Never Let Me Go

Question 1

But in the end I managed it, and the instant I saw her again, at that recovery centre in Dover, all our differences—while they didn’t exactly vanish—seemed not nearly as important as all the other things: like the fact that we’d grown up together at Hailsham, the fact that we knew and remembered things no one else did. (1.5) 

Answer 1

Friendship

Question 2

I can see now, too, how the Exchanges had a more subtle effect on us all. If you think about it, being dependent on each other to produce the stuff that might become your private treasures—that’s bound to do things to your relationships. (2.19)

Answer 2

Friendship

Question 3

But at other times, I think that’s wrong—that it was just to do with me and Ruth, and the sort of loyalty she inspired in me in those days. (5.30)

Answer 3

Friendship

Question 4

Now, for much the same reasons I’d not been able to talk openly to Ruth about what I’d done to her over the Sales Register business, she of course wasn’t able to thank me for the way I’d intervened with Midge. But it was obvious from her manner towards me, not just over the next few days, but over the weeks that followed, how pleased she was with me. (6.19)

Answer 4

Friendship

Question 5

As it happened, I didn’t have to go through with it because Tommy found out first. (7.48-49)

Answer 5

Friendship

Question 6

“It’s really good you’re telling me this,” I said eventually. “I probably am the best person. Talking to Tommy and all that.” (9.18)

Answer 6

Friendship

Question 7

Those early months at the Cottages had been a strange time in our friendship. We were quarrelling over all kinds of little things, but at the same time we were confiding in each other more than ever. (11.1)

Answer 7

Friendship

Question 8

“Judy Bridgewater. My old friend. It’s like she’s never been away.” (15.99)

Answer 8

Friendship

Question 9

But just once, as she was twisting herself in a way that seemed scarily unnatural, and I was on the verge of calling the nurses for more painkillers, just for a few seconds, no more, she looked straight at me and she knew exactly who I was. It was one of those little islands of lucidity donors sometimes get to in the midst of their ghastly battles, and she looked at me, just for that moment, and although she didn’t speak, I knew what her look meant. (19.142)

Answer 9

Friendship

Question 10

A part of me keeps wishing we’d somehow been able to share everything we discovered with Ruth. […] The way it is, it’s like there’s a line with us on one side and Ruth on the other, and when all’s said and done, I feel sad about that, and I think she would too if she could see it. (23.39)

Answer 10

Friendship

Question 11

“She said we weren’t being taught enough, something like that.” “Taught enough? You mean she thinks we should be studying even harder than we are?” “No, I don’t think she meant that. What she was talking about was, you know, about us. What’s going to happen to us one day. Donations and all that.” “But we have been taught about all that,” I said. “I wonder what she meant. Does she think there are things we haven’t been told yet?” (3.28-31)

Answer 11

Lies and Deceit

Question 12

“The problem, as I see it, is that you’ve been told and not told. You’ve been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way. But I’m not. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.” (7.20)

Answer 12

Lies and Deceit

Question 13

Tommy thought it possible the guardians had, throughout all our years at Hailsham, timed very carefully and deliberately everything they told us, so that we were always just too young to understand properly the latest piece of information. But of course we’d take it in at some level, so that before long all this stuff was there in our heads without us ever having examined it properly. (7.26)

Answer 13

Lies and Deceit

Question 14

Certainly, it feels like I always knew about donations in some vague way, even as early as six or seven. And it’s curious, when we were older and the guardians were giving us those talks, nothing came as a complete surprise. It was like we’d heard everything somewhere before. (7.27)

Answer 14

Lies and Deceit

Question 15

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.” (13.24-25)

Answer 15

Lies and Deceit

Question 16

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.” (13.52).

Answer 16

Lies and Deceit

Question 17

“Whatever else, we at least saw to it that all of you in our care, you grew up in wonderful surroundings. And we saw to it too, after you left us, you were kept away from the worst of those horrors. We were able to do that much for you at least.” (22.24)

Answer 17

Lies and Deceit

Question 18

Finally she said: “She was a nice enough girl, Lucy Wainright. But after she’d been with us for a while, she began to have these ideas. She thought you students had to be made more aware. More aware of what lay ahead of you, who you were, what you were for. She believed you should be given as full a picture as possible. That to do anything less would be somehow to cheat you. We considered her view and concluded she was mistaken.” (22.49)

Answer 18

Lies and Deceit

Question 19

You see, we were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. Hailsham would not have been Hailsham if we hadn’t. Very well, sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. Yes, in many ways we fooled you. I suppose you could even call it that. But we sheltered you during those years, and we gave you your childhoods. […] You wouldn’t be who you are today if we’d not protected you” (22.51)

Answer 19

Lies and Deceit

Question 20

Then as we were going down a particularly dark lane in the back of nowhere, he said suddenly: “I think Miss Lucy was right. Not Miss Emily.” (22.88-89)

Answer 20

Lies and Deceit

Question 21

My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. (1.1)

Answer 21

Identity

Question 22

Everything—the walls, the floor—has been done in gleaming white tiles, which the centre keeps so clean when you first go in it’s almost like entering a hall of mirrors. Of course, you don’t exactly see yourself reflected back loads of times, but you almost think you do. (2.26)

Answer 22

Identity

Question 23

So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you—of how you were brought into this world and why—and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange. (3.73)

Answer 23

Identity

Question 24

Nevertheless, we all of us, to varying degrees, believed that when you saw the person you were copied from, you’d get some insight into who you were deep down, and maybe too, you’d see something of what your life held in store. (12.12)

Answer 24

Identity

Question 25

There were some who thought it stupid to be concerned about possibles at all. Our models were an irrelevance, a technical necessity for bringing us into the world, nothing more than that. It was up to each of us to make of our lives what we could. (12.13)

Answer 25

Identity

Question 26

Her hair was darker than Ruth’s—though it could have been dyed—and she had it tied back in a simple pony-tail the way Ruth usually did. She was laughing at something her friend in the red outfit was saying, and her face, especially when she was finishing her laugh with a shake of her head, had more than a hint of Ruth about it. (14.22)

Answer 26

Identity

Question 27

“It’s not worth getting upset about,” Tommy went on. […] “Our models, what they were like, that’s nothing to do with us, Kath. It’s just not worth getting upset about.” (15.4)

Answer 27

Identity

Question 28

“It’s just that sometimes, every now and again, I get these really strong feelings when I want to have sex. […] That’s why I started thinking, well, it has to come from somewhere. It must be to do with the way I am.” I stopped, but when Tommy didn’t say anything, I went on: “So I thought if I find her picture, in one of those magazines, it’ll at least explain it. I wouldn’t want to go and find her or anything. It would just, you know, kind of explain why I am the way I am.” (15.110)

Answer 28

Identity

Question 29

I don’t know if she recognised us at that point; but without doubt, she saw and decided in a second what we were, because you could see her stiffen—as if a pair of large spiders was set to crawl towards her. (21.12)

Answer 29

Identity

Question 30

I realised, of course, that other people used these roads; but that night, it seemed to me these dark byways of the country existed just for the likes of us, while the big glittering motorways with their huge signs and super cafés were for everyone else. (22.86)

Answer 30

Identity

Question 31

“None of you will go to America, none of you will be film stars. And none of you will be working in supermarkets as I heard some of you planning the other day. Your lives are set out for you.” (7.20)

Answer 31

Dreams-Hopes-Plans