Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Kingshaw stood on the gate for a long time, looking up the ploughed field ahead. But there was nothing happening, nothing to see. It was too hot, as well. He decided to go inside the church, partly because of that, and also because he had never seen it, it was something to do. The edges of the grass were clipped very short and neat around the gravestones, and the hedge was straight. There were gargoyles on the tower, opening their cold stone mouths at him. Kingshaw stuck out his tongue, craning back his head. He would not be afraid of them in the daylight. Inside the church, it smelled as though no living, breathing person had ever been there, the air was damp and musty and dead. Kingshaw walked slowly down between the pews. The hymn books were in two piles on a chair, with some of the spines and backs hanging off. His footsteps rang on the stone, and then were muffled as he came on to the red carpet by the altar rail. He thought, this is church, this is God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost. After a moment, he dared himself to go and stand on the uneven tiles just inside the chancel. On either side of him, the wood smelled of oldness and polish. He remembered what he had thought and said about Hooper, how he had wished him to be dead. Now, he was afraid of what would happen, because of that. Things came back on you. You were never safe. There were the warts, still on his left hand. He knelt down, abruptly, where he was, and began to say, O God, I didn't mean it – yes, I did, I did mean it, only now I don't mean it, I want to take it back and never to have thought and said it, and if I'm sorry, make nothing happen to me, make it all be forgotten about. I am trying to be sorry. But he did not think it likely that he could ever be believed, nothing could change, because he had meant what he thought and said about Hooper, and still meant it. It was only being afraid of this empty church, and of the white marble warrior lying on his tombstone in the side chapel, that made him kneel down and tell lies. It was no good. He had wanted Hooper to be dead, because then things would have been better. His punishment was that Hooper not dead, that everything was the same, and the thought of that was worse than anything. He acknowledged that he feared Hooper more than he feared anything in the world. Please make nothing happen, please make it all right and I will never, never want anything else again, O God His knees were hurting from the hard tiles. He wanted to get out into the sunlight. 'What's the matter with you?' Kingshaw spun round in alarm, and at once began to struggle to his feet. 'You're not supposed to go inside those railings.' [from Chapter 14] Explore the ways in which Hill makes Kingshaw's situation at this moment in the novel seem so distressing. Support your ideas with details from the writing.
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