Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

I frowned. That was not at all what I’d wanted him to say. “Come, Ivy May,” I said, “we must find the others.” I held out my hand to her, but she would not take it. She just looked up at Simon, her hands clasped behind her as if she were inspecting something.

“Ivy May don’t say much, do she?” he said.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Sometimes I do,” she said.

“There you go.” Simon nodded. He smiled at her, and to my surprise Ivy May smiled back.

That was when the man came back-Mr. Jackson, the one who talked about all the burning. He rushed around the corner, saw Simon and me, and stopped.

“What are you doing here, Simon? You’re meant to be helping your father. And what are you doing with these girls? They’re not for the likes of you. Has he been bothering you, young lady?” he said to me.

“Oh, yes, he’s been bothering me awfully,” I said.

“Simon! I’ll have your father’s job for this. Go and tell him to stop digging. That’s the end of you, lad.”

I wasn’t sure if he was bluffing. But Simon scrambled to his feet and stared at the man. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but he glanced at me and didn’t. Then suddenly he took a few steps back and before I knew it he’d jumped clear over our heads from the roof of the columbarium to the circle with the cedar in it. I was so surprised I just stood there with my mouth open. He must have jumped ten feet.

“Simon!” the man shouted again. Simon scrambled up the cedar and began creeping out along one of the branches. When he was quite a long way up he stopped and sat on the branch with his back to us, swinging his legs. He wore no shoes.

“She was lying. He wasn’t bothering us.”

Ivy May often chooses to speak just when I don’t want her to. I felt like pinching her.

Mr. Jackson raised his eyebrows. “What was he doing?”

I couldn’t think what to say, and looked at Ivy May.

“He was showing us where to go,” Ivy May said.

I nodded. “We were lost, you see.”

Mr. Jackson sighed. His jaw moved about as if he were chewing something. “Why don’t I escort you two young ladies to your mother. Do you know where she is?”

“At our grave,” I said.

“And what is your name?”

“Lavinia Ermyntrude Waterhouse.”

“Ah, in the meadow, with an angel on it.”

“Yes. I chose that angel, you know.”

“Come with me, then.”

As we turned to follow him I did give Ivy May a great pinch, but it was not very satisfying because she did not cry out-I suppose she thought she had used her mouth enough for one day.

I cut short my visit. I had planned to stay to supper and to see Richard, but found the trip to the cemetery so trying that when we returned to my son’s house I asked the maid to fetch me a cab. The girl was standing in the hallway with a dose of Beecham’s on a tray-the only time she has ever had the sense to anticipate anyone’s needs. She had flavored it with lime water, which was entirely unnecessary, and I told her so, at which point she giggled. Insolent girl. I would have shown her the door in an instant, but Kitty didn’t seem to notice.

It was most annoying that Kitty didn’t tell me who the Waterhouses were-then I would have avoided an unfortunate moment. (I can’t help but wonder if she did it deliberately.) When we visited our grave I remarked on the angel on the next grave. Richard has indicated for some time that he intends to ask the grave owners to replace the angel with an urn to match ours. I merely asked Gertrude Waterhouse her opinion-neglecting as I did so to note the name on the grave. I was as surprised to discover it is their angel as she was to find we do not like it. In the interest of getting the truth out into the open-someone must, after all, and these things always seem to come down to me-I set aside any social embarrassment I felt and explained that everyone would prefer the graves to have matching urns. But then Kitty undermined my argument by saying she rather liked the angel now, while at the same time Gertrude Waterhouse confessed they did not at all like our urn. (Fancy that!)

Then that tiresome Waterhouse girl piped up, saying that if the graves had matching urns people would think the two families were related. That remark gave me pause, I must say. I don’t think such an association with the Waterhouses would be beneficial to the Colemans in the least.

And I don’t think much of the Waterhouse girl’s influence over my granddaughter-she has no sense of proportion, and she may well ruin Maude’s. Maude could do much better for a friend.

I wash my hands of the affair of the angel and the urn. I have tried, but it is for the men to sort out, while we women bear the consequences. It is unlikely that Richard will do anything now, as it has been over three years since the angel was erected, and apparently he and Albert Waterhouse are quite friendly on the cricket team.

It was all very awkward, and I was furious with Kitty for making it so. It is just like her to embarrass me. She has never been easy, but I was more inclined to be tolerant of her when she and Richard were first married, as I knew she made him happy. These past few years, however, they have clearly been at odds. I could never speak to Richard of it, of course, but frankly I am sure she does not welcome him into her bed-otherwise they would have more children and Richard would not look so grim. I can do nothing but hint to Kitty that things ought to be otherwise, but it has no effect-she no longer makes Richard happy, and she seems unlikely to make me a grandmother again.

Now, to smooth things over with Gertrude Waterhouse, I changed the subject to the upkeep of the cemetery, about which I was sure we would all be in agreement. When my husband and I were married he brought me to the cemetery to show me the Coleman family grave, and I was all the more certain that I had chosen well in a husband. It looked to be a solid, safe, and orderly place: the boundary walls were high, the flower beds and paths well tended, the staff unobtrusive and professional. The much praised landscape design did not interest me, and I didn’t care for the excesses of the Egyptian Avenue and Circle of Lebanon, but I recognized them as features that have established the reputation of the cemetery as the preferred burial place of our class. Far be it from me to complain.

Now, however, standards are slipping. Today I saw dead tulips in the flower beds. That would never have happened thirty years ago-then a flower was replaced the moment it passed its prime. And it is not just the management. Some grave owners are even choosing to plant wildflowers around their graves! Next they’ll bring in a cow to munch the buttercups.

As an example of lowered standards I pointed out some ivy from an adjacent grave (not the Waterhouses‘) that was creeping up the side of ours. If nothing is done it will soon cover the urn and topple it. Kitty made to pull it off, but I stopped her, saying it was for the cemetery management to make sure other people’s ivy doesn’t grow onto our property. I insisted that she leave the ivy as evidence, and that the superintendent himself be alerted to the situation.

To my surprise Kitty went off then and there to find the superintendent, leaving Gertrude Waterhouse and me to make awkward conversation until she reappeared-which was a very long time indeed. She must have taken a turn around the entire cemetery.

To be fair, Gertrude Waterhouse is pleasant enough. What she needs is more backbone. She should take some from my daughter-in-law, who has far more than is good for her.

I like it up the tree. You can see all over the cemetery, and down to town. You can sit up there all peaceful and no one else sees you. One of them big black crows comes and sits on the branch near me. I don’t throw nothing or yell at it. I let it sit with me.