Death on the Holy Mountain

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The box was brown and tightly bound with string. It sat happily on a small table in the front hall of the Powerscourt residence in London’s Chelsea. Indeed it looked as if the person in charge of wrapping the parcel believed it would only survive the journey if virtually encased in strong twine. The top had so many lines criss-crossing it that it resembled a master cobweb. Occasional loops under the knots bore witness to the fact that the wrapper might have preferred a different profession, pastry cook perhaps, or ornamental plasterer. Lord Francis Powerscourt approached the object gingerly. The box bore his name on the front. He knew what was inside. He felt reluctant to open it. Maybe, he said to himself, the expectation is always better than the reality. And he knew that one of the many divisions into which the world’s population is split – those who can whistle and those who can’t, those who adore Venice and those who complain about the smell, those who can order drinks in theatre bars at the interval and those who can’t – was the distinction between those who can unwrap parcels neatly and those who can’t. Powerscourt knew that his wife Lucy would have the thing open, the string tied neatly into a ball, the box itself virtually intact and available for reuse, in a minute or two. And he knew, as night followed day, that his own efforts would be similar to those of his three-year-old twins, torn strips of cardboard lying all over the floor, pieces of string also strewn on the ground to trip the unwary, a general sense of mess and disorder. Sighing slightly, he opened the drawer of the table and brought out a pair of scissors. Why did they have to put on so much bloody string? he said to himself after a few minutes, with only three of the fetters broken.

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