“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.”

“But if you’d at least looked into it. How do you know? They might have let you.”

“Yeah, Ruth,” Tommy said. “Maybe you should at least have tried. After going on about it so much. I think Kath’s got a point.”

“I didn’t go on about it, Tommy. At least, I don’t remember going on about it.”

“But Tommy’s right. You should at least have tried. Then you could see a poster like that one, and remember that’s what you wanted once, and that you at least looked into it…”

“How could I have looked into it?” For the first time, Ruth’s voice had hardened, but then she let out a sigh and looked down again. Then Tommy said:

“You kept talking like you might qualify for special treatment. And for all you know, you might have done. You should have asked at least.”

“Okay,” Ruth said. “You say I should have looked into it. How? Where would I have gone? There wasn’t a way to look into it.”

“Tommy’s right though,” I said. “If you believed yourself special, you should at least have asked. You should have gone to Madame and asked.”

As soon as I said this—as soon as I mentioned Madame—I realised I’d made a mistake. Ruth looked up at me and I saw something like triumph flash across her face. You see it in films sometimes, when one person’s pointing a gun at another person, and the one with the gun’s making the other one do all kinds of things. Then suddenly there’s a mistake, a tussle, and the gun’s with the second person. And the second person looks at the first person with a gleam, a kind of can’t-believe-my-luck expression that promises all kinds of vengeance. Well, that was how suddenly Ruth was looking at me, and though I’d said nothing about deferrals, I’d mentioned Madame, and I knew we’d stumbled into some new territory altogether.

Ruth saw my panic and shifted round in her seat to face me. So I was preparing myself for her attack; busy telling myself that no matter what she came at me with, things were different now, she wouldn’t get her way like she’d done in the past. I was telling myself all of this, and that’s why I wasn’t at all ready for what she did come out with.

“Kathy,” she said, “I don’t really expect you to forgive me ever. I can’t even see why you should. But I’m going to ask you to all the same.”

I was so thrown by this, all I could find to say was a rather limp: “Forgive you for what?”

“Forgive me for what? Well, for starters, there’s the way I always lied to you about your urges. When you used to tell me, back then, how sometimes it got so you wanted to do it with virtually anyone.”

Tommy shifted again behind us, but Ruth was leaning forward now, looking straight at me, like for the moment Tommy wasn’t with us in the car at all.

“I knew how it worried you,” she said. “I should have told you. I should have said how it was the same for me too, just the way you described it. You realise all of this now, I know. But you didn’t back then, and I should have said. I should have told you how even though I was with Tommy, I couldn’t resist doing it with other people sometimes. At least three others when we were at the Cottages.”

She said this still without looking Tommy’s way. But it wasn’t so much like she was ignoring him, than that she was trying so intensely to get through to me everything else had been blurred out.

“I almost did tell you a few times,” she went on. “But I didn’t. Even then, at the time, I realised you’d look back one day and realise and blame me for it. But I still didn’t say anything to you. There’s no reason you should ever forgive me for that, but I want to ask now because…” She stopped suddenly.

“Because what?” I asked.

She laughed and said: “Because nothing. I’d like you to forgive me, but I don’t expect you to. Anyway, that’s not the half of it, not even a small bit of it, actually. The main thing is, I kept you and Tommy apart.” Her voice had dropped again, almost to a whisper. “That was the worst thing I did.”

She turned a little, taking Tommy in her gaze for the first time. Then almost immediately, she was looking just at me again, but now it was like she was talking to the both of us.

“That was the worst thing I did,” she said again. “I’m not even asking you to forgive me about that. God, I’ve said all this in my head so many times, I can’t believe I’m really doing it. It should have been you two. I’m not pretending I didn’t always see that. Of course I did, as far back as I can remember. But I kept you apart. I’m not asking you to forgive me for that. That’s not what I’m after just now. What I want is for you to put it right. Put right what I messed up for you.”

“How d’you mean, Ruth?” Tommy asked. “How d’you mean, put it right?” His voice was gentle, full of child-like curiosity, and I think that was what started me sobbing.

“Kathy, listen,” Ruth said. “You and Tommy, you’ve got to try and get a deferral. If it’s you two, there’s got to be a chance. A real chance.”

She’d reached out a hand and put it on my shoulder, but I shook her off roughly and glared at her through the tears.

“It’s too late for that. Way too late.”

“It’s not too late. Kathy, listen, it’s not too late. Okay, so Tommy’s done two donations. Who says that has to make any difference?”

“It’s too late for all that now.” I’d started to sob again. “It’s stupid even thinking about it. As stupid as wanting to work in that office up there. We’re all way beyond that now.”

Ruth was shaking her head. “It’s not too late. Tommy, you tell her.”

I was leaning on the steering wheel, so couldn’t see Tommy at all. He made a kind of puzzled humming sound, but didn’t say anything.

“Look,” Ruth said, “both of you, listen. I wanted us all to do this trip, because I wanted to say what I just said. But I also wanted it because I wanted to give you something.” She’d been rummaging in the pockets of her anorak, and now she held out a crumpled piece of paper. “Tommy, you’d better take this. Look after it. Then when Kathy changes her mind, you’ll have it.”

Tommy reached forward between the seats and took the paper. “Thanks, Ruth,” he said, like she’d given him a chocolate bar. Then after a few seconds, he said: “What is it? I don’t get it.”

“It’s Madame’s address. It’s like you were saying to me just now. You’ve at least got to try.”

“How d’you find it?” Tommy asked.

“It wasn’t easy. It took me a long time, and I ran a few risks. But I got it in the end, and I got it for you two. Now it’s up to you to find her and try.”

I’d stopped sobbing by now and started the engine. “That’s enough of all this,” I said. “We’ve got to get Tommy back. Then we need to be getting back ourselves.”

“But you will think about it, both of you, won’t you?”

“I just want to get back now,” I said.

“Tommy, you’ll keep that address safe? In case Kathy comes round.”

“I’ll keep it,” Tommy said. Then, much more solemnly than the last time: “Thanks, Ruth.”

“We’ve seen the boat,” I said, “but now we’ve got to get back. It might be over two hours back to Dover.”

I put the car on the road again, and my memory of it is that we didn’t talk much more on the way back to the Kingsfield. There was still a small group of donors huddled under the roof as we came into the Square. I turned the car before letting Tommy out. Neither of us hugged or kissed him, but as he walked away towards his fellow donors, he paused and gave us a big smile and wave.