In a gravelly square, which wasn't square at all, more of a triangle with chestnut trees already looking ragged and assuming autumnal colours, I watched an older man navigate his car to the kerb. Like me behind the wheel, he was guessing and hoping that he wasn't too close or too far as he reversed and pulled forward several times without effecting much change. His wife was encouraging, as if he were a young child learning to read, she nodded and then raised her hand to say stop. He came to a stop, she opened her door but quickly shut it again as he rolled further into the shade. Satisfied, the man shook his newspaper
open, rested it on the steering wheel and puffed at his cigarette while his wife, leaning heavily on a walking stick, prodded her way to the church steps.
I followed her in. We walked up the nave. We visited the side aisles and returned to the glass display cases with polychrome stone sculptures of what looked like Romans. We viewed them from all four angles then stood for several minutes before she turned to me and confessed,
'It is like this every day. My husband hates churches."
A car horn tooted.
"You see?"
She smiled, removed the hearing aid from her ear and slowly hobbled off to light a candle.
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