Limestone and clay - Lesley Glaister

Nadia has been here before, at this seeping-away of hope. The other times curl behind her like the petals of a rose, all the memories, all her babies - false alarms, real pregnancies lasting only until her body rejected them. Meanwhile her boyfriend Simon is caving underground. In his dreams the dead places yield to him, the whiteness gives way the probing of his torch. Nadia knows he risks his life, a decadent death among the limestone, his bones withering in the rock. Her work is to create, to mould leather-hard clay into something beautiful. But she has not the heart for it today.