They're ill, she thought, like me. But how can everybody be ill? Her brain threatened to blank out again, a flickering hesitating light bulb in a thunderstorm, a transformer that could not take the additional load. A helmetless policeman in the midst of a bunch of teenagers, his headgear a football, the game being played under elementary rules. Kick it, watch it bounce, kick it again. The officer joined in, booted it high into the air but nobody went after it; everybody was too busy going nowhere in particular.

She told herself she could not stop here. I have to go home. Where's home? Thinking again, overloading her delicate aching thought-mechanism so that it bleeped and gave off a mass of red floaters in front of her eyes. Her home was up in the hills thirty miles away from all this madness. Jon, her husband, would be there, totally oblivious to all of this. Maybe he wouldn't even care if he did know because their marriage was finished and no doubt he had that Atkinson girl with him. A kind of mutual agreement that you came to when there was nothing else left between you. You both had lovers, made a pretence of keeping it a secret from each other but it was all a waste of time because you both knew anyway. A facade, a game you played. Go and enjoy your day's shopping, dear, I'll be OK (because Sylvia will get my lunch and I'll be able to screw her). Stop on late if you want and go to Tiffany's because you know I don't like dancing. I know you'll jive all by yourself. (If you find yourself a man for the night please don't tell me because it'll spoil our little game.)

But I want to go home! Maybe under normal circumstances she would have given way to hysteria. Women were crying and screaming all around her. Damn it, I'm going home!

She stood up again. Funny, she should have been weak, legs threatening to buckle under her, throw her back down to the ground. But she felt strong; ill but strong. It was illogical, too complicated for her to work out.

She held her bare arms out in front of her, gazed at them in revulsion. It was as though she had dipped them in a bath of scalding water, the skin peeling yet hardening, knitting together again in a strange kind of plastic coating. So rough, they didn't hurt half so much now.

Check your reflection again in that shop window. No, I don't want to see. Well, you can't stop here.

She found herself running, a crazy zig-zag sprint that took her across the road, weaving in and out of cavorting, stumbling men and women, reached the opposite pavement. A hand closed over her arm, grasped her wrist, but she threw it off. Keep going, up those steps to the church above. Don't stop.

It wasn't a church. She knew that only too well, had been in here often enough, every week in fact. St Julian's Craft Centre, much of the church edifice untouched, stalls where once there had been pews, the altar removed during the process of deconsecration. Stained glass windows that flickered brightly, had her turning her head away because her eyes hurt. So cool and refreshing, she could stop in here forever; die here!

No, you're not going to die. Pull yourself together. A man, the only occupant of the interior, features she recognised in spite of the awful disfigurement, but she had never known his name. He was to be found in here most weeks, a browser who wore a long frayed black coat, summer and winter alike, a long straggling beard giving him a bohemian appearance. Today he looked wild-eyed at her, acknowledged her with a smile that had spittle stringing down his hairy chin.

"They ... did ... this . . .'He had difficulty getting the words out, a physical effort like one who stammered, wrenching the sounds out of his throat.

'Who?' Jackie barely recognised the sound of her own voice, a nasal grunt that had her drawing in breath to refill her lungs.

He regarded her steadily, a look that said, 'You fool, you don't even know.' 'The Russians,' he said at length, leaned his full weight back against a creaking stall table.

She stared, tried to take in his words, let her own personal computer process the data, spit out the answer.

The Russians. Her mind threatened to go blank again; a familiar ominous word. The Russians! She had to fight to comprehend and it hurt. And then her smarting burning flesh went cold.

'The . . . Russians'

He nodded, closed his eyes momentarily, reminded Jackie of a drowsy bird of prey.

'Somehow. . . they've done . . . this.'His breath rasped in his throat. 'Not ... the bomb ... we wouldn't be here now if it was. Something . . . else . . . don't know . . . what.' Fighting for air, wheezing, holding hard on to that table. 'We're all going to ... die!'

The shock to her system blanked her out again and she moved away, walking unsteadily across the flagged floor, her footsteps echoing. An open door; she knew she had been through it before. A corridor; through another open door.

This time it was the aroma of cooking food which brought back her hazy powers of thinking, hit her like a whiff of smelling salts to a fainting person. Her brain whirred again, that starter-motor turning over sluggishly and just managing to fire; only just.

Of course, she was in Delany's. She came in here every week; baked jacket potato and cheese and a pot of peppermint tea. The familiar smell had revived her and in that instant she knew she had to eat. Whatever had happened to her body it still cried out for food.

The vestry restaurant in the old church was empty. Ovens steamed, a kettle was boiling dry. Jackie moved up to the counter. Everybody had gone, spilled out into the street leaving the food to spoil and waste, yielding to a sudden panic before their reasoning was blotted out. Hers would go soon, her system could not stand this stop-start much longer. Then she, too, would follow the masses, turn into a human lemming.

Some kind of nut shortcake in a long tray, divided up into square portions. She grabbed one, took a bite, chewing noisily and spilling crumbs. Christ, she was starving so she could not be as ill as she thought. A glance down at her hands and she jerked her eyes away. Her fingers were raw, thicker as though they were swollen, but not bleeding. Just unsightly, ugly.

Time wasn't on her side, any second she might click back into being a mindless moron again. Don't push too hard, thinking hurts but you've got to get the hell out of here. This place was hell. The car, it was parked on the big riverside park. She thought she knew the way, back down through the Riverside Shopping Centre and over the suspension bridge. But even if she managed to find it, would she be able to drive it? You might black out suddenly. The streets would be jammed with abandoned vehicles and crowds aimlessly blocking the way; mobs that would surely go on the rampage.

Despair. She wouldn't make it, neither could she stay here. In that case . . . and somewhere in the recesses of her confused mind she remembered the empty house in First Terrace. It was a long way from here, further than the car park down by the river, but it was out of town and maybe she would make it.

A year or two ago she used to go there quite a lot, in the days before Pauline's mother had died. A calling place, mainly to fill the afternoon in before it was time to go to Tiffany's. As far as she knew the place was still empty, some structural problems that had prevented the family from putting it on the market. Subsidence caused by the drought of 1976 had cracked the foundations and, accord-. ing to Pauline, the insurance company were being bloody awkward about it, looking for loopholes and trying to get the family to have a cosmetic job done and put it up for sale at a third of the market value. They were still arguing, which meant the place was still unoccupied. And for the moment that was the place to go.

In those few seconds before her mind fogged again Jackie had the foresight to fill her empty plastic carriers with food from the counter, scooping up anything within reach, regardless of how it broke or crumbled. The rest of that nut crumble, handfuls of fresh salad, some baked potatoes that were going cold. A morass, a bag in either hand, and then the mist came down again.