plans?’ She let that hang, and I thought I could see tears in her eyes again. (Madame) Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Although Kathy and Tommy’s primary purpose in coming to the house is to learn whether it is possible to defer their donations, the couple learn more about Hailsham and themselves than they expected. Miss Emily explains that cloning started in the 1950s, and by the time people began to think about where the replacement organs came from, it was too late to do anything about it. Miss Emily explained that no one would want to go back to a world in which there was no cure for cancer. In the early days, the clones suffered in terrible conditions, but Miss Emily and Madame worked to fix that as activists.

They established Hailsham and a few other schools to convince the public that the clones had souls. Kathy is shocked to learn that the subject could even be debated. Miss Emily says this shows how important Hailsham’s work was in providing a way, through the student art galleries, to engage with politicians and fundraisers to encourage support in the cause for rights for clones. However, before long, there was a scandal around one scientist, James Morningdale, who tried to create genetically superior children and the panic made it impossible to acquire funds to keep the schools going. Now, the cloned children live less well than they once did, though at least things are not so bad as they were before Hailsham and Miss Emily takes some comfort in this. Miss Emily believes her time at Hailsham was a success on behalf of the clones, who she admits both Madame and she found repulsive throughout the time in which they struggled to help them.

The flippant way Miss Emily dismisses them, as she must go because her assistant is arranging for the sale of a piece of furniture, shows that she has still not embraced the idea that the clones are fully human. The deferral question is raised and dismissed although Miss Emily takes no joy in delivering the news. Tommy struggles to grasp the reply, as this is their lives not just an exercise. Miss Emily and Madame seem to understand this but tell the students they have to let their lives run their course.

On the drive back, Kathy notes that the two of them spoke little. However, after it gets dark and they are on back roads, Tommy asks Kathy to stop the car. He enters the field and Kathy hears his screams, much like his tantrums at Hailsham. Although at the time it was seen as immaturity for Tommy to be so upset, in light of the recent news, the tantrums suggest he was resisting the external pressures being forced upon him to continue on a life-path he has not been allowed to choose for himself.

Chapter 22 Quotes

‘… Look at the two of you. You’ve turned out well. I’m sure you have much you could tell me to make me proud… ‘ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘… Hailsham was considered a shining beacon, an example of how we might move to a more humane and better way of doing things … ‘ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘… Well, you weren’t far wrong about that. We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.’ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘Why did you have to prove a thing like that, Miss Emily? Did someone think we didn’t have souls?’ (Kathy) Chapter 22

‘… You Hailsham students, even after you’ve been out in the world like this, you still don’t know the half of it. All around the country, at this very moment, there are students being reared in deplorable conditions, conditions you Hailsham students could hardly imagine. And now we’re no more, things will only get worse.’ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘But what I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is why people would want students treated so badly in the first place.’ (Kathy to Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘… It’s one thing to create students, such as yourselves , for the donation programme. But a generation of created children who’d take their place in society? Children demonstrably superior to the rest of us? Oh no. That frightened people. They recoiled from that.’ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘I can see,’ Miss Emily said, ‘that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns…’ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘All you’ll find, as ever, are those vast government ‘homes,’ and even if they’re somewhat better than they once were, let me tell you, my dears, you’d not sleep for days if you saw what still goes on in some of those places.’ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘Marie-Claude has given everything for you. She has worked and worked and worked. Make no mistake about it, my child, Marie-Claude is on your side and will always be on your side. Is she afraid of you? We’re all afraid of you. I myself had to fight back my dread of you all almost every day I was at Hailsham. There were times I’d look down at you all from my study window and I’d feel such revulsion…’ (Miss Emily) Chapter 22

‘.. You see, I imagined it was about this woman who’d been told she couldn’t have babies. But then she’d had one, and she was so pleased, and she was holding it ever so tightly to her breast, really afraid something might separate them, and she’s going baby, baby, never let me go…’ (Kathy’s version of the dance incident) Chapter 22

‘.. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go…’ (Madame’s versions of the dance incident) Chapter 22

‘I was thinking,’ I said, ‘about back then, at Hailsham, when you used to go bonkers like that, and we couldn’t understand it. We couldn’t understand how you could ever get like that. And I was just having this idea, just a thought really. I was thinking maybe the reason you used to get like that was because at some level you always knew.’ (About Tommy) Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Some tension arises between Tommy and Kathy as he draws toward his fourth donation. He begins to spend more time with his donor friends and their shared experience isolates Kathy as she has yet to become a donor. Tommy decides he wants a carer other than Kathy. He believes that although Ruth wanted them to be together, she would not have wanted them to go through this part together. Kathy understands, although she is hurt.

Tommy recognizes he and Kathy have to say goodbye at some point, and he wants it to be when they are well enough to say goodbye as they are. They kiss, and Kathy drives away, watching Tommy in her rear-view mirror. Kathy knows she will never lose her memories of him and of Ruth, even though they are gone. She drives to Norfolk one last time, and imagines Tommy walking toward her in a field. Just as the imaginary Tommy waves at her, she cries out of grief. Ishiguro has developed Kathy’s character first as a girl and then as a woman who notices everything around her but keeps her emotions inside, until Tommy gives her a safe place to reveal them. She drives away from Norfolk to ‘wherever it was I was supposed to be’, to the next part of her life, her fate.

Chapter 23 Quotes

But what I couldn’t help noticing was how, more and more, Tommy tended to identify himself with the other donors at the centre. Chapter 23

A donor ‘on a fourth’, even one who’s been pretty unpopular up till then, is treated with special respect. Chapter 23

‘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.’ Chapter 23

‘Tommy, are you glad Ruth completed before finding out everything we did in the end?’ Chapter 23

The memories I value most, I don’t see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won’t lose my memories of them. Chapter 23

I was talking to one of my donors a few days ago who was complaining about how memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. Chapter 23

… if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field, and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, maybe even call. The fantasy never got beyond that—I didn’t let it—and though the tears rolled down my face, I wasn’t sobbing or out of control. I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. Chapter 23