The Cement Garden by Ian Mcewan
“Julie!” I called up. “I thought you….” I ran under the bridge and up a flight of wooden stairs. Face to face with her now I saw that it was not Julie either. She had a thin face and straggling grayish black hair. I could not tell if she was young or old. She put her hands deep into her pockets and swayed slightly.
“I ain’t got any money,” she said, “so don’t you come near me.”
As I walked home my blankness returned, and significance drained from the event of my day. I went straight upstairs to my bedroom, and although I did not meet or hear anyone, I knew the others were in. I took off all my clothes and lay under the sheet on my bed. Sometime later I was woken from a heavy sleep by the sound of shrill laughter. I was curious, but for some reason I did not move at first. I preferred to listen. The voices were Julie’s and Sue’s. At the end of each burst of laughter they made a sighing, singing sound which merged into words I could not make out. Then the laughter began again. I felt irritable after my sudden sleep. My head felt tight and shrunken; the objects in the room seemed too dense, locked hard into the space they occupied and bulging with strain. My clothes, before I picked them up and put them on, could have been made of steel. When I was dressed I stood outside my bedroom listening. I heard only the murmur of one voice and the creak of a chair. I went down the stairs as quietly as possible. I had a strong wish to spy on my sisters, to be with them and be invisible. It was completely dark in the large hallway downstairs. I was able to stand a little back from the open living-room door without being seen. Sue I could see clearly; she was sitting at the table, cutting something with a large pair of scissors. Julie, who was partly obscured by the doorframe, stood with her back to me and I could not see what she was doing. Her arm moved forward and back with a faint, rasping sound. Just as I was moving to see better a little girl stepped in front of Julie and went to stand by Sue’s elbow. Julie turned also and stood behind the girl, one hand resting on her shoulder. In her other hand she held a hairbrush. They remained grouped like this for a while without talking. When Sue turned a little, I saw she was cutting blue cloth. The little girl leaned backward against Julie who clasped her hands under the girl’s chin and tapped her gently on the chest with the brush.
Of course, as soon as the girl spoke I knew it was Tom. He said, “It takes a long time, doesn’t it?” and Sue nodded. I took a couple of paces into the room and was not noticed. Tom and Julie were intent on watching Sue who was making alterations to one of her school skirts. She had cut it shorter, and now she was beginning to sew. Tom was wearing an orange-colored dress that looked familiar, and from somewhere they had found him a wig. His hair was fair and thick with curls. How easy it was to be someone else. I crossed my arms and hugged myself. They are only clothes and a wig, I thought, it is Tom dressed up. But I was looking at another person, someone who could expect a life quite different from Tom’s. I was excited and scared. I squeezed my hands together and the movement caused all three to turn and look at me.
“What are you doing?” I said after a pause.
“Dressing him up,” Sue said and turned back to her sewing.
Tom glanced at me, half turned toward the table where Sue was working and stared fixedly into one corner of the room. He played with the hem of his dress, rolling the material between his forefinger and thumb.
“What’s the point of it?” I said.
Julie shrugged and smiled. She wore faded jeans rolled up above her knees and an unbuttoned shirt over her bikini top. She had tied a piece of blue ribbon in her hair and she held another piece in her hand, wound around her finger.
Julie came and stood right in front of me. “Oh come on,” she said, “cheer up, misery.” She smelled sweetly of her suntan oil, and I could feel the warmth her skin gave off. She must have been out in the sun all day, somewhere. She unwound the ribbon from her finger and draped it round my neck. I pushed her hands away when she started to tie a bow under my chin but I did it without conviction and she persisted and finished the knot. She took my hand and I followed my sister to the table. “Here’s another one,” she said to Sue, “who’s tired of being a grumpy boy.” I would have untied the ribbon but I did not wish to let go of Julie’s hand which was dry and cool. Now we all watched over Sue’s shoulder. I had never realized how skillful she was at sewing. Her hand flew backward and forward in the same regular motion like a shuttle on a mechanical loom. And yet her actual progress was slow, and I felt great impatience. I wanted to sweep the cloth, needle and pins to the floor in one movement. We would have to wait till she finished before we could speak or before anything else could happen.
Finally she broke the cotton with a sharp tug of her wrists and stood up. Julie let go of my hand and stood behind Tom. He raised his hands and she lifted the dress over his head. Underneath he was wearing his own white shirt. Sue helped Tom into the blue pleated skirt and Julie knotted one of Sue’s school ties around his neck. I watched and fingered my blue ribbon. If I took it off now I would become a spectator again, I would have to decide on an attitude toward what was going on. Tom put on white socks and Sue fetched her beret. The girls laughed and chatted while these preparations were being made. Sue was telling Julie a story about a friend at school who had her hair cut very short. She came into school in trousers and went into the boys’ changing room and saw them all at the urinals. She burst out laughing at the sight of the whole row of them and gave herself away.
“Isn’t he pretty?” Julie said. While we gazed at him, Tom stood perfectly still with his hands behind his back and his eyes lowered. If he enjoyed being dressed up he didn’t really show it. He went out into the hallway to admire himself in the full-length mirror. I watched him through the doorway. He stood sideways to his reflection and stared at himself over his shoulder.
While Tom was out of the room Julie took both my hands in hers and said, “Now what are we going to do with grumpy?” Julie’s eyes roved over my face. “You won’t make a pretty girl like Tom with horrible spots like those.”
Sue, who now stood at my elbow tugged at a strand of my hair and said, “Or with long greasy hair he never washes.”
“Or with yellow teeth,” said Julie.
“Or smelly feet,” said Sue. Julie turned my hands so the palms faced down.
“Or with filthy fingernails.” The girls pored over my fingernails, making exaggerated sounds of disgust. Tom watched from the door. I was rather enjoying myself, standing there being examined.
“Look at that one,” Sue said, and I felt her touch my forefinger. “It’s got green and red under it.” They laughed; they seemed to take great delight in everything they found.
“What’s that?” I said, looking across the room. Almost concealed under a chair was a long cardboard box with its lid half off. White tissue paper spilled out from one corner.
“Ah!” Sue cried. “That’s Julie’s.”
I strode across the room and pulled the box clear of the chair. Inside, embedded in white and orange tissue was a pair of calf-length boots. They were deep brown and gave off a rich smell of leather and perfume.
With her back to me Julie was slowly and carefully folding the orange dress Tom had worn. I held up one of the boots.
“Where did you get these?”
“In a shop,” Julie said without turning round.
“How much?”
“Not much.”
Sue was very excited. “Julie!” She said in a very loud whisper, “They cost thirty-eight pounds.”
I said, “You paid thirty-eight pounds?”
Julie shook her head and put the orange dress under her arm. I remembered the ridiculous ribbon around my neck and tried to yank it free, but it would not come; the bow turned into a knot. Sue started to laugh. Julie was walking out of the room.
“You nicked them,” I said, and again she shook her head. Still holding the boot in my hand, I followed her up the stairs. When we were in her bedroom I said, “You gave me and Sue two quid each and then you spent thirty-eight pounds on
“Wrong,” she said in a chiming voice, as if we were playing a guessing game. I threw the boot on the bed and used two hands to break the ribbon round my neck. The knot grew smaller and hard like a stone. Julie stretched her arms and yawned.
“If you didn’t buy them,” I said, “then you must have nicked them.”
She said, “Nope,” and kept her mouth pursed round the word in a kind of mocking smile.
“What then?” I stood right behind her. She was looking at herself in the mirror, not at me.
“Can’t you think of another way?”
I shook my head.
“There isn’t another way, unless you made them yourself.” Julie laughed.
“Hasn’t anyone ever given you a present?”
“Who gave them to you?”
“A friend.”
“Who though?”
“Aha, that would be telling.”
“A bloke.”
Julie stood up and turned round to look at me and made her lips small and tight like a berry.
“Of course he’s a bloke,” she said at last. I had a confused notion that as Julie’s brother I had a right to ask questions about her boyfriend. But there was nothing about Julie to support such an idea, and I felt more dejected than curious. She picked up a pair of nail scissors from her bedside table and cut through the ribbon close to the knot. As she pulled it clear and let it fall to the floor she said, “There,” and kissed me lightly on my mouth.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE WEEKS after Mother died I began to reread the book Sue had given me for my birthday. I was surprised how much I had missed. I never noticed how particular Commander Hunt was about keeping the ship clean and tidy, especially on the really long journeys through space. Each day, the old earth day, he climbed down a stainless steel ladder and inspected the messroom. Cigarette ends, plastic cutlery, old magazines, coffee cups and spilled coffee hung untidily about the room. “Now that we do not have gravity to keep things in their place,” Commander Hunt told the computer technicians who were new to space travel, “we must make an extra effort to be neat.” And during the long hours when there were no urgent decisions to be taken, Commander Hunt passed the time “reading and rereading the masterpieces of world literature, and writing down his thoughts in a massive steel-bound journal while Cosmo, his faithful hound, dozed at his feet.” Commander Hunt’s space ship sped across the universe at one-hundredth the speed of light in search of the source of energy that had transformed the spores into a monster. I wondered if he would have cared about the state of the messroom, or about world literature, if the ship had remained perfectly still, fixed in outer space.
As soon as I had finished the book I took it downstairs to give to Julie or Sue. I wanted someone else to read it. I found Julie alone in the living room sitting in an armchair with her feet tucked under her. She was smoking a cigarette, and as I came into the room she tilted her head back and blew a column of smoke toward the ceiling. I said, “I didn’t know you smoked.” She took another drag and nodded curtly. I approached her with the book. “You should read this,” I said, and put it in her hand.
Julie spent some time staring at the cover, and I stood behind her chair looking at the monster attacking the spaceship. In the distance Commander Hunt’s ship was racing to the rescue. I had not examined the cover closely before, and now it looked ridiculous. I felt ashamed of it, as if I had painted it myself. Julie handed the book to me over her shoulder. She held it by one corner.
“The cover’s not much,” I said, “but it’s got some really good things.” Julie shook her head and blew out more smoke, this time straight across the room.
“It’s not my sort of book,” she said. I placed the book on the table face down and walked round to the front of Julie’s chair.
“What do you mean?” I said. “How do you know what sort of book it is?”
Julie shrugged.
“I don’t feel much like reading anyway.”
“You would if you started reading this.” I picked up the book again and stared at it. I did not know why I was so anxious to have someone else read it. Suddenly Julie leaned forward and took the book out of my hand.
“All right,” she said, “if you really want me to, I’ll read it.” She spoke as if to a child about to burst into tears.
I was angry. I said, “Don’t read it just to please me,” and tried to take it back from her. She moved the book out of my reach.
“Oh no,” she said through a smile, “of course not.” I grabbed her wrist and twisted it back. Julie transferred the book to her other hand and slipped it under her backside. “You’re hurting me.”
“Give it back,” I said, “it’s not your sort of book.” I pulled her sideways so that the book was revealed. She let me have it without any further struggle, and I took it to the far side of the room. Julie stared at me and rubbed her wrist.
“What’s wrong with you?” she said almost in a whisper. “You ought to be locked up.” I ignored her and sat down.
We sat in silence on opposite sides of the room for a long time. Julie lit another cigarette and I looked at certain passages in my book. My eyes moved across the lines of print but I was taking nothing in. I wished to say something conciliatory to Julie before I left the room. But I could think of nothing that did not sound stupid. And besides, I told myself, she had asked for it. The day before I had made Tom cry by flicking his head with my fingernail. He had been making a row outside my bedroom door and had woken me up. He lay on the floor, clutching his head and screamed so loud that Sue came running out of her bedroom.
“It’s his own fault,” I said, “making a noise like that first thing in the morning.” Sue rubbed Tom’s head.
“First thing!” she said loudly over Tom’s screams. “It’s almost one o’clock.”
“Well it’s still first thing in the morning for me,” I shouted and went back to bed.
As far as I was concerned, there was not much point in getting up. There was nothing particularly interesting to eat, and I was the only one with nothing to do. Tom played outside all day, Sue stayed in her room reading books and writing in her notebook, and Julie went out with whoever gave her the boots. When she was not out she was getting ready. She took long baths which filled the house with a sweet smell, stronger than the smell from the kitchen. She spent a long time washing and brushing her hair and doing things to her eyes. She wore clothes I had never seen before, a silk blouse and a brown velvet skirt. I woke in the late morning, masturbated and dozed off again. I had dreams, not exactly nightmares, but bad dreams that I struggled to wake out of. I spent my two pounds on fish and chips, and when I asked Julie for more she handed over a fiver without a word. During the day I listened to the radio. I thought about returning to school at the end of the summer, and I thought about getting a job. I was not drawn to either of these. Some afternoons I fell asleep in the armchair even though I had only been awake a couple of hours. I looked in the mirror and saw that the spots on my face were spreading down the sides of my neck. I wondered if they would cover my whole body, and I did not much care if they did.
Finally Julie cleared her throat and said, “Well?” I looked past her at the kitchen door.
“Let’s clean up the kitchen,” I said suddenly. It was exactly the right thing to say. Julie stood up immediately and did an imitation of a film gangster, cigarette butt dangling from one corner of her mouth.
“Now you’re talking, brother, really talking.” She offered me her hand and pulled me out of my chair.
“I’ll get Sue,” I said, but Julie shook her head.
With an imaginary Sten gun at her hip she leaped into the kitchen and shot the place apart, all the mold-covered plates, the flies and bluebottles, the huge pile of rubbish that had collapsed and spread across the floor. Julie shot it all, with the same stuttering noises from the back of
Julie’s game was over very suddenly. We began to sweep up the rubbish and stuff it into cardboard boxes which we carried out to the dustbins. Sue heard us and came down to help. We unblocked the drains, washed the walls and scrubbed the floor. While Sue and I washed the dishes, Julie went out to buy food for a meal. We finished just as she returned, and we began cutting up vegetables for a large stew. Once that was simmering Julie and Sue tidied up the living room and I went outside to clean the windows. I saw my sisters, blurred by a film of water, moving all the furniture into the center of the room and for the first time in weeks I was happy. I felt safe, as if I belonged to a powerful, secret army. We worked for over four hours and I was hardly aware of my existence.
I took some mats and a small carpet into the garden and thrashed the dust out of them with a stick. I was well into this when I heard a sound behind me and turned round. It was Tom and his friend from the tower block. Tom was wearing Sue’s school uniform and his knees were bloody from a fall. Quite often now Tom played in the street in Sue’s skirt. None of the other children teased him as I thought they would. They did not even seem to notice. I could not understand that. I would not have been seen dead in my sister’s skirt at Tom’s age, or any age. He stood holding his friend’s hand and I went on with my work. Round his neck Tom’s friend wore a scarf, the pattern of which was familiar to me. They had a short conversation which I could not hear above the noise I was making. Then Tom said loudly, “What are you doing that for?”