One dollar and eighty–seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.

Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing1 the grocer and the vegetable man
and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that
such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty–seven
cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down2 on the shabby 3 little couch4 and howl5.
So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs6,
sniffles7, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second,
take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week8. It did not exactly beggar
description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout9 for the mendicancy squad10.

In the vestibule below was a letter–box into which no letter would go, and an electric
button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring11. Also appertaining12
thereunto13 was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity
when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income14 was
shrunk15 to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming16 D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached
his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham
Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks17 with the powder rag. She stood by
the window and looked out dully18 at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray
backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to
buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this

1
If someone bulldozes another person into doing something, they get what they want in an
unpleasantly forceful way.
2
To sit down suddenly and heavily because you are so tired.
3
Shabby things or places look old and in bad condition.
4
a long, comfortable seat for two or three people.
5
If a person howls, they make a long, loud cry expressing pain, anger, or unhappiness.
6
A sob is one of the noises that you make when you are crying.
7
Another of the noises that you make when you are crying.
8
They pay $8 a week for a "furnished flat," meaning an apartment that comes with furniture (this
arrangement was common at the time, as furniture was relatively very expensive for people)
9
To be alert and careful
10
(US) police who arrested beggars and homeless people
11
This sentence means that their buzzer (the button you use when you want someone to open
their door) doesn't work
12
Connected with
13
in addition to that
14
income is the money that you earn
15
To shrink-shrank-shrunk means to become smaller in size
16
modest
17
the sides of your face below your eyes
18
In a non-interesting or exciting way
result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had
calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a
happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare
and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being
owned by Jim.

There was a pier–glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a
pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his
reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate
conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art19.

Suddenly she whirled20 from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were
shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she
pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both
took a mighty pride21. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his
grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat
across the airshaft22, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to
dry just to depreciate23 Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the
janitor24, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his
watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard25 from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown
waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment26 for her. And then
she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered27 for a minute and stood
still while a tear28 or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

19
This paragraph means that they have “a pier glass”, which is a mirror on the wall between two
windows, and they have to glimpse themselves in it by moving between the strips of glass to
see their reflection (an art that Della has mastered with practice).
20
She moved around or turned around very quickly
21
A huge pride (a feeling of satisfaction which you have because you or people close to you
have done something good)
22
a passage through which fresh air can enter
23
Denigrate, criticise
24
Concierge, doorkeeper.
25
To touch your beard (the hair in your face when you do not shave yourself)
26
A piece of clothing
27
Hesitated, paused
28
The water that comes from your eyes when you cry
On went her old brown jacket29; on went her old brown hat30. With a whirl31 of
skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out32 the door and
down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight
up Della ran33, and collected herself34, panting35. Madame, large, too white, chilly,
hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She
was ransacking36 the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other
like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum
fob chain37 simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance
alone and not by meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do. It was even
worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like
him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty–one dollars they
took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his
watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the
watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly38 on account of the old leather strap
that he used in place of a chain39.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason.
She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages
made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a
mammoth task.

29
She wore or put on her old brown jacket
30
She wore or put on her old brown hat
31
With a quick turn
32
Walk with quick, light movements.
33
She went up one step of the stairs in the entrance of the shop
34
She got her clothes and her hair correct.
35
To pant is how you breathe after you have run for a period of time.
36
To plunder, to raid, to loot, to pillage. To search through every part of
37
A chain used in a watch
38
Without nobody noticing
39
This sentence means that he did not show the watch because it had an old, ugly leather strap
(instead of a chain) and he was ashamed of it.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close–lying curls that made her
look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy40. She looked at her reflection in the mirror
long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll
say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! what could I do
with a dollar and eighty–seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying–pan was on the back of the stove hot
and ready to cook the chops41.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the
table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away
down on the first flight42, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of
saying a little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she
whispered43: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious.
Poor fellow, he was only twenty–two—and to be burdened with a family44! He
needed a new overcoat45 and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter46 at the scent of quail47. His eyes
were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and
it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the
sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that
peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled48 off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold
because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow
out again—you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast.
Say `Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a
beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent
fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

40
A boy that does not go to school.
41
a small piece of meat cut from the ribs of a sheep or pig.
42
The first flight of a stair is the first part of the stair.
43
To speak very softly, using your breath rather than your throat, so that only one
person can hear you.
44
To have the responsibility of having to feed a family
45
a thick warm coat that you wear in winter.
46
A type of dog
47
a type of small bird which is often shot and eaten.
48
To twist and turn quickly
“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me
without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s
Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head
were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever
count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded49 his Della. For ten seconds
let us regard50 with discreet scrutiny51 some inconsequential52 object in the other
direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year— what is the difference? A
mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable
gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package53 from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in
the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less.
But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble54 tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of
joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating
the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had
worshipped55 long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with
jewelled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished56 hair. They were
expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over
them57 without the least hope of possession58. And now, they were hers, but the
tresses59 that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes
and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

49
If you enfold someone or something, you hold them close in a very gentle, loving way.
50
If you regard someone in a certain way, you look at them in that way.
51
With discreet scrutiny means with discreet observation.
52
Not important
53
Put a package visible for Della
54
agile
55
If you worship someone or something, you love them or admire them very much.
56
That had dissappeared
57
She had really, really wanted to buy them
58
But she knew she would never buy them because she did not have the necessary money
59
A woman's tresses are her long flowing hair.
And then Della leaped up60 like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly61 upon her
open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and
ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy62, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time
a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down63 on the couch and put his hands under the back
of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em a while64.
They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your
combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to
the Babe in the manger65. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being
wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in
case of duplication. And here I have lamely66 related to you the uneventful67 chronicle
of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest
treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of
all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as
they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi68.

60
Stood up with a jump.
61
Happily.
62
Elegant and beautiful (she means her gift to him).
63
Fell heavily.
64
Keep them at a distance for a while.
65
The manger is the pace where Jesus Christ was born.
66
Poorly, weakly
67
Boring, monotonous
68
The magi are the three kings that gave gold , frankincense and myrrh to Jesus Christ when he was
born.
The End of the Party
THE AUTHOR
Graham Greene was born in 1904. Educated at Oxford University, he then worked for
various newspapers, was an intelligence agent in the Second World War, and frequently
travelled in remote and dangerous places. He wrote novels, short stories, plays, and
travel books. Among his lighter novels, which Greene called 'entertainments', are
Stamboul Train, A Gun for Sale, Our Man in Havana, and The Third Man, which was
made into a famous film. Greene himself preferred his other novels, which reflect his
intense interest in religious and moral issues (he was a Roman Catholic convert). These
powerful and sombre novels include Brighton Rock, The Power and the Glory, The End
of the Affair, The Heart of the Matter, A Burnt-out Case, and The Human Factor.
Greene died in 1991.

THE STORY
Fear is an emotion that can be aroused by almost anything. 'I will show you fear in a
handful of dust,' wrote T. S. Eliot in his famous poem The Waste Land. Fear is not easy
to explain, and often even harder to admit to — especially for children, who might have
to face both the dismissive incomprehension of adults and the mocking scorn of other
children.
Francis and his twin brother, Peter, are going to a children's party, where they will be
obliged to play noisy games with the other children. Francis, unable to explain to
anyone his paralysing fear of the dark, anticipates with secret horror the worst of these
games — hide and seek, in the dark. Peter, instinctively aware of his twin's inarticulate
terror, tries hard to protect him . . .
The End of the Party
Peter Morton woke with a start to face the first light. Rain tapped against the glass69.
It was January the fifth. He looked across a table on which a night-light70 had guttered
71
into a pool of water, at the other bed. Francis Morton was still asleep, and Peter lay
down again with his eyes on his brother. It amused him to imagine it was himself whom
he watched, the same hair, the same eyes, the same lips and line of cheek. But the
thought palled72, and the mind went back to the fact which lent the day importance. It
was the fifth of January. He could hardly believe a year had passed since Mrs Henne-
Falcon had given her last children's party.

Francis turned suddenly upon his back and threw an arm across his face, blocking his
mouth. Peter's heart began to beat fast, not with pleasure now but with uneasiness73. He
sat up and called across the table, 'Wake up.' Francis's shoulders shook and he waved a
clenched fist in the air, but his eyes remained closed. To Peter Morton the whole room
seemed to darken, and he had the impression of a great bird swooping. He cried again,
'Wake up,' and once more there was silver light and the touch of rain on the windows.
Francis rubbed his eyes. 'Did you call out?' he asked.

'You are having a bad dream,' Peter said. Already experience had taught him how far
their minds reflected each other. But he was the elder, by a matter of minutes74, and
that brief extra interval of light, while his brother still struggled in pain and darkness,
had given him self-reliance and an instinct of protection towards the other who was
afraid of so many things. 'I dreamed that I was dead,' Francis said. 'What was it like?'
Peter asked. 'I can't remember,' Francis said. 'You dreamed of a big bird.'

'Did I?'

The two lay silent in bed facing each other, the same green eyes, the same nose tilting at
the tip, the same firm lips, and the same premature modelling of the chin. The fifth of
January, Peter thought again, his mind drifting idly from the image of cakes to the
prizes which might be won. Egg-and-spoon races, spearing apples in basins of water,
blind man's buff75*.

'I don't want to go,' Francis said suddenly. 'I suppose Joyce will be there . . . Mabel
Warren.' Hateful to him, the thought of a party shared with those two. They were older
than he. Joyce was eleven and Mabel Warren thirteen. The long pigtails76 swung

69
If rain taps against the glass (of your window), it makes a noise in the glass.
70
a small, slow-burning candle, used in children's bedrooms at night in case they wake up and are
frightened by the dark.
71
Gutted: melted
72
Diminished,
73
Nervousness, agitation
74
This sentence means that both brothers are twins, but Peter was older than his brother for a
questions of minutes.
75
a children's game in which a player whose eyes are covered tries to catch and identify the other
players.
76
long hair tied together in two lengths at the back of the head.
superciliously77 to a masculine stride. Their sex humiliated him, as they watched him
fumble78 with his egg, from under lowered scornful lids. And last year ... he turned his
face away from Peter, his cheeks scarlet.

'What's the matter?' Peter asked.

'Oh, nothing. I don't think I'm well. I've got a cold. I oughtn't to go to the party.'

Peter was puzzled79. 'But Francis, is it a bad cold?'

'It will be a bad cold if I go to the party. Perhaps I shall die.'

'Then you mustn't go,' Peter said, prepared to solve all difficulties with one plain
sentence, and Francis let his nerves relax, ready to leave everything to Peter. But though
he was grateful he did not turn his face towards his brother. His cheeks still bore the
badge of a shameful memory, of the game of hide and seek last year in the darkened
house, and of how he had screamed when Mabel Warren put her hand suddenly upon
his arm. He had not heard her coming. Girls were like that. Their shoes never squeaked.
No boards whined under the tread80. They slunk like cats on padded claws.

When the nurse81"' came in with hot water Francis lay tranquil leaving everything to
Peter.

Peter said, 'Nurse, Francis has got a cold.'

The tall starched82 woman laid the towels across the cans and said, without turning,
'The washing won't be back till tomorrow. You must lend him some of your
handkerchiefs.'

'But, Nurse,' Peter asked, 'hadn't he better stay in bed?'

'We'll take him for a good walk this morning,' the nurse said. 'Wind'll blow away the
germs. Get up now, both of you,' and she closed the door behind her.

I’m sorry,' Peter said. "Why don't you just stay in bed? I'll tell mother you felt too ill to
get up.' But rebellion against destiny was not in Francis's power. If he stayed in bed they
would come up and tap his chest and put a thermometer in his mouth and look at his
tongue, and they would discover he was malingering83. It was true he felt ill, a sick
empty sensation in his stomach and a rapidly beating heart, but he knew the cause was
only fear, fear of the party, fear of being made to hide by himself in the dark,
uncompanioned by Peter and with no night-light to make a blessed breach.

77
Arrogantly.
78
Mess up, to make a mistake.
79
Confused.
80
The wooden floor did not make any noise.
81
a short form of nursemaid, a woman or girl employed to look after babies or small children in their
own homes
82
Decorous, correct
83
Being lazy.
'No, I'll get up,' he said, and then with sudden desperation, 'But I won't go to Mrs
Henne-Falcon's party. I swear on the Bible I won't.' Now surely all would be well, he
thought. God would not allow him to break so solemn an oath84. He would show him a
way. There was all the morning before him and all the afternoon until four o'clock. No
need to worry when the grass was still crisp with the early frost. Anything might
happen. He might cut himself or break his leg or really catch a bad cold. God would
manage somehow.

He had such confidence in God that when at breakfast his mother said, ‘I hear you have
a cold, Francis,' he made light of it. 'We should have heard more about it,' his mother
said with irony, 'if there was not a party this evening,' and Francis smiled, amazed and
daunted85 by her ignorance of him. His happiness would have lasted longer if, out for a
walk that morning, he had not met Joyce. He was alone with his nurse, for Peter had
leave86 to finish a rabbit-hutch87 in the woodshed. If Peter had been there he would have
cared less; the nurse was Peter's nurse also, but now it was as though she were
employed only for his sake, because he could not be trusted to go for a walk alone.
Joyce was only two years older and she was by herself.

She came striding88 towards them, pigtails flapping. She glanced scornfully89 at
Francis and spoke with ostentation to the nurse. 'Hello, Nurse. Are you bringing Francis
to the party this evening? Mabel and I are coming.' And she was off again down the
street in the direction of Mabel Warren's home, consciously alone and self-sufficient in
the long empty road. 'Such a nice girl,' the nurse said. But Francis was silent, feeling
again the jump-jump of his heart, realizing how soon the hour of the party would arrive.
God had done nothing for him, and the minutes flew.

They flew too quickly to plan any evasion, or even to prepare his heart for the coming
ordeal90. Panic nearly overcame91 him when, all unready92, he found himself standing
on the doorstep, with coat-collar93 turned up against a cold wind, and the nurse's
electric torch making a short trail through the darkness. Behind him were the lights of
the hall and the sound of a servant laying the table for dinner, which his mother and
father would eat alone. He was nearly overcome by the desire to run back into the house
and call out to his mother that he would not go to the party, that he dared not go. They
could not make him go. He could almost hear himself saying those final words,
breaking down for ever the barrier of ignorance which saved his mind from his parents'
knowledge, ‘I’m afraid of going. I won't go. I daren't go. They'll make me hide in the

84
Solemn promise.
85
Intimidated.
86
To have leave is “to have permission.”

87
88
walking
89
Disrespectfully, disdainfully.
90
torment
91
Overwhelmed, incapacitated.
92
Unprepared.
93
A type of coat that people wear when it is cold outside.
dark, and I'm afraid of the dark. I'll scream and scream and scream.' He could see the
expression of amazement on his mother's face, and then the cold confidence of a grown-
up's retort94.

'Don't be silly. You must go. We've accepted Mrs Henne-Falcon's invitation.' But they
couldn't make him go; hesitating on the doorstep while the nurse's feet crunched across
the frost-covered grass to the gate, he knew that. He would answer: 'You can say I'm ill.
I won't go. I'm afraid of the dark.' And his mother: 'Don't be silly. You know there's
nothing to be afraid of in the dark.' But he knew the falsity of that reasoning; he knew
how they taught also that there was nothing to fear in death, and how fearfully they
avoided the idea of it. But they couldn't make him go to the party. 'I'll scream. I'll
scream.'

'Francis, come along.' He heard the nurse's voice across the dimly phosphorescent lawn
and saw the yellow circle of her torch wheel from tree to shrub. 'I'm coming,' he called
with despair; he couldn't bring himself to lay bare his last secrets and end reserve
between his mother and himself, for there was still in the last resort a further appeal
possible to Mrs Hennc-Falcon. He comforted himself with that, as he advanced steadily
across the hall, very small, towards her enormous bulk. His heart beat unevenly, but he
had control now over his voice, as he said with meticulous accent, 'Good evening, Mrs
Henne-Falcon. It was very good of you to ask me to your party.' With his strained
face95 lifted towards the curve of her breasts, and his polite set speech, he was like an
old withered man. As a twin he was in many ways an only child. To address Peter was
to speak to his own image in a mirror, an image a little altered by a flaw in the glass, so
as to throw back less a likeness of what he was than of what he wished to be, what he
would be without his unreasoning fear of darkness, footsteps of strangers, the flight of
bats in dusk-filled gardens.

'Sweet child,' said Mrs Henne-Falcon absent-mindedly, before, with a wave of her arms,
as though the children were a flock of chickens, she whirled them into her set
programme of entertainments: egg-and-spoon races, three-legged races, the spearing of
apples, games which held for Francis nothing worse than humiliation. And in the
frequent intervals when nothing was required of him and he could stand alone in corners
as far removed as possible from Mabel Warren's scornful gaze, he was able to plan how
he might avoid the approaching terror of the dark. He knew there was nothing to fear
until after tea, and not until he was sitting down in a pool of yellow radiance cast by the
ten candles on Colin Henne-Falcon's birthday cake did he become fully conscious of the
imminence of what he feared. He heard Joyce's high voice down the table, 'After tea we
are going to play hide and seek in the dark.'
'Oh, no,' Peter said, watching Francis's troubled face, 'don't let's. We play that every
year.'

'But it's in the programme,' cried Mabel Warren. 'I saw it myself. I looked over Mrs
Henne-Falcon's shoulder. Five o'clock tea. A quarter to six to half past, hide and seek in
the dark. It's all written down in the programme.'
Peter did not argue, for if hide and seek had been inserted in Mrs Henne-Falcon's
programme, nothing which he could say would avert it. He asked for another piece of
birthday cake and sipped his tea slowly. Perhaps it might be possible to delay the game
94
Reply, response.
95
Tense face, stressed face.
for a quarter of an hour, allow Francis at least a few extra minutes to form a plan, but
even in that Peter failed, for children were already leaving the table in twos and threes.
It was his third failure, and again he saw a great bird darken his brother’s face with its
wings. But he upbraided himself silently for folly and finished his cake encouraged by
the memory of that adult refrain, ‘there’s nothing to fear in the dark.' The last to leave
the table, the brothers came together to the hall to meet the mustering and impatient
eyes of Mrs Henne-Falcon.

'And now,' she said, we will play hide and seek in the dark.' Peter watched his brother
and saw the lips tighten. Francis, he knew, had feared this moment from the beginning
of the party, had tried to meet it with courage and had abandoned the attempt. He must
have prayed for cunning to evade the game, which was now welcomed with cries of
excitement by all the other children. 'Oh, do let's.' 'We must pick sides.' 'Is any of the
house out of bounds?' 'Where shall home96 be?'

'I think,' said Francis Morton, approaching Mrs Henne-Falcon, his eyes focused
unwaveringly97 on her exuberant breasts, 'it will be no use my playing. My nurse will
be calling for me very soon.'

'Oh, but your nurse can wait, Francis,' said Mrs Henne-Falcon, while she clapped her
hands together to summon98 to her side a few children who were already straying up the
wide staircase to upper floors. 'Your mother will never mind.'

That had been the limit of Francis's cunning99. He had refused to believe that so well
prepared an excuse could fail. All that he could say now, still in the precise tone which
other children hated, thinking it a symbol of conceit100, was, 'I think I had better not
play.' He stood motionless, retaining, though afraid, unmoved features. But the
knowledge of his terror, or the reflection of the terror itself, reached his brother's brain.
For the moment, Peter Morton could have cried aloud with the fear of bright lights
going out, leaving him alone in an island of dark surrounded by the gentle lappings of
strange footsteps. Then he remembered that the fear was not his own, but his brother's.
He said impulsively to Mrs Henne-Falcon, 'Please, I don't think Francis should play.
The dark makes him jump so101.' They were the wrong words. Six children began to
sing, 'Cowardy cowardy custard102"',' turning torturing faces with the vacancy of wide
sunflowers towards Francis Morton.

Without looking at his brother, Francis said, 'Of course I'll play. I'm not afraid, I only
thought…' But he was already forgotten by his human tormentors. The children
scrambled round Mrs Henne-Falcon, their shrill voices pecking at her with questions
and suggestions. 'Yes, anywhere in the house. We will turn out all the lights. Yes, you

96
in children's games, such as hide and seek or games of chase, 'home' is the agreed place where you
are safe from being chased or caught.
97
Firmly.
98
(Here) To call.
99
Astute moment.
100
Arrogance.
101
Scares him so much.
102
a taunt used by children when they think someone is scared (“custard” is yellow, and yellow is the
colour associated with cowardice)
can hide in the cupboards. You must stay hidden as long as you can. There will be no
home103.'

Peter stood apart, ashamed of the clumsy manner104 in which he had tried to help his
brother. Now he could feel, creeping in at the corners of his brain, all Francis's
resentment of his championing105. Several children ran upstairs, and the lights on the
top floor went out. Darkness came down like the wings of a bat and settled on the
landing. Others began to put out the lights at the edge of the hall, till the children were
all gathered in the central radiance of the chandelier, while the bats squatted round on
hooded wings and waited for that, too, to be extinguished.

'You and Francis are on the hiding side,' a tall girl said, and then the light was gone, and
the carpet wavered under his feet with the sibilance of footfalls, like small cold
draughts, creeping away into corners.

'Where's Francis?' he wondered. 'If I join him he'll be less frightened of all these
sounds.' 'These sounds were the casing of silence: the squeak of a loose board, the
cautious closing of a cupboard door, the whine of a finger drawn along polished wood.
Peter stood in the centre of the dark deserted floor, not listening but waiting for the idea
of his brother's whereabouts106 to enter his brain. But Francis crouched107 with
fingers on his ears, eyes uselessly closed, mind numbed against impressions, and only a
sense of strain108 could cross the gap of dark. Then a voice called 'Coming', and as
though his brother's self-possession109 had been shattered110 by the sudden cry, Peter
Morton jumped with his fear. But it was not his own fear. What in his brother was a
burning panic was in him an altruistic emotion that left the reason unimpaired. 'Where,
if I were Francis, should I hide?' And because he was, if not Francis himself, at least a
mirror to him, the answer was immediate. 'Between the oak bookcase on the left of the
study door, and the leather settee111.' Between the twins there could be no jargon of
telepathy. They had been together in the womb112, and they could not be parted.

Peter Morton tiptoed towards Francis's hiding-place. Occasionally a board rattled, and
because he feared to be caught by one of the soft questers through the dark, he bent and
untied his laces. A tag struck the floor and the metallic sound set a host of cautious feet
moving in his direction. But by that time he was in his stockings113 and would have
laughed inwardly at the pursuit had not the noise of someone stumbling on his
abandoned shoes made his heart trip. No more boards revealed Peter Morton's progress.
On stockinged feet he moved silently and unerringly towards his object. Instinct told
him he was near the wall, and, extending a hand, he laid the fingers across his brother's
face.
103
in children's games, such as hide and seek or games of chase, 'home' is the agreed place where you
are safe from being chased or caught.
104
Inept way
105
defense
106
His brother’s location
107
Bent.
108
tension
109
Self-confidence
110
devastated
111
sofa
112
In her mother’s stomach
113
He did not have his shoes on
Francis did not cry out, but the leap of his own heart revealed to Peter a proportion of
Francis's terror. 'It's all right,' he whispered, feeling down the squatting figure114 until
he captured a clenched hand115. 'It's only me. I'll stay with you.' And grasping the other
tightly, he listened to the cascade of whispers his utterance had caused to fall. A hand
touched the book-case close to Peter's head and he was aware of how Francis's fear
continued in spite of his presence. It was less intense, more bearable116, he hoped, but it
remained. He knew that it was his brother's fear and not his own that he experienced.
The dark to him was only an absence of light; the groping hand that of a familiar child.
Patiently he waited to be found.

He did not speak again, for between Francis and himself was the most intimate
communion. By way of joined hands, thought could flow more swiftly117 than lips
could shape themselves round words. He could experience the whole progress of his
brother's emotion, from the leap of panic at the unexpected contact to the steady pulse
of fear, which now went on and on with the regularity of a heartbeat. Peter Morton
thought with intensity, I am here. You needn't be afraid. The lights will go on again
soon. That rustle118, that movement is nothing to fear. Only Joyce, only Mabel Warren.'
He bombarded the drooping form with thoughts of safety, but he was conscious that the
fear continued. 'They are beginning to whisper together. They are tired of looking for
us. The lights will go on soon. We shall have won. Don't be afraid. That was someone
on the stairs. I believe it's Mrs Henne-Falcon. Listen. They are feeling for the lights.'
Feet moving on a carpet, hands brushing a wall, a curtain pulled apart, a clicking
handle, the opening of a cupboard door. In the case above their heads a loose book
shifted under a touch. 'Only Joyce, only Mabel Warren, only Mrs Henne-Falcon,' a
crescendo of reassuring thought119 before the chandelier burst, like a fruit-tree, into
bloom.

The voices of the children rose shrilly120 into the radiance121. 'Where's Peter?' 'Have
you looked upstairs?' 'Where's Francis?' but they were silenced again by Mrs Henne-
Falcon's scream. But she was not the first to notice Francis Morton's stillness122, where
he had collapsed against the wall at the touch of his brother's hand. Peter continued to
hold the clenched fingers in an arid and puzzled grief123. It was not merely124 that his
brother was dead. His brain, too young to realize the full paradox, wondered with an
obscure self-pity why it was that the pulse of his brother's fear went on and on, when
Francis was now where he had always been told there was no more terror and no more
darkness.

114
The bent hidden figure
115
A compressed, rigid hand
116
tolerable
117
More quickly
118
Whisper, noise
119
More and more comforting thought
120
stridently
121
happiness
122
Baffled, confusing motionlessness, immobility
123
Sorrow, pain
124
only
A Glowing Future

The Author

Ruth Rendell was born in 1930, and worked for some time as a journalist. Her
traditional detective novels include From Doon with Death, The Speaker of Mandarin,
Wolf to the Slaughter. These feature Detective Chief Inspector Wexford, a steady,
unshockable policeman, who solves crimes in an imaginary Sussex village; the
television series of Inspector Wexford mysteries is extremely popular. She also writes
chilling psychological thrillers, grim stories of obsession and paranoia, such as A
Judgement in Stone and Talking to Strange Men. Among her collections of short stories
are The Fever Tree, The Fallen Curtain, and The New Girlfriend. She has won several
awards for her work, and her books have been translated into many languages.

The Story

Some murders are planned beforehand, in cold blood, and there is usually little
sympathy for that kind of murderer. But some murders are not planned; they happen on
the spur of the moment, in the heat and rage and despair of some terrible passion.
Sometimes the victim has provoked that passion, and a plea of provocation is entered in
the murderer's defence.

Maurice has a wonderful future in front of him - a three-month tour of Europe, seeing
the sights and the girls, then back to Australia to a job, marriage, and a responsible
family life. There is just one thing he has to do before he sets off from London - collect
his belongings from the flat he used to share with Betsy ...
A Glowing Future
‘Six should be enough,' he said. 'We'll say six tea chests125, then, and one trunk126. If
you'll deliver them tomorrow, I'll get the stuff all packed and maybe your people could
pick them up Wednesday.' He made a note on a bit of paper. 'Fine,' he said. 'Round
about lunchtime tomorrow.'

She hadn't moved. She was still sitting in the big oak-armed chair at the far end of the
room. He made himself look at her and he managed a kind of grin127, pretending all
was well.

'No trouble,' he said. 'They're very efficient.'

'I couldn't believe,' she said, 'that you'd really do it. Not until I heard you on the phone. I
wouldn't have thought it possible. You'll really pack up all those things and have them
sent off to her.'

They were going to have to go over128 it all again. Of course they were. It wouldn't stop
until he'd got the things out and himself out, away from London and her for good129.
And he wasn't going to argue or make long defensive speeches. He lit a cigarette and
waited for her to begin, thinking that the pubs would be opening in an hour's time and
he could go out then and get a drink.

'I don't understand why you came here at all,' she said.

He didn't answer. He was still holding the cigarette box, and now he closed its lid,
feeling the coolness of the onyx on his fingertips.

She had gone white. 'Just to get your things? Maurice, did you come back just for that?'

'They are my things,' he said evenly.

'You could have sent someone else. Even if you'd written to me and asked me to do it -'

'I never write letters,' he said.

She moved then. She made a little fluttering with her hand in front of her mouth. 'As if I
didn't know!' She gasped, and making a great effort she steadied her voice. 'You were in
Australia for a year, a whole year, and you never wrote to me once.'

125
Chest of tea: Small box to put the tea there.

126
A trunk:
127
A type of smile
128
revise
129
forever
'I phoned.'

'Yes, twice. The first time to say you loved me and missed me and were longing to
come back to me and would I wait for you and there wasn't anyone else was there? And
the second time, a week ago, to say you'd be here by Saturday and could I - could I put
you up130. My God, I'd lived with you for two years, we were practically married, and
then you phone and ask if I could put you up!'

'Words,' he said. 'How would you have put it?'

'For one thing, I'd have mentioned Patricia. Oh, yes, I'd have mentioned her. I'd have
had the decency, the common humanity, for that. D'you know what I thought when you
said you were coming? I ought to know by now how peculiar he is, I thought, how
detached131, not writing or phoning or anything. But that's Maurice, that's the man I
love, and he's coming back to me and we'll get married and I'm so happy!'

'I did tell you about Patricia.'

'Not until after you'd made love to me first.'

He winced132. It had been a mistake, that. Of course he hadn't meant to touch her
beyond the requisite greeting kiss. But she was very attractive and he was used to her
and she seemed to expect it - and oh, what the hell. Women never could understand
about men and sex. And there was only one bed, wasn't there? A hell of a scene there'd
have been that first night if he'd suggested sleeping on the sofa in here.

'You made love to me,' she said. 'You were so passionate, it was just like it used to be,
and then the next morning you told me. You'd got a resident's permit to stay in
Australia, you'd got a job all fixed up, you'd met a girl you wanted to marry. Just like
that you told me, over breakfast. Have you ever been smashed in the face, Maurice?
Have you ever had your dreams trodden on?'

'Would you rather I'd waited longer? As for being smashed in the face -' he rubbed his
cheekbone '- that's quite a punch you pack.'

She shuddered. She got up and began slowly and stiffly to pace the room. 'I hardly
touched you. I wish I'd killed you!' By a small table she stopped. There was a china
figurine on it, a bronze paperknife, an onyx pen jar that matched the ashtray. 'All those
things,' she said. 'I looked after them for you. I treasured them. And now you're going to
have them all shipped out to her. The things we lived with. I used to look at them and
think, Maurice bought that when we went to - oh God, I can't believe it. Sent to her!'

He nodded, staring at her. 'You can keep the big stuff,' he said. 'You're specially
welcome to the sofa. I've tried sleeping on it for two nights and I never want to see the
bloody thing again.'

130
To accomodate in your house for only some days.
131
Separate, disconnected
132
He made a serious, angry face
She picked up the china figurine and hurled it at him. It didn't hit him because he
ducked and let it smash against the wall, just missing a framed drawing. 'Mind the
Lowry*,' he said laconically, 'I paid a lot of money for that.'

She flung herself onto the sofa and burst into sobs. She thrashed about, hammering the
cushions with her fists. He wasn't going to be moved by that - he wasn't going to be
moved at all. Once he'd packed those things, he'd be off to spend the next three months
touring Europe. A free man, free for the sights and the fun and the girls, for a last fling
of wild oats*. After that, back to Patricia and a home and a job and responsibility. It was
a glowing future which this hysterical woman wasn't going to mess up.

'Shut up, Betsy, for God's sake,' he said. He shook her roughly by the shoulder, and then
he went out because it was now eleven and he could get a drink.

Betsy made herself some coffee and washed her swollen eyes. She walked about,
looking at the ornaments and the books, the glasses and vases and lamps, which he
would take from her tomorrow. It wasn't that she much minded losing them, the things
themselves, but the barrenness which would be left, and the knowing that they would all
be Patricia's.

In the night she had got up, found his wallet, taken out the photographs of Patricia, and
torn them up. But she remembered the face, pretty and hard and greedy, and she thought
of those bright eyes widening as Patricia unpacked the tea chests, the predatory hands
scrabbling for more treasures in the trunk. Doing it all perhaps before Maurice himself
got there, arranging the lamps and the glasses and the ornaments in their home for his
delight when at last he came.

He would marry her, of course. I suppose she thinks he's faithful to her, Betsy thought,
the way I once thought he was faithful to me. I know better now. Poor stupid fool, she
doesn't know what he did the first moment he was alone with her, or what he would do
in France and Italy. That would be a nice wedding present to give her, wouldn't it, along
with all the pretty bric-a-brac in the trunk?

Well, why not? Why not rock their marriage before it had even begun? A letter. A letter
to be concealed in, say, that blue-and-white ginger jar. She sat down to write. Dear
Patricia -what a stupid way to begin, the way you had to begin a letter even to your
enemy.

Dear Patricia: I don't know what Maurice has told you about me, but we have been
living here as lovers ever since he arrived. To be more explicit, I mean we have made
love, have slept together. Maurice is incapable of being faithful to anyone. If you don't
believe me, ask yourself why, if he didn't want me, he didn't stay in a hotel. That's all.
Yours - and she signed her name and felt a little better, well enough and steady enough
to take a bath and get herself some lunch.

Six tea chests and a trunk arrived on the following day. The chests smelled of tea and
had drifts of tea leaves lying in the bottom of them. The trunk was made of silver-
coloured metal and had clasps of gold-coloured metal. It was rather a beautiful object,
five feet long, three feet high, two feet wide, and the lid fitted so securely it seemed a
hermetic sealing.
Maurice began to pack at two o'clock. He used tissue paper and newspapers. He filled
the tea chests with kitchen equipment and cups and plates and cutlery, with books, with
those clothes of his he had left behind him a year before. Studiously, and with a certain
grim pleasure, he avoided everything Betsy might have insisted was hers - the poor
cheap things, the stainless steel spoons and forks, the Woolworth pottery, the awful
coloured sheets, red and orange and olive, that he had always loathed. He and Patricia
would sleep in white linen.

Betsy didn't help him. She watched, chain-smoking. He nailed the lids on the chests and
on each lid he wrote in white paint his address in Australia. But he didn't paint in the
letters of his own name. He painted Patricia's. This wasn't done to needle Betsy but he
was glad to see it was needling her.

He hadn't come back to the flat till one that morning, and of course he didn't have a key.
Betsy had refused to let him in, had left him down there in the street, and he had to sit in
the car he'd hired till seven. She looked as if she hadn't slept either. Miss Patricia
Gordon, he wrote, painting fast and skilfully.

'Don't forget your ginger jar,' said Betsy. 'I don't want it.' 'That's for the trunk.' Miss
Patricia Gordon, 23 Burwood Park Avenue, Kew, Victoria, Australia 3101. 'All the
pretty things are going in the trunk. I intend it as a special present for Patricia.' The
Lowry came down and was carefully padded and wrapped.

He wrapped the onyx ashtray and the pen jar, the alabaster bowl the bronze paperknife,
the tiny Chinese cups, the tall hock glasses The china figurine, alas ... he opened the lid
of the trunk.

'I hope the customs open it!' Betsy shouted at him. 'I hope they confiscate things and
break things! I'll pray every night for it tc go to the bottom of the sea before it gets
there!'

'The sea,' he said, 'is a risk I must take. As for the customs -' He smiled. 'Patricia works
for them, she's a customs officer -didn't I tell you? I very much doubt if they'll even
glance inside.' He wrote a label and pasted it on the side of the trunk. Miss Patricia
Gordon, 23 Burwood Park Avenue, Kew ... 'And now I'll have to go out and get a
padlock. Keys, please. If you try to keep me out this time, I'll call the police. I'm still the
legal tenant of this flat remember.'
She gave him the keys. When he had gone she put her letter in the ginger jar. She hoped
he would close the trunk at once, but he didn't. He left it open, the lid thrown back, the
new padlock dangling from the gold-coloured clasp. 'Is there anything to eat?' he said.

'Go and find your own bloody food! Go and find some other woman to feed you!'

He liked her to be angry and fierce; it was her love he feared. He came back at midnight
to find the flat in darkness, and he lay down on the sofa with the tea chests standing
about him like defences, like barricades, the white paint showing faintly in the dark.
Miss Patricia Gordon ...
Presently Betsy came in. She didn't put on the light. She wound her way between the
chests, carrying a candle in a saucer which she set down on the trunk. In the candlelight,
wearing a long white nightgown, she looked like a ghost, like some wandering
madwoman, a Mrs Rochester*, a Woman in White*. 'Maurice.'

'Go away, Betsy, I'm tired.'

'Maurice, please. I'm sorry I said all those things. I'm sorry I locked you out.'

'OK, I'm sorry too. It's a mess, and maybe I shouldn't have done it the way I did. But the
best way is for me just to go and my things to go and make a clean split. Right? And
now will you please be a good girl and go away and let me get some sleep?'
What happened next he hadn't bargained for. It hadn't crossed his mind. Men don't
understand about women and sex. She threw herself on him, clumsily, hungrily. She
pulled his shirt open and began kissing his neck and his chest, holding his head,
crushing her mouth to his mouth, lying on top of him and gripping his legs with her
knees.
He gave her a savage push. He kicked her away, and she fell and struck her head on the
side of the trunk. The candle fell off, flared and died in a pool of wax. In the darkness he
cursed floridly. He put on the light and she got up, holding her head where there was a
little blood.

'Oh, get out, for God's sake,' he said, and he manhandled her out, slamming the door
after her.

In the morning, when she came into the room, a blue bruise on her forehead, he was
asleep, fully clothed, spread-eagled on his back. She shuddered at the sight of him. She
began to get breakfast but she couldn't eat anything. The coffee made her gag and a
great nauseous shiver went through her. When she went back to him he was sitting up
on the sofa, looking at his plane ticket to Paris.

'The men are coming for the stuff at ten,' he said as if nothing had happened, 'and they'd
better not be late. I have to be at the airport at noon.'

She shrugged. She had been to the depths and she thought he couldn't hurt her any
more.

'You'd better close the trunk,' she said absent-mindedly. 'All in good time.' His eyes
gleamed. 'I've got a letter to put in yet.'

Her head bowed, the place where it was bruised sore and swollen, she looked
loweringly at him. 'You never write letters.'

'Just a note. One can't send a present without a note to accompany it, can one?'

He pulled the ginger jar out of the trunk, screwed up her letter without even glancing at
it, and threw it on the floor. Rapidly yet ostentatiously and making sure that Betsy could
see, he scrawled across a sheet of paper: All this is for you, darling Patricia, for ever and
ever. 'How I hate you,' she said.
'You could have fooled me.' He took a large angle lamp out of the trunk and set it on the
floor. He slipped the note into the ginger jar, rewrapped it, tucked the jar in between the
towels and cushions which padded the fragile objects. 'Hatred isn't the word I'd use to
describe the way you came after me last night.'

She made no answer. Perhaps he should have put a heavy object like that lamp in one of
the chests, perhaps he should open up one of the chests now. He turned round for the
lamp. It wasn't there. She was holding it in both hands.

'I want that, please.'

'Have you ever been smashed in the face, Maurice?' she said breathlessly, and she raised
the lamp and struck him with it full on the forehead. He staggered and she struck him
again, and again and again, raining blows on his face and his head. He screamed. He
sagged, covering his face with bloody hands. Then with all her strength she gave him a
great swinging blow and he fell to his knees, rolled over and at last was stilled and
silenced.

There was quite a lot of blood, though it quickly stopped flowing. She stood there
looking at him and she was sobbing. Had she been sobbing all the time? She was
covered with blood. She tore off her clothes and dropped them in a heap around her. For
a moment she knelt beside him, naked and weeping, rocking backwards and forwards,
speaking his name, biting her fingers that were sticky with his blood.
But self-preservation is the primal instinct, more powerful than love or sorrow, hatred or
regret. The time was nine o'clock, and in an hour those men would come. Betsy fetched
water in a bucket, detergent, cloths and a sponge. The hard work, the great cleansing,
stopped her tears, quieted her heart and dulled her thoughts. She thought of nothing,
working frenziedly, her mind a blank.

When bucket after bucket of reddish water had been poured down the sink and the
carpet was soaked but clean, the lamp washed and dried and polished, she threw her
clothes into the basket in the bathroom and had a bath. She dressed carefully and
brushed her hair. Eight minutes to ten. Everything was clean and she had opened the
window, but the dead thing still lay there on a pile of reddened newspapers.
'I loved him,' she said aloud, and she clenched her fists. 'I hated him.'

The men were punctual. They came at ten sharp. They carried the six tea chests and the
silver-coloured trunk with the gold-coloured clasps downstairs.

When they had gone and their van had driven away, Betsy sat down on the sofa. She
looked at the angle lamp, the onyx pen jar and ashtray, the ginger jar, the alabaster
bowls, the hock glasses, the bronze paperknife, the little Chinese cups, and the Lowry
that was back on the wall. She was quite calm now and she didn't really need the brandy
she had poured for herself.

Of the past she thought not at all and the present seemed to exist only as a palpable
nothingness, a thick silence that lay around her. She thought of the future, of three
months hence, and into the silence she let forth a steady, rather toneless peal of laughter.
Miss Patricia Gordon, 23 Burwood Park Avenue, Kew, Victoria, Australia 3101. The
pretty, greedy, hard face, the hands so eager to undo that padlock and prise open those
golden clasps to find the treasure within …

And how interesting that treasure would be in three months' time, like nothing Miss
Patricia Gordon had seen in all her life! It was as well, so that she would recognize it,
that it carried on top of it a note in a familiar hand: All this is for you, darling Patricia,
for ever and ever.