Saturday by Ian McEwan Read Free Book Online Page A

then it looks great. So this is going to be my motto – think small.’
    Remembering this now, with still some minutes to go before the news, Henry says, ‘How was the gig?’
    â€˜We did this set of really basic, headbanging stuff, nearly all Jimmy Reed numbers. You know, like this…’ He sings with parodic emphasis a little boogie bass figure, his left hand clenching and unclenching, unconsciously shaping the chords. ‘They went wild for it. Wouldn’t let us do anything else. Bit depressing really, because it’s not what we’re about at all.’ But he’s smiling broadly at the memory.
    It’s time for the news. Once again, the radio pulses, the synthesised bleeps, the sleepless anchor and his dependable jaw. And there it is, made real at last, the plane, askew on the runway, apparently intact, surrounded by firefighters still spraying foam, soldiers, police, flashing lights, and ambulances backed up and ready. Before the story, irrelevant praise for the rapid response times of the emergency services. Only then is it explained. It’s a cargo plane, a Russian Tupolev on a run from Riga to Birmingham. As it passed well to the east of London a fire broke out in one of the engines. The crew radioed for permission to land, and tried to shut down the fuel supply to the burning engine. They turned west along the Thames and were guided into Heathrow and made a decent landing. Neither of the two-man crew is hurt. The cargo is not specified, but a part of it, thought to be mostly mail, is destroyed. Then, still in second place, the anti-war protests only hours away. Hans Blix, yesterday’s man, is third.
    Schrödinger’s dead cat is alive after all.
    Theo picks up his jacket from the floor and stands. His manner is wry.
    â€˜So, not an attack on our whole way of life then.’
    â€˜A good result,’ Henry agrees.
    He would like to embrace his son, not only out of relief, but because it occurs to him that Theo has become such a likeable adult. Leaving school did the trick after all – boldlystepping where his parents didn’t dare, out of formal education, taking charge of his life. But these days he and Theo have to be apart for at least a week before they allow themselves to embrace. He was always a physical child – even at thirteen he sometimes took his father’s hand in the street. No way back to that. Only Daisy holds out the chance of a bedtime kiss when she’s home.
    As Theo crosses the kitchen, his father says, ‘So you’ll be on the march today?’
    â€˜Sort of. In spirit. I’ve got to get this song ready.’
    â€˜Sleep well then,’ Henry says.
    â€˜Yeah. And you.’
    On his way out the door Theo says, ‘Night then,’ and seconds later, when he’s a little way up the stairs he calls back, ‘See you in the morning,’ and from the top of the stairs, tentatively, on a rising question note, ‘Night?’ To each call Henry responds, and waits for the next. These are Theo’s characteristic slow fades, the three or four or even five goes he has at making his farewells, the superstition that he should have the last word. The held hand slowly slipping away.
    Â 
    Perowne has a theory that coffee can have a paradoxical effect, and it seems so now as he moves heavily about the kitchen turning off the lights; not only his broken night, but the whole week, and the weeks before bearing down on him. He feels feeble in his knees, in the quadriceps, as he goes up the stairs, making use of the handrail. This is how it will be in his seventies. He crosses the hallway, soothed by the cool touch of the smooth stone flags under his bare feet. On his way to the main stairs, he pauses by the double front doors. They give straight on to the pavement, on to the street that leads into the square, and in his exhaustion they suddenly loom before him strangely with their accretions – three stout