After the service, Andy said he would see Hilary after lunch with Granny Pullen, at about four.  “If it’s Granny Pullen,” said Margaret, as they left the church, “we’d better hurry up with our lunch.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Hilary.

Father Bernard was saying goodbye to the congregation at the West Door.  “Nice to see you again, Hilary.  Where is it you are at university?”

“Rushloe.”

“Well, I hope you have found a nice church in Rushloe.  And your father, Hilary?  Will we be seeing your father in church over Easter?”  Had Father Bernard lived in the sixteenth century, there would have been no need for Recusancy Laws. 

Margaret was not as enthusiastic about traditional Sunday lunch as Constance.   The Sabbath Day, she said, is about worshipping God, not sweating in the kitchen over roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.  She made quiche, jacket potatoes and salad, and, when Margaret made quiche, the texture was like silk, falling like blancmange on to the plate.  They were finishing clearing away and Frank was settling down to “The Big Match” on ITV, when Margaret said to Hilary, “You’d better put your face on.”

“It’s only half past two …  Mum!  Andy's here!” 

“You get let off the washing up?” Margaret asked, opening the door to him.

“Granny Pullen said she didn’t feel very well and wanted to go home,” he replied.  “As usual!”

Margaret smiled a knowing smile.  “So Connie is spitting because she’s made sponge cake for afternoon tea.  And Granny Pullen will be right as rain tomorrow.”

Andy grinned.  “Yep!”

“Go on, you two,” said Margaret.  “You’ve got some catching up to do.”

They walked down the Chamberlain Drive, turned left into the Langton Road, past the shops in Langley Parade and into Church Square, past the church, the village hall, the pub … several feet apart.  It was Sunday afternoon, and the whole of Water Langley was taking its constitutional: people in old clothes and Wellingtons walking dogs; people in their best clothes walking off Sunday lunch with relatives and those “old friends” who are almost like relatives; horse-riding girls in jodhpurs; Edna with flowers bundled up in newspaper on her way to her parents’ grave. 

Still several feet apart, they took the path to the Recky, where toddlers were playing on swings and roundabouts, over a rough wooden stile and on to the fields.  About 100 yards from the stile and The Recky, she grabbed his hand and he pulled her closer to him.  They walked on, and when the Water Langley back gardens had diminished to small distant dots, they stopped and kissed.  They walked on to the spinney by the Lang Brook, where Hilary and Caroline had played during Caroline’s first summer in Water Langley, and afterwards, as teenagers, when they had needed to be away from the grown-ups.  Together at last, they sat down in a dry, brown, crunchy pile of last season’s leaves, leaning against a tree trunk. 

A heavy droplet of water spatted on to the ground … and another one.  Well, it wasn’t raining much.  What was a bit of rain to two people in love?  But then it came down in stair-rods and they had to run back to the village.  Back home, Hilary went to her room to change out of her wet clothes, and when she returned downstairs, Andy was watching “The Big Match” on ITV with Frank and getting quite engrossed. 

It didn’t rain for the whole of the Easter vacation.  Hilary and Andy spent a lot of time together in the spinney by Lang Brook in the warm sunshine, his arm around her waist, even when they were just talking, and his hand riding under her T-shirt and up her back.  Once, he managed to get his hand on her breast but, before she pushed him off, she felt a surge of intense, dangerous pleasure.  ”Water Langley is just over there!” she told him.  Yes, it was 1974, but how far was she supposed to go?

They walked back to the village, not speaking, not even holding hands.  As they were about to climb over the stile to the Recky, he grabbed her hand.  “Hil, I love you very much.”

“I love you too, but I'm not going to …”

“I wouldn’t ask you to.  I'm Water Langley too!” 

She didn’t know what he meant and he didn’t know what she meant, but he became more restrained.  In retrospect, Andy was relieved that Hilary had applied the brake.  Things had been getting out of control and Andy Newton didn’t like being out of control. 

Caroline returned to Water Langley from Salisbury in an old Mini, donated to her by her grandmother, who had given up driving.  Great excitement!  Caroline wanted to drive all the time and would have taken Hilary shopping in Chenham every day.  “You should be driving too,” said Margaret to Hilary.  “You had all those driving lessons last year and never took your test.  You can practise in my car.”  With Andy now spending his mornings revising for his summer exams, Hilary drove her mother’s Triumph Herald every morning, practising reversing and 3-point turns. 

The Easter holidays were fast running out.  “You’re not giving yourself a break,” said Hilary the next time she saw Andy beside the Lang Brook again.  “You just work, work, work.”

“I've got to!” 

She wound his arm around her waist, on the outside of her T-shirt.  “I haven't done any revision yet.”

His mouth dropped open.  “Hil!”

“We have lectures for just 2 weeks this term, then study leave, so I'll revise then.”

“Well, we have lectures right until the exams.  And we’re starting a whole new topic next term, pharmacology.”

“Anyway, I can't concentrate.”  She hesitated.  It seemed a bit wet to say, “Because I keep day-dreaming about you.”

“You’ll do better when you’re back in Rushloe.  And I'll do better when I'm back in London next week.”

“You’ll be OK.  You work so hard.”

“I’ve got to work hard, Hil.  Because I'm thick!”

“You are not thick!”

He shrugged and pulled himself away from her clasp.  “Aren’t I?”  He stared into Lang Brook, hearing the water trickle over the clean stones.  “You know that I love you … don’t you?” 

“Yes.”

“Hil, please … give me some space to revise and do these exams.”

She frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“Well … I … you can't come up to London this term.”

“Andy!”

“Next term’s only seven weeks, and you’ve got exams yourself.”

“No, Andy!”

“Hil, I can't see you.  I've got so much revision.”

She yanked out a stalk of grass.  “Andy, I can't not see you all term!”

“We’re distracting each other.  You can't revise and I’m not getting on very well.  Led Zeppelin and Genesis just about keep me at it.  You’ve got to let me go back to London and ... just do it.”

“I love you.  I want to be with you.”

“Then you’ll let me go.  I'll write to you and, when the exams are over, we’ll be back in Water Langley … Oh Hil, don’t cry!”

Hilary and Andy saw each other during the next few days, but it wasn’t the same.  Soon it was Sunday afternoon, and they were standing in the Newtons’ drive, the axels of John’s car sinking with the weight of Andy’s luggage.  She had been sobbing against his T-shirt and had created a big damp patch, an angry souvenir of herself.

“Andy, you look a sight,” said Constance, when he climbed into the car. “No, don’t go and get changed.  We’re late enough as it is.  We’ll get caught in the traffic on the way back,”

Then they were gone and the drive empty, except for Constance’s car, the Newtons’ ancient Labrador, Blackie, and Robert, standing in the front doorway.  “When do you go back to Cambridge?” asked Hilary, wiping her eyes on her tissue.

“A week on Monday.”

Why did Oxbridge students always have more holiday than everyone else?  “I'd better be going,” she said.

“I'm going to walk Blackie.”

“I'll walk with you as far as the Recky,” she said.  It was on her route home anyway.

He hesitated on the doorstep.  “I have to lock the house.”

Locking up took ten minutes and Hilary was beginning to wish she hadn't waited when Robert reappeared.  They walked a few paces down the drive then Robert stopped.  “I haven't checked the cooker.”

“What?”

“I haven't checked that the cooker is off.”

“Your mum would have done it,” said Hilary.

“I'd better go and look.”  Leaving Hilary holding the dog’s lead, he disappeared back into the house.

“Was it switched off?” she asked, when he returned.

“Yes, all the switches were upright - that’s the “off” position.”  He stopped again.  “I didn’t check the mains switch.”  Back he went.

The dog, having relieved himself against a tree in the Newtons’ garden, had slumped on to the front lawn, and, when Robert re-opened the front door, he lumbered up and dragged himself and Hilary inside.  The phone was ringing.  Hilary waited for Robert to answer it but he didn’t and the caller rang off - then started up again a few seconds later.  In frustration, Hilary answered the telephone herself. 

“Hil!” cried Andy, over call-box pips.  “What are you doing here?”  She explained.  “Oh, Robert’s like that, and he never answers the phone.  Hil, could you just check in the conservatory?  I think I left the fan-heater on.”

She rushed into the conservatory.  The fan-heater was switched off.  In fact, the plug had been pulled out.

The following afternoon, Hilary returned to Rushloe.  The big news at Crofton Hall was that Amy was engaged, to Phil, with whom she had been going out since the sixth form, and she was wearing the tiniest of diamond solitaire rings.  Bryony was very disapproving, told Hilary that she, Bryony, was going to have a career, and, in so many words, their elder sisters had burned their bras for nothing. 

Hilary meanwhile settled into university life, lectures and revision, better than she had expected.  It was easier to concentrate now, in Rushloe, in her little room on the top floor.  Andy had been right.  She was also taking more driving lessons, something Margaret had fixed up at the last minute at the beginning of term, and Mrs Greenwood, the Rushloe driving instructor, entered Hilary for the test.  Hilary worried more about her driving test than she did her end of term university exams.  Yes, she revised for them.  Yes, she did her best in her exams, but she was, she knew, not brilliant, not a failure, just OK.

Hilary took her driving test on the very last day of term.  She was driving out the test centre into the main road when a cat ran in front of her and forced her to make an unscripted emergency stop.  She then overshot the left turning which the examiner asked her to take, and had to reverse into a garage forecourt to turn the car round.  Now quite sure she had failed, Hilary relaxed.  Most people didn’t pass their driving test first time anyway. 

“I am very pleased to inform you that you have been successful,” said the examiner, in his deadpan examiner’s voice, as she parked outside the test centre.

Hilary gulped.  Had he said “successful” or “unsuccessful”?

“I am now writing out a form, which you must send off, with your provisional licence, to DVLC in Swansea,” he went on, sounding even more like a dalek.

On the way back to Crofton Hall, Hilary hit the kerb twice.