But – and I had to get up and start wandering about the small room to sort this out – the sudden realization that I actually was capable of hatred, and hatred of my own brother, rather winded me. The strange dream, vision, what you will, of the golden figure standing among the blackness and the storm disturbed me greatly. For the first time in my life I had become aware of the darkness which was a part of that carefree, golden, adored creature.

All was not as I had imagined. My resentment started from the moment that I had, at the age of – what? – twelve, thereabouts, first seen Elpie coming towards me carrying this raw, crumpled creature, fists flailing, mouth wide in toothless fury, silent, wobbling head supported by her hand.

Watching Elpie, my late beloved sister, cradling and cooing over the ewe lamb made me weak with anger. But hate? I was never remotely aware. I always considered myself to be a reasonable, sensible, evenly balanced person. It shattered me to discover that I had been growing a tumour unawares, and that now the poison had made itself manifest, and it was out in the open.

A relief in fact. I felt stronger for the knowledge that I could be positive. For if anything else, hate is a positive reaction, and one that I had never considered before.

Standing at the window, looking down into the night, over the backyard, across the drying-line to the shadowed cliffs, I realized that I had at last come of age. All the

emotions were mine now. I had gone through life like an unfinished crossword. Perfectly all right, almost complete, until you took a good look and saw the blank. Only four letters.

Hate.

I just thought you should know that.

I did, eventually, get some sleep, awakened only, at first light, by the cockerel in the yard. Nightmares, as you probably know, have a very happy tendency to dissolve almost on waking. For a moment one lies in shaking horror, and then, with almost a cry of relief, one realizes that it was ‘Only a dream’. Well, mine had faded a good deal. Almost nothing remained of chasms, ravens and towering crags. But the strange vision of James, glowing like phosphorescent amoeba in the wake of a ship, standing naked and golden in the centre of pulsating glory! – that remained. The rest had gone. Hands were dry, brow unwrinkled. I lay for a bit in the pale morning, the cockerel crying. Somewhere in the house a tap running, a lavatory chain pulled. Day had started.