Kazuo Ishiguro, from “Come Rain or Come Shine” inside Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall
Faber and Faber, UK, 2009
Also from this book: Crooner
“You know, Emily, Charlie’s a decent guy. A very decent guy. And he loves you. You won’t do better, you know.”
Emily shrugged and drank some more wine.
“You’re probably right. And we’re hardly young any more. We’re as bad as one another. We should count ourselves lucky. But we never seem to be contented. I don’t know why. Because when I stop and think about it, I realise I don’t really want anyone else.”
For the next minute or so, she kept sipping her wine and listening to the music. Then she said: “You know, Raymond, when you’re at a party, at a dance. And it’s maybe a slow dance, and you’re with the person you really want to be with, and the rest of the room’s supposed to vanish. But somehow it doesn’t. It just doesn’t. You know there’s no one half as nice as the guy in your arms. And yet … well, there are all these people everywhere else in the room. They don’t leave you alone. They keep shouting and waving and doing daft things just to attract your attention. ‘Oi! How can you be satisfied with that?! You can do much better! Look over here!’ It’s like they’re shouting things like that all the time. And so it gets hopeless, you can’t just dance quietly with your guy. Do you know what I mean, Raymond?” I thought about it for a while, then said: “Well, I’m not as lucky as you and Charlie. I don’t have anyone special like you do. But yes, in some ways, I know just what you mean. It’s hard to know where to settle. What to settle to.” “Bloody right. I wish they’d just lay off, all these gatecrashers. I wish they’d just lay off and let us get on with it.”
p.84
