She laughed and said: “Because nothing. I’d like you to forgive me, but I don’t expect you to. Anyway, that’s not the half of it, not even a small bit of it, actually. 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.”
She turned a little, taking Tommy in her gaze for the first time. Then almost immediately, she was looking just at me again, but now it was like she was talking to the both of us.
“That was the worst thing I did,” she said again. “I’m not even asking you to forgive me about that. God, I’ve said all this in my head so many times, I can’t believe I’m really doing it. It should have been you two. I’m not pretending I didn’t always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember. But I kept you apart. I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. That’s not what I’m after just now. What I want is for you to put it right. Put right what I messed up for you.”
“How d’you mean, Ruth?” Tommy asked. “How d’you mean, put it right?” His voice was gentle, full of child- like curiosity, and I think that was what started me sobbing.
“Kathy, listen,” Ruth said. “You and Tommy, you’ve got to try and get a deferral. If it’s you two, there’s got to be a chance. A real chance.”
She’d reached out a hand and put it on my shoulder, but I shook her off roughly and glared at her through the tears.
“It’s too late for that. Way too late.”
“It’s not too late. Kathy, listen, it’s not too late. Okay, so Tommy’s done two donations. Who says that has to make any difference?”
“It’s too late for all that now.” I’d started to sob again. “It’s stupid even thinking about it. As stupid as wanting to work in that office up there. We’re all way beyond that now.”
Ruth was shaking her head. “It’s not too late. Tommy, you tell her.”
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.
“Look,” Ruth said, “both of you, listen. I wanted us all to do this trip, because I wanted to say what I just said. But I also wanted it because I wanted to give you something.” She’d been rummaging in the pockets of her anorak, and now she held out a crumpled piece of paper. “Tommy, you’d better take this. Look after it. Then when Kathy changes her mind, you’ll have it.”
Tommy reached forward between the seats and took the paper. “Thanks, Ruth,” he said, like she’d given him a chocolate bar. Then after a few seconds, he said: “What is it? I don’t get it.”
“It’s Madame’s address. It’s like you were saying to me just now. You’ve at least got to try.”
“How d’you find it?” Tommy asked.
“It wasn’t easy. It took me a long time, and I ran a few risks. But I got it in the end, and I got it for you two. Now it’s up to you to find her and try.”
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.”
“But you will think about it, both of you, won’t you?”
“I just want to get back now,” I said.
“Tommy, you’ll keep that address safe? In case Kathy comes round.”
“I’ll keep it,” Tommy said. Then, much more solemnly than the last time: “Thanks, Ruth.”
“We’ve seen the boat,” I said, “but now we’ve got to get back. It might be over two hours back to Dover.”
I put the car on the road again, and my memory of it is that we didn’t talk much more on the way back to the Kingsfield. There was still a small group of donors huddled under the roof as we came into the Square. I turned the car before letting Tommy out. Neither of us hugged or kissed him, but as he walked away towards his fellow donors, he paused and gave us a big smile and wave.
It might seem odd, but on the journey back to Ruth’s centre, we didn’t really discuss any of what had just happened. It was partly because Ruth was exhausted—that last conversation on the roadside seemed to have drained her. But also, I think we both sensed we’d done enough serious talking for one day, and that if we tried any more of it, things would start going wrong. I’m not sure how Ruth was feeling on that drive home, but as for me, once all the strong emotions had settled, once the night began to set in and all the lights came on along the roadside, I was feeling okay. It was like something that had been hanging over me for a long time had gone, and even if things were still far from sorted, it felt like there was now at least a door open to somewhere better. I’m not saying I was elated or anything like that. Everything between the three of us seemed really delicate and I felt tense, but it wasn’t altogether a bad tension.
We didn’t even discuss Tommy beyond saying how he looked okay, and wondering how much weight he’d put on. Then we spent large stretches of the journey watching the road together in silence.
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. And that was the start of it, that era, with the summer coming on, and Ruth’s health at least on an even keel, when I’d come in the evenings with biscuits and mineral water, and we’d sit side by side at her window, watching the sun go down over the roofs, talking about Hailsham, the Cottages, anything that drifted into our minds. When I think about Ruth now, of course, I feel sad she’s gone; but I also feel really grateful for that period we had at the end.
There was, even so, one topic we never discussed properly, and that was about what she’d said to us on the roadside that day. Just every now and then, Ruth would allude to it. She’d come out with something like:
“Have you thought any more about becoming Tommy’s carer? You know you could arrange it, if you wanted to.”
Soon, it was this idea—of my becoming Tommy’s carer—that came to stand in for all the rest of it. I’d tell her I was thinking about it, that anyway it wasn’t so simple, even for me, to arrange such a thing. Then we’d usually let the topic drop. But I could tell 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.
That was three days after her second donation, when they finally let me in to see her in the small hours of the morning. She was in a room by herself, and it looked like they’d done everything they could for her. It had become obvious to me by then, from the way the doctors, the co-ordinator, the nurses were behaving, that they didn’t think she was going to make it. Now I took one glance at her in that hospital bed under the dull light and recognised the look on her face, which I’d seen on donors often enough before. It was like she was willing her eyes to see right inside herself, so she could patrol and marshal all the better the separate areas of pain in her body—the way, maybe, an anxious carer might rush between three or four ailing donors in different parts of the country. She was, strictly speaking, still conscious, but she wasn’t accessible to me as I stood there beside her metal bed. All the same, I pulled up a chair and sat with her hand in both of mine, squeezing whenever another flood of pain made her twist away from 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 was far away inside herself. But just once, as she was twisting herself in a way that seemed scarily unnatural, and I was on the verge of calling the nurses for more painkillers, just for a few seconds, no more, she looked straight at me and she knew exactly who I was. It was one of those little islands of lucidity donors sometimes get to in the midst of their ghastly battles, and she looked at me, just for that moment, and although she didn’t speak, I knew what her look meant. So I said to her: “It’s okay, I’m going to do it, Ruth. I’m going to become Tommy’s carer as soon as I can.” I said it under my breath, because I didn’t think she’d hear the words anyway, even if I shouted them. But my hope was that with our gazes locked as they were for those few seconds, she’d read my expression exactly as I’d read hers. Then the moment was over, and she was away again. Of course, I’ll never know for sure, but I think she did understand. And even if she didn’t, what occurs to me now is that she probably knew all along, even before I did, that I’d become Tommy’s carer, and that we’d “give it a try,” just as she’d told us to in the car that day.
