The first thing Seth saw was Roly’s statue. It summoned a clutter of images, and with them, the recollection that he was now sixteen. He could have lain in as it was a free morning, but he wanted to open his presents, and meet his new, enlightened mother. He dressed, and walked to the bathroom. He washed his face and, as he was patting it dry, heard the door bell, and his mother talking to someone. He listened and caught a woman’s voice moving with Mother’s across the sitting room and into the music room beneath him. Too deep and slow for Jemima. He returned to his bedroom to find his shoes and put on his watch. It was late, nearly twelve. Shocked that he could have slept so long undisturbed on a birthday, he hurried downstairs.
Venetia was lounging on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a biscuit tin.
‘I see you’ve finally stirred after the excesses of last night,’ she murmured. ‘Happy Birthday.’
‘Thanks. Why didn’t anyone wake me?’
‘We thought you might need a lie-in. You obviously did. Was it good?’
‘Not bad,’ he said, and found he didn’t blush. ‘How was yours?’
‘As a matter of fact, Harry and I spent a civilized evening together and he’s insisted I go to New York and work for him after next summer term.’
‘Isn’t it.’
He dropped into a chair. ‘Aren’t you excited?’ he pursued. ‘Well yes, of course I am,’ she sighed, ‘but I’ve got exams to think about first.’
‘Oh yes. Finals.’
‘Aren’t you going to open your cards?’ He stared at the pile of cards and presents on the table.
‘I will in a moment when Ma comes out. Who’s she talking to?’
‘It’s a policewoman. With a scar.’
‘But she didn’t send for one, did she?’
‘How the hell should I know? I was in the kitchen and just saw her letting her in at the front door and walking into the music room. I doubt it, actually. She respects that what you do with that grubby body of yours is your own affair.’
With a slight frown, Seth stood and walked through to the kitchen to make some breakfast. With the informed confidence of the post-liberation male, he assumed that her period had started again with a vengeance. He happened to be right. He turned on the kettle to make some coffee and poured himself a bowl of muesli. Trying to conjure up some birthday spirit, he gave himself some black cherry yoghourt on top of it. He switched on the radio and ate his cereal, perched on a stool rather than face the unappealing atmosphere by the sofa.
‘The headlines again. A public enquiry has been demanded by the Home Secretary into the narrow escape at the Havermere Nuclear Plant in the Peak District, where, through the apparent negligence of the night staff, a radioactive core was allowed to overheat to far beyond regulation level. The danger was only spotted within minutes of an explosion, say the specialists.
‘At the end of last night’s session in the House of Lords, the startling debate on the Age of Consent Bill ended in favour of a reform to the existing laws governing homosexuals of both sexes. Following a lead from the European governments, the debated private members’ bill suggests that sixteen, not twenty-one, is the fair age of homosexual consent. In addition, the bill suggests an unprecedented law be brought to bear upon female homosexuals, or lesbians, preventing sex before sixteen. At present there is no law governing lesbianism. A considerable number of complaints at the bill have been raised, not least from the extreme Right who say that society could never be the same again in the event of the present laws being changed, I quote, “for the decadent worse”.
‘And finally, we have just had word that Dame Audrey Fox, the novelist unanimously crowned the Queen of crime fiction, died peacefully in her Sussex home last night after a week-long illness. She was eighty-four.’
As the full import of the second announcement sank in, Seth rinsed out his bowl at the tap and began to feel more of a birthday boy. He looked around and saw that Venetia had returned to the garden. She was fighting with a deckchair. He heard Mother’s voice from the opening music room door.
‘Are you quite sure you won’t stay for a cup of coffee, or something, Officer?’ She walked to the front door with the policewoman.
‘No thanks, all the same, Mrs Peake. I just wanted to be the one to tell you myself. I’ve got to be hurrying back now.’ Seth walked to the doorway to look. ‘Morning,’ said Mo, with a smile. He nodded in reply, then went to cut some bread.
‘Oh well, thank you for being so considerate,’ said Mother.
‘My pleasure.’
Mother shut the door and walked smartly over to the kitchen. Seth looked up from the toaster. She was talking brightly and fast.
‘Happy Birthday, darling!’ she sang, and planted a warm kiss on his forehead. ‘What did she want?’
‘Oh, wasn’t she funny? She was a real Cockney. She’d come all the way from London to tell me. And did you see that scar? Quite awe-inspiring!’ She laughed unexpectedly, ‘Oh my God! You didn’t think I’d called the Fuzz to set them on your new sculptor friend? Really Seth, how could you forget my keenness to patronize the Arts?’
As she heard herself babbling on the brink, the newly-widowed mother of two was surprised that she could not begin to tell them.