Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Then I saw the surprise register on his face that I should know about his feelings for the polo shirt.

When I’d finished, there was a funny sort of silence hanging in the dark,

little private nooks created out of thin air where we could go off alone with our fears and longings.

if you fancied someone your own sex, you were ‘an umbrella’.

how so many of their mannerisms were copied from the television.

we’d somehow developed this idea that how well you were settling in at the Cottages – how well you were coping – was somehow reflected by how many books you’d read.

It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to.

But it seems to me Ruth believed, at some level, she was doing all this on behalf of us all.

Roger obviously thought I’d meant the ones still there, the little ones dependent on their guardians, and he put on a troubled face and began speculating how they’d have to be transferred to other houses around the country, even though some of these would be a far cry from Hailsham. But of course, that wasn’t what I’d meant. 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.