The morning after the funeral, Hilary awoke to the sound of her father’s radio and the smell of toast, then the radio stopped, the front door slammed and the car started up in the drive.  She looked at her watch:  7.45, the time Frank had used to leave the house for work.  He couldn't be!  But he had.  His suit was no longer in the wardrobe, nor his black lace-up shoes under the bedside table.  While she was in his bedroom, she made his bed and, in a while, she would wash up breakfast, put on the washing and clean the bathroom, things Margaret had used to do.  In the evening, she would prepare an evening meal and, as he got up from the table, leaving her to wash up, Frank would grunt the briefest of thanks. 

“IRA bomb in Cheshire kills two,” she read in the newspaper, as she cleared away his breakfast and put on the kettle.  Life went on.  She didn’t know anyone in Cheshire.  Yes, she did - Patty Matthews!  “Bomb at Cheshire village garage.  Two men killed,” read the strap line.  Patty Matthews wasn’t a man.  Hilary was tipping cereal into her bowl when she read the first line under the headline.  “Tributes pour in for Derry college chaplain.”

“It’s Bill Macready!” she cried to Mrs Rayner on the telephone.  “The IRA’s got Bill Macready!”

“Oh Hilary, no!”

“I'm just reading it now.  He was driving up to Chester, yesterday evening… from a funeral…  He’d stopped for petrol.  There was a woman passenger… That was Patty, Granny!  She’d gone inside the garage shop… It says she was unhurt.  The garage man was filling up Bill’s car and Bill was standing right next to him talking.  They were both killed outright.  The bomb was underneath Bill’s car.  The IRA has rung the BBC and claimed responsibility.

“That car… a blue Ford Escort… It was parked in our road.  I put Patty’s bag into the boot yesterday.  The bomb… was it in the car then?  Granny, can you ring Patty.  You’ve got her number, haven't you?”

Without touching her breakfast, Hilary ran to her grandmother’s house, tears pouring down her cheeks.  “’Struth, Hilary!” cried Barbara, opening the door.  “All this for a man you met only yesterday!”

Hilary rushed past her.  Mrs Rayner, speaking on the telephone, wrapped her arm around Hilary’s waist.  “I've had enough, Granny!” Hilary cried. “I've just had enough!”

“I know,” said Mrs Rayner.  A high-pitched voice was gabbling from the other end of the line, fast and furious.  “I know…” Mrs Rayner said again, into the telephone.  “It’s a terrible world we live in… Yes, yes…  You spoke to Bill’s parents?… Of course you must go to the funeral…”

At last, Mrs Rayner replaced the receiver.  “Poor Bill!  Poor Margaret!”

“They’re together now,” said Hilary.

“I thought that too.” said Mrs Rayner.  “They’re together at last.”

The incident featured on the television that evening, along with motor racing champion Niki Lauda suffering terrible burns at German Grand Prix (yet, thought Hilary, he was still alive!).  She saw television pictures of the garage where Bill’s car had exploded, now a black, charred ruin, and an interview with the principal of Derry Technical College, where Bill had worked as chaplain.  “Bill Macready understood young people and he understood Northern Ireland,” said the principal.  “He was a man of God.”

 “Do you think I ought to go to his funeral?” Hilary asked Andy.

“No,” Andy answered.

“But he came for Mum’s.”

“Hil, no-one expects you to go to Ireland for Bill Macready’s funeral.  Anyway, how would you get there?”

“I could drive to Chester and then go with Patty.”

“You’d drive up to Chester?”

“I drove from Wells-Next-The-Sea to Water Langley.” 

“No, Hil!”

“But,” a voice continued in her thoughts, “suppose Bill Macready was your father.  You ought to go to his funeral.  OK, so he had red hair, but…”  Sometimes the voice went even further.  “It would have been better to have had Bill Macready as your father.”

“Hil, what are you going to do?” Andy interrupted her thoughts.  “For a job, I mean?”

“I don’t know.  I can't think about that at the moment.” 

Hilary didn’t go to Bill Macready’s funeral.  She just didn’t have the emotional energy to make the arrangements, although she saw clips of it on television, with Mrs Rayner who had just been, with Barbara, to Queen Anne’s Gate in London to queue for six hours for a passport.  Mrs Rayner, who had not visited London since the Water Langley WI coach trip to “South Pacific” in 1953, was exhausted.  “Do you really want to go to Australia?” Hilary asked her again.

“I'll be fine,” Mrs Rayner replied.  “Shall we have another cup of tea?”

“You sit down.  I'll get it,” said Hilary, but her grandmother followed her into the kitchen.

“Hilary,” she said, using her full name, “I've got to go.  I don’t want to leave you now, my love, but… I've got to be with Barbara.  She’s found a lump on her breast.”

Hilary set down the kettle on the stove.  “How long has she known about that?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs Rayner.  “The silly girl’s been pretending it’s nothing and hasn’t been to the doctor yet.  After your mum… I've got to look after Barbara!  You understand, love?”

“Yes.”  Three days later, Mrs Rayner had gone and Water Langley was empty without her.

Time was dragging, yet it was galloping.  The combine harvesters had stopped, the harvest safely gathered in and the weather had become hot again.  Hilary found herself clinging on to the days, willing herself back, even to those awful last days in Wells-Next-The-Sea and the gruelling drive home.  Time and the world were moving away from Margaret.  Hilary and Andy were working at the Langley Angel again, for financial reasons; Hilary’s last bank statement showed just £5.63 in her account and Andy’s contained little more.  One evening, while they were working, they had a big argument (about some unwashed glasses), and George, the landlord, shoved them both into the kitchen and told them off.

“Sorry,” said Hilary.

“Sorry,” said Andy.

“I know you’re having a hard time, love,” George said to Hilary, “but business is business.”  Then to Andy, “You’ve got to look after your Mrs.”

“I'm not your Mrs,” muttered Hilary, as they returned to the bar, “and not likely to be, apparently.”

“Hil, this is not the time!” retorted Andy under his breath.

“No, it never is!”  Hilary started washing glasses under the bar, banging them around in the bowl as hard as she could without breaking them.  He was in one of his moods, she thought.  Andy had been in one of his moods for several days, and it wasn’t even term-time.

“I saw your dad in The George in Chenham last Friday, Hilary,” interjected Ernie, one of the regulars.

“Oh?” Hilary replied.  “With his work colleagues, was he?”

“He was with a lady.”

“Must’ve been Dorrie.  She works at the desk opposite Dad and her husband died last year.  Mum and Dad went to his funeral.  She’s rung the house a few times.  She’s being very kind to him.”

“Hil, what are you going to do about your career?” asked Andy again, as they walked home after their shift. 

“I don’t know and I don’t care.”

“You’ve got to do something.”

She walked on in silence. They stopped in the churchyard, at Margaret's new grave and the fresh flowers she had put on there that morning.  “I haven't got the nerve, Andy, to fill in loads of application forms, for jobs I won't get.  There’s unemployment!  Haven't you heard of unemployment?”

“I'll help you fill in the forms.”

She shrugged.

“Or you could go back to university and do PGCE.”

“I don’t want to teach!  I've told you that a million times!”

“Hil, you can't just give up.”  He sounded like a parent, not a lover, she thought.

They went back to Andy's house, where, nowadays, Constance, still in still in a state of shock, was more welcoming.  “What you should do, Hilary,” said Constance, that evening, “is to take a little typing course.” 

“No, Mum!” cried Andy, through the serving-hatch.  He was making tea in the kitchen.  “Hilary's a graduate, got a 2(1) degree.  She’s not doing a typing course like a sixteen year old school-leaver?”

“Your Uncle Henry’s secretary, Sandra, she’s a graduate and she’s earning £2500 a year,” Constance replied.

“Oh, is she?” retorted Andy, getting cups out the kitchen cupboard.  “Where’s Robert?  Does he want tea?”

“He’s in bed.”

“Is he going to work tomorrow?”

“He’s got a bit of a cold,” said Constance.

“Robert hasn’t got a cold.”

“Well, maybe it’s hay fever.  It’s been very dry and dusty this summer.”

“Mum, it’s Thursday tomorrow, Robert hasn’t been into work all week, and he was in only two days last week.  People at Newton & Ellis will start saying things, and it’ll be embarrassing for Dad.”

“Robert picks up everything.”

“There’s nothing the matter with Robert, except an acute episode of skivitis!  No.  Chronic skivitis.”  He opened the fridge and banged the door shut.  “You and Dad are just letting him get away with it!  All Robert has to do is fall out of bed at about half past eight, eat the breakfast which you’ve prepared for him, tumble into Dad’s car and drive through pleasant country lanes to Langton, arriving in Newton & Ellis’s office at about half past nine.  In a few years’ time, I shall be on the ward all day and on call all night!  If he doesn’t get up tomorrow, I personally shall turn him out of bed!”