Behind it there was the canal, which wasn't used any more, except as a rubbish dump; old prams and busted televisions and erupting settees lined its banks like monsters from the Garbage Age. Then on one side there was the crematorium and its Garden of Remembrance, which was all right in a

gravel-pathed, keep-off-the-grass sort of way. In front was Cemetery Road, which had once had houses on the other side of it; now there was the back wall of the Bonanza Carpet (Save .....11) Warehouse. There was still an old phone box and a letter box, which suggested that once upon a time this had been a place that people thought of as home. But now it was just a road you cut through to get to the bypass from the industrial estate.

On the fourth side was nothing much except a wasteground of fallen brick and one tall chimney - all that remained of the Blackbury Rubber Boot Company ('If It's a Boot, It's a Blackbury' had been one of the most famously stupid slogans in the world.)

Johnny vaguely remembered there'd been some- thing in the papers. People had been protesting about something - but then, they always were. There was always so much news going on you never had time to find out anything important.

He walked round to the old factory site. Bull- dozers were parked around it now, although they were all empty. There was a wire fence which had been broken down here and there despite the notices about Guard Dogs on Patrol. Perhaps the guard dogs had broken out.

And there was a big sign, showing the office building that was going to be built on the site. It was beautiful. There were fountains in front of it, and quite old trees carefully placed here and there, and neat people standing chatting outside it. And the sky above it was a glorious blue, which was pretty unusual for Blackbury, where most of the time the sky was that odd, soapy colour you'd get if you lived in a Tupperware box.