The Cement Garden (1987) by Ian McEwan

Author:Ian McEwan
Format: epub
Published: 1987-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Three 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 mess room. Cigarette ends, plastic cutlery, old magazines, coffee cups and spilt 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 spaceship 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 mess room, 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 towards 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 and looked at it too. The monster, which resembled an octopus, was attacking a 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.

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