The Cement Garden Read Free

to take the bucket from me as I passed it up through the coal hole. When he reached forward he made a silhouette against the white, featureless sky behind him. He emptied the powder on the path and returned the bucket to me for refilling. When we had enough of that, I wheeled a barrowload of sand from the front and added it to the pile. His plan was to make a hard path round the side of the house so that it would be easy to move sand from the front garden to the back. Apart from his infrequent, terse instructions we said nothing. I was pleased that we knew so exactly what we were doing and what the other was thinking that we did not need to speak. For once I felt at ease with him. While I fetched water in the bucket he shaped the cement and sand into a mound with a dip in its centre. I did the mixing while he added the water. He showed me how to use the inside of my knee against my forearm to gain better leverage. I pretended that I knew already. When the mix was consistent we spread it on the ground. Then my father went down on his knees and smoothed the surface with the flat side of a short plank. I stood behind him leaning on my shovel. He stood up and supported himself against the fence and closed his eyes. When he opened them he blinked as if surprised to find himself there and said, ‘Well, let’s get on then.’ We repeated the operation, the bucketloads through the coal hole, the wheelbarrow, the water, the mixing and spreading and smoothing.
    The fourth time round boredom and familiar longings were slowing my movements. I yawned frequently and my legs felt weak behind the knees. In the cellar I put my hands in my pants. I wondered where my sisters were. Why weren’t they helping? I passed a bucketful to my father and then, addressing myself to his shape, told him I needed to go to the toilet. He sighed and at the same time made a noise with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Upstairs, aware of his impatience, I worked on myself rapidly. As usual, the image before me was Julie’s hand between Sue’s legs. From downstairs I could hear the scrape of the shovel. My father was mixing the cement himself. Then it happened, it appeared quite suddenly on the back of my wrist, and though I knew about it from jokes and school biology books, and had been waiting for many months, hoping that I was no different from any other, now I was astonished and moved. Against the downy hairs, lying across the edge of a grey concrete stain, glistened a little patch of liquid, not milky as I had thought, but colourless. I dabbed at it with my tongue and it tasted of nothing. I stared at it a long time, up close to look for little things with long flickering tails. As I watched, it dried to a barely visible shiny crust which cracked when I flexed my wrist. I decided not to wash it away.
    I remembered my father waiting and I hurried downstairs. My mother, Julie and Sue were standing about talking in the kitchen as I passed through. They did not seem to notice me. My father was lying face down on the ground, his head resting on the newly spread concrete. The smoothing plank was in his hand. I approached slowly, knowing I had to run for help. For several seconds I could not move away. I stared wonderingly, just as I had a few minutes before. A light breeze stirred a loose corner of his shirt. Subsequently there was a great deal of activity and noise. An ambulance came and my mother went off in it with my father, who was laid out on a stretcher and covered with a red blanket. In the living room Sue cried and Julie comforted her. The radio was playing in the kitchen. I went back outside after the ambulance had left to look at our path. I did not have a thought in my head as I picked up the plank and carefully smoothed away his impression in the soft, fresh concrete.

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    During the following year Julie trained for the school athletics team. She already held the local under-eighteen records for the 100- and 220-yard sprint. She could