Tommy’s outburst in the field

Tommy’s outburst in the field is a sudden, bodily eruption of distress that Kathy remembers as both frightening and intimate. After a quiet drive at night, Tommy asks her to stop and goes alone into the dark; his screams lead Kathy through a ditch and over a fence to a muddy field, where she finds him raging. She holds on until the struggle ebbs, and the two stand embracing before walking back to the car. The scene’s force lies in that turn: Tommy’s fury first isolates him, then gives way to a closeness neither of them explains in words.

Background and Approach

Before the outburst, Tommy tells Kathy, “I think Miss Lucy was right. Not Miss Emily.” Kathy cannot remember whether she answers. She does remember noticing something in his voice or manner that sets off “distant alarm bells,” though Tommy sits quietly and gazes straight ahead. The recollection thus marks a change in him before any visible loss of control: the alarm is an impression Kathy registers, not an explanation of what is about to happen.

A few minutes later, Tommy asks, “Kath, can we stop? I’m sorry, I need to get out a minute.” Kathy thinks he is feeling sick again and pulls over almost immediately, hard against a hedge. The spot is unlit, the road curves, and she worries that another vehicle could come around and hit the car. Tommy’s purposeful manner also suggests to her that he would rather cope alone, even if he is ill. She stays in the car, considering whether to move it farther up the hill, while he disappears into the darkness.

The Outburst

The first scream initially sounds to Kathy as though it might come from a stranger lurking in the bushes. By the second and third, she knows it is Tommy. She gets out and tries to follow the sound, but an impenetrable thicket blocks her way. Finding an opening, she steps through a ditch, climbs over a fence, and lands in soft mud. The search is urgent but difficult: in the darkness she cannot see where Tommy is, and the terrain physically delays her as she tries to reach him.

Beyond the fence, the landscape comes into view. The field slopes steeply ahead, with village lights far below in the valley. A powerful gust pulls at Kathy strongly enough that she must reach for a fence post. In the moonlight, she makes out Tommy in the middle distance, near the start of the slope, shouting, flinging his fists, and kicking. His rage is visible as uncontrolled movement rather than an argument with Kathy; the scene supplies no stated cause that would settle why he has stopped or what has provoked this precise outburst.

Contact and Change

Kathy runs toward Tommy, but the mud sucks at her feet and impedes him as well. He slips and drops out of view after kicking out, though his disjointed swear-words continue. Kathy reaches him as he is getting back to his feet. She glimpses his face, caked in mud and distorted with fury, then takes hold of his flailing arms. He tries to shake her off, but she keeps her grip until he stops shouting and she feels the fight leave him.

The physical struggle changes into an embrace without a spoken explanation. Kathy realizes that Tommy has his arms around her too. They remain together at the top of the field for what feels to her like a long time, saying nothing as the wind tugs at their clothes. The image of holding one another against the wind gives the encounter its emotional shape: the same contact that initially restrains Tommy becomes mutual support, and his isolation gives way to a shared stillness. The scene presents closeness through bodies and action, not through a conversation that interprets the outburst.

Aftermath and Significance

When they finally separate, Tommy mutters, “I’m really sorry, Kath.” He gives a shaky laugh and adds, “Good job there weren’t cows in the field. They’d have got a fright.” Kathy can see that he is trying to reassure her that everything is all right, although his chest is still heaving and his legs are shaking. They walk together back toward the car, careful not to slip. His apology and joke signal an effort to return to ordinary exchange, while his physical agitation shows that the episode has not simply vanished.

Kathy ends the immediate encounter with a teasing observation: “You stink of cow poo,” she tells him. The detail brings the muddy, undignified reality of the field into their conversation and answers his attempt at humor with one of her own. It does not explain the outburst or erase the fear of hearing his screams in the dark. Instead, the scene moves from alarm, through forceful contact, to a small, familiar exchange. Remembered by Kathy, it makes the change in Tommy legible through what she witnesses and what she does: she cannot name his distress for him, but she reaches him, holds him, and walks back with him.