Late the following (Wednesday) evening, Hilary and Andy were together again at last.  Arm in arm, they walked the village streets in the darkness, watching the upstairs lights in the houses snuff out one by one, all except for the pub, which continued to illuminate Church Square.  They sat down in the musty-smelling church porch, cold quarry tiles under their feet, unable to see the usual notices for jumble sales and bring-and-buys, only to feel and hear.  This was all Hilary desired, to feel his body pressed against hers and to hear him say, over and over again, that he loved her, and to give her own emphatic replies.  That night, she would have let him touch her how he pleased, although he was quite restrained.  She guided his hand and he responded.

“Carry on like this and they’ll have to reconsecrate the church!” he said at last.

“Only if we went the whole way, inside the church.  And we’re not going to do that.” 

“Hil, please don’t think that I just want, you know, the physical stuff.”

“I don’t think that.”

“If I went too far, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

He told her about Robert’s graduation, about the ceremony and the silver service dinner with Granny and Grandad Newton the evening before, which Andy, his parents and Alice had been too full of Chinese lunch to eat. He related how Grandad Newton had raised a crystal glass of champagne to Robert, declaring, “This is all for you, dear boy,” and how Robert had raised his own glass, with the coaster stuck to the bottom.  He told how Grandad Newton had decided that one of their waiters was a “puff” and how Alice would have “gone off on one” but for Constance glaring at her across the table.  “Last night, we slept in a hotel in Cambridge.  Alice and I were sharing a room.  I got a right lecture from her.”

“Alice,” said Hilary, “when we were in junior choir, was always a bit bossy.”

“She bossed you around?  What do you think it was like for Robert and me?  She was telling us what to do from the moment we were born.  Now, I suppose, she bosses the passengers about, in between selling duty-frees!  But, last night ….. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was crying… sobbing.  She wouldn’t tell me why, kept saying I was her little brother and she couldn't.  I asked if she wanted Mum but she screamed, “No! No! No!” so I just sat on her bed and put my arm around her until she stopped.  Then she said the weirdest thing, that it was nice to be hugged by a bloke without it leading it to sex.”

“You’re her brother!”

“She was really upset, Hil, didn’t know what she was saying.”

“Is she still with that boyfriend, the one you wrote about at Christmas?”

“Dave?  No, thank God!  That all ended in the New Year.  She hasn’t had a boyfriend since, which is not like her, actually.  Then she went into this feminist rant, how all men are obsessed with sex and are rapists.  And how one day, they’d be able to create babies in test tubes and men wouldn’t be biologically necessary.”

Hilary shivered.  “That’s not possible, is it?”

“We haven't done gynaecology yet.”  He tightened his arm around her shoulders.  “You cold, Hil?”  All the lights in the village had gone out now, apart from the Langley Angel, which still illuminated Church Square.

“I'm OK,” she replied.  “You know, the Langley Angel is the only Water Langley business with vacancies.  But I don’t want to work there.”

“Why not?

“Well…”  She was the daughter of the organist and choirmistress of St Catherine's, Water Langley!  She couldn't morph into a Water Langley Bet Lynch, boobs tumbling all over the bar. 

“We could both apply, work together.  I need some spending money this summer and I don’t want to ask Dad.  He’s got enough to pay for - another four years at St Luke’s for me, and Robert going to the College of Law in August.  Come on.”  He got to his feet and pulled her up by the hand.  “There are people still at the pub, by the looks of things.  Let’s go now.”

“It’s very late,” she said, following him out the churchyard, across Church Square and into Church Lane.  Hilary wasn’t sure about this.  She passed the pub every time she walked to Caroline's, but, although its Suffolk pink walls were as familiar to her as her own house and the church, she had never been inside. 

Andy was peering through the tiny window in the door.  “Hil!” he cried.  “They’re having a lock-in!”

She looked too: it was quarter to one and there was George Granger, the landlord, serving a drink over the bar.  “Andy, it’s very late.”

The door was being wrenched open.  They had been spotted! “You’re from the village, aren’t you?” said George.  “Come in.”

“Er… yes,” said Andy.  “You’re advertising for bar staff.”

(“We can come back tomorrow,” offered Hilary.)

“Yes,” said George, beckoning them inside, into a long, narrow bar area, old fashioned pewter tankards hanging from dark oak beams, much worn, dark red, spiral-patterned carpet on the floor, and, on the uneven lath and plaster walls, familiar photos of Water Langley.  “Mrs Bowles’ daughter, isn't it?  Your mum played for our daughter’s wedding.”

George, the landlord for 30 years, and his wife, Joan, weren’t seen in church, and, indeed, righteousness was no more expected of these contemporary publicans than it had been of Biblical ones.  He waved his hand over the group of old men sitting by the bar with their beer, all of whom were watching Hilary and Andy.  “We’re just having a quiet drink - amongst friends.  Aren’t we?”

Bert Dodd, who lived opposite the Newtons, pointed at Andy.  “‘Is grandad’s a magistrate!”

Andy coloured.  “He’s retired from the Bench now.”

“Once a magistrate, always a magistrate,” muttered Ernie Porter, who lived in the Council houses.  They all spoke Old Essex, their voices going up at the end of every cadence, so different from the soft Cockney drawl of the South Essex suburbs.

“As long as they don’t bring the bobby’s kid with them!” muttered Ron Rowe, who lived in the next street to Hilary. 

Gillian Stevenson, the daughter of the village policeman, had been in Hilary and Andy’s class at the village school, but they wouldn’t mention that tonight.

“And your dad’s a solicitor!” added Bert.  “Them lawyers, they do all right, don’t they?  What’s your dad driving now, son?  A Jag, is it?”

“A Bentley?” joined in Ron.

“Rover, actually,” said Andy discomforted.  Hilary was discomforted with him.

“And you got that place in Spain, ‘a’n't you?” Ron went on. 

“Eh, eh…” said Bert, clicking his fingers at Andy.  “Your other grandad… he were Stan Pullen, weren’ ‘e?  You knew Stan Pullen, Ron!  Used to sit here in the Angel, with you and with me, every evening.”

Ron and Ernie frowned, thick furrows on well-lined faces.  Ernie raised his glass.  “To Connie Pullen’s boy!”  He pulled up another bar stool.  “You sit ‘ere, my lad.  And your young lady.” 

“What you having?” asked Bert, and before they could answer, he ordered, “Pint of Langley Ale, George, and lager and lime for the organist’s daughter.”

Hilary sat down, still uncomfortable.

“We could tell you a thing or two about your grandad!” Ron went on.  “Stan Pullen, ‘e were verger at the church for close on 30 years.”

“’E used to sit here,” added George, now pulling a pint, “going on about the Revolution and how the working classes were going to take over.”

“Karl Marx,” added Bert.

“And someone called Engels.

“And that Frenchie, Jean-Paul Sartre.”

“He were clever, old Stan.  Read all them books!”

“Stan, ‘e were particular about ‘is church, though.”

“‘E used to worry about it all the time.” 

“‘E’d be sitting ‘ere drinking with us ………”

“And ‘e’d get up, run over to the church and check the locks.”

“Yes, and then ‘e’d come back and then the next thing is ‘e’s going back to check the locks all over again!”

“Then you’d be out with the dog at night and ‘e’d be ’im running off to ‘is blooming church again, to check ‘e’d shut the windows.”

“’E didn’t want to stop working, Stan didn’t, when he got to 65.  ‘E were doubled up with arthritis, but ‘e tried to carry on ……… ”

“He couldn't!”

“’E were dead six months later.”

“Did it ‘imself.”

“’E did, Ron.  ‘E did it ‘imself.”

Hilary heard Andy’s sharp intake of breath beside her.  He was about to say something but now George was calling them behind the bar to talk about the bar job.  George talked non-stop for about half an hour, showed them how to pull pints and measure spirits, also took them into the kitchen and introduced them to his wife, Joan, who prepared the pub food,.  By the time they left, at 2am, they had summer jobs and a shift the following evening.

At breakfast the following morning, Hilary, with great trepidation, told her mother, the non-pub-going organist and choirmistress of St Catherine's, Water Langley, about the Langley Angel.  But Margaret replied, “Glad you’ve managed to find a job at last.  I was getting a bit concerned.  You’ll need money over the summer.  And Dad and I have just had to shell out getting the boiler repaired.  Bloody central heating!”

So that was all right then!  Hilary and Andy enjoyed working at the pub.  George, the landlord, teased them.  “Where’s your Mrs today then?” he would say to Andy if she didn’t arrive five minutes early for her shift, and, to Hilary, when Andy went on holiday to Marbella,  “What you doing letting your old man bugger off to Spain like this?  Think of all them pretty Spanish girls!  Oh, sorry love.  Pardon my French.  Forgot you was organist’s daughter.”  As Hilary knew, Andy wasn’t thinking about girls in Spain.  Andy was worrying about the exam results which would be sitting on his doormat on his return, but he need not have done.  He had attained 66% overall, although only 52% for pharmacology.

“I knew you’d be OK,” Hilary said, airily.  “You work so hard.”

On returning from Marbella, Robert started Solicitors Finals at the College of Law in Lancaster Gate, London, and both Andy and Robert restarted driving lessons, with their old driving instructor, Mr Talbot.  “Mum says that, if you and Caroline can do it, so can we!” said Andy to Hilary.  He, like her, had started driving lessons on his seventeenth birthday, but had lapsed as A Levels approached.

Margaret told Constance that what had clinched it for Hilary had been Margaret herself taking Hilary out in her car every day over Easter, so Constance and John took Andy and Robert out in their cars.  “Mum makes me reverse down every side street and do loads of three-point turns and emergency stops, “ Andy said, “but Dad lets me drive for miles along a straight road and chats.”  He frowned.  “Yesterday, we were talking about Grandad Pullen.  I told him what those blokes in the pub were saying.”

“Did you know that Stan Pullen had committed suicide?  I asked Mum.  Mum knows everything that happens in Water Langley, but she said she thought he’d had a heart attack.”

“He slit his wrists.”  He winced as he spoke.  “I wasn’t told, because it happened when I was three.”

“Oh Andy, how awful!  He must’ve been depressed!”

“Of course he was depressed!” Andy snapped.  Grandad Pullen must’ve been very like Robert.  I mean, all that checking locks and things.  I tried to talk to Mum and Dad about it but…  they won't listen.  All they see is clever Robert getting all Grade 1s at O Level, As at A Level and a First.  And me just scraping into medical school.”

Just before term restarted, Andy passed his driving test, much to Constance’s relief, although Mr Talbot wouldn’t enter Robert, said he wasn’t ready.