Margaret hears Edward’s footsteps along the passage from the direction of his study. She slides the Christmas edition of Ideal Home behind a cushion on the sofa where she is sitting, and sips her coffee.

‘Did you know what Roly wants to do?’ demands Edward without ceremony, striding across the Chinese rug.

‘No, dear, what does he want to do?’ says Margaret, smiling up at him.

‘Only to go and do art and take himself off to London! Sometimes I despair of that boy.’ In his agitation, Edward has already thrown to the winds all the caution and tact that he meant to employ.

Margaret is not unprepared. ‘Well, he has mentioned it. He has an application form for a foundation course at the Art college in Portglas. After that he can go on to study anywhere he likes. The school say that he should get an A for Art, you remember, and they think he will do very well.’ 

‘Why can’t he do something normal, go into the Services or get a place up in the City? I have contacts who would help. When I mentioned it to him, he just said No, he would never fit in. As if he knew anything!’

‘Darling, try to calm down a bit. I really don’t think that he’s cut out for that kind of life.’ Margaret hesitates before continuing, ‘Don’t you remember how you felt when your father wanted you to leave the Army and come back to run things here?’

Edward does remember but feels that is irrelevant in the present crisis. ‘That was altogether different. Anyway, who’s going to pay for him to mess about with art for God knows how many years?’ 

Margaret resists the urge to say, ‘I will, same as I usually do,’ pauses and says, ‘He can get a student loan. That’s how it works these days.’ 

‘Hmph. I don’t like it. I won’t have it.’

‘He says that he feels stifled, you know,’ says Margaret, ‘stuck here miles from anywhere. All his friends live miles away.’

‘His friends! Have you seen them? Of course you have. Spineless lot. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are a bit soft in the head.’

Margaret thinks that she rather likes what she has seen of the young people when they have visited. Edward continues,

‘Anyway, I have a plan for him. I’ve got a friend in Canada who…‘ He pauses. ‘Remember what he did to my stamps?’

Margaret could hardly have forgotten the time when Edward discovered that his little son had carefully removed the precious stamps from the old album and glued them into delightful patterns on large sheets of tissue paper. ‘Look Mummy, I’ve made you a collage!’ Even at that age he knew what a collage was.

‘He wasn’t even four. He didn’t understand. He thought they were to make into something that looked nice. It was a long time ago.’

Margaret remembers how Roly’s sister, aged all of 6, had turned on the little boy, furiously defending her father’s precious stamp collection. She also remembers how, later, Roly used to enjoy cutting up the illustrations from her country style magazines and designing his own fantasy rooms. ‘That’s where they have their breakfast, that’s where they keep their books, this is where they watch tv,’ he thought it all through.

Edward does not give up. ‘Well, he’d better think again. I’m going to have a word with that school and tell them it’s not on.’ 

It is Cook’s night off, so Margaret prepares a fireside supper for Edward and herself. As she assembles dishes and plates on the trolley, she is thinking about her family. Her brothers, like their father and grandfather, have proved successful engineers and inventors, creating ever better and faster aircraft. No problem with deciding their careers.  She herself had had ambitions, and some talent, for ballet. Then when she married Edward it turned out that she had married Tregethlan as well. The roles of wife, mother and chatelaine left little time for anything else. Roly has inherited some of her family’s talent for creativity, channeled into a more artistic direction, plus his father’s stubbornness. But it was Edward’s determination that had won her over. It had seemed right that they marry, and she does not regret it. But now she fears a collision of wills.

Margaret wheels the loaded trolley through to the small sitting room where they sometimes enjoy a relaxed evening watching TV. Edward is opening a bottle and says, ‘Here, let me give you a hand with that.’ 

When they have settled down and Edward has found the remote control, Margaret says, ‘How did you get on with the school?’ 

‘I managed to speak to that chap who does art.’

‘Mr McNab?’

‘Yes, him. He didn’t seem too pleased. He told me that Roly has what he called ‘real talent’ for design. Said he should study somewhere in London, Saint Marks…’

‘St Martin’s?’ 

Yes, that’s the place. Or Camberwell. I said that sounded a bit too East End. Anyway he reckons that at the least Roly should be able to make a living designing things for people. Mentioned a few names. Nobody I’ve heard of, Terence somebody.

‘Conran?’

‘Probably. Anyway I said I was not happy and Mr McN said I should talk to Roly’s Housemaster. Which I will do.’

‘That sounds like a good idea. Roly will be home for the holidays soon and then we can have a talk together. That should help.’

Edward senses that he is being out-manoeuvred but says nothing.

Margaret continues, ‘He’s catching the 12.10 train on the 15^th, so one of us will have to meet him.’

She helps them both to more salad, and says ‘I’ve been thinking about his eighteenth. It might be an idea to buy him a little car so he can get about on his own.’

‘I don’t mind going to meet him. Rather enjoy it really.’

‘Yes, me too.  But he could do with something to get about in so he’s not always tied to us.’

Edward digests this, and says, ‘He would like that. Any boy would.’

‘He’s a young man now.’

On the evening of 15^th December, the dining table is set with the family silver and crystal glasses. Margaret always puts on a homecoming family dinner for Roly’s end of term. Cook is in the kitchen, and there are delicious odours coming from the range.

The family assembles. Edward is dispensing drinks when Margaret says, ‘It’s just us this time. All the aunts and uncles are busy, but they send their love. Uncle David is tied up with the Americans.’ She laughs. ‘Not literally. They’ve put him on something terribly important to do with the space programme.’ 

Roly joins in the family talk. He notices that Jo, his sister, is looking rather lovely, her red hair glowing against the green of her dress. Has she founds a boyfriend? His mother is as pretty as ever in blue silk.   

Margaret looks along the candlelit dining table, rosewood glowing, light sparkling on crystal glasses and gleaming on silver. Opposite her, Edward looks almost as handsome as when they were married, all those years ago. He smiles and raises his glass to her. To her left sits their daughter Josephine, who answers only to ‘Jo,’ the light playing in the tawny depths of her hair. Roly sits on her left. He is fair, like her, with his father’s clean-cut profile. Margaret watches him demolish a chunk of Stilton, realising that he is no longer a boy, and for now is content.

Edward, she thinks, seems to have calmed down after speaking with the Head of Art (‘Director’ of Art, well really!), who told him that Roly has a good chance of doing well in the A-Level and should flourish in a good arts university. Edward had called on Roly’s housemaster for an alternative view, and met with a similar response: Roly should do well in the world of art and design if he uses his natural talents and continues to work hard. In the housemaster’s opinion, Roly was unlikely to thrive in the world of finance or the armed services. His results in the more ‘academic’ subjects had not been encouraging. It had been mentioned a few years ago that Roly might be a shade dyslexic, but Edward regarded that as a slur and Margaret knew little about it, so it had gone no further.

Margaret’s attention returns to the table as Cook looks in to say that coffee is waiting in the drawing room.

‘We will look after ourselves now, thank you,’ says Margaret, ‘You go home as soon as you like. ‘

Roly says, ‘That was a splendid dinner. Thank you!’ Cook beams at him: she has nown him since he was a toddler. 

The four of them make their way to the drawing room, where sparks fly up the chimney as Edward throws a log onto the embers in the fireplace and Jo takes charge of the coffee. Roly sits beside Margaret on the sofa.

‘Thanks, Ma, that was lovely,’ he says, ‘All my favourite things’.

‘There are chocolates, ‘ says Margaret. ‘Jo, if you wouldn’t mind handing them round?’ 

 As Jo passes the green and gold box to Roly, she says, ‘It’s good to have you back. I don’t suppose you’ll get anything like this in Canada’.

‘What? I’m not going to Canada.’

Margaret freezes, and Edward says, ‘That’s something I was going to talk about. Just an idea I had.’ 

‘What do you mean?  What idea?’

‘It’s only something your father thought of, just an idea.’ Margaret feels the sands shifting fast beneath her feet.

Jo says, ‘You mean Pa hasn’t said anything?’

‘I’m going to. I just wasn’t going to do it now.’

‘Do what?’ Roly is tense, ‘Why does Jo know about it and I don’t?’

 ‘I overheard Dad talking so I thought you must know.’ Jo is defensive.

 Margaret interjects, ‘It could wait until tomorrow, couldn’t it?’ but she is ignored. Roly leans forward as Edward gets up and pours two glasses of Lagavullin, one each for himself and Roly, and Amaretto for Margaret and Jo.

It’s just that I’m not too happy about all this art that you’re caught up with. It’s fine as a hobby, but I don’t see you making your life in that kind of world. That’s what it boils down to.’

‘It’s what I want to do.’

‘That’s how you feel now. You’ll feel differently once you’re out of school. I’ve had a word with a friend in Vancouver who runs a logging business…’

Roly interrupts, ‘You are telling me that you have discussed my life with your friend, and Jo seems to know all about it. Am I the only one here not to know what’s going on?’

Margaret says, ‘Your father only wants to be sure that you’re making the right choice.’ She knows it sounds feeble.

‘Right,’ says Roly, ‘So the one thing that I am really interested in, the thing that I really want to do with my life, I’m now told is just a hobby.’ 

‘No darling,’ says Margaret.

‘Well,’ says Edward, ‘what you should do is go out into the world, learn a business or go into the Army like I did, and then come back and run things here.’

There is a pause before Roly says, ‘So why has nobody thought fit to discuss any of this with me? It’s my life you are talking about.’ He downs the whisky. ‘In case you are interested, I have an offer to study Art and Design from one of the best universities there is. And I’m talking to St Martins and Camberwell. I have no intention of being shipped to Canada. I will be eighteen in a month’s time and I can make my own decisions.’

Edward is caught off guard. ‘Forgive me, young man, but I make the decisions in this family.’

Roly looks at his mother. ‘Ma, do you agree with that?’

‘Your father and I generally discuss things.’

‘You mean you were in on it?’

‘No, well, it had been mentioned.’ Margaret is incapable of a direct lie.

‘Mentioned! My whole future was ‘mentioned’!’ Roly is standing up. ‘Jo, I suppose you were in on this too?’

‘I just overheard Pa talking and I assumed that you must know,’ says Jo.

‘Well, so that we are all perfectly clear, I did not know. I had no idea because nobody has talked to me about this, or anything else.’

Edward shifts in his armchair, ‘It’s not just the art, it’s the people, the sort you would be with.’

‘You mean real people, not High Sheriffs and county snobs?’

‘You know what I mean,’ says Edward.

‘You mean that I might make friends who might not come out of the top drawer? People who might even be black or gay?’

Margaret is almost in tears. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘I’m sorry, Mother, but I’ve always trusted you until now.’

Roly storms out of the room. They hear his footsteps ascending the stairs. In the silence that follows, Edward slumps in his chair and rubs his forehead, reaches for the Lagavullin and realises that the bottle has disappeared along with Roly. Jo busies herself with the discarded coffee things. Margaret rises from the sofa as if to follow Roly, but on hearing a door slam upstairs, changes her mind. She sinks back onto the cushions and starts to cry.