'They're burning again,' the waitress said. 'Damnsmell gets everywhere.'

'What are they burning?'

'Used to be the community centre. They're knockingit down, and building a new one. It's a waste of tax-payers' money.'

The smoke was indeed creeping into the restaurant.Elaine did not find it offensive; it was sweetly redolentof autumn, her favourite season. Intrigued, she finishedher tea, paid for her meal, and then elected to wanderalong and find the source of the smoke. She didn't havefar to walk. At the end of the street was a small square;the demolition site dominated it. There was one surprisehowever. The building that the waitress had described asa community centre was in fact a church; or had been.The lead and slates had already been stripped off theroof, leaving the joists bare to the sky; the windows hadbeen denuded of glass; the turf had gone from the lawnat the side of the building, and two trees had been felledthere. It was their pyre which provided the tantalisingscent.

She doubted if the building had ever been beautiful,but there was enough of its structure remaining for herto suppose it might have had charm. Its weathered stonewas now completely at variance with the brick andconcrete that surrounded it, but its besieged situation(the workmen labouring to undo it; the bulldozer onhand, hungry for rubble) gave it a certain glamour.

One or two of the workmen noticed her standingwatching them, but none made any move to stop heras she walked across the square to the front porch ofthe church and peered inside. The interior, strippedof its decorative stonework, of pulpit, pews, font andthe rest, was simply a stone room, completely lackingin atmosphere or authority. Somebody, however, hadfound a source of interest here. At the far end of thechurch a man stood with his back to Elaine, staringintently at the ground. Hearing footsteps behind himhe looked round guiltily.

'Oh,' he said. 'I won't be a moment.'

'It's all right -' Elaine said. 'I think we're probablyboth trespassing.'

The man nodded. He was dressed soberly - evendrearily - but for his green bow-tie. His features, despitethe garb and the grey hairs of a man in middle-age, werecuriously unlined, as though neither smile nor frownmuch ruffled their perfect indifference.

'Sad, isn't it?' he said. 'Seeing a place like this.'

'Did you know the church as it used to be?'

'I came in on occasion,' he said, 'but it was never verypopular.'

'What's it called?'

'All Saints. It was built in the late seventeenthcentury, I believe. Are you fond of churches?'

'Not particularly. It was just that I saw the smoke,and ...'

'Everybody likes a demolition scene,' he said.

'Yes,' she replied, 'I suppose that's true.'

'It's like watching a funeral. Better them than us,eh?'

She murmured something in agreement, her mindflitting elsewhere. Back to the hospital. To her pain andher present healing. To her life saved only by losing thecapacity for further life. Better them than us.

'My name's Kavanagh,' he said, covering the shortdistance between them, his hand extended.

'How do you do?' she said. Tm Elaine Rider.'

'Elaine,' he said. 'Charming.'

'Are you just taking a final look at the place before itcomes down?'

'That's right. I've been looking at the inscriptions onthe floor stones. Some of them are most eloquent.' Hebrushed a fragment of timber off one of the tabletswith his foot. 'It seems such a loss. I'm sure they'lljust smash the stones to smithereens when they startto pull the floor up -'

She looked down at the patchwork of tablets beneathher feet. Not all were marked, and of those that weremany simply carried names and dates. There weresome inscriptions however. One, to the left of whereKavanagh was standing, carried an all but eroded reliefof crossed shin-bones, like drum-sticks, and the abruptmotto: Redeem the time.

'I think there must have been a crypt under here atsome time,' Kavanagh said.

'Oh. I see. And these are the people who were buriedthere.'

'Well, I can't think of any other reason for theinscriptions, can you? I was thinking of asking the workmen ...' he paused in mid-sentence, '... you'llprobably think this positively morbid of me ..."

'What?'

'Well, just to preserve one or two of the finer stonesfrom being destroyed.'

'I don't think that's morbid,' she said. They're verybeautiful.'

He was evidently encouraged by her response. 'MaybeI should speak with them now,' he said. 'Would youexcuse me for a moment?'

He left her standing in the nave like a forsaken bride,while he went out to quiz one of the workmen. Shewandered down to where the altar had been, readingthe names as she went. Who knew or cared about thesepeople's resting places now? Dead two hundred yearsand more, and gone away not into loving posteritybut into oblivion. And suddenly the unarticulatedhopes for an after-life she had nursed through herthirty-four years slipped away; she was no longerweighed down by some vague ambition for heaven.Ont day, perhaps this day, she would die, just asthese people had died, and it wouldn't matter ajot. There was nothing to come, nothing to aspireto, nothing to dream of. She stood in a patch ofsmoke-thickened sun, thinking of this, and was almosthappy.

Kavanagh returned from his exchanges with theforeman.

'There is indeed a crypt,' he said, 'but it hasn't beenemptied yet.'

'Oh.'

They were still underfoot, she thought. Dust andbones.

'Apparently they're having some difficulty gettinginto it. All the entrances have been sealed up. That'swhy they're digging around the foundations. To findanother way in.'

'Are crypts normally sealed up?'

'Not as thoroughly as this one.'

'Maybe there was no more room,' she said.

Kavanagh took the comment quite seriously. 'Maybe,'he said.

'Will they give you one of the stones?'

He shook his head. 'It's not up to them to say. Theseare just council lackeys. Apparently they have a firm ofprofessional excavators to come in and shift the bodiesto new burial sites. It all has to be done with duedecorum.'

'Much they care,' Elaine said, looking down at thestones again.

'I must agree,' Kavanagh replied. 'It all seems inexcess of the facts. But then perhaps we're not God-fearing enough.'

'Probably.'

'Anyhow, they told me to come back in a day or two'stime, and ask the removal men.'

She laughed at the thought of the dead moving house;packing up their goods and chattels. Kavanagh waspleased to have made a joke, even if it had beenunintentional. Riding on the crest of this success, hesaid: 'I wonder, may I take you for a drink?'

'I wouldn't be very good company, I'm afraid,' shesaid. 'I'm really very tired.'

'We could perhaps meet later,' he said.

She looked away from his eager face. He was pleasantenough, in his uneventful way. She liked his greenbow-tie - surely a joke at the expense of his owndrabness. She liked his seriousness too. But shecouldn't face the idea of drinking with him; at leastnot tonight. She made her apologies, and explainedthat she'd been ill recently and hadn't recovered herstamina.

'Another night perhaps?' he enquired gently. Thelack of aggression in his courtship was persuasive, andshe said:

That would be nice. Thank you.'

Before they parted they exchanged telephone num-bers. He seemed charmingly excited by the thought oftheir meeting again; it made her feel, despite all that hadbeen taken from her, that she still had her sex.

She returned to the flat to find both a parcel fromMitch and a hungry cat on the doorstep. She fed thedemanding animal, then made herself some coffee andopened the parcel. In it, cocooned in several layersof tissue paper, she found a silk scarf, chosen withMitch's uncanny eye for her taste. The note alongwith it simply said: It's your colour. I love you. Mitch.She wanted to pick up the telephone on the spot andtalk to him, but somehow the thought of hearinghis voice seemed dangerous. Too close to the hurt,perhaps. He would ask her how she felt, and shewould reply that she was well, and he would insist:yes, but really? And she would say: I'm empty; theytook out half my innards, damn you, and I'll neverhave your children or anybody else's, so that's theend of that, isn't it? Even thinking about their talkingshe felt tears threaten, and in a fit of inexplicable rageshe wrapped the scarf up in the desiccated paper andburied it at the back of her deepest drawer. Damnhim for trying to make things better now, when atthe time she'd most needed him all he'd talked ofwas fatherhood, and how her tumours would deny ithim.