Three Score & Ten

‘You’re a soft sort of kid,’ the Boy said. ‘How old are you?’

‘I’m seventeen,’ she said defiantly; there was a law which said a man couldn’t go with you before you were seventeen.

‘I’m seventeen too,’ the Boy said, and the eyes which had never been young stared with grey contempt into the eyes which had only just begun to learn a thing or two. He said, ‘Do you dance?’ and she replied humbly: ‘I haven’t danced much.’

‘It don’t matter,’ the Boy said, ‘I’m not one for dancing.’ He eyed the slow movement of the two-backed beasts: pleasure, he thought, they call it pleasure: he was shaken by a sense of loneliness, an awful lack of understanding…

Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

I sat on the stairs outside and listened to them and my mind began to change, until I came to a decision: by hook or by crook, I said to myself, come what may, the day that I’m seventeen, I’ll do it on that horsehair sofa.

Do what on the horsehair sofa?

What do you think?

It was late April but still chilly. Little cold winds whipped round the wings and the bare backstage corners. We turned up our gas fire and plucked our eyebrows. There was a bunch of flowers for our birthday and a cake with candles ready for the party after the show.

‘Nora…’

‘Yes?’

‘Give me your fella for a birthday present.’

She put down her tweezers and gave me a look.

‘Get your own fella,’ she said.

They’d sent us early lilac. The scent of lilac always brings it back. Seventeen hurts.

Angela Carter, Wise Children