‘Gracie! Stop it!’

You pulled at my hand like a dog straining on a lead.

‘Please, Mummy.’

We were coming back from the park and I was laden with shopping. My feet ached. I wanted to go home and have a cup of tea but you persisted, trying to drag me sideways off the High Street towards the church.

‘Please, Mummy. I want to see Mr Michael.’

‘Saint Michael.’ I wished I’d never told you his name. ‘He’s not a real person, Gracie. You know that. He’s pretend.’

You understood the difference between real and pretend. Heaven knows, your small life was already filled with animals in books and cartoons who talked and rode bicycles and went to multi-species playgroups, with dolls who had tea parties and a stuffed bear who was your best friend. You believed in them but you also knew, at a different level, that it was play.

But now you frowned. ‘He isn’t pretend.’

I sighed. I knew you. You were tired and if I tried to force you home, you might just tantrum.

‘Quickly then. Just for a minute.’

You dashed off joyfully at once, darting ahead of me down to the railings and through the gate into the churchyard. I shook my head and plodded after you. It was a church. You were three. Whatever the reason for it, surely this fascination wouldn’t last long?

The church was heady with the smell of flowers. Arrangements of lilies and roses bloomed alongside the altar and at the back of the church. The afterglow of a wedding, perhaps.

You went running to the front, the lights on the heels of your shoes flashing as they hit the stone flags. You stood for a moment beside the metal stand of votary candles, mesmerised by the three burning flames. Then you tipped back your head and looked up at the stained glass, at the robed man from another time and the vanquished serpent at his feet.

‘Hello, Mr Michael.’ Your voice was high and chirpy and full of warmth. I slipped into a pew close to the front where I could watch you.

When I was your age, it was Sunday School every week. Nothing too heavy. Pictures of angels with wings and God in Glory on clouds and the usual Bible stories in which Noah’s Ark and the Good Samaritan dominated every year and there was a lot of colouring and sticking to fill in time before Communion when we could rejoin our parents.

I resented the older girls from school who were allowed to stay with the adults during the service. They lorded it over the rest of us because they were invited to take the bread and wine while we just lowered our heads for a blessing.

One by one, girls ahead of me got their white confirmation dresses and floated around in them, showing off the frills. At the altar, they placed their palms together in prayer, a far-away holiness in their eyes, glorying in their big moment. Later, the dresses were dyed red and worn to the school disco.

I didn’t stay long enough to earn mine. I kicked up such a fuss about Sunday School that our family attendance dropped to a trickle, then finally stopped.

Now, I got to my feet and wandered through the empty church to the Lady Chapel off to the side. It was more intimate than the main body of the church, a miniature space with two short rows of pews and a simple crucifix on the altar. Vases of white lilies stood on either side. I sat for a moment and thought about your angel. He was there in the hospital, you said, watching. He saw me sticking back Minnie Mouse’s ear. Trying to put things right.

I closed my eyes and tried to sense him. The chapel smelled of polish and I wondered who cleaned it. My mother used to rub down the woodwork at home every Saturday morning with a yellow duster and white wine vinegar. I used to make fun of her, said the house smelt like a fish and chip shop.

I thought of my father, how gentle he was. And humorous. Spending all day in a hospital lab looking at germs. My mother starched his long, white lab coats every Saturday and ironed them on Sundays with my school blouses, hanging them all in a row along the back of the kitchen door. I was only thirteen when he went to work one morning, no sign of a weak heart, and never came home again.

I ran into the house from school that day, bursting with excitement because I’d been picked for the hockey team and stopped short in the kitchen, stunned by the sight of my mother, slumped at the kitchen table, her face red and swollen, a wet handkerchief balled in her hand.

A neighbour, Mrs Tebbit, sat next to her. The teapot was on the table and they were using the wrong mugs.

‘Now, Jennifer,’ Mrs Tebbit said. ‘Mummy needs you to be a very brave girl.’

‘Why?’ my mother said, and I felt she was asking me. ‘He was in a hospital. Why didn’t they save him?’

Now, in the stillness of the church, a door banged. The door to the café, perhaps. I looked round to check on you. You were crouched on a flagstone, tracing the engraved letters with your finger and murmuring to yourself.

A prayer board hung at the back of the chapel and I stopped to read the cards. Poorly written, most of them, with spelling mistakes. Thank you for many blessings. Please guide Gregory at this difficult time. God give Harry strength in his ill health. Prayers for Amy and Keith and family for God’s help to bear their loss. A child’s loopy writing: Please get Daddy a new job.

On impulse, I took a card from the pile and wrote in neat block letters: Please look after my dad. I looked at what I’d written, felt ridiculous, crushed the card and pushed it into my pocket. If he could see, he’d be laughing his head off.

I was just about to round you up and leave when the vicar, Angela, came into the church. She padded soundlessly on low, soft shoes.

‘Hello again.’

I nodded to her. You were sitting on a pew, swinging your legs and looking through a sheaf of notices. You seemed in a world of your own.

She pointed me to a pew and sat beside me, looking forwards but talking sideways. Her voice was low, not quite a whisper but never loud enough to disturb the dusty silence of the building.

‘How are you?’

For a moment, I wondered if she mistook me for someone else.

‘Very well, thank you.’

A silence. ‘Have you lost someone?’

I started and she gave me a sudden quick look.

‘That’s what brings most people here. Loss of one sort or another. You looked so deep in thought.’

‘Did I?’ I felt myself flush. ‘Well, my father, a long time ago. I was thinking about him.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ The big feet in their soft black shoes shuffled a little on the stone. ‘Shall we say a prayer?’

I could hardly say no. I was, after all, in her church. I couldn’t explain that you’d dragged me there against my better judgement.

‘What’s your father’s name?’

I hesitated. Again, I sensed that if he were watching – which I doubted – he would be scoffing. Honestly, Jen. Look at yourself.

‘John. John Walker.’

I put my hands together in my lap and bowed my head and willed her to get it over with. I hardly listened as she murmured a short prayer. I was too busy wondering if you’d noticed what was happening, if you could hear, and how to explain it to you afterwards.

‘Were you very close?’

‘I don’t know.’ Images of my father crowded into my mind. Coming home in his lab coat, smelling of chemicals. Pottering at weekends in leather slippers. The back of his neck as he drove, towering over my mother at his side. His ruddy arms, sleeves rolled up, as he gardened. ‘I think so. He died when I was a child.’

I expected her to come out with some comforting Bible verse or some chat about God working in mysterious ways. She didn’t. She just sat quietly. The low hum of lorry and bus engines rose and fell between us.

‘I keep thinking about him,’ I said. ‘Gracie had an accident, you see. She was in hospital. It’s brought it all back.’ I swallowed. ‘I miss him.’

‘When my grandpa died,’ Angela said, ‘I tried to phone him in Heaven. Not from home. I thought it would cost too much. I saved up my pocket money and went to the phone box at the end of the street and dialled a random number. I thought God would guide my finger and put me through.’

I turned to look at her, trying to imagine her as a child. ‘What happened?’

She smiled. ‘A man answered and I put the money in and of course it wasn’t Grandpa at all; it was a complete stranger and he was very kind but I was so disappointed. I didn’t forgive God for a long time.’

You jumped down from the pew, glanced over at us, then wandered to the edge of the altar and plopped down onto a stray hassock there.

She too turned to look at you. ‘How’s Gracie now?’

‘OK.’ I hesitated. ‘She worries about dying. I mean, she asks me impossible questions, like whether I’ll die. I don’t know what to say.’

‘That’s a tricky one.’ She turned to face me. ‘What do you tell her?’

I considered. ‘I flannel. I mean, of course I’ll die. I can’t say I won’t. But I don’t want to frighten her either.’

‘Ah.’

In the café, someone called goodbye and a door slapped shut.

‘I never lie to children,’ she said. ‘Sometimes it’s surprising how much they understand.’

I paused. ‘So what do you tell them?’

In Sunday School, they used to talk about God in white robes, sitting on a throne in Heaven with angels at his side. Think of the most wonderful place you’ve ever been, they used to say, and it’s even better than that, all the time.

‘I try not to be specific.’ She paused. ‘They need space to work it out for themselves. It’s like explaining how big God is or how He can be everywhere at once.’

I hadn’t meant to talk so much, but she was such a good listener and the church felt a safe place and the words just came.

‘My daughter was in a car crash. The other driver died. A young woman. Gracie nearly died too. Well, technically she did for a while. She’s fine now. But she’s convinced that she saw an angel after she died and—’ I hesitated, looking up at the stained-glass window and the stiff, medieval figure of the saint with glowing halo, doing battle with a serpent ‘—and she thinks he looked like Saint Michael. That’s why she keeps wanting to come back here.’

Angela sat very still at my side. ‘And what do you think?’

I exhaled, blowing breath noisily out of my cheeks. ‘My friend says it’s chemical. Something to do with the way the brain heals.’

She didn’t reply.

‘But one or two things she said… I don’t know. Little things. Odd things. Things she couldn’t have known.’

It was a relief to talk, to talk to a stranger, to admit how confused I felt.

‘I’ve never thought much about Heaven.’ I gave her a quick look. Her face was calm. ‘But it’s bothering me, the way she talks about what happened. I don’t understand it.’

‘Maybe you don’t have to understand.’ She sounded thoughtful. ‘Maybe that’s OK.’

I lifted my head. ‘Really?’

‘We only find answers when we’re ready to hear them.’

You jumped on and off the low altar step, glancing across at us from time to time. When I got to my feet, you came running over.

You climbed onto the pew and knelt next to Angela, looking her directly in the face.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Gracie.’

The two of you shared a smile. I sensed how comfortable she made you feel and felt a pang of exclusion.

‘Come on, my love.’ I gathered together my bags. ‘Time to go.’

I expected Angela to get up too, to make room for me to leave. She didn’t.

‘We have a small group here once a month.’ She hesitated, reading my face. ‘Older people mostly, but some younger ones too. Tea and cake and a chat. A lot of them have lost someone. You should come along.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t, I mean, I don’t think –’ I stuttered, trying to not to show how horrified I felt.

‘It’s very informal.’ She reached out a hand to pat my arm. ‘Do pop in. Even if you don’t stay. It’s eleven o’clock on Friday, in the café. The next one’s on the eighteenth.’ Her expression suggested we’d somehow reached an agreement.

I blinked, feeling wrong-footed.

‘Bless you, Jennifer. You won’t regret it.’ She smiled. ‘For one thing, it’s jolly good cake.’

She pulled herself to her feet at last and moved sideways into the aisle to let me out.

As I moved on, she said: ‘See you on the eighteenth. Don’t forget, will you?’ Then, as we drew away from her, your hand now grasping mine, she said: ‘God sent you both here for a reason, Jennifer. I know He did.’

I didn’t answer. I just wanted to get the two of us out of there as quickly as possible.