Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how I think it is with us. It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can’t stay together forever.”

There’s a line I came across years before NLMG in a Leonard Cohen song called ‘I Can’t Forget’ (from the album I’m Your Man). Leonard sings, with weariness and resignation, but also with a certain pride: ‘I’ve loved you all my life/And that’s how I want to end it…’ I think this song may have been running in my mind when I wrote this speech for Tommy. I do wonder today if this isn’t one image too many of two people holding each other against forces pulling them apart. By this point, we’ve already seen Kathy and Tommy holding each other in the dark windy field. We have that title, and the song-and-pillow scene. We’ve had most of the story. I wonder if we really needed yet another image about rivers and strong currents?!