Quote 41
"There was a time you saw me once, one afternoon, in the dormitories. There was no one else around, and I was playing this tape, this music. I was sort of dancing, with my eyes closed and you saw me."
"That's very good. A mind-reader. You should be on the stage. I only recognised you just now. But yes, I remember that occasion. I still think about it from time to time."
"That's funny. So do I." (22.67-69)
While they are standing in front of Madame's house, Kathy realizes that she and Madame are both remembering the same thing. Both ladies have thought about the dancing girl a lot over the years. In many ways, they share this memory together, which is kind of sweet.
Quote 42
I was talking to one of my donors a few days ago who was complaining about how memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don't go along with that. The memories I value most, I don't see them ever fading. I lost Ruth, then I lost Tommy, but I won't lose my memories of them. (23.44)
Kathy loses a lot of things throughout this novel, but the one thing she really doesn't want to lose is her memory. She believes her memories are fade-resistant. What do you think? We've seen Kathy admit to some memory loss before, so can we trust that her memories won't fade over time?
"An Exchange would come along and we'd be standing there torn between Susie K.'s poems and those giraffes Jackie used to make."
"Jackie's giraffes," Ruth said with a laugh. "They were so beautiful. I used to have one." (2.24-25)
Animals sure do pop up a lot in this book, especially when the students are creating art. These giraffes remind us of Tommy's childish elephant drawing and the imaginative animals he draws when he's older.
If Tommy had genuinely tried, she was saying, but he just couldn't be very creative, then that was quite all right, he wasn't to worry about it. (3.14)
At Hailsham, Tommy has trouble getting into a creative groove. The poor guy feels like everyone blames him for his lack of artistic talent. But at least he has one guardian, Miss Lucy, in his corner.
Quote 45
The gallery Tommy and I were discussing was something we'd all of us grown up with. Everyone talked about it as though it existed, though in truth none of us knew for sure that it did. I'm sure I was pretty typical in not being able to remember how or when I'd first heard about it. Certainly, it hadn't been from the guardians: they never mentioned the Gallery, and there was an unspoken rule that we should never even raise the subject in their presence. (3.51)
Is it just us, or does Kathy have trouble remembering when she learned anything at this so-called school? This moment has us thinking about how Kathy doesn't remember when she first learned about donations. For some reason, Kathy's selective memory loss kicks in on both occasions.
Quote 46
Once I'd spotted this, I began to notice all kinds of other things the veteran couples had taken from TV programmes: the way they gestured to each other, sat together on sofas, even the way they argued and stormed out of rooms. (10.15)
Those veteran couples are such copycats. It's not clear if the veterans are deliberately copying the TV shows or if it's accidental. Either way, even in this world where clones exist, TV plays an important role in shaping the culture at the Cottages. How else are they going to figure out how to behave? It's not like they had normal upbringings.
Quote 47
Actually, preoccupied though I was with Ruth's possible, I did begin to enjoy the paintings and the sheer peacefulness of the place. It felt like we'd come a hundred miles from the High Street. […] Maybe it was the tiredness suddenly catching up with us—after all, we'd been travelling since before dawn—but I wasn't the only one who went off into a bit of a dream in there. (14.37)
Art can have an escapist quality. At "The Portway Studios" in Norfolk, Kathy makes the art gallery sound like a dream world. Looking at the paintings is a way for her and the others to escape from reality, even if just for a little while.
Quote 48
I won't be a carer any more come the end of the year, and though I've got a lot out of it, I have to admit I'll welcome the chance to rest—to stop and think and remember. (4.1)
Here, Kathy sounds like an old woman. Yet she's just thirty-one. To us, this seems like an early age to be ready to "rest" (a.k.a. give away your organs and die). But Kathy's always expected to complete around this age, so it's not a big deal.
Quote 49
But I didn't say or do anything. […] I remember a huge tiredness coming over me, a kind of lethargy in the face of the tangled mess before me. It was like being given a math problem when your brain's exhausted, and you know there's some far-off solution, but you can't work up the energy even to give it a go. Something in me just gave up. (16.60)
Sometimes Kathy can be a really strong gal, but here she just gives up. In fact, she doesn't even try to find a solution to her squabble with Ruth and Tommy. Yet even though Kathy has thrown in the towel, she still gives us some mighty powerful imagery. Can't you just picture Kathy sagging down because she's so exhausted?
"It's funny," I said, "remembering it all now. Remember how you used to go on about it? How you'd one day work in an office like that one?"
[…]
"Don't you sometimes think," I said to Ruth, "you should have looked into it more? All right, you'd have been the first. The first one any of us would have heard of getting to do something like that. But you might have done it. Don't you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you'd tried?"
"How could I have tried?" Ruth's voice was hardly audible. "It's just something I once dreamt about. That's all." (19.90, 92-93)
For all her dreaming, Ruth never actually tries to work in an office. And as Kathy points out to her, if you don't try, then you definitely won't succeed. To Ruth, it's as if there was no point in trying in the first place. Way to have a positive attitude, Ruth. Here Ruth's submissive outlook seems pretty different than the younger, more defiant powerhouse we got used to seeing.
Quote 51
I caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight, caked in mud and distorted with fury, then I reached for his flailing arms and held on tight. He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting and I felt the fight go out of him. (22.95)
Tommy is upset after he and Kathy have visited Miss Emily and learned that there are no deferrals. We'd be pretty upset, too. Tommy's tantrum in this cow field is one of the few moments where we see one of the clones fighting against the role society has given them, even though it doesn't do him any good. And in the end, even Tommy gives in and stops fighting once and for all.
Quote 52
Once I'm able to have a quieter life, in whichever centre they send me to, I'll have Hailsham with me, safely in my head, and that'll be something no one can take away. (23.47)
For Kathy, society might be able to take away her vital organs, but they won't take away her connection with Hailsham. Kathy sounds almost defiant here, even as she talks about yielding to her fate. She might be ready for a "quieter life" in a recovery center, but that doesn't mean she's willing to let go of her memories.
Quote 53
I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. (23.49)
In the very last line of the novel, Kathy shows no signs of resistance. Kathy even has her car and we know that driving has a lot to do with freedom in this novel. But in the end, Kathy's car isn't going to carry her to liberty. Instead, she's going to submit to her fate, and drive herself to wherever she's "supposed to be."