“There’s no big conspiracy about it,” I said, turning back to the boat. “Sometimes it happens. It was really sad about Chrissie. But that’s not common. They’re really careful these days.”

“I bet it happens much more than they tell us,” Ruth said again. “That’s one reason why they keep moving us around between donations.”

“I ran into Rodney once,” I said. “It wasn’t so long after Chrissie completed. I saw him in this clinic, up in North Wales. He was doing okay.”

“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?”

“Actually,” I said, “he wasn’t too bad about it. He was sad, obviously. But he was okay. They hadn’t seen each other for a couple of years anyway. He said he thought Chrissie wouldn’t have minded too much. And I suppose he should know.”

“Why would he know?” Ruth said. “How could he possibly know what Chrissie would have felt? What she would have wanted? It wasn’t him on that table, trying to cling onto life. How would he know?”

This flash of anger was more like the old Ruth, and made me turn to her again. Maybe it was just the glare in her eyes, but she seemed to be looking back at me with a hard, stern expression.

“It can’t be good,” Tommy said. “Completing at the second donation. Can’t be good.”

“I can’t believe Rodney was okay about it,” Ruth said. “You only spoke to him for a few minutes. How can you tell anything from that?”

“Yeah,” said Tommy, “but if like Kath says, they’d already split up…”

“That wouldn’t make any difference,” Ruth cut in. “In some ways that might have made it worse.”

“I’ve seen a lot of people in Rodney’s position,” I said. “They do come to terms with it.”

“How would you know?” said Ruth. “How could you possibly know? You’re still a carer.”

“I get to see a lot as a carer. An awful lot.”

“She wouldn’t know, would she, Tommy? Not what it’s really like.”

For a moment we were both looking at Tommy, but he just went on gazing at the boat. Then he said:

“There was this guy, at my centre. Always worried he wouldn’t make it past his second. Used to say he could feel it in his bones. But it all turned out fine. He’s just come through his third now, and he’s completely all right.” He put up a hand to shield his eyes. “I wasn’t much good as a carer. Never learnt to drive even. I think that’s why the notice for my first came so early. I know it’s not supposed to work that way, but I reckon that’s what it was. Didn’t mind really. I’m a pretty good donor, but I was a lousy carer.”

No one spoke for a while. Then Ruth said, her voice quieter now:

“I think I was a pretty decent carer. But five years felt about enough for me. I was like you, Tommy. 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?”

I wasn’t sure if she expected me to respond to this. She hadn’t said it in any obviously leading way, and it’s perfectly possible this was a statement she’d come out with just out of habit—it was the sort of thing you hear donors say to each other all the time. When I turned to them again, Tommy still had his hand up to shade his eyes.

“Pity we can’t go closer to the boat,” he said. “One day when it’s drier, maybe we could come back.”

“I’m glad to have seen it,” Ruth said, softly. “It’s really nice. But I think I want to go back now. This wind’s quite chilly.”

“At least we’ve seen it now,” Tommy said.

We chatted much more freely on our walk back to the car than on the way out. Ruth and Tommy were comparing notes on their centres—the food, the towels, that kind of thing—and I was always part of the conversation because they kept asking me about other centres, if this or that was normal. Ruth’s walk was much steadier now and when we came to the fence, and I held up the wire, she hardly hesitated.

We got in the car, again with Tommy in the back, and for a while there was a perfectly okay feeling between us. Maybe, looking back, there was an atmosphere of something being held back, but it’s possible I’m only thinking that now because of what happened next.

The way it began, it was a bit like a repeat of earlier. We’d got back onto the long near-empty road, and Ruth made some remark about a poster we were passing. I don’t even remember the poster now, it was just one of those huge advertising images on the roadside. She made the remark almost to herself, obviously not meaning much by it. She said something like: “Oh my God, look at that one. You’d think they’d at least try to come up with something new.”

But Tommy said from the back: “Actually I quite like that one. It’s been in the newspapers as well. I think it’s got something.”

Maybe I was wanting that feeling again, of me and Tommy being brought close together. Because although the walk to the boat had been fine in itself, I was starting to feel that apart from our first embrace, and that moment in the car earlier on, Tommy and I hadn’t really had much to do with each other. Anyway, I found myself saying:

“Actually, I like it too. It takes a lot more effort than you’d think, making up these posters.”

“That’s right,” Tommy said. “Someone told me it takes weeks and weeks putting something like that together. Months even. People sometimes work all night on them, over and over, until they’re just right.”

“It’s too easy,” I said, “to criticise when you’re just driving by.”

“Easiest thing in the world,” Tommy said.

Ruth said nothing, and kept looking at the empty road in front of us. Then I said:

“Since we’re on the subject of posters. There was one I noticed on the way out. It should be coming up again pretty soon. It’ll be on our side this time. It should come up any time now.”

“What’s it of?” Tommy asked.

“You’ll see. It’ll be coming up soon.”

I glanced at Ruth beside me. There was no anger in her eyes, just a kind of wariness. There was even a sort of hope, I thought, that when the poster appeared, it would be perfectly innocuous—something that reminded us of Hailsham, something like that. I could see all of this in her face, the way it didn’t quite settle on any one expression, but hovered tentatively. All the time, her gaze remained fixed in front of her.

I slowed down the car and pulled over, bumping up onto the rough grass verge.

“Why are we stopping, Kath?” Tommy asked.

“Because you can see it best from here. Any nearer, we have to look up at it too much.”

I could hear Tommy shifting behind us, trying to get a better view. Ruth didn’t move, and I wasn’t even sure she was looking at the poster at all.

“Okay, it’s not exactly the same,” I said after a moment. “But it reminded me. Open-plan office, smart smiling people.”

Ruth stayed silent, but Tommy said from the back: “I get it. You mean, like that place we went to that time.”

“Not only that,” I said. “It’s a lot like that ad. The one we found on the ground. You remember, Ruth?”

“I’m not sure I do,” she said quietly.

“Oh, come on. You remember. We found it in a magazine in some lane. Near a puddle. You were really taken by it. Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”

“I think I do.” Ruth’s voice was now almost a whisper. A lorry went past, making our car wobble and, for a few seconds, obscuring our view of the hoarding. Ruth bowed her head, as though she hoped the lorry had removed the image forever, and when we could see it clearly again, she didn’t raise her gaze.

“It’s funny,” I said, “remembering it all now. Remember how you used to go on about it? How you’d one day work in an office like that one?”

“Oh yeah, that was why we went that day,” Tommy said, like he’d only that second remembered. “When we went to Norfolk. We went to find your possible. Working in an office.”