Standing there in that odd twilight, unleavened by near street lamp or electric light. Behind us, a plaque on the wall of the graveyard, saying that below where we stood were buried 'portions of the remains' of a woman found dismembered down Lovers Walk in 1832. This was one of a series of dismembered bodies that Brighton has thrown up from time to time on its dark internal tides, and led, in the 1930s, to this town being nicknamed 'The Queen of Slaughtering Places'.Behind us, on the haunted lawns of Preston Manor, there were marquees set up, as if in preparation for a fete. We only saw one person there, a security guard, or perhaps an ill-recognised ghost.
Back in the January of 2005, I spent a night ghost-hunting in the church here with Flo and his fiddle teacher friend Rohan. We saw nothing, but it was an interesting night. I remember coming here with Joe and Andy in the snows of December 2009, then with Jen and Lizzie in January of 2010.
After we left the churchyard, we wondered across the now dark Preston Park. In the shadows around us were the vague and excited forms of teenagers, giddy at the freedom of the tidy-park darkness.
We took the steps up Lovers Walk, and wended our way back home.
