They stepped past the gravestone, and the view changed immediately. Clapham was still there but it had faded; it had lost its hard edges and become softer. The buildings were still there and so were the people and the cars, but they had become translucent. They had become ghosts of themselves. The noise of the real world was still there too, but only just. It was a distant echo of itself, like the real world heard through the spout of a teapot. After the noise of everyday London the quiet hum of the road was unsettling, but they soon got used to it.
Ahead of them stretched a cobbled-stone pathway that led out from the church boundaries, across the common and southwards. The Saints walked in two lines on opposite sides of the road. Occasionally they would turn and look out onto the faded o
