Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

I don’t stay long, though. When the girls are gone a few minutes I climb down to find‘em. I’m running down the main path when I see Mr. Jackson coming the other way and I have to dive behind a grave.

He’s talking to one of the gardeners. “Who is that woman with the girls?” he says. “The one wearing the apple-green dress?”

“Tha’s Mrs. Coleman, guv. Kitty Coleman. You know that grave down by the paupers with the big urn? Tha’s theirs.”

“Yes, of course. The urn and the angel, too close together.”

“Tha’s it. She’s a looker, ain’t she?”

“Watch yourself, man.”

The gardener chuckled. “Sure, guv. Sure I’ll watch myself.”

When they’ve passed I go down to the graves. I have to hide from the gardeners working in the meadow. It’s tidy here, all the grass clipped and the weeds pulled and the paths raked. Some places in the cemetery they don’t bother with so much now, but in the meadow there’s always someone doing something. Mr. Jackson says it has to look good for the visitors, else they won’t buy plots and there’ll be no money to pay us. Our pa says that’s rubbish-people die every day and need a place to be buried, and they’ll pay whether the grass is cut or no. He says all that matters is a grave well dug.

I crouch down behind the grave with the angel on it. Livy’s grave. There still ain’t no skull ‘n’ crossbones marked on it, though it makes my fingers itch to see it blank like that. I kept my word.

The ladies are standing in front of the two graves talking, and Livy and Maude are sitting in the grass, making chains out of little daisies. I peek out now and then but they don’t see me. Only Ivy May does. She stares straight at me with big greeny-brown eyes like a cat that freezes when it sees you and waits to see what you’re going to do-kick it or pat it. She don’t say nothing and I put my finger on my mouth to go shhh. I owe her for saving our pa’s job.

Then I hear the lady in the green dress say, “I’ll go and find the superintendent, Mr. Jackson. He may be able to get someone to look after things here.”

“It won’t make any difference,” the old lady says. “It’s the attitude that’s changed. The attitude of this new age which doesn’t respect the dead.”

“Nevertheless, he can at least have someone remove the ivy, since you won’t allow me to,” the lady in green says. She kicks at her skirts. I like it when she does that. It’s like she’s trying to kick ‘em off. “I’ll just go and find him. Won’t be a minute.” She goes up the path and I slip from grave to grave, following her.

I’d like to tell her where Mr. Jackson is now, but I don’t know myself. There’s three graves being dug today, and four funerals. There’s a column being put up near the monkey puzzle tree, and there’s some new graves sunk and need more dirt on‘em. Mr. Jackson could be any of them places, overseeing the men. Or he could be having a cuppa down the lodge, or selling someone a grave. She don’t know that, though.

On the main path she almost gets run down by a team of horses pulling a slab of granite. She jumps back, but she don’t shriek like lots of ladies would. She just stands there, all white, and I have to hide behind a yew tree while she takes out a handkerchief and presses it to her forehead and neck.

Near the Egyptian Avenue another lot of diggers comes down toward her with spades over their shoulders. They’re hard men-our pa and me stay away from ‘em. But when she stops ’em and says something they look at the ground, both of ‘em, like they’re under a spell. One points up the path and over to the right and she thanks ’em and walks the way he pointed. When she’s past they look at each other and one says something I can’t hear and they both laugh.

They don’t see me following her. I jump from grave to grave, ducking behind the tombstones. The granite slabs on the graves are warm under my feet where they’ve been in the sun. Sometimes I just stand still for a minute to feel that warmth. Then I run to catch up with her. Her back from behind looks like an hourglass. We got hourglasses on graves here with wings on ‘em. Time flies, our pa says they mean. You think you got long in this world but you don’t.

She turns down the path by the horse statue into the Dissenters, and then I remember they’re trimming branches off the horse chestnuts back there. We go round a corner and there’s Mr. Jackson with four gardeners-two on the ground and two who have climbed a big chestnut tree. One of ‘em straddles a branch and shinnies out along it, holding tight with his legs. A gardener on the ground makes a joke about the branch being a woman, and everybody laughs ’cept Mr. Jackson and the lady, who nobody knows is there yet. She smiles, though.

They’ve tied ropes round the branch and the two men up the tree are pulling back and forth on a two-man saw. They stop to wipe the sweat off their faces, and to unstick the saw when it gets caught.

Some of the men see the lady in the green dress. They nudge each other but nobody tells Mr. Jackson. She looks happier watching the men in the tree than when she was with the other ladies. Her eyes are dark, like there’s coal smudged round them, and little bits of her hair are coming out of their pins.

Suddenly there’s a crack, and the branch breaks where they’re sawing it. The lady cries out, and Mr. Jackson turns round and sees her. The men let the branch down with the ropes and when it’s on the ground they start sawing it to pieces.

Mr. Jackson comes over to the lady. He’s red in the face like it’s him been sawing the branch all this time instead of telling others what to do.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Coleman, I didn’t see you. Have you been here long?”

“Long enough to hear a tree branch compared to a woman.”

Mr. Jackson sputters like his beer’s gone down the wrong way.

Mrs. Coleman laughs. “That’s all right,” she says. “It was quite refreshing, actually.”

Mr. Jackson don’t seem to know what to say. Lucky for him one of the men in the tree shouts down, “Any other branches to cut here, guv?”

“No, just take this one down to the bonfire area. Then we’re finished here.”

“Do you have fires here?” Mrs. C. asks.

“At night, yes, to burn wood and leaves and other refuse. Now, madam, how may I be of service?”

“I wanted to thank you for speaking to my mother-in-law about cremation,” she says. “It was very instructive, though I expect she was rather taken aback to be answered so forthrightly.”

“Those with firm opinions must be dealt with firmly.”

“Whom are you quoting?”

“Myself.”

“Oh.”

They don’t say nothing for a minute. Then she says, “I think I should like to be cremated, now that I know it will be no more of a challenge to God than interment.”

“It is something you must consider carefully and decide for yourself, madam. It is not a decision to be taken lightly.”

“I don’t know about that,” she says. “Sometimes I think it matters not a jot what I do or don’t do, or what is done to me.”

He looks at her shocked, like she’s just cursed. Then one of the gatekeepers comes running up the path and says, “Guv, the Anderson procession’s at the bottom of Swain’s Lane.”

“Already?” Mr. Jackson says. He pulls his watch from his pocket. “Blast, they’re early. Send a boy over to the grave to tell the diggers to stand by. I’ll be down in a moment.”

“Right, guv.” The man runs back down the path.

“Is it always this busy?” Mrs. C. says. “So much activity doesn’t encourage quiet contemplation. Though I suppose it is a little quieter here in the Dissenters.”

“A cemetery is a business, like any other,” Mr. Jackson says. “People tend to forget that. Today in fact is relatively quiet for burials. But I’m afraid we can’t guarantee peace and quiet, except on Sundays. It’s the nature of the work-it’s impossible to predict when people will pass on. We must be prepared to act swiftly-nothing can be planned in advance. We have had twenty funerals in one day. Other days we’ve had none. Now, madam, was there something else you wanted? I’m afraid I must be getting on.”