Andy was due to return home for the Christmas vacation the following weekend, but he said he wanted to remain in London until the following Tuesday, because he had work to finish and that also he wanted to accompany his brother to his hospital appointment.  Robert, to his family’s surprise, had taken the initiative and visited the college doctor, who had referred him, not to a local hospital in Cambridge, but to the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital in London. 

At his request, she had arranged Christmas work for him at the Langley Angel and the first time she saw him, for almost a month, he was behind the bar, in a foul mood, grumbling that he had just got back from London, hadn't had time to get his stuff out the car.  “But you did ask me to ask George for some hours,” Hilary retorted, taken aback.  “You didn’t tell me you didn’t want tonight.”

“You didn’t bloody well ask, did you?” 

Their first customer was Steve Bryant, Caroline's brother, who was very chatty, said he was working in the City and that the whole family would be spending Christmas in Germany with older brother, Richard, who was now married and in the army.  “When are you leaving?” Hilary asked.

“Tomorrow,” Steve replied.

Andy didn’t have much else to say that evening.  He kept shoving the dirty glasses to her under the bar, then, at the end of the shift, absently, lined them up all in height order beside the sink.  As they walked out the pub, Hilary said, “You’re tired,” and tried to put her arm around his shoulders, but he didn’t respond.

“Don’t patronise me!” he retorted, shaking off her arm.

They walked on.  “How was it at the hospital with Robert?” she asked.

He shrugged.  “OK.”

“I'll see you tomorrow,” she said at last. 

“OK,” he replied, without bothering to kiss her goodnight. 

Hilary was dreading Christmas without her mother and the usual round of church activities.  She was supposed to spend Christmas Day with Frank and his new wife in her house in Chenham.  Dorrie, still in nice mode, had issued the invitation, almost beseeched her to go, and Hilary felt she had to accept.  And where else could she go on Christmas Day?  When she sat down for Christmas lunch with them, Dorrie’s two daughters, sons-in-law and various grandchildren, she half-expected the vegetables to turn up in her mother’s casserole dishes and the Christmas pudding in her mother’s fruit bowls, but this didn’t happen.  Whilst helping with the washing up afterwards, she scanned Dorrie’s kitchen cupboards with her eyes, and, later on, while everyone else was watching television, she crept upstairs and looked in every room, ready to say, if necessary, that she was looking for the toilet.  She was quite sure her mother’s things were in that house somewhere.

Hilary didn’t have to remain at Dorrie’s all day, as Constance had invited her to spend Christmas evening with the Newtons.  “So glad you were able to come!” Dorrie cooed, as Hilary got up to leave.

“Lovely to see you again, Hilary!” echoed Dorrie’s daughter, who had met Hilary only once before, at the wedding. 

Frank grunted goodbye.  As Hilary set off in her mother’s car, her relief was palpable, but, when she approached Water Langley, she grew less easy.  Constance had invited her, not Andy, who was still morose and uncommunicative, although Hilary knew her Andy.  He would be exhausted through compulsive overwork.

Alice opened the front door to her, in full make-up and wearing a full-length, crimson, velvet skirt, the manicured look of an air stewardess.  “Hello, Hilary,” she said, turning her back on her to walk back through the hall and leaving Hilary to shut the door after herself.  “Mum’s been a bit emotional today,” she added, as if Hilary couldn't be expected to understand.  “We’ve just had a cup of tea in the kitchen.”

Hilary nodded.  Alice overawed her. 

“And Andy’s sleeping off Christmas lunch.  He’s had a few.”  Hilary thought of Andy as a very moderate drinker.  He was afraid of losing control.

Alice hesitated, her hand on the kitchen door handle.  “About the flat?  Do you still want to move in?”

“Well, yes - if that’s still OK,” she replied, wondering why she was even considering sharing a flat with someone who terrified her.  She and Andy still hadn't discussed it, but she would have to live somewhere when the Water Langley house was sold.

“I'd rather have you as a flat-mate than someone I might find in the local paper.  But you do realise, don’t you, that the flat’s in Lorning, in Surrey?  You wouldn’t be that close to Andy.”

“Oh yes.”  She had no idea where Alice's flat was.

In the kitchen, Constance was sitting at the table, red-eyed, clutching an empty cup like a comfort blanket.  Her daughter, taking the chair opposite, took her hand and Constance grabbed Hilary’s arm with her other hand.  “I can't cope with Christmas without Margaret!”

Hilary remembered how her mother had used to rag Constance, spar with her, compete with her, but, out loud, she said, “I know.”

“I'll make more tea,” said Alice, getting up.

“My dear,” said Constance.  “There’s something I should tell you, something I should’ve told you weeks ago…”

Hilary raised her eyebrows, having no idea what was coming.

“A few weeks ago… just after Frank’s wedding, I… John says I committed theft and I entered your house unlawfully.  But I only used the key under the rose bush, as I always used to.  I just didn’t want Dorrie to get all Margaret's things.”

Hilary frowned, not understanding.

“They’re all here, Margaret's jewellery, her china and glassware, her silver cutlery, the family photographs.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Hilary, then again, in intense relief, as the words sunk in.  “Oh, thank God!”

  You know that, with Margaret dying intestate, everything goes to Frank?  But, as I pointed out to John, possession is nine tenths of the law and, also, de minimis non curis lex!  He forgets that I worked in a solicitor’s office all those years ago!”  She said this last bit in triumph, like the old Constance, who had been the fiercest of the school mothers, the terror of the junior choir, but, as Hilary realised, over the last few months, Andy’s mother had not only aged, but mellowed.

They went upstairs, to the spare bedroom, and, to Hilary's intense relief, there in a big cardboard box were her mother’s jewellery box, the framed photo of herself as a baby, her mother’s glassware, china, flower vases, silver cutlery, and three albums of photographs that Hilary hadn’t even missed.  “Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed.  “Thank you!  Thank you!”

“It can stay here for a few years,” Constance replied, “until you’re ready for it.”

Hilary felt herself blush - she was not yet Constance’s daughter-in-law.  She leant down to look inside the box.  “The diaries!  Constance, did you take any of Mum’s diaries?”

Constance shook her head.  “I wouldn’t take those.  Diaries are private things.”

“Well, some of them are missing -1952, 1953, 1954 and 1955.”

“I wouldn’t take Margaret's diaries, Hilary,” Constance said sharply. 

At that moment, Andy appeared in the doorway, stretching his long limbs against the upper door-frame.  “Hello,” he said, yawning.  “Happy Christmas.”

“Oh, happy Christmas,” Hilary replied, somewhat preoccupied.

“I'll leave you two to it,” Constance said, getting up and walking out.

“How long have you been here?” Andy asked, yawning again.

“About half an hour,” she replied without looking up.  “Someone’s got Mum’s diaries for 1952-55.”

“Maybe she didn’t write diaries for those years,” said Andy, still yawning.

“Yes, she did,” Hilary retorted.  “Don’t you see? 1952 to 1955 are the years Bill Macready was in Water Langley.  The very last entry in Mum’s diary for 1951 was about coffee in church, to say goodbye to the old curate.”

“But Margaret wasn’t with Bill for all of 1952 to 1955.  You were born in 1955.  And what year were your parents married?”

“1954.  I came along pretty well immediately.  OK, so they’ve got too many diaries, but they’ve still got the ones Mum wrote when she was with Bill.  Somebody knew what they were doing.”

“All parents have previous girlfriends and boyfriends, Hil,” he said.

“Of course!  It was all innocent.  I know that.  You should’ve seen the things he wrote in the poetry books.  I don’t want Dorrie, or whoever’s got those diaries, reading them and drawing all the wrong conclusions, 1970s conclusions.  You know, everybody’s got to be at it all the time.  This was the 1950s.”

“Nobody’s going to think that.”

“Won't they?” Hilary remembered the Pearces.

“No!”  He pulled her to her feet.  “Come on.  It’s Christmas Day.” 

They went downstairs, into the breakfast room, where he had set up his hifi (which he normally used at St Luke's).  “I know I've been really awful this Christmas,” he said, as he put on a record.  “I'm so sorry.”  They sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, their arms around each other’s shoulders.  The record started off with a series of very sexual screams.  “I do love you.  I really do love you,” said Andy, when the screams had subsided.

“I love you.  You’re just tired and overworked - as usual.”  And he had a hangover, she added in her thoughts.

They sat on the floor with their arms around each other, listening to the record.  She didn’t usually like his music but it wasn’t bad for what she termed “Andy Music”, or maybe she was feeling mellow.  “What was that?” she asked, as he got up to change the record.

““Dark Side of the Moon”.  Pink Floyd.”

“”Us and Them” - that’s the way I'm seeing life at the moment.”

“Me too.  It’s all about madness, isn't it?  “The lunatic is in the hall…””