Hilary returned to Rushloe in a happy daze.  For the rest of the term, she didn’t do as well with her essays as she had last term, and, in fact, she was finding it very difficult to think about anything other than Andy.  Now she had her own room, she spent long periods dancing about in her small room to Radio 1, thinking about Andy.  Several times a week, Christine came up to the top floor and invited herself in for a cup of coffee, and, Hilary was amazed to discover, she didn’t dislike Christine as much nowadays.  A few weeks later, Hilary stayed with Caroline in London again and she and Andy fell straight back into each other’s arms. 

The Conservatives had lost the Election, or, as Hilary thought of it, Caroline had lost the Election, although only just.  No party had gained an overall majority, and, for several days, Mr Heath had tried to cobble together some sort of coalition from which he could form a government.  He had got as far as Buckingham Palace, but had never returned, leaving his precious grand piano at Downing Street for smug Harold Wilson and his pipe.  Margaret told Hilary that she imagined pipe ash dropping on rosewood, and, when she returned home for the Easter vacation, Hilary noticed how protective Margaret had become of her own upright piano in the dining room, adjusting the embroidered runner on the top several times a day.  The dining room always had been Margaret's room, the dining table folded down and leaning against the bookshelves which contained the books Margaret read, and the diaries she wrote, in her armchair, catching the evening sunlight from the French window.  In here, Downing Street seemed a million miles away. 

Caroline was visiting grandparents in Salisbury and Andy's term hadn't yet finished, so the first few days of Hilary's vacation were very quiet.  She thought about Andy constantly, about him returning home on Saturday - only 2 days now!  He rang her on Thursday evening.  “Mum wants me to stay in for a family dinner tomorrow evening, with Granny and Grandad Newton.  I'll see you in church on Sunday, then Mum’s invited Granny Pullen to Sunday lunch.”

Hilary was cross and disappointed.  “He doesn’t belong to you exclusively,” said Margaret.

“It’s Constance!” Hilary exclaimed.  “She doesn’t want me to go out with Andy!  I saw her in the Co-op yesterday and she didn’t speak to me.” 

“Rubbish!”  Margaret fixed her firmly with her dark brown eyes.  “And don’t waste time making an enemy out of Connie!”

Hilary said nothing.

Margaret set a vase of daffodils down on top of the piano.  “Connie and I are down to do church cleaning tomorrow morning.  Can you help, please?”  Margaret never gave orders, but you couldn't decline her requests.  “Granny normally helps but she’s very tired at present.  My dear sister Barbara keeps ringing in the middle of the night with all her problems!”

This would be a Barbara Crisis.  They had Barbara Crises about every two or three years.  “What is it, this time?”

“Oh, the usual!  Your Uncle Brian going off surfing all weekend and your cousins going out with the wrong girlfriends!  Nothing earth shattering! You would think, wouldn’t you, that after having lived in Australia for over twenty years, she would have worked out the time difference when ringing Granny to have a moan?”

The church cleaning rota was organised by Mrs Dove of Great Hall, Water Langley’s oldest resident.  Being invited to join it was a great honour, preceded by the summons to Great Hall, to drink dishwater-strength, lukewarm tea in Crown Derby cups and to hear about Mr Dove (deceased 1949) and Lady Lavinia (circa 1950) who had cleaned the church every day for a fortnight.  An even greater privilege, said Mrs Dove, was to do the church flowers, flowers from your own garden, of course.  A rule of thumb for checking the church cleaning rota was to see whose garden was completely denuded, but, when Margaret and Hilary arrived in church that morning, Caroline's mother, Julia, was offering Constance a basket of daffodils from her garden.  The three mothers stood about chatting, about children, as mothers always do, while Hilary dusted the pews, trying to appear not to be listening.

“Caroline says her lecturers give her a hard time because they are Marxists, Communists, whatever the difference is,” said Julia.

“What did she expect when she went to LSE?” Constance retorted.

“Caroline gets particularly annoyed with anyone who says that Jesus was the first Communist.”

“A man cannot serve two masters.  Either he loves the first and hates the second, or he loves the second and hates the first,” Margaret commented.  “We may talk about “sending the rich empty away” and camels and eyes of needles, but there’s more to God than that.”

“Bill Macready, he used to preach about camels and eyes of needles,” said Constance.

“Who was Bill Macready?” asked Julia.

“Bill Macready was curate here about twenty years ago.  He was Irish, tactless, High Church and very charismatic,” said Margaret.  “He’s now apparently a college chaplain in Northern Ireland.  Hilary's evangelical room-mate was praying for him last term.”

“My father-in-law used to say Bill was a Communist,” said Constance.

“Connie, your father really was a Communist,” responded Margaret.

Constance drew in her breath sharply.  “My poor father had suffered terribly in the Great War, in the trenches,” she explained, aside, to Julia.  “He was shell-shocked.”

“Good morning, ladies!”  called the vicar, the Reverend Jim Bailey.  “Splendid work going on here, I see!  Margaret, can I speak to you, please?”  Jim led Margaret over to the Lady Chapel, where choir practice took place and where Hilary was crouched behind the piano, sweeping up cracked plaster.  “I've had social services on the phone,” said Jim, “someone called Carrie who is working with the Pearce family.”

“Oh yes.”

“She said that Sharon Pearce’s saying that someone at church is talking about … er … prostitution.”

“The oldest profession, Jim?”

“Er, yes.  She had to check that Sharon and Davina Pearce hadn’t been in … er … moral danger.”

“Moral danger?  In church?”

“She was a bit unclear about what Sharon was actually saying.”

“Well, I can confirm that no one in the choir is on the game.”

Jim Bailey looked discomforted.  Margaret was ten years older than he and, in all his previous experience, nice, church-going, middle-aged ladies didn’t say “on the game”.

“Prostitution is mentioned in the Bible frequently,” Margaret added. 

“Yes, but Margaret, your name was mentioned, I'm afraid.”

“I'm not on the game.” 

“No, Margaret, please … I didn’t think … Really!”  He opened his diary, which was what he always did when he was stuck for a reply. 

“This social worker said that Sharon Pearce had said that she had heard the organist ... you … talking about welcoming prostitutes and tax collectors into church.  Little Sharon thought you were referring to her family.  Apparently, she was very upset.”

“Really!”  Margaret marched into the Chancel and flicked furiously through fine, blue-edged pages of the big Bible on the lectern.  “Matthew 9. You’ll find Jesus dining with tax collectors and sinners.  Then He had perfume poured over His feet by a woman, who, by inference, was a hooker, lady-of-the-night, tart or something like that!  Sharon has been listening to the lessons in church, the first member of the junior choir ever to do so.”

Jim opened his diary again.  “I have to go … er …meeting with …”

As he closed the ancient, creaky church door after him, Margaret picked up her duster again. “Remind me, Connie.   Why do we need clergy?” she asked, over the sound of Constance banging the pew ends with her broom.

“To administer the sacraments,” Constance replied.

“Oh, is that it?”

“Margaret, did you have to talk about my father … in front of Julia?”  (Caroline's mother had now left.)

“Your father wasn’t exactly shy about telling people his political views, Connie,” said Margaret, “When we were children, in Bottom Lane, I thought you had an “Uncle Joe”, whom I'd never met.”

Constance pursed her lips.  “Julia didn’t need to know that.  She’s only been here a dog-watch.”

“The Bryants arrived the summer Hilary and Caroline went to grammar school.”

“But we were born here.”

Like Margaret, Connie Pullen had grown up in a terraced house in Bottom Lane, with her father, Stanley, St Catherine’s eccentric verger, and her mother, Elsie, who “took in washing” to make ends meet.  A bright child, Connie had achieved the “scholarship” which had paid her grammar school fees, but, as her parents couldn’t afford to buy her uniform, Mrs Rayner had made Margaret's and Connie’s uniform on her treadle sewing machine.  After leaving school at sixteen, both girls had attended secretarial college and Connie had subsequently worked at Newton & Ellis, country solicitors, in Langton, as a shorthand-typist.  When the senior partner’s son had returned from the war and joined the firm, Constance had married him.

“And, Margaret, I wouldn’t be talking too much about Bill Macready, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“My cleaner, Mrs Watts, she lives in the Council houses, next door to where the Pearces used to live.” 

“Well?”

Constance raised her eyebrows.  “You didn’t expect the Pearces to be pathetically grateful to you for inviting them into the choir, did you?  It wasn’t their scene, you know.”

“I don’t see why not.  God isn't there just for the people who attend church.”

“The Pearces, they’ve been saying things.”

Margaret shrugged.  “Not that old chestnut again!”

Constance raised her eyebrows.

 “Connie, Bill was High Church and he was celibate – as you well know.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“You were in love with Bill.” 

Was she, thought Hilary.  She had been about to stand up and carry her dust pan outside, but now she hesitated.

“Mary Magdalene was in love with Jesus.”

Constance was shocked.  “Margaret, really!”

“Nothing happened between me and Bill, nothing I'm ashamed of.  Take my word.”

“I'll take your word, Margaret,” said Constance, “but you don’t want Hilary hearing any of this, do you?” 

But Hilary had heard and Hilary had made the connection. 

“Nothing happened that I'm ashamed of,” Margaret repeated levelly.

So why did she have an Irish name, Hilary wondered.