Tommy was looking puzzled. When he was sure I’d finished, he said: “You’re right. Things have been falling apart for me. But I don’t see what you mean, Kath. What do you mean, we both know? I don’t see how you could know. I haven’t told anyone.”
“Obviously I don’t have all the details. But we all know about you splitting with Ruth.”
Tommy still looked puzzled. Finally he did another little laugh, but this time it was a real one. “I see what you mean,” he mumbled, then paused a moment to think something over. “To be honest, Kath,” he said eventually, “that’s not really what’s bothering me. It’s really something else altogether. I just keep thinking about it all the time. About Miss Lucy.”
And that was how I came to hear about it, about what had happened between Tommy and Miss Lucy at the start of that summer. Later, when I’d had time to think it over, I worked out it must have happened no more than a few days after the morning I’d seen Miss Lucy up in Room 22 scrawling over her paperwork. And like I said, I felt like kicking myself I hadn’t found out from him earlier.
It had been in the afternoon near the “dead hour”—when the lessons were finished but there was still some time to go until supper. Tommy had seen Miss Lucy coming out of the main house, her arms loaded with flipcharts and box files, and because it looked like she’d drop something any moment, he’d run over and offered to help.
“Well, she gave me a few things to carry and said we were headed back to her study with it all. Even between the two of us there was too much and I dropped a couple of things on the way. Then when we were coming up to the Orangery, she suddenly stopped, and I thought she’d dropped something else. But she was looking at me, like this, straight in the face, all serious. Then she says we’ve got to have a talk, a good talk. I say fine, and so we go into the Orangery, into her study, put all the stuff down. And she tells me to sit down, and I end up exactly where I was the last time, you know, that time years ago. And I can tell she’s remembering that time as well, because she starts talking about it like it was only the day before. No explanations, nothing, she just starts off saying something like: ‘Tommy, I made a mistake, when I said what I did to you. And I should have put you right about it long before now.’ Then she’s saying I should forget everything she told me before. That she’d done me a big disservice telling me not to worry about being creative. That the other guardians had been right all along, and there was no excuse for my art being so rubbish…”
“Hold on, Tommy. Did she actually say your art was ‘rubbish?’ ”
“If it wasn’t ‘rubbish’ it was something like it. Negligible. That might have been it. Or incompetent. She might as well have said rubbish. She said she was sorry she’d told me what she had the last time because if she hadn’t, I might have sorted it all by now.”
“What were you saying through all this?”
“I didn’t know what to say. In the end, she actually asked. She said: ‘Tommy, what are you thinking?’ So I said I wasn’t sure but that she shouldn’t worry either way because I was all right now. And she said, no, I wasn’t all right. My art was rubbish, and that was partly her fault for telling me what she had. And I said to her, but what does it matter? I’m all right now, no one laughs at me about that any more. But she keeps shaking her head saying: ‘It does matter. I shouldn’t have said what I did.’ So it occurs to me she’s talking about later, you know, about after we leave here. So I say: ‘But I’ll be all right, Miss. I’m really fit, I know how to look after myself. When it’s time for donations, I’ll be able to do it really well.’ When I said this, she starts shaking her head, shaking it really hard so I’m worried she’ll get dizzy. Then she says: ‘Listen, Tommy, your art, it is important. And not just because it’s evidence. But for your own sake. You’ll get a lot from it, just for yourself.’ ”
“Hold on. What did she mean, ‘evidence’?”
“I don’t know. But she definitely said that. She said our art was important, and ‘not just because it’s evidence.’ God knows what she meant. I did actually ask her, when she said that. I said I didn’t understand what she was telling me, and was it something to do with Madame and her gallery? And she did a big sigh and said: ‘Madame’s gallery, yes, that’s important. Much more important than I once thought. I see that now.’ Then she said: ‘Look, there are all kinds of things you don’t understand, Tommy, and I can’t tell you about them. Things about Hailsham, about your place in the wider world, all kinds of things. But perhaps one day, you’ll try and find out. They won’t make it easy for you, but if you want to, really want to, you might find out.’ She started shaking her head again after that, though not as bad as before, and she says: ‘But why should you be any different? The students who leave here, they never find out much. Why should you be any different?’ I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I just said again: ‘I’ll be all right, Miss.’ She was quiet for a time, then she suddenly stood up and kind of bent over me and hugged me. Not in a sexy way. More like they used to do when we were little. I just kept as still as possible. Then she stood back and said again she was sorry for what she’d told me before. And that it wasn’t too late, I should start straight away, making up the lost time. I don’t think I said anything, and she looked at me and I thought she’d hug me again. But instead she said: ‘Just do it for my sake, Tommy.’ I told her I’d do my best, because by then I just wanted out of there. I was probably bright scarlet, what with her hugging me and everything. I mean, it’s not the same, is it, now we’ve got bigger.”
Until this point I’d been so engrossed in Tommy’s story, I’d forgotten my reason for having this talk with him. But this reference to our getting “bigger” reminded me of my original mission.
“Look, Tommy,” I said, “we’ll have to talk this over carefully soon. It’s really interesting and I can see how it must have made you miserable. But either way, you’re going to have to pull yourself together a bit more. We’re going to be leaving here this summer. You’ve got to get yourself sorted again, and there’s one thing you can straighten out right now. Ruth told me she’s prepared to call it quits and have you get back with her again. I think that’s a good chance for you. Don’t mess it up.”
He was quiet for a few seconds, then said: “I don’t know, Kath. There are all these other things to think about.”
“Tommy, just listen. You’re really lucky. Of all the people here, you’ve got Ruth fancying you. After we leave, if you’re with her, you won’t have to worry. She’s the best, you’ll be fine so long as you’re with her. She’s saying she wants a fresh start. So don’t blow it.”
I waited but Tommy gave no response, and again I felt something like panic coming over me. I leaned forward and said: “Look, you fool, you’re not going to get many more chances. Don’t you realise, we won’t be here together like this much longer?”
To my surprise Tommy’s response, when it came, was calm and considered—the side of Tommy that was to emerge more and more in the years ahead.
“I do realise that, Kath. That’s exactly why I can’t rush back into it with Ruth. We’ve got to think about the next move really carefully.” Then he sighed and looked right at me. “Like you say, Kath. We’re going to be leaving here soon. It’s not like a game any more. We’ve got to think carefully.”
I was suddenly lost for what to say and just sat there tugging away at the clovers. I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look up. We might have gone on that way for a while longer, except we were interrupted. I think the boys he’d been playing football with earlier came back, or maybe it was some students strolling by who came and sat down with us. Anyway, our little heart-to-heart was at an end and I came away feeling I hadn’t done what I’d set out to do—that I’d somehow let Ruth down.