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is bound to have been since the Vicarage hasn’t been lived in for several months. When I came earlier it was full of wild-flowers – buttercups, daisies, dandelions, red sorrel – and looked quite pretty. Now, the flowers being over, abandoned is the right word. In the wall which borders it at the bottom there is a rickety gate, leading to a path which climbs up to the Downs. I would like to explore this right now but very soon the Yorkshire puddings will be ready and one does not keep Yorkshire puddings waiting. On the contrary, my mother will insist that we are seated at the table before she will bring them in. Time, tide and Yorkshire puddings wait for no man.
    I walk around a little longer then, impatient, I go back inside the house and, ignoring my mother’s advice, climb the stairs to Becky’s room. My knock on the door receives no answer, so I open it a crack and say, ‘Lunch is ready, darling!’ Brightly, I say it, as though there is a clear blue sky between us. Still no answer. Deflated for the moment, I go downstairs. However, I am fairly confident that Becky will soon follow. She has a healthy appetite and it is unlikely, however black her mood, that it will include starving herself. And indeed it doesn’t. With perfect timing she slips into her place five seconds before my mother enters, bearing the puddings aloft as if preceded by a fanfare.
    Ann is already seated at the table.
    â€˜You’ll excuse me if I leave straight after lunch, won’t you?’ she says. ‘I brought work home with me and I haven’t even touched it.’
    Ann is secretary to a professor of mathematics at the University of Clipton, which used to be Clipton Technical College before they all became universities. She is a dear friend as well as my mother-in-law. And of course we have shared in the same bereavement, though to lose a husband and to lose a son are two different things and probably no-one who hasn’t gone through either can understand them.
    â€˜I thought everything went well this morning,’ Ann says. ‘Philip would have been proud of you!’
    There is a poem, ‘Slowly, the dead steal back into our speech’ – I’m ashamed that I can’t remember the author – but Ann has never hesitated to say Philip’s name, usually in a matter-of-fact way. She is braver than I am and she is also right. He is never excluded.
    Becky eats a hearty meal, her plate is clean, though she is as mute as a nun under a vow of silence.
    â€˜I thought you and I might explore the path up to the Downs this afternoon,’ I suggest.
    She gives a single shake of her head, turning me down flat without having to speak to me, and the moment the meal is over she goes back to her room.
    When we have cleared away Ann brings her suitcase down and I see her to her car.
    â€˜Bear up!’ she says, giving me a hug and a kiss. ‘It can’t last.’
    I am not so sure.
    I join my mother in the kitchen, where she is washing up. This is totally unnecessary since I have a perfectly good dishwasher but she does not trust it to do the job properly. I offer to help her with this self-inflicted chore but she turns me down.
    â€˜In that case,’ I say, ‘will you mind if I go for a little walk – or perhaps you’d like to come with me?’
    â€˜I won’t if you don’t mind,’ she says. ‘As you know, I usually put my feet up on a Sunday afternoon. You should do the same. Your Dad’s already well away.’ Indeed he is; we can hear his rhythmical snores, fortunately muted by the distance between the kitchen and the sitting room.
    â€˜I could do with some exercise,’ I tell her. ‘I won’t go far, won’t be long.’ The truth is, I want to be on my own. Since the company of the two people I love most in the world is not available to me I don’t want any other.
    I walk down to the bottom of the garden, go