The Cement Garden

by Ian Mcewan

  I told him and said, “Why are you wearing a skirt?” Tom did not reply. I hit the carpet a few more times and then I stopped again and said to Tom’s friend, “Why is Tom wearing a skirt?”

  “In our game,” he said, “Tom is being Julie.”

  I said, “And who are you?”

  The boy did not reply.

  I raised the stick and just as I was bringing it down Tom said, “He’s being you.”

  “Did you say me?” They both nodded. I threw the stick away and pulled the mats off the clothesline. I said, “What do you do in your game?”

  Tom’s friend shrugged. “Nothing much.”

  “Do you have fights?” I tried to include Tom in my question but he was looking in another direction. The other boy shook his head. I laid the mats and the carpet on top of each other. “Are you friends in your game? Do you hold hands?” They pulled their hands free and laughed.

  Tom followed me into the house, but his friend remained outside the kitchen door. He called out to Tom, “I’m going home,” and made it sound like a question. Tom nodded without turning round. In the living room there were four plates on the table, and on either side of each plate was a knife and fork. In the center of the table there was a bottle of tomato sauce and an eggcup full of salt. There was a chair for each plate. I thought, As if we were real people. Tom went upstairs to see Julie, and Sue and I walked backward and forward between the kitchen and the living room like Commander Hunt inspecting the messroom. Twice I bent down and picked pieces of fluff off the carpet. On a hook that was fixed onto the cellar door was a shopping bag made of brightly colored string. At the bottom of the bag were two apples and two oranges. I pushed the bag with my finger and made it swing like a pendulum. It moved more freely in one direction than in the other, and it took me a while to discover that this was because of the shape of the handles on the bag. Without thinking I pulled the cellar door open, turned on the light and ran down the stairs.

  The shovel lay in the center of a large, round stain of dried cement. It made me think of the hour hand of a big broken clock. I tried to think which of us had used it last, but now I had no clear memory of the order of events. I picked it up and leaned it against the wall. The lid of the trunk was open, the way we had left it. I could remember that. I ran my hand across the concrete that filled the trunk. It was a very pale gray, and it felt warm to touch. A fine dust rubbed onto my hand. I noticed that running diagonally across the surface was a hairline crack which forked at one end. I knelt down and put my nose to it and sniffed. There was a very distinct sweet smell, but when I stood up again I realized I had smelled the stew cooking upstairs. I sat down on a stool by the trunk and thought about my mother. I tried hard to make a picture of her face in my mind. I had the oval outline of a face, but the features inside this shape would not stay still, or they dissolved into each other and the oval turned into a light bulb. When I closed my eyes I actually saw a light bulb. Once my mother’s face appeared briefly framed by the oval and smiling unnaturally the way she did when she posed for snapshots. I made up sentences and tried to make her say them. But there was nothing I could imagine her saying. The simplest things like “pass me that book” or “good night” did not sound like the kinds of things she would say. Was her voice low or high? Had she ever made a joke? She had been dead less than a month, and she was in the trunk beside me. Even that was not certain. I wanted to dig her out and see.

  I ran my fingernail along the fine crack. It was not at all clear to me now why we had put her in the trunk in the first place. At the time it had been obvious, to keep the family together. Was that a good reason? It might have been more interesting to be apart. Nor could I think whether what we had done was an ordinary thing to do, understandable even if it had been a mistake. Just like my picture of her face, every thought I had dissolved into nothing.

  The impossibility of knowing or feeling anything for certain gave me a great urge to masturbate. I put my hands into my pants, and as I glanced down between my legs, I saw something red. I leaped up in astonishment. The stool I was sitting on was bright red. It had been painted long ago by my father and it belonged in the downstairs bathroom. Julie or Sue must have brought it down in order to sit by the trunk. Instead of being a comforting idea, it frightened me. We hardly spoke at all to each other about Mother. She was everyone’s secret. Even Tom rarely mentioned her and only occasionally cried for her now. I looked around the cellar for other signs, but there was nothing. I left, and when I started up the steps I saw Sue standing at the top watching me.

  “I thought that was you down there,” she said when I reached her. She had a plate in her hand.

  I said, “There’s a crack, did you see it?”

  “It’s getting bigger,” she said quickly, “but guess what?”

  I shrugged. She showed me the plate.

  “Someone’s coming to tea.”

  I pushed past her into the kitchen but there was no one there. Sue turned out the cellar light and locked the door.

  “Who?” I could see now that Sue was very excited.

  “Derek,” she said, “Julie’s bloke.”

  In the living room I watched her set the extra place. She took me to the foot of the stairs, pointed upward and whispered, “Listen.” I heard Julie’s voice and then, in answer, a man’s voice. Suddenly both talked at once and both laughed.

  “So what?” I said to Sue. “Big deal.”

  My heart was racing. I lay across an armchair and started to whistle. Sue came and sat down too and wiped imaginary sweat from her brow.

  “It’s lucky we cleaned up, isn’t it?”

  I went on whistling, choosing my notes at random, in a kind of panic, and only gradually settling on a tune.

  Tom came in from upstairs carrying in his arms what looked like a large cat. It was his wig. He carried it to Sue and asked her to put it on him. She held him away from her and pointed at his knees and hands. She refused to let him have the wig until he had washed.

  While Tom was in the bathroom I said, “What’s he like?”

  “He’s got a car, a new one, look,” and she pointed toward the window. But I did not look round.

  When Tom returned to Sue she said, “If you want to be a girl at tea, why don’t you wear the orange dress?”

  He shook his head, and Sue fitted the wig. He ran into the hall to look in the mirror and then sat down opposite me and picked his nose. Sue was reading a book and I began to whistle again, this time more softly. Tom brought something from his nose on the end of his forefinger, glanced at it and wiped it on a chair cushion. I sometimes did that myself, but only when alone, usually in bed in the morning. It doesn’t look so bad when a little girl does it, I thought, and went to the window. It was a sports car, the old-fashioned kind with a running board and a leather hood that was folded back. It was bright red with a thin black line running its whole length.

  “You should go out and look at it,” Sue said, “it’s fantastic.”

  “Look at what?” I said. The wheels had silver spokes, and the exhaust pipes were silver too. Along the side of the hood were long, slanting cuts in the metal. “To let the air in,” I heard myself explain to a passenger, and swung the machine through a tight bend in the Alps, “or the heat out.” When I went back to my chair Sue had disappeared.

  I stared at Tom. In the large armchair he looked tiny, for his feet only just stuck out over the edge of the seat and his head came halfway up the backrest. He stared back at me for a few seconds; then he looked away and folded his arms. His legs splayed out from under his skirt.

  I said, “What’s it like being a girl?” Tom shook his head and shifted his position. “Is it better than being a boy?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Does it make you feel sexy?”

  Tom laughed suddenly. He did not understand what I meant, but he knew the word was a signal to laugh.

  “Well, does it?” He grinned at me.

  “I dunno.”

  I leaned
forward and wiggled my finger at him to make him come closer.

  “When you put your wig on and the skirt, and then you go to the mirror and see a little girl, do you get a nice feeling in your dinky, does it get bigger?”

  Tom’s grin faded away. He climbed off the armchair and slipped out of the room. I remained perfectly still, aware of the smell of the stew. The ceiling creaked. I arranged myself in my chair. I crossed my legs at the ankles and clasped my hands together under my chin. There were light, fast footsteps on the stairs and Tom came running in.

  “They’re coming! He’s coming!” he said loudly.

  I said, “Who is?” and moved my hands behind my head.

  Julie said, “This is Derek. This is Jack.”

  I shook hands without standing up but I uncrossed my legs and put my feet firmly on the floor. Neither of us spoke as we shook hands. Afterward Derek cleared his throat and looked at Julie. She was standing right behind Tom with her hands pressing down on his shoulders. She said, “This is Tom,” in a way that made it obvious she had already spoken to Derek about him.

  Derek moved behind my chair where I could not see him and said quietly, “Ah, a tomgirl.” Sue made a half-hearted sort of laugh, and I stood up. Julie went into the kitchen to fetch the stew and called to Tom to help her. The three of us stood in the center of the room. We were rather close and we seemed to sway a little together. Sue deliberately made her voice breathless and stupid.

  “We really like your car.” Derek nodded. He was very tall and looked as if he were dressed for a wedding—pale gray suit, cream-colored shirt and tie, cuff links and a waistcoat with a small silver chain.

  I said, “I don’t like it much.”

  He turned to me and smiled faintly. He had a thick black mustache. It looked so perfect that it could have been made of plastic.

  “Oh?” he said politely through his smile. “Why not?”

  “It’s too flash,” I said. Derek glanced down at his shoes, and I went on. “I mean the color, I don’t like red.”

  “Too bad,” he said, looking at Sue, not me. “Do you like red?” Sue looked over Derek’s shoulder into the kitchen.

  “Me? Oh, I like red, especially on cars.”

  Now that he was looking at me again I repeated, “I don’t like red on cars. It makes them look like toys.”

  Derek took a step away from both of us. Both his hands were deep in his pockets and he rocked back on his heels. He spoke very quietly.

  “When you’re a bit older you’ll realize that’s all they are, toys, expensive toys.”

  “Why are they toys?” I said. “They’re very useful for getting about.” He nodded and looked all around the room.

  “These are big rooms,” he said to Sue, “it’s a really big house.”

  Sue said, “My room’s quite small.” I folded my arms and persisted.

  “If cars are toys, then everything you buy is a toy.”

  Just then Julie came in with the stew, followed by Tom carrying a loaf of bread and a pepper pot.

  “I’ll have to think about that one, Jack,” Derek said, and turned to move a chair out of Julie’s way.

  Before we sat down I noticed that Julie was wearing her new boots and the velvet skirt and the silk blouse. She and Derek sat next to each other at the table. I sat at a corner next to Tom. At first I was too irritated to feel hungry. When Julie passed me a plate of food I told her I didn’t want it. She said, “Don’t be silly,” put the plate down between my knife and fork and smiled at Derek. He nodded, understanding everything. While we ate Julie and Sue did all the talking. Derek sat perfectly upright. He spread a red and blue handkerchief over his lap and when he had finished he dabbed at his mustache with it. Then he folded it up carefully before he put it in his pocket. I wanted to see them touch each other. Julie rested her head on the crook of his elbow and asked for the salt to be passed. I reached the eggcup before Derek, and as I snatched it across to my sister salt spilled the length of the table.

  “Careful,” Derek said softly. The girls began a jumpy conversation about throwing salt over your shoulder and walking under ladders. At one point I saw Derek wink at Tom who lowered his head so his curls hid his face.

  Afterward Julie took Derek out into the garden, and Sue and I washed the dishes. I did no more than stand about with a dishcloth in my hand. We watched out the kitchen window. Julie was pointing to the little paths and steps which were now almost invisible under the tangle of brownish weeds. Derek pointed toward the tower blocks and made a wide sweep with his arm as if ordering them to collapse. Julie was nodding seriously.

  Sue said, “He’s got really broad shoulders, hasn’t he? He must have had that suit made specially.”

  We stared at Derek’s back. His head was small and round, the hair all the same length, like a brush.

  “He’s not so strong,” I said, “and he’s pretty thick.” Sue lifted wet plates out of the sink and looked for somewhere to put them.

  “He could beat you up with his little finger,” she said.

  “Hah!” I cried. “Let him try it.”

  A little later Julie and her boyfriend sat down by the rockery. Sue took the cloth from me and started to dry the dishes. She said, “I bet you can’t guess what he does,” and I answered, “I don’t give a fuck what he does.”

  “You’ll never guess. He’s a snooker player.”

  “So what?”

  “He plays snooker for money; he’s incredibly rich.”

  I looked at Derek again and thought about this. He was sitting sideways to me listening to Julie. He had pulled up a long stalk of grass and he was biting small pieces off it and spitting them out. All the time he nodded at what Julie was saying, and when at last he spoke he rested his hand lightly on her shoulder. What he said made Julie laugh.

  “And there was something about him in the paper,” Sue was saying.

  “What paper?”

  Sue named the local weekly and I laughed.

  “Everyone gets written about in that,” I said, “if they live long enough.”

  “I bet you don’t know how old he is.” I made no reply.

  “Twenty-three,” Sue said proudly and smiled at me. I wanted to hit her.

  “What’s so amazing about that?”

  Sue dried her hands. “It’s a perfect age for a bloke.”

  I said, “What are you talking about? Who said?”

  Sue hesitated. “Julie said.”

  I gasped and ran out of the kitchen. In the living room I paused to look for Commander Hunt. He had been tidied away into a bookshelf. I ran upstairs with the book to the bedroom, slammed the door hard and lay down on the bed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MORE FREQUENTLY my bad dreams became nightmares. There was a huge wooden box in the hallway which I must have passed a dozen times before without giving it a second thought. Now I stopped to look. The lid that used to be nailed on tight was hanging loose, some of the nails were bent back and the wood around them was splintered and white. I was standing as near to the box as I could without being able to see inside. I knew I was in a dream and that it was important not to panic. Something was in the box. I managed to open my eyes a little and saw the bottom corner of my bed before they weighed shut. I was in the hallway again, a little closer to the box and foolishly peering in. When I tried my eyes again they opened easily and wide. I saw the corner of my bed and some of my clothes. In a large armchair at the side of my bed sat my mother, staring at me with huge, hollow eyes. That’s because she’s dead, I thought. She was tiny and her feet hardly touched the floor. When she spoke her voice was so familiar that I could not imagine how I could have forgotten it so easily. But I could not understand exactly what she was saying. She used a strange word, “drubbing” or “brudding.”

  “Can’t you stop drubbing,” she said, “even while I’m talking to you?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said, and noticed as I glanced down that there were no clothes on the bed and that I was nake
d and masturbating in front of her. My hand flew backward and forward like a shuttle on a loom. I told her, “I can’t stop, it’s nothing to do with me.”

  “What would your father say,” she said sadly, “if he was alive?”

  As I woke up I was saying out loud, “But you’re both dead.”

  I told this dream to Sue one afternoon. When she unlocked her door to let me in I noticed that she held her notebook open in one hand. While she was listening to me she closed it and slid it under her pillow. To my surprise my dream made her giggle.

  “Do boys do that all the time?” she said.

  “Do what?”

  “You know, drubbing.”

  Instead of answering her I said, “Do you remember when we used to play that game?”

  “What game?”

  “When Julie and I were the doctors examining you, and you were from another planet.”

  My sister nodded and folded her arms. I paused. I had no idea what it was I was going to say.

  “Well, what about it?” I had come to talk about my dream and about Mother, and already we were talking about something else.

  “Don’t you wish,” I said slowly, “that we still played that game?” Sue shook her head and looked away.

  “I can hardly remember anything about it.”

  “Julie and I used to take all your clothes off.” It sounded unlikely as I said it.

  Sue shook her head again and said unconvincingly, “Did you? I don’t really remember it that well, I wasn’t very old.” Then, after a silence, she added warmly, “We were always playing silly games.”

  I sat down on Sue’s bed. The floor of her bedroom was covered with books, some of them open and placed face downward. Many of them were from the library and I was about to pick one up when I felt suddenly weary of the whole idea of books. I said, “Don’t you ever get tired of sitting in here all day reading?”