Kazuo Ishiguro by When We Were Orphans (txt) Read Free Book Online Page A

period of standing about alone. As I entered that grand lobby, then, I was quite unprepared for the sight of Sarah Hemmings waiting there with a smile.
    She was dressed rather impressively in a dark silk dress and discreet but elegant jewellery. Her manner as she came towards me was utterly assured, so much so that she even found time to smile a greeting to a couple walking past us.
    ‘Ah, Miss Hemmings,’ I said, while in my mind I tried hurriedly to retrieve all that had passed between us that day at Studley Grange. At that moment, I must confess, it seemed to me perfectly possible she had every right to expect me to offer my arm and lead her inside. No doubt, she sensed my uncertainty and appeared to grow even more confident.
    ‘Dear Christopher,’ she said, ‘you’re looking quite dashing.
    I’m overcome! Oh, and I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you. That was so marvellous, what you did for the Emerys. It was ever so clever of you.’
    “Thank you. It was hardly such a complicated matter.’
    She had now taken my arm and had she at that instant moved towards the footman directing dinner guests towards the staircase, I am sure I would have been powerless to do anything other than her bidding. But here, I see now, she made an error. Perhaps she wished to savour the moment; perhaps her audacity had for a second given out. In any case, she made no move to proceed upstairs, but instead, gazing at the other guests filing into the lobby, said to me: ‘Sir Cecil hasn’t arrived yet. I do hope I shall get a chance to speak to him. So fitting he’s the one being honoured this year, don’t you think?’
    ‘Indeed.’
    ‘You know, Christopher, I don’t suppose it will be so many years until we’ll all be here to honour you.’
    I laughed. ‘I hardly think
    ‘No, no. I feel sure of it. All right, we might have to give it a few more years. But the day will come, you’ll see.’
    ‘It’s kind of you to say so, Miss Hemmings.’
    She continued to hold my arm as we stood there talking. Not infrequently, someone passing would smile or utter a greeting to one or the other of us. And I have to say, I found I was rather enjoying the notion of all these people - many of them very distinguished - seeing me arm in arm with Sarah Hemmings. I fancied I saw in their eyes, even as they greeted us, the idea: ‘Oh, she’s caught him now, has she? Well, that’s natural enough.’ Far from making me feel foolish or in any way humiliated, this notion rather filled me with pride. But then suddenly - and I am not sure what caused this - quite without warning I began to feel a great fury towards her. I am sure there was no detectable change in my manner at that moment and for a few minutes more we went on chatting amiably, nodding the occasional greeting to a passing guest. But when I unlinked her arm from mine and turned to her, I did so with a steely resolve.
    ‘Well, Miss Hemmings, it was very good to see you again.
    But now I must leave you and go up to this function.’
    I gave a slight bow and began to move away. This clearly took her by surprise, and if she had ready some strategy for my failing to co-operate, she was for the moment unable to act on it. Only when I had gone several paces from her, and had in fact fallen in step with an elderly couple who had greeted me, did she suddenly come rushing up.
    ‘Christopher!’ she said in a frantic whisper. ‘You wouldn’t dare! You promised me!’
    ‘You know I did nothing of the sort.’
    ‘You wouldn’t dare! Christopher, you wouldn’t!’
    ‘I wish you a pleasant evening, Miss Hemmings.’
    Turning away from her - and also, incidentally, from my elderly companions, who were doing their best to hear nothing -1 began to make my way rapidly up the great staircase.
    On reaching the upper level, I was ushered into a brightly lit anteroom. There I duly joined a line of guests filing past a desk, behind which sat a uniformed man with a frosty face, checking people’s