In the end, as I said, the vehicle crisis got resolved, and early the next morning, in the pitch dark, the five of us got inside a bashed but perfectly decent Rover car. The way we sat was with Chrissie up front next to Rodney, and the three of us in the back. That was what had felt natural, and we’d got in like that without thinking about it. But after only a few minutes, once Rodney had brought us out of the dark winding lanes onto the proper roads, Ruth, who was in the middle, leaned forward, put her hands on the front seats, and began talking to the two veterans. She did this in a way that meant Tommy and I, on either side of her, couldn’t hear anything they were saying, and because she was between us, couldn’t talk to or even see each other. Sometimes, on the rare occasions she did lean back, I tried to get something going between the three of us, but Ruth wouldn’t pick up on it, and before long, she’d be crouched forwards again, her face stuck between the two front seats.
After about an hour, with day starting to break, we stopped to stretch our legs and let Rodney go for a pee. We’d pulled over beside a big empty field, so we jumped over the ditch and spent a few minutes rubbing our hands together and watching our breaths rise. At one point, I noticed Ruth had drifted away from the rest of us and was gazing across the field at the sunrise. So I went over to her and made the suggestion that, since she only wanted to talk to the veterans, she swap seats with me. That way she could go on talking at least with Chrissie, and Tommy and I could have some sort of conversation to while away the journey. I’d hardly finished before Ruth said in a whisper:
‘Why do you have to be difficult? Now of all times! I don’t get it. Why do you want to make trouble?’ Then she yanked me round so both our backs were to the others and they wouldn’t see if we started to argue. It was the way she did this, rather than her words, that suddenly made me see things her way; I could see that Ruth was making a big effort to present not just herself, but all of us, in the right way to Chrissie and Rodney; and here I was, threatening to undermine her and start an embarrassing scene. I saw all this, and so I touched her on the shoulder and went off back to the others. And when we returned to the car, I made sure the three of us sat exactly as before. But now, as we drove on, Ruth stayed more or less silent, sitting right back in her seat, and even when Chrissie or Rodney shouted things to us from the front, responded only in sulky monosyllables.
Things cheered up considerably, though, once we arrived in our seaside town. We got there around lunch-time and left the Rover in a car park beside a mini-golf course full of fluttering flags. It had turned into a crisp, sunny day, and my memory of it is that for the first hour we all felt so exhilarated to be out and about we didn’t give much thought to what had brought us there. At one point Rodney actually let out a few whoops, waving his arms around as he led the way up a road climbing steadily past rows of houses and the occasional shop, and you could sense just from the huge sky, that you were walking towards the sea.
Actually, when we did reach the sea, we found we were standing on a road carved into a cliff edge. It seemed at first there was a sheer drop down to the sands, but once you leant over the rail, you could see zigzagging footpaths leading you down the cliff-face to the seafront.
We were starving by now and went into a little café perched on the cliff just where one of the footpaths began. When we went in, the only people inside were the two chubby women in aprons who worked there. They were smoking cigarettes at one of the tables, but they quickly got up and disappeared into the kitchen, so then we had the place to ourselves.
We took the table right at the back – which meant the one stuck out closest to the cliff edge – and when we sat down it felt like we were virtually suspended over the sea. I didn’t have anything to compare it with at the time, but I realise now the café was tiny, with just three or four little tables. They’d left a window open – probably to stop the place filling up with frying smells – so that every now and then a gust would pass through the room making all the signs advertising their good deals flutter about. There was one cardboard notice pinned over the counter that had been done in coloured felt-tips, and at the top of it was the word ‘look’ with a staring eye drawn inside each ‘o’. I see the same thing so often these days I don’t even register it, but back then I hadn’t seen it before. So I was looking at it admiringly, then caught Ruth’s eye, and realised she too was looking at it amazed, and we both burst out laughing. That was a cosy little moment, when it felt like we’d left behind the bad feeling that had grown between us in the car. As it turned out, though, it was just about the last moment like that between me and Ruth for the rest of that outing.
We hadn’t mentioned the ‘possible’ at all since arriving in the town, and I’d assumed when we sat down we’d finally discuss the matter properly. But once we’d started on our sandwiches, Rodney began talking about their old friend, Martin, who’d left the Cottages the year before and was now living somewhere in the town. Chrissie eagerly took up the subject and soon both veterans were coming out with anecdotes about all the hilarious things Martin had got up to. We couldn’t follow much of it, but Chrissie and Rodney were really enjoying themselves. They kept exchanging glances and laughing, and although they pretended it was for our benefit, it was clear they were remembering for each other. Thinking about it now, it occurs to me the near-taboo at the Cottages surrounding people who’d left might well have stopped them talking about their friend even to each other, and it was only once we’d come away they’d felt able to indulge themselves in this way.
Whenever they laughed, I laughed too just to be polite. Tommy seemed to be understanding things even less than me and was letting out hesitant little half-laughs that lagged some way behind. Ruth, though, was laughing and laughing, and kept nodding to everything being said about Martin just like she too was remembering them. Then once, when Chrissie made a really obscure reference – she’d said something like: ‘Oh, yes, the time he put out his jeans!’ – Ruth gave a big laugh and signalled in our direction, as though to say to Chrissie: ‘Go on, explain it to them so they can enjoy it too.’ I let this all go, but when Chrissie and Rodney started discussing whether we should go round to Martin’s flat, I finally said, maybe a bit coldly:
‘What exactly is he doing here? Why’s he got a flat?’
There was a silence, then I heard Ruth let out an exasperated sigh. Chrissie leaned over the table towards me and said quietly, like she was explaining to a child: ‘He’s being a carer. What else do you think he’d be doing here? He’s a proper carer now.’
There was a bit of shifting, and I said: ‘That’s what I mean. We can’t just go and visit him.’
Chrissie sighed. ‘Okay. We’re not supposed to visit carers. Absolutely strictly speaking. Certainly not encouraged.’
Rodney chuckled and added: ‘Definitely not encouraged. Naughty naughty to go and visit him.’
‘Very naughty,’ Chrissie said and made a tutting noise.
Then Ruth joined in, saying: ‘Kathy hates to be naughty. So we’d better not go and visit him.’
Tommy was looking at Ruth, clearly puzzled about whose side she’d taken, and I wasn’t sure either. It occurred to me she didn’t want the expedition side-tracked and was reluctantly siding with me, so I smiled at her, but she didn’t return my look. Then Tommy asked suddenly:
‘Whereabouts was it you saw Ruth’s possible, Rodney?’
‘Oh …’ Rodney didn’t seem nearly so interested in the possible now we were in the town, and I could see anxiety cross Ruth’s face. Finally Rodney said: ‘It was a turning off the High Street, somewhere up the other end. Of course, it might be her day off.’ Then when no one said anything, he added: ‘They do have days off, you know. They’re not always at their work.’
For a moment, as he said this, the fear passed through me that we’d misjudged things badly; that for all we knew, veterans often used talk of possibles just as a pretext to go on trips, and didn’t really expect to take it any further. Ruth might well have been thinking alo
ng the same lines, because she was now looking definitely worried, but in the end she did a little laugh, like Rodney had made a joke.
Then Chrissie said in a new voice: ‘You know, Ruth, we might be coming here in a few years’ time to visit you. Working in a nice office. I don’t see how anyone could stop us visiting you then.’
‘That’s right,’ Ruth said quickly. ‘You can all come and see me.’
‘I suppose,’ Rodney said, ‘there aren’t any rules about visiting people if they’re working in an office.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘We don’t know. It hasn’t really happened with us before.’
‘It’ll be all right,’ Ruth said. ‘They let you do it. You can all come and visit me. Except Tommy, that is.’
Tommy looked shocked. ‘Why can’t I come?’
‘Because you’ll already be with me, stupid,’ Ruth said. ‘I’m keeping you.’
We all laughed, Tommy again a little behind the rest of us.
‘I heard about this girl up in Wales,’ Chrissie said. ‘She was Hailsham, maybe a few years before you lot. Apparently she’s working in this clothes shop right now. A really smart one.’
There were murmurs of approval and for a while we all looked dreamily out at the clouds.
‘That’s Hailsham for you,’ Rodney said eventually, and shook his head as though in amazement.
‘And then there was that other person’ – Chrissie had turned to Ruth – ‘that boy you were telling us about the other day. The one a couple of years above you who’s a park keeper now.’
Ruth was nodding thoughtfully. It occurred to me that I should shoot Tommy a warning glance, but by the time I’d turned to him, he’d already started to speak.
‘Who was that?’ he asked in a bewildered voice.
‘You know who it is, Tommy,’ I said quickly. It was too risky to kick him, or even to make my voice wink-wink: Chrissie would have picked it up in a flash. So I said it dead straight, with a bit of weariness, like we were all fed up with Tommy forgetting all the time. But this just meant Tommy still didn’t twig.
‘Someone we knew?’
‘Tommy, let’s not go through this again,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to have your brains tested.’
At last the penny seemed to drop, and Tommy shut up.
Chrissie said: ‘I know how lucky I am, getting to be at the Cottages. But you Hailsham lot, you’re really lucky. You know …’ She lowered her voice and leaned forward again. ‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you lot about. It’s just that back there, at the Cottages, it’s impossible. Everyone always listening in.’
She looked around the table, then fixed her gaze on Ruth. Rodney suddenly tensed and he too leaned forward. And something told me we were coming to what was, for Chrissie and Rodney, the central purpose of this whole expedition.
‘When Rodney and I, we were up in Wales,’ she said. ‘The same time we heard about this girl in the clothes shop. We heard something else, something about Hailsham students. What they were saying was that some Hailsham students in the past, in special circumstances, had managed to get a deferral. That this was something you could do if you were a Hailsham student. You could ask for your donations to be put back by three, even four years. It wasn’t easy, but just sometimes they’d let you do it. So long as you could convince them. So long as you qualified.’
Chrissie paused and looked at each of us, maybe for dramatic effect, maybe to check us for signs of recognition. Tommy and I probably had puzzled looks, but Ruth had on one of her faces where you couldn’t tell what was going on.
‘What they said,’ Chrissie continued, ‘was that if you were a boy and a girl, and you were in love with each other, really, properly in love, and if you could show it, then the people who run Hailsham, they sorted it out for you. They sorted it out so you could have a few years together before you began your donations.’
There was now a strange atmosphere around the table, a kind of tingle going round.
‘When we were in Wales,’ Chrissie went on, ‘the students at the White Mansion. They’d heard of this Hailsham couple, the guy had only a few weeks left before he became a carer. And they went to see someone and got everything put back three years. They were allowed to go on living there together, up at the White Mansion, three years straight, didn’t have to go on with their training or anything. Three years just to themselves, because they could prove they were properly in love.’
It was at this point I noticed Ruth nodding with a lot of authority. Chrissie and Rodney noticed too and for a few seconds they watched her like they were hypnotised. And I had a kind of vision of Chrissie and Rodney, back at the Cottages, in the months leading up to this moment, probing and prodding this subject between them. I could see them bringing it up, at first very tentatively, shrugging, putting it to one side, bringing it up again, never able quite to leave it alone. I could see them toying with the idea of talking to us about it, see them refining how they’d do it, what exactly they’d say. I looked again at Chrissie and Rodney in front of me, gazing at Ruth, and tried to read their faces. Chrissie looked both afraid and hopeful. Rodney looked on edge, like he didn’t trust himself not to blurt out something he wasn’t supposed to.
This wasn’t the first time I’d come across the rumour about deferrals. Over the past several weeks, I’d caught more and more snatches of it at the Cottages. It was always veterans talking among themselves, and when any of us showed up, they’d look awkward and go quiet. But I’d heard enough to get the gist of it; and I knew it had specifically to do with us Hailsham students. Even so, it was only that day, in that seafront café, that it really came home to me how important this whole notion had become for some veterans.
‘I suppose,’ Chrissie went on, her voice wobbling slightly, ‘you lot would know about it. The rules, all that sort of thing.’
She and Rodney looked at each of us in turn, then their gazes settled back on Ruth.
Ruth sighed and said: ‘Well, they told us a few things, obviously. But’ – she gave a shrug – ‘it’s not something we know much about. We never talked about it really. Anyway, we should get going soon.’
‘Who is it you go to?’ Rodney suddenly asked. ‘Who did they say you had to go to if you wanted, you know, to apply?’
Ruth shrugged again. ‘Well, I told you. It wasn’t something we talked about much.’ Almost instinctively she looked to me and Tommy for support, which was probably a mistake, because Tommy said:
‘To be honest, I don’t know what you’re all talking about. What rules are these?’
Ruth stared daggers at him, and I said quickly: ‘You know, Tommy. All that talk that used to go round at Hailsham.’
Tommy shook his head. ‘I don’t remember it,’ he said flatly. And this time I could see – and Ruth could too – that he wasn’t being slow. ‘I don’t remember anything like that at Hailsham.’
Ruth turned away from him. ‘What you’ve got to realise,’ she said to Chrissie, ‘is that even though Tommy was at Hailsham, he isn’t like a real Hailsham student. He was left out of everything and people were always laughing at him. So there’s no point in asking him about anything like this. Now, I want to go and find this person Rodney saw.’
A look had appeared in Tommy’s eyes that made me catch my breath. It was one I hadn’t seen for a long time and that belonged to the Tommy who’d had to be barricaded inside a classroom while he kicked over desks. Then the look faded, he turned to the sky outside and let out a heavy breath.
The veterans hadn’t noticed anything because Ruth, at the same moment, had risen to her feet and was fiddling with her coat. Then there was a bit of confusion as the rest of us all moved back our chairs from the little table all at once. I’d been put in charge of the spending money, so I went up to pay. The others filed out behind me, and while I was waiting for the change, I watched them through one of the big misty windows, shuffling about in the sunshine, not talking, looking down at the sea.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
When I got outside, it was obvious the excitement from when we’d first arrived had evaporated completely. We walked in silence, Rodney leading the way, through little backstreets hardly penetrated by the sun, the pavements so narrow we often had to shuffle along in single file. It was a relief to come out onto the High Street where the noise made our rotten mood less obvious. As we crossed at a pelican to the sunnier side, I could see Rodney and Chrissie conferring about something and I wondered how much of the bad atmosphere had to do with their believing we were holding back on some big Hailsham secret, and how much was just to do with Ruth’s having a go at Tommy.
Then once we’d crossed the High Street, Chrissie announced she and Rodney wanted to go shopping for birthday cards. Ruth was stunned by this, but Chrissie just went on:
‘We like buying them in big batches. It’s always cheaper in the long run. And you’ve always got one handy when it’s someone’s birthday.’ She pointed to the entrance of a Woolworth’s shop. ‘You can get pretty good cards in there really cheap.’
Rodney was nodding, and I thought there was something a little bit mocking around the edges of his smile. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you end up with a lot of cards the same, but you can put your own illustrations on them. You know, personalise them.’
Both veterans were now standing in the middle of the pavement, letting people with pushchairs move round them, waiting for us to put up a challenge. I could tell Ruth was furious, but without Rodney’s co-operation there wasn’t much that could be done anyway.
So we went into the Woolworth’s, and immediately I felt much more cheerful. Even now, I like places like that: a large store with lots of aisles displaying bright plastic toys, greeting cards, loads of cosmetics, maybe even a photo booth. Today, if I’m in a town and find myself with some time to kill, I’ll stroll into somewhere just like that, where you can hang around and enjoy yourself, not buying a thing, and the assistants don’t mind at all.