LESSING
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each one. Meanwhile the young man in front of him was waiting, his
hand holding the pen and fiddling it between his fingers. A telephone
rang just beside him. On either side of him were several young men and
women with that glass in front of them. Some used instruments that
clicked and chattered, some stared at screens where words appeared and
went. Each of these noisy machines Ben knew was probably hostile to
him. Now he moved slightly to one side, to get rid of the reflections on
the glass that were bothering him, and preventing him from properly
seeing this person who was angry with him.
"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 pen
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 eigh–
teen.
"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
