Books of Blood by Clive Barker

as though she hadn't slept in weeks, though  in fact she was sleeping long and deeply every night. Her eyesight was blurred, and there was a curious remoteness about her experiences that day that she associated with extreme fatigue, as if she were drifting further and further from the work on her desk; from her sensations, from her very thoughts. Twice that morning she caught herself speaking and then wondered who  it was who was conceiving of these words. It certainly wasn't her; she was too busy listening.
    And then, an hour after lunch, things had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. She had been called into her supervisor's office and asked to sit down.
    'Are you all right, Elaine?' Mr Chimes had asked.
    'Yes,' she'd told him. 'I'm fine.'
    There's been some concern -'
    'About what?'
                       85Chimes  looked slightly embarrassed. 'Your beha-
    viour,' he finally said. 'Please don't think I'm prying,
    Elaine. It's just that if you need some further time to recuperate -'
    'There's nothing wrong with me.'
    'But your weeping -'
    'What?'
    'The way you've been crying today. It concerns us.'
    'Cry?' she'd said. 'I don't cry.'
    The  supervisor seemed baffled. 'But you've been crying all day. You're crying now.'
    Elaine put a tentative hand to her cheek. And yes;
    yes, she was crying. Her cheek was wet. She'd stood up, shocked at her own conduct.
    'I didn't ... I didn't know,' she said. Though the words sounded preposterous, they were true. She hadn't known.  Only now, with the fact pointed out, did she taste tears in her throat and sinuses; and with that taste came a memory of when this eccentricity had begun: in front of the television the night before.
    'Why  don't you take the rest of the day off?'
    'Yes.'
    'Take the rest of the week if you'd like,' Chimes said.
    'You're a valued member of staff, Elaine; I don't have to tell you that. We don't want you coming to any harm.'
    This last remark struck home  with stinging force.
    Did  they think she was verging on suicide; was that why  she was treated with kid gloves? They were only tears she was shedding, for God's sake, and she was so indifferent to them she had not even known they were falling.
    'I'll go home,' she said. 'Thank you for your . . .
    concern.'
    The  supervisor looked at her with some dismay. 'It must have been  a very traumatic experience,' he said.
                       86 'We all understand; we really do. If you feel you want to talk about it at any time -'
    She declined, but thanked him  again and left the office.
    Face to face with herself in the mirror of the women's toilets she realised just how bad she looked. Her skin was flushed, her eyes swollen. She did what she could to conceal the signs of this painless grief, then picked up her coat and started home. As  she reached the underground  station she knew that returning to the empty flat would  not be a  wise idea. She would brood, she would  sleep (so much sleep of late, and so perfectly dreamless) but she would not improve her mental condition by either route. It was the bell of Holy Innocents, tolling in the clear afternoon, that reminded her of the smoke and the square and Mr Kavanagh.
    There, she decided, was a fit place for her to walk. She could enjoy the sunlight, and think. Maybe she would meet her admirer again.
    She found her way back to All Saints easily enough,
    but there was disappointment awaiting her. The demo-
    lition site had been cordoned off, the boundary marked by a row of posts - a red fluorescent ribbon looped between them. The site was guarded by no less than four policemen, who were ushering pedestrians towards a detour around the square. The workers and their hammers  had been exiled from the shadows of All Saints and now  a very different selection of people -
    suited and academic - occupied the zone beyond the ribbon, some in furrowed conversation, others standing on the muddy ground and staring up quizzically at the