by Ian Mcewan
Greg had gone off with Chas through another door, and the other players were back at their tables. Through the wall I heard Mrs. O talking uninterruptedly. After a while I thought it might be the radio.
Derek said, “Is your sister always like this or is there something wrong that I should know about?”
“Always like what?” I said immediately. My heart thudded, but very slowly. Again Derek had to think for a moment. He stretched the skin under his chin and touched his cravat.
“Strictly man to man, you understand?” I nodded. “Take this afternoon for instance. She was doing something, so I thought I’d take a look round your cellar. No harm in that, but she got very funny about it. I mean, there’s nothing down there, is there?” I did not think it was a real question and I made no reply. But Derek repeated, “Is there?”
And I said, “No, no. I hardly ever go down there, but there’s nothing.”
“So why should she get so upset?” Derek stared at me and waited for an answer, as if I were the one who had been upset.
“She’s always like that,” I told him, “that is what Julie is like.”
Derek looked down at his shoes for a moment, looked up and said, “And another time….”
But Mr. O came out of his office just then and started talking to Derek. I finished the rest of my tea and left.
At home the back door was open and I went in very quietly. There were smells in the kitchen of something that had been fried a long time before. I had a strange sensation of having been away several months and that many things had happened in my absence. In the living room Julie was sitting by the table which had dirty plates and a frying pan on it. She was looking very pleased with herself. Tom was sitting on her lap with his thumb in his mouth, and round his neck there was a napkin tied like a bib. He was staring across the room in a glazed kind of way and his head leaned against Julie’s breasts. He did not seem to notice that I had come in and went on making small sucking noises with his thumb. Julie rested one hand on the small of his back. She smiled at me and I put my hand on the doorknob to steady myself. I felt as though I weighed nothing and might drift away.
“Don’t be so surprised,” Julie said, “Tom wants to be a little baby.” She rested her chin on his head and began to rock backward and forward slightly. “He was such a naughty boy this afternoon,” she went on, talking more to him than to me, “so we had a long talk and decided lots of things.” Tom’s eyes were closing. I sat down at the table close to Julie but where I could not see Tom’s face. I picked at the cold pieces of bacon in the frying pan. Julie rocked and hummed quietly to herself.
Tom was asleep. I had intended to talk to Julie about Derek, but now she stood up with Tom in her arms, and I followed them up the stairs. Julie pushed open the door of the bedroom with her foot. She had brought up from the cellar our old brass cot and put it right by her own bed. It was all made up ready, with one side down. I was annoyed to see the cot and the bed so close together. I pointed and said, “Why didn’t you put it in his own room?” Julie had her back to me and was setting Tom down in the cot. He sat swaying slightly as Julie unbuttoned his dress. His eyes were open.
“He wanted it in here, didn’t you my sweet?” Tom nodded as he crawled between the sheets. Julie went to the window to draw the curtains. I advanced into the semidarkness and stood at the end of the cot. She pushed by me, kissed Tom’s head and carefully raised the side. Tom seemed to be asleep almost instantly. “There’s a good boy,” Julie whispered, and took my hand and led me out of her bedroom.
CHAPTER NINE
NOT LONG after Sue read to me from her diary I began to notice a smell on my hands. It was sweet and faintly rotten and was more on the fingers than the palms, or perhaps even between the fingers. It was a smell that reminded me of the meat we had thrown out. I stopped masturbating. I did not feel like it anyway. After I washed my hands they smelled only of soap, but if I turned my head away and moved one hand quickly in front of my nose, the bad smell was just there, beneath the perfume of the soap. I took long baths in the middle of the afternoon and lay perfectly still without a thought till the water was cold. I cut my nails, washed my hair and found clean clothes. Within half an hour the smell was back, so distant that it was more like the memory of a smell. Julie and Sue made jokes about my appearance. They said I was dressing up for a secret girlfriend. However, my new look made Julie more friendly. She bought me two shirts from a jumble sale, almost new and a good fit. I confronted Tom and wiggled my fingers under his nose. He said, “Like a fishy,” in his loud new baby voice. I found the home medical encyclopedia and looked up cancer. I thought I might be rotting away from a slow disease. I looked in the mirror and tried to catch my breath in my cupped hands. One evening it rained at last, very heavily. Someone had once told me that rain was the cleanest water in the world, so I took my shirt, shoes and socks off and stood on top of the rockery with my hands stretched out. Sue came to the kitchen door and, shouting over the noise of the rain, asked me what I was doing. She went away and returned with Julie. They called to me and laughed, and I turned my back on them.
At supper we had an argument. I said it was the first time it had rained since Mother died. Julie and Sue said it had rained several times since. When I asked them when exactly, they said they could not remember. Sue said she knew she had used her umbrella because it was now in her bedroom, and Julie said she remembered the sound the windshield wipers made in Derek’s car. I said that proved nothing at all. They became angry which made me feel calm and intent on making them angrier. Julie challenged me to prove it had not rained and I said I did not need to, I knew it had not. My sisters gasped with annoyance. When I asked Sue to pass me the sugar bowl she ignored me. I walked round the table and just as I was reaching for it she picked up the bowl and put it on the other side of the table, near where I had been sitting. I went to smack her hard on the back of her neck but Julie cried out, “You dare!” so sharply that I drew back startled and my hand swept over the top of Sue’s head. Immediately I caught the smell again. As I sat down I waited for Julie or Sue to accuse me of farting, but they began a conversation that was designed to exclude me. I sat on my hands and winked at Tom.
Tom stared at me with his mouth half open and I could see chewed food on his tongue. He sat close to Julie’s side. While we were arguing about the rain he had smeared food over his face. Now he was waiting for Julie to remember him, wipe his face with the bib round his neck and tell him he could leave the table. Then he might crawl under the table and sit among our legs while we finished eating.
Other times he tore his bib off and ran outside to play with his friends and would not be a baby again till he came back inside and found Julie. As a baby he rarely spoke or made a noise. He simply waited for her next move. When she babied him his eyes grew larger and farther apart, his mouth slackened and he seemed to sink inside himself.
One evening, as Julie picked Tom up to take him upstairs, I said, “Real babies kick and scream when they get put to bed.” Tom glared at me over Julie’s shoulder and his eyes and mouth narrowed suddenly.
“No they don’t,” he said reasonably. “Not always they don’t,” and let himself be carried out of the room.
I could not resist watching them together. I trailed after them, fascinated, waiting to see what would happen. Julie seemed to enjoy an audience, and she made jokes about it.
“You look so serious,” she said once, “like you were watching a funeral.” Tom, of course, wanted Julie all to himself.
The second evening I followed them up the stairs again at bedtime and leaned in the doorway while Julie undressed Tom, who had his back to me. Julie smiled at me and asked me to bring Tom’s pajamas. Tom turned in the cot and shouted, “Go away! You go away!”
Julie laughed and ruffled his hair and said, “What am I going to do with the two of you?” But I stepped backward out of her room and leaned against the wall in the corridor and listened while Julie read a story. When she came out at last
she was not surprised to see me there. We went into my room and sat on the bed. We did not turn the light on. I cleared my throat and said perhaps it was bad for Tom to go on pretending to be a baby.
“Perhaps he won’t be able to come out of it,” I said.
Julie did not reply at first. I could just make out that she was smiling at me. She put her hand on my knee and said, “I think someone is jealous.”
We laughed, and I lay back on the bed. Daringly I touched the small of her back with the ends of my fingers. She shivered and increased the pressure on my knee.
Then Julie had said, “Do you think a lot about Mum?”
I whispered, “Yes, do you?”
“Of course.” There seemed nothing more to say, but I wanted us to go on talking.
“Do you think what we did was right?”
Julie took her hand from my knee. She was silent for such a long time I thought she had forgotten my question. I touched her back again and immediately she spoke. “It seemed obvious then, but I don’t know now. Perhaps we shouldn’t have.”
“We can’t do anything about it now,” I said, and waited for her to disagree. I also waited for her hand to return to my knee. I ran my forefinger the length of her spine and wondered what had changed between us. Had my taking baths made such a difference to her? Finally she said, “No, I suppose not,” and folded her arms with a finality that suggested she was offended. One moment she was in charge; the next she was silent, waiting to be attacked.
I said impatiently, “You let Derek into the cellar.”
Now everything was changed between us. Julie crossed the room, turned on the light and stood by the door. She tossed her head irritably to clear a strand of hair from her face. I sat right on the edge of the bed and put my hand on my knee where hers had been.
“Is that what he told you when you were playing… billiards?”
“I only watched.”
“He found the key and went down there to look around,” Julie said.
“You should have stopped him.” She shook her head. It was unusual for her to plead and her voice was unfamiliar.
“He just took the key. There is nothing to see down there.”
I said, “You got really angry about it and now he wants to know why.”
For once I was getting the better of Julie in an argument. I started to beat out a rhythm with my hands on my knees and briefly caught the sweet, rotten smell.
Suddenly Julie said, “You know, I haven’t slept with him or anything like that.”
I went on drumming and did not look up. Then, exultant, I stopped and said, “So what?” But Julie had left the room.
LEANING ACROSS the table I caught hold of Tom’s bib and pulled him toward me. He gave out a little whimper and then a scream. Julie broke off her conversation and tried to prize my fingers loose. Sue stood up.
“What are you doing?” Julie shouted. “Let go of him.” I had pulled Tom a good way along the table when I let go and he fell back into Julie’s arms.
“I was going to wipe his mouth for him,” I said, “seeing you were so busy talking.” Tom hid his face in Julie’s lap and began to cry, a good imitation of a baby’s wail.
“Why can’t you leave people alone?” Sue cried. “What’s wrong with you?”
I wandered out into the garden. The rain was stopping. The tower blocks were ugly with fresh stains, but the weeds on the land beyond our garden already looked greener. I walked around the garden the way Father had always wanted everyone to go, along the tiny paths, down the steps to the pond. It was hard to find the steps under the weeds and thistles and the pond was a curling piece of dirty blue plastic. A little rainwater had collected in the bottom. As I walked round the pond I felt something soft collapse under my foot. I had trodden on a frog. It lay on its side with one long back leg stuck in the air, quivering in little circles. A creamy green substance was spilling out of its stomach and the sac under its chin blew in and out very rapidly. With one bulging eye it stared up at me in a sorrowful, unaccusing kind of way. I knelt down beside it and picked up a large flat stone. Now it seemed to look at me expecting help. I waited, hoping it would recover or die suddenly. But the air sac was filling and emptying faster, and it was attempting hopelessly to use its other back leg to right itself. Its small front legs made swimming movements in the air. The yellowish eye stared into mine.
“That’s enough,” I said out loud and brought the flat stone down sharply on the small green head. When I lifted the stone the frog’s body stuck to it and then dropped to the ground. I began to cry. I found another stone and dug a short deep trench. As I pushed it in with a stick I saw its front legs tremble. I covered it quickly with earth and stamped the grave flat.
I heard footsteps behind me and Derek’s voice.
“What’s wrong with you?” He stood with his legs well apart and slung over his shoulder was a white raincoat which he held hooked with one finger.
“Nothing,” I said. Derek came closer.
“What have you got in the ground?”
“Nothing.” With the wedge-shaped tip of his polished boot Derek prodded the earth.
“It’s a dead frog I just buried,” I said.
But Derek kept on digging till he turned over the frog’s body, all caked in dirt.
“Look,” he said, “it’s not dead at all.” He sunk and twisted his heel into my frog and covered it with earth again. He did all this with one foot and without taking the raincoat from his shoulder. He smelled of perfume, some kind of after-shave or cologne. I walked farther up the garden toward the little path that wound round the rockery. Derek followed right behind me, and we spiraled up, passing each other in tight little circles like children in a game.
“Julie’s in, is she?” he said.
I told him she was putting Tom to bed, and then, when we were balancing very close to each other at the top, I said, “He sleeps in her bedroom now.”
Derek nodded quickly as if he already knew and squeezed his tie knot.
We stared at our house. We were so close that when he spoke I smelled peppermint on his breath.
“He’s an odd one, your little brother, isn’t he? I mean, putting on girls’ dresses….” He smiled at me and seemed to expect me to smile too.
But I folded my arms and said, “What’s odd about that?”
Derek climbed off the rockery, using the paths as steps, and when he got to the bottom he spent some time folding his raincoat over his arm. He coughed and said, “It could affect him in later life, you know.”
I climbed off the rockery too, and we walked toward the house.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked him. We were standing outside the kitchen door. Derek stared through the window and did not reply. The door to the living room was open and we could see Sue sitting alone reading a magazine.
Suddenly Derek said, “When did your parents die exactly?”
“Long time ago,” I muttered and pushed open the kitchen door. Derek caught hold of my arm.
“Wait,” he said. “Julie told me it was recently.” Sue called out my name from the living room. I pulled my arm free and went indoors. Derek whispered after me to come back and then I heard him wiping his feet carefully before stepping into the kitchen.
As soon as Derek came into the room Sue dropped her magazine and ran into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea. She treated him like a film star. He walked about with his coat folded in a neat square looking for a place to put it down and Sue watched him from the doorway like a frightened rabbit. I sat down and looked at Sue’s magazine. Derek set his coat down on the floor by a chair and sat down too. Sue said from the kitchen, “Julie’s upstairs with Tom.” Her voice was all shaky.
“I’ll wait down here then,” Derek called out. He crossed his legs and plucked at his shirt cuffs so they protruded the right distance from under his suit. I turned the pages of the magazine without taking anything in. When Derek took the cup of tea from Sue he said, “Thank you, Susan,” in a funny vo
ice and she giggled and sat down as far away from him as possible. It was while he was stirring his tea that he looked straight across at me and said, “There’s a funny smell in here. Have you noticed it?”
I shook my head but I could feel myself blushing. Derek watched me and sipped. He lifted his head and sniffed loudly.
“It’s not a strong smell,” he said, “but it’s very odd.”
Sue stood up and began to talk rapidly.
“It’s the drain outside the kitchen. It gets blocked very easily and in the summer … you know….” Then, after a pause, she said again, “It’s the drain.”
Derek nodded while she was talking and looked at me. Sue went back to her chair and for a long time after that no one spoke.
None of us heard Julie come in the room, and when she spoke Derek gave a start.
“All very quiet,” she said softly.
Derek stood up straight like a soldier and said very politely, “Good evening, Julie.”
Sue giggled. Julie was wearing her velvet skirt and had tied her hair back with a white ribbon.
Derek said, “We were talking about the drains,” and with a stiff little movement of his hand tried to direct Julie into his chair. But she came and settled herself on the arm of mine.
“Drains?” she said as if to herself, but did not seem to want to know more.
“And how have you been?” Derek said.
Sue giggled again and we all turned to look at her. Julie pointed at Derek’s coat.
“Why don’t you hang it up before someone treads on it?”
Derek lifted his coat onto his lap and stroked it.
“Nice pussy,” he said, and no one laughed. Sue asked Julie if Tom was asleep.
“Out like a light,” Julie said. Derek took out his watch and looked at it. We all knew what he was going to say.
“A bit early isn’t it? For Tom?”
This time Sue had a fit of giggling. She clasped her han over her face and hobbled into the kitchen. We heard her open the door and go outside into the garden. Julie was very cool.
