The Children of Men by P. D. James Page A

designated urban districts where the Warden had promised that light and power would be provided, if possible, until the end.
    The solitary house which he remembered still stood in its garden to the right of the church and Theo saw to his surprise that it was at least partly occupied. The windows were curtained, there was a thin trail of smoke from the chimney and to the left of the path some attempt had been made to clear the earth of the knee-high grasses and to cultivate a vegetable garden. A few shrivelled runner beans still hung from the supporting sticks and there were uneven rows of cabbages and yellowing, half-picked Brussels sprouts. During his visits as an undergraduate he remembered regretting that the peace of the church and the house, which it was difficult to believe were so close to the city, had been spoiled by the loud, ceaseless roar from the M40 motorway. Now thatnuisance was hardly noticeable and the house seemed wrapped in an ageless calm.
    It was broken when the door burst open and an elderly man in a faded cassock precipitated himself out and came squawking and stumbling down the path, waving his arms as if to repel recalcitrant beasts. He called out in a quavering voice: “No service! No service today. I’ve got a christening at eleven o’clock.”
    Theo said: “I’m not attending a service, I’m just visiting.”
    “That’s all they ever do. Or so they say. But I shall want the font at eleven. All out then. Everyone out except the christening party.”
    “I don’t expect to be here as late as that. Are you the parish priest?”
    He came close and glared at Theo with fierce paranoid eyes. Theo thought that he had never seen anyone so old, the skull stretching the paper-thin, mottled skin of his face as if death couldn’t wait to claim him.
    The old man said: “They had a black Mass here last Wednesday, singing and shouting all night. That’s not right. I can’t stop it, but I don’t approve. And they don’t clear up after themselves—blood, feathers, wine all over the floor. And black candle-grease. You can’t get it out. It won’t come out, you know. And it’s all left for me to do. They don’t think. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”
    Theo said: “Why don’t you keep the church locked?”
    The old man became conspiratorial. “Because they’ve taken the key, that’s why. And I know who’s got it. Oh yes, I know.” He turned and stumbled, muttering, towards the house, wheeling round at the door to shout a final warning. “Out at eleven o’clock. Unless you’re coming to the christening. All out by eleven.”
    Theo made his way to the church. It was a small stone building and with its short twin-belled turret it looked very like an unpretentious stone house with a single chimney stack. The churchyard was as overgrown as a long-neglected field. The grass was tall and pale, as hay and ivy had leached over the gravestones, obliterating the names. Somewhere in this tangled wilderness was the well of St. Frideswide, once a place of pilgrimage. A modern pilgrim would have difficulty in finding it. But the church was obviously visited. On either side of the porch was a terra-cotta pot containing a single rose bush, the stems now denuded but still bearing a few starved winter-blighted buds.
    Julian was waiting for him in the porch. She didn’t hold out her hand or smile, but said, “Thank you for coming, we’re all here,” and pushed open the door. He followed her into the dim interior and was met by a strong wave of incense overlaying a more feral smell. When he had first come here, thirty years ago, he had been transported by the silence of its ageless peace, seeming to hear upon the air the echo of long-forgotten plainsong, of old imperatives and desperate prayers. All that had gone. Once it had been a place where silence was more than the absence of noise. Now it was a stone building; nothing more.
    He had expected the group to be waiting for him, standing or sitting