Free The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan Page A

myself and which was derived from the memory of that day five years ago. But there was no excitement now. The days were too long, it was too hot, the house seemed to have fallen asleep. We did not even sit outside because the wind was blowing a fine, black dust from the direction of the tower blocks and the main roads behind them. And even while it was hot, the sun never quite broke through a high, yellowish cloud; everything I looked at merged and seemed insignificant in the glare. Tom was the only one who was content, in the daytime at least. He had his friend, the one he had played with in the sand. Tom did not seem to notice that the sand was gone, nor did his friend ever mention the story I had given him about his mother. They played further up the road, in and out of the ruined prefabs. In the evenings, after his friend had gone home, Tom was bad-tempered and cried easily. He went to Julie most often when he wanted attention, and he got on her nerves. ‘Don’t keep asking me ,’ she would snap. ‘Get away from me, Tom, just for a minute.’ But it made little difference. Tom had made up his mind that Julie was to take care of him now. He trailed Julie about the house grizzling, and ignored Sue or me when we tried to divert him. One evening, early on, when Tom was being particularly demanding, and Julie more irritable than usual, she suddenly seized hold of him in the living room and tore his clothes off.
    ‘Right,’ she kept saying, ‘you’ve had it.’
    ‘What are you doing?’ Sue said over Tom’s sobs.
    ‘If he wants to be mothered,’Julie shouted, ‘then he can start doing what I tell him. He’s going to bed.’ It was hardly five o’clock in the afternoon. When Tom was naked we heard his screams and the sound of bath water running. Ten minutes later Tom was back before us in his pyjamas and, utterly subdued, allowed Julie to lead him upstairs to his bedroom. She came down banging imaginary dust from her palms and smiling widely.
    ‘That’s what he wanted,’ she said.
    ‘And that’s what you’re best at giving,’ I said. It came out a little more sourly than I intended. Julie kicked my foot gently.
    ‘Watch it,’ she murmured, ‘or you’ll be next.’
    As soon as we had finished down in the cellar, Julie and I had gone to bed. Because Sue had slept for some of the night, she stayed up and looked after Tom during the day. I woke in the late afternoon extremely thirsty and hot. There was no one downstairs, but I could hear Tom’s voice somewhere outside. As I stooped to drink water from the kitchen tap a cloud of flies hummed around my face. I walked on the sides of my bare feet because the floor around the sink was covered with something yellow and sticky, probably spilt orange juice. Still light-headed from my sleep, I went upstairs to Sue’s room. She was sitting across her bed with her back against the wall. Her knees were drawn up and in her lap was an open notebook. She put down her pencil when I came in and snapped the book shut. It was stuffy as if she had been in there for hours. I sat down on the edge of her bed, quite near her. I felt like talking, but not about the night before. I wanted someone to stroke my head. Sue pressed her thin lips together, as though determined not to speak first. ‘What are you doing?’ I said at last and stared at the notebook.
    ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘just writing.’ She held her notebook in two hands against her belly.
    ‘What are you writing?’ She sighed.
    ‘Nothing. Just writing.’ I tore the book from her hands, turned my back on her and opened it. Before she blocked my view with her arm I had time to read at the top of a page, ‘Tuesday, Dear Mum.’
    ‘Give it back,’ Sue shouted and her voice was so unfamiliar, so unexpectedly violent, that I let her take it from me. She put the book under her pillow and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall in front of her. She was red in the face and her freckles were darker. The