Flustered and irritated, I tossed the shawl at Sukey, thinking she would catch it, but she wouldn’t take her hands from her sewing and it sailed on to her head, draping her, shroudlike. She cried out as she stabbed herself with her needle.

“It’s to cover the birds,” she said, drawing the material off and pushing her hair back from her face. “Not me.”

“Sorry,” I said, stepping quickly over an empty iron plant-pot holder, wanting just to get out of the house.

“Mopps?” Sukey called after me. “Mopps!”

I carried on to the yard, the clear path and the cooler air already making me feel better. I got to the side of the house and stopped, stretching my limbs in the uncluttered space, and heard that rustling in the hedge, that blackbirdish noise, and again felt the inexplicable shiver of dread. Sukey had drawn up a window, and I turned away as she leant out.

“Oh, get away. Get away. Why are you always here? I can’t bear it!”

I thought for a moment she meant me, and had told her to go and boil her head before I saw she was facing the hedge. As I looked, I was able to make out a woman, standing, her lower body pressed to the other side of the fence, one arm deep in the foliage. The other was bent at the elbow so that she could press something against her mouth. Or into her mouth, I thought, as I saw her jaw work. The thicket was made of small hawthorn trees, and the woman seemed to have a fistful of leaves, which she was chewing. She stared at Sukey as she chewed, not in the least bothered by her discovery, and Sukey stared back, horrified. Of course I knew who it was. Everyone knew the mad woman.

“We need Doug,” Sukey said.

“Doug? You mean Frank,” I said, and called for him.

When he came out, shouting and threatening and raising his fist, I went back inside to Sukey. She laughed off her fright, saying the woman must be some sort of gourmet. “I mean, I don’t blame her,” she said. “Hawthorn’s delicious, isn’t it, Mopps? Remember we used to call it bread and cheese?”

I nodded, but I didn’t like the brittle tone to her voice.

“We used to prefer it to Ma’s sandwiches, remember? Better than meat paste. Better than carrot simmered in beef tea.” She paused, like a moment in a film, one hand on her hip. And then she suddenly sagged against the mantelpiece. “But, Mopps, there must be hawthorns enough in the park. So why here? Why does she have to come here?”

She looked at herself in the mirror above the fireplace, her eyes studiously avoiding the newly veiled glass dome of birds, and then she raised her hand up until it covered her mouth, reminding me for one awful moment of the position of the mad woman.

Carla has suggested I try church. She’s a Catholic and thinks it might be a comfort in some way. I’ve surrendered and let her give me a lift to a service this morning, on her way to another old crone. I insisted on an Anglican church, though I don’t really believe in any particular god and I’m not sure what to expect. Ma stopped going to Holy Communion after Sukey went missing, and I never restarted the habit. Patrick didn’t believe in anything, either, and Helen’s quite a determined atheist. But lots of old people go to church. Elizabeth goes.

The church she goes to is an ancient stony building with comically serene-faced martyrs in the stained glass. Everyone in the congregation is a bit dressed up. Or they’ve made some effort, anyway, winding silk scarves around their necks or sliding sparkly things into their hair. I feel rather drab and shy for a few minutes. But then I remember that I am old and nobody is looking at me.

I take my hymn book and sit down. “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” I read. A couple of people turn to look at me. There can’t be more than a dozen people here. The smell of wood and polish reminds me of school. It’s quite comforting, as is all the shined brass and flower arrangements. I start to understand why the elderly go to church.

There are flowers on the end of each pew and I reach a hand out to brush the petals in the nearest arrangement. One of the flower heads comes away and I close my fist around it. The action is familiar and I repeat it, opening my hand before crushing the flower again. But I can’t think what it means, and, anyway, it’s the wrong sort of flower. It should be a yellow summer squash flower, and these ones are white, as if left over from a wedding. Perhaps someone got married yesterday. Young people still do that in church, I’m told. I squeeze my fist while the vicar clears his throat and people on other benches bow their heads in prayer. The petals of the flower are soft and crushable. I like it like this, mangled and real rather than stiffly sitting in its arrangement. These bunches on the pews are too much like those you find preserved under Victorian glass domes, crisp and dry and slightly unnerving.

We stand and sing, and sit and pray. I’d forgotten how tiring these services could be. I can’t keep up, and I lose track of where we are, so I just mime along with everything. The vicar looks puzzled when he sees me moving my mouth during his talk, his speech, from the pulpit. Finally it’s time for tea. There’s a huge metal urn on a trolley at the back of the church and lots of greenish cups. Far too many for the number of people.

A woman in a padded body-warmer the same colour as the cups comes towards me with a tin of biscuits. “We haven’t seen you before,” she says.

“No,” I say. And then I go blank. I can’t think where I am. Or why. I wobble slightly on the flagstones and my breath catches. I take two biscuits from the tin, balancing them on my saucer.

“Are you local? Or visiting?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling foolish and panicky. “I mean, where are we exactly?”

She smiles. It’s a kind smile, but it’s full of embarrassment. “This is St Andrew’s.”

The name means nothing. I don’t like to ask any more.

“Perhaps you usually go to the chapel?” she suggests. “There’s one just a couple of streets away.”

I shake my head. I haven’t forgotten my religion, I know I’m not a Wesleyan or Baptist or anything. I’m not even really a Christian.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m a bit forgetful.”

The woman looks as though she thinks this description doesn’t quite cover it, but she nods and takes a sip of tea before introducing me to the vicar. Luckily, I have been practising my name in my head.

“How do you do?” the vicar says, shaking my hand. His hands are incredibly soft, as if they have been worn smooth by the amount of handshaking he has had to do. “I hope you enjoyed the service.”

I wasn’t aware that it was the sort of thing you were supposed to enjoy, so the question rather takes me by surprise. “Oh,” I say.

He and the woman in the body-warmer start to move away, frightened off by my inarticulacy, and I look down at my tea and biscuits, uncertain what to do with them. I watch as a man takes two sugar lumps from his saucer, drops them into his tea and stirs. And, with a sigh of relief, I do the same with my biscuits, stirring the pulpy mixture round and round. When I look up, everyone in the little group of people is staring at me, except the woman in the body-warmer, whose eyes are fixed on the ceiling.

She nudges the man next to her and he coughs. “No, she wasn’t well at all,” he says. “It was Rod who found out about it. He used to pick her up. Didn’t you, Rod?”

A small man with a comb-over nods. “Yes, that’s right,” he says. “So, naturally, her son rang me. I told him we’d pray for her . . .”

“Of course, of course.”

“Actually, I’d been to the house several times needlessly before I got a call. Rather annoying. Stood outside waiting, and no answer.”

“Elizabeth,” I say suddenly. I hadn’t meant to.

The woman in the body-warmer looks at me, finally.

“Elizabeth,” I say again. “She’s missing.”

“Yes. That’s right, dear. She is missing from our congregation. Never mind.” She turns to the others.

I bite my lip in humiliation, but I must catch at the chance before I forget. “No,” I say. “I’ve been looking for her. She isn’t at home.”

“Not at your home?” the woman asks, careful with each syllable. She really is very irritating. I suppress the urge to scream.

“No, no, she’s a friend of mine. She’s gone missing.”

The comb-over man frowns and smoothes a hand over his head. The long, thin hairs seem to be embedded in his scalp. “She’s not missing—”

“Where is she then?” I ask. “I’ve been to her house.”

“Well, dear,” the woman says, looking at the group. “Perhaps it was the wrong house.”

Her voice is quiet, as if she doesn’t want anyone to hear her suggestion, but her words are very clear, and they are listening closely. The vicar coughs and shifts his feet, and the other man smoothes his head again. Her tone is final and I can already feel the conversation moving on. In a moment someone will mention the weather. I get a flash of heat. How dare they dismiss me, these people who are supposed to care about Elizabeth? How dare they?

“I didn’t go to the wrong house,” I say quietly, steadily, the assertion making me feel like a small child. “I’m not stupid. Elizabeth is missing.” I take a shuddering breath in the silence. “Why don’t you care? Why won’t anyone do anything?” I think I’m beginning to shout, but I can’t help it. “Anything could have happened to her. Anything. Why will no one do a thing to help find her?”

Frustration constricts my breathing. I squeeze the cup in my hand and then throw it at the ground. It smashes easily on the stone floor of the church and the sound rings through the building as the syrupy, crumb-filled tea soaks into the mortar between the flagstones. The woman in the body-warmer puts down her cup and picks up the broken remains of mine.

“Perhaps I’d better take you home,” she says.

She leads me gently away from the vicar and puts me in her car. And she is very patient when I give her the wrong directions to my house and we have to go round the one-way system a second time. As she drives along I write a note to myself: Elizabeth not at church. The woman sees me writing it and reaches over to pat my hand.

“I shouldn’t worry if I were you, dear,” she says as she helps me out of the car. “God looks after his flock. You must look after yourself.”

She offers to collect me for church next Sunday, but I tell her I’m not really up to it. She nods in understanding and there is a touch of relief in her smile.