"Aye. First one were interred in 1836. So… most of the coffins were well rotted. Soon as you tried to lift 'em," — he made a wet crackling sound — " they just

folded — just folded like wet cardboard boxes. And everything — everything spilled out into a heap." The gravedigger waited for the young man's reaction.

"Jesus." He wiped his mouth as if something small but extremely unpleasant had just buzzed into it. "You must have a strong stomach."

The gravedigger recognized the infection in the young man's voice. Disquiet, distaste, unease. He eyed the electrician up and down. I floppy white hat, slack mouth and wide-eyed gormless look signaled, here was a lad who'd believe anything; the kind that cropped up on every factory floor, in every shop and office, who, when asked, would conscientiously hurry to the storeman to ask for the long-wait, or the jar of elbow-grease, or packet of Featherlite. The gravedigger had been steeling himself for a dull afternoon of ten Woodbines, five cups of tea and a solo darts tournament, but a faulty freezer in the cemetery store-cum-restroom, and fate, had brought entertainment in the shape of the young electrician who was, realized the gravedigger, as green as he was cabbage-looking. "I'm just brewing up. You'll want a wet when you've done."

"Oh, ta. Trouble is with this unit, it's been too near the window. Direct sunlight makes them overheat. Shouldn't take long though." He looked round the untidy, brick floored room. Spades, shovels, picks, rusting iron bars leaned into dusty corners, fading graveyard plans curled away from the corrugated iron walls; at the far end was a table cluttered with chipped mugs, cigarette cartons, stained milk bottles; above, an asbestos ceiling punctuated by dozens of tiny corpses — spiders that had died and been mummified by the dry air.

"Are the others out, you know, digging?" asked the electrician conversationally.