'Yes. I am eighteen,' he said.

He knew he was. When he had gone to find his mother, three winters ago — he did not stay because his hated brother Paul had come in — she had written in large words on a piece of card:

Your name is Ben Lovatt. Your mother's name is Harriet Lovatt. Your father's name is David Lovatt. You have four brothers and sisters, Luke, Helen, Jane, and Paul. They are older than you. You are fifteen years old.

On the other side of the card had been:

You were born

Your home address is

This card had afflicted Ben with such a despair of rage that he took it from his mother, and ran out of the house. He scribbled over the name Paul, first. Then, the other siblings. Then, the card falling to the floor and picked up showing the reverse side, he scribbled with his black biro over all the words there, leaving only a wild mess of lines.

That number, fifteen, kept coming up in questions that were always — so he felt — being put to him. 'How old are you?' Knowing it was so important, he remembered it, and when the year turned around at Christmas, which no one could miss, he added a year. Now I am sixteen. Now I am seventeen. Now, because a third winter has gone, I am eighteen.

'OK, then, when were you born?'

With every day since he had scribbled with that angry black pen all over the back of the card he had understood better what a mistake he had made. And he had destroyed the whole card, in a culminating fit of rage, because now it was useless. He knew his name. He knew 'Harriet' and 'David' and did not care about his brothers and sisters who wished he was dead.