On Tuesday morning, Frank being in no fit state to drive, Hilary drove the family car home, a four-hour journey, including traffic jams, road works and diversions.  Water Langley, when they arrived, was glowing in the red early evening sunlight, the church bathed in kindly light, and the combine harvesters humming in the background.  It was the sort of evening when Margaret would stand outside the back door and say, after “Anne of Green Gables”, “God is in His heaven all right”. 

Mrs Rayner was at the house to meet them and, within minutes, they were joined by Constance, looking ten years older, grey-faced and without make-up, and leaning on Alice's arm.  Mrs Phillips, Father Bernard, and Julia Bryant arrived after them.  (“Do we have to have the whole Water Langley Mafia in here?” Frank muttered under his breath.)

Mrs Rayner, making tea in the kitchen, was, like Hilary, pale but dry-eyed.  “We’ve got to be strong,” she said.  “There’s so much to do.”  She picked up Margaret's apron and cardigan, slung over a kitchen chair.  “I'll take these home and wash them.”

“I've got all Mum’s clothes in her case,” said Hilary.

“Put it in the spare bedroom,” said Mrs Rayner.  “We’ll sort it out when we’re ready.”  She pulled out a chair.  “You sit down now and have a cup of tea.  I'm sure you’ve had enough, with all that driving.”

“I ought to talk to Father Bernard about the funeral,” said Hilary, getting up.  She was unable to sit still for long.

As she walked back into the living room, Julia grabbed her arm. “I'm sorry Caroline's not here,” Julia said.  “She’s in California all summer.  But you’re always welcome at our house.”

“Thank you.”

“Caroline sends her love, by the way.”

Hilary doubted that Caroline had anything to do with this well-intentioned remark.  Caroline’s last words to her had been, “What are you gawping at?  I just told you to get out!”

In another part of the room, she heard Andy say to his sister, “What are you doing here?” 

Alice shrugged.  “Same as you.”

“We haven't seen you since Christmas,” said Andy, unable to keep the reproach from his tone.

“I think Mum needs me to be here in Water Langley more than I need to be away from Water Langley.  Don’t you?”

The weather had cooled a little but, because of the hose-pipe ban, gardens still wilted and, elsewhere in Essex, people were using stand-pipes.  Still the combine harvesters were humming their loud background hum, out of habit, getting in the harvest before the rains, except there were no rains.  The funeral took place on Wednesday, 4 August, Hilary's and Andy’s birthday, the day of their twenty-first party, which, at some point, someone must have been cancelled.  As the vicar, Jim Bailey, recited, “In the midst of life, we are in death…” Hilary thought of the photograph of the Queen Mother in the newspaper she had seen that morning, seventy-six today.

They processed into church: Frank, alone and refusing any sympathy or kindness, tears streaming down his face; Barbara, who had arrived from Australia yesterday evening, howling like a wild animal.  Hilary and Mrs Rayner, gripping each other’s hands, stared ahead of them, stony-faced.  Constance shuffled in like an old woman, followed by Andy, Robert, and John, wearing the suits they had bought for the twenty-first party.  The church was full, with people from the village, relatives, friends, people who used to go to church years ago, people Hilary had never seen before.  Afterwards, with the smell of fresh-dug earth and cut flowers still in their nostrils, the mood seem to change, as the black-clad people greeted one another with, “Haven't seen you for years!”  Still Hilary and Mrs Rayner gripped each other’s hands and Andy stood at Hilary's other side, his arm across her shoulder. 

The Pearces were there:  Mrs Pearce wearing an old dark green raincoat, Sharon (now fifteen) and Davina (now fourteen), in mini-skirts with flimsy white plastic belts and shiny plastic black shoes.  “Thank you for coming,” said Hilary.  “Do join us for refreshments.”

“No, no, we won't,” said Mrs Pearce.  “Our bus’ll be here in a minute. But thank you anyway.  It’s terrible about your mum.  She were a really lovely lady.”  That was not what they had said a few years ago!

A plump middle-aged woman, bulging out of a grey two-piece and carrying a large shopping bag, was chattering outside the church. “Hello, Connie!  Remember me?  Patty Matthews!”

“Oh, hello, Patty,” Constance replied, rather in the manner of a schoolgirl greeting a girl in a lower form.

“Wasn’t that Patty in the choir years ago,” Barbara asked.  “And that man next to her must be her husband.”

“No, no,” said Mrs Rayner.  “That’s Bill Macready.”

Hilary’s heart stopped.  Here was Bill Macready, the man to whom her mother had proposed marriage and who had turned her down, the man whom Margaret had loved and who had loved her.  Here was Bill Macready, just a few feet away, wearing a black clerical shirt and dog-collar, tall, well-built, and with a full head of faded red hair.  Hilary's heart re-started.  Bill Macready had tight faded red curls, a freckled face and freckled hands.  Bill Macready was not blonde.

“Did you write to him?” Barbara demanded of her mother.

“No,” said Mrs Rayner.  “I don’t have his address.  I didn’t even write to Patty.  Patty lives in Teheran.  Her husband’s a diplomat.  I wrote to Patty’s mother, in Chester, and Patty just happened to be staying.”

As they walked back to Hilary's house for refreshments, Hilary told Andy about the Pearces:  it wasn’t important anymore, what had happened during Christmas 1973.

“Your mum, she’d never do that!” he exclaimed, aghast. 

“No, of course not.”   Bill Macready had red hair.

Other guests had arrived before them.  Somebody had opened the French windows, so people were grabbing sandwiches from the dining table and moving into the garden.  Patty Matthews hovered in the dining room, staring at Margaret's piano and the spines of Margaret's books.  “Your poor mum, she was a great reader, wasn’t she?” she said, picking up a faded red, cloth-bound edition of “Cranford”, staring at the flyleaf then thumbing through the pages.  “Oh, Hilary dear, I'm so sorry about Margaret.  I hadn’t seen her for years.  But she was the best friend I ever had.” 

Patty chattered on for a while, telling the stories her mother used to tell, about the choir and Water Langley, then she demanded, “What are you going to do now you’ve left university, Hilary?”

Hilary had not given her career a moment’s thought for over three weeks.  “I don’t know.”

Hilary also made a point of sitting with her aunt Barbara from Australia, whom, until the previous evening, she hadn’t seen for five years.  “I'm not staying long,” Barbara replied, pulling her cardigan around herself against “the cold”.  “I don’t know anybody in England anymore and Mum’s coming back with me.”

“What?”  Mrs Rayner (like Margaret) had never left British soil.

 “I'm only going for a few months, Hil, love,” said Mrs Rayner, squeezing her hand.  “I'll be back soon.”

“Granny,” Hilary pleaded, after Barbara had wandered off to chat to Patty, “you don’t really want to go to Australia.  It’ll be…”

“Too much for me?  I'm a countrywoman,” Mrs Rayner replied, as if that explained everything. 

Hilary frowned.  “I'll miss you.”

“I won't be gone for long.”

By this time, people were beginning to leave, although Patty was still in the dining room, talking now to Edna.  Bill Macready, hovering by the French window, called to her, in an Irish voice, “I wouldn’t be rushing you now, but I have to get the boat from Holyhead.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Patty, not moving.

“I'll be putting your bag in the car,” Bill added.

Hilary, who happened to be standing nearby, picked up Patty’s carrier bag, which was surprisingly heavy, she thought, considering that all she could see inside it was a cardigan and a make-up bag.  Patty must be one of those women who always carried around loads of stuff.  She followed Bill outside and a few yards along the road to his car, a Blue Ford Escort, with a metal “NI” bolted to it.  Bill took the bag from her and put it into the boot.

For a moment, they both stood outside under the dull sky, looking at the houses and gardens, the church steeple and the bare, harvested, fields beyond.  “I loved Water Langley,” he said.

“Where are you now?  Granny didn’t have an address for you.”

“Patty rang me.  I got the boat from Holyhead yesterday.  I had to be here.”

“Mum, she was talking about you, hours before she died.”

Bill Macready continued to stare at the church steeple.  “I have thought about Margaret every day of my life.”

“She wanted to marry you.”

“I wanted to marry her, but…”  He turned his freckled face towards her.  “I was pigheaded, as Ulstermen tend to be.  I thought that God wanted me to be celibate.  Now why would He want such a thing, Hilary?  Are you celibate?”

“Er… no.”

“Well, I am, even now.  Margaret Rayner was the only woman I would ever love.  And, by the time I realised that, it was too late.  She was married to Frank Bowles.”

“But God has made use of my celibacy.  I’m now chaplain to Derry Technical College.  My students are my life.  My students aren’t students as you know students, Hilary.  They’re ordinary Northern Irish kids, learning a trade… the sort of kids who are tempted to go into the paramilitaries, I'm afraid.  God sent me to Derry.”

“God sent Jonah to Nineveh.”

“You know your Bible, Hilary!  Did Mum teach you your Bible?”

“Yes.”

“I tell students in Derry, who’ve lost parents and brothers and sisters in the Troubles, that death isn't the end.  It isn't, Hilary.  Death isn't the end, for any of us who chose not to let it be.  I know where Margaret is now.”