Chapter 4

The evening the bunk bed arrived, I had gone outside to call Cresta the cat in. No cat. I had taken her for grooming that morning. And forgotten to pick herup.

In the almost half century since I had been to a children's party, the social event that it had once been had changed as much as the society that held it. The boys had been invited to friends' celebrations. We had been ushered into 'Fantasy World' where presents were deposited into the 'Preasants Here' area before the invitees ran amok up and down padded scaffolding and in and out of enclosures hurling multicoloured plastic balls skywards. Blaring pop music provided an overlay to the tots' squeals of delight as they raced up, down, in and out, oblivious to each others' presence. Parents looked on proudly through metal bars as their charges were invited to take their positions in a boarded-off pit where they sat on wipe-clean plastic chairs at a wipe-clean plastic table and prodded with plastic cutlery at boxed fast food to be followed by a plastic tube which, pushed from below, exposed a core of coloured, frozen slush. The birthday cake was briefly introduced to the tired strains of a song that was, for me, the only part of the proceedings that brought to mind the notion of birthday celebration and promptly whisked away to be cut by unseen hands into small segments, wrapped in a themed serviette and popped into a small plastic bag marked 'LOOT' with a paperback book, a small piece of coloured plastic that may have been intended to resemble a cartoon character and a chocolate from the sponsor of the paperback. The area was then sluiced ready for the next party.

The thought had been a kind one. Instant birthday. An hour and a half after we had entered, we were out. The birthday girl, fragments of batter clinging to her frock, looked at me with limpid blue eyes as the boys struggled into their coats unaware that it had been a celebration; not knowing who it had been for. For them it had been an outing. For me, it had been an all packaged-up commodification of birthday. I would try to do it the old-fashioned way when their time came.

It was easier than I thought. Nursery school held an 'auction of promise' at which parents submitted sealed bids for the staff to do a variety of chores, from babysitting to lawn mowing. On the list was 'to organise a children's party.' Off went my bid. It won.

'Blancmange, please.'

'The pink stuff?'

'Why not? Oh yes, and jelly and paste sandwiches.' I was enjoying it hugely. So were the nursery staff.

'We can do a 'Pin The Tail On The Donkey' and 'Statues.'

'And 'Pass The Parcel' - and 'Musical Chairs', or does it have to be 'Musical Cushions' these days to avoid litigation? And none of those party bags at the end. They never had them when I was young. Must be an American import, like the word 'hopefully' that I won't use. Every child will get a prize including those who don't win anything.'

It was all just as I remembered it except that I was not allowed to have their friends' addresses for 'security reasons' so had to deliver to the nursery the enveloped invitations unaddressed, but this was the only concession made to accommodate the new, more brittle, more impatient age in which my sons were growing up.

'Black's the new white, you know.' The lady at the cake shop showed me a trendy sculpted matt rectangle topped by a bride and groom.

'For a wake, perhaps, but let's have a traditional white one this time.'

'Should it be themed?'

As they had such different favourites and as these interchanged daily, I decided on all of them. Percy the Park-Keeper (a cordial chap who slept with animals) clutching a hedgehog in gloved hands, rubbed shoulders with Bob the Builder, Kipper the dog and Winnie-the-Pooh.

'And lots of marzipan - and a sprinkling of nuts.'

'Oh, I wouldn't do that, you know, what with all these allergies.'

Yet another concession to modernity.

'And that'll be £55.'

'Too many presents.'

Ian casually dropped a crumpled gift tag into the pile of fragmented cardboard boxes and ripped wrapping paper and sighed. I had long ago despaired of matching the gift to the giver. Most of the packages had been put in another room unopened. Just a few from the Godparents had been placed in the hall for opening on the day. We had already spent the best part of an hour with Lars's Godmother, Esther Rantzen, opening the remote control cars she had brought and installing batteries into tiny compartments. Each part of each one, cunningly packaged for maximum visual impact, was secured with twine and card.

'Here's an object lesson for you, boys, about how these manufacturers are ruining our environment.'

'There's too many presents.' Ian's tears were not far away.

Their fourth birthday had happened. Here was the aftermath. We had taken one of the classrooms at nursery school for the event and the presents had come back to the house in the boots of two cars. I remembered the lessons learned from their third birthday. Then, it had been just one package torn asunder after another. The only way for them to value what their friends had been so kind as to buy them was to take our time, put most of them in another room and spend the next few days opening them three at a time. In fact, it was almost a month before the last present was opened.

'What are our presents today, Daddy?'

Present-opening had become routine. By that time, the birthday was a memory and whether these gifts were from nursery friends, Godparents or Father Christmas was a matter for debate. Odd cards kept appearing from the depths of the toy boxes.

'That's my birthday.' The card became the event. 'That's my Christmas.' They were interchangeable. Both had cards and presents. The only difference was that the one had 'Professor Pringelli's Politically Correct Punch and Judy' and the other had 'Father Christmas and his goats'.

'Not goats, Piers. Father Christmas has reindeer.'

'No, Daddy. He has goats. Three goats. And I don't like them.'

Much thought later, it all became clear. Mickey Mouse was the culprit. They had been given Mickey's Christmas video. Piers had run from the room muttering something about goats. I put the video back in and rewound to where it had been the previous week. Sure enough, Donald Duck dressed as Ebeneezer Scrooge had become Father Christmas in his mind. And there was the American soundtrack telling how this bedevilled Christmas character was being tormented by the three goats - the most terrifying being the goat of Christmas Yet To Come.

Confronted again by these goat-like presences, aware of only one Christmas persona and unable to grasp the sibilant in his terror, Piers put his hands in front of him, blanking them from sight. Lars swivelled his head from the screen and watched the terror mitigated by mirror image through the wardrobe doors. Ian moved sideways to look through the edge at an invisible picture. In their reactions to this, as in every other way, their differences were showing.

Inundated with gifts though they were, there was no desperation to open them. They knew that behind the study door was a treasure trove of brightly-wrapped parcels that would come their way. In the fulness of time, they would receive them. They were possessions. They already had plenty of these, added to at various times of the year. More would come. Things were things, to be coveted only when in the hands of a brother. Like Leo the lion (who only wanted to love) in their favourite bedtime story, they 'never once asked for a thing.' The advertisers had not yet got to work on these four year-olds potential consumers. Would they be immune to their blandishments and reject materialism? Time would tell. I had never taken them shopping and they had never watched commercial TV. It made life easier for me and I cannot imagine deprived them of any meaningful experience.