Трейси Шевалье - Falling Angel

I knew there was nothing I could do, so I ran upstairs. As I passed Mummy’s room-which I had avoided all week, leaving anything that needed doing in there to Grandmother-I could hear tapping. They were nailing the coffin shut.

In my room I dressed quickly. Then it came to me that there was one thing I could do. I found paper and pen and scribbled a note, pausing for a moment to recall the address I had seen printed so often on the letters page of the local paper. Then, grabbing my hat and gloves, I raced downstairs again, passing Daddy and Grandmother’s surprised faces in the front hall as I continued down to the kitchen.

Mrs. Baker was standing by the table, arms crossed, glaring at the spread of food laid out, a large ham glistening with jelly the center-piece.

“Mrs. Baker,” I whispered, “if ever you loved my mother, please find someone to take this immediately. Please, for her sake. As quick as you can, else it will be too late.”

Mrs. Baker glanced at the address, then without a word she strode to the back door and wrenched it open. As I was stepping into the carriage with Daddy and Grandmother I saw her stop a boy in the street and give him the note. Whatever she said to him made him run as if he were chasing his hat in the wind.

It was pouring with rain. The undertaker had spread straw in front of our house to muffle the horses’ hooves, but it was not necessary-the rain drowned out the sound anyway. A few neighbors had seen the funeral carriages and were standing in their doorways, but most were not expecting to do so until the next day.

No one spoke in the carriage. I stared out the window at the passing houses, and then the long brick-and-iron fence that separated graves from the road. The carriage ahead of us with the glass sides carrying the coffin was splashed with rain. All along the route people took off their hats for a moment as we passed.

At the cemetery Mr. Jackson stepped up to the carriage with a large umbrella and helped down first Grandmother and then me. He nodded at me briefly, and I managed to nod back. Then he led us through the gate to the chapel entrance, where Auntie Sarah was waiting for us. She was twelve years older than Mummy and lived in Lincolnshire. They had not been close. She pecked me on the cheek and shook Daddy’s hand. Then we went into the chapel for the service.

I sat in the front pew between Daddy and Auntie Sarah, with Grandmother next to Daddy. At first it was just the four of us and the vicar of St. Anne‘s, who led the service. But when we began the first hymn, I heard voices behind me joining in to sing “Nearer My God to Thee,” and turned to see Mr. Jackson and Simon standing at the back.

Just as we’d finished the second hymn, “Abide With Me” (which of course Mummy had detested), the door banged open. Caroline Black stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, her hat askew, her hair tumbling down. Daddy stiffened. “Damn her,” he muttered. Caroline Black took a seat halfway up the aisle and caught my eye. I nodded at her. When I turned back to face the front I could feel Daddy’s fury next to me, and I smiled a little and lifted my chin, as Mummy used to do when she was being defiant.

Damn you, I thought. Damn you yourself.

When it was all done-when the coffin had been taken into the cemetery and laid in the grave with the gigantic urn looming over it; when Simon and his father began to fill it in, working steadily in the pouring rain; when I stepped away from my mother to begin the journey home-Caroline Black reached over and took my hand. It was then that I at last began to cry.

The waste of all that food was a crime. She didn’t even apologize-just said there had been a change in plans and there would be just four for the funeral meal. And there was me preparing for fifty!

I nearly walked out then and there, but for Miss Maude. In a week she’s lost her mum and Jenny-and her best friend, from what the Waterhouses’ char says. She doesn’t need me leaving too.

What happens today I’ll never tell Maude. Probably won’t tell no one.

After Kitty Coleman’s funeral our pa and Joe and me start filling the grave. The soil’s sandy, makes it hard to shovel much in at once, even in the rain. It’s always harder digging in the meadow, in the sand. Clay needs more cutting with the spade, but it sticks together so you can handle it easier than sand.

We been real careful with this grave, it being so close to Ivy May’s. It’s twelve feet deep, so Maude and her pa and gran can fit in when their time comes. We done extra shoring and made sure the wood were tight as we could get it against sand. Sand can be a killer if it ain’t handled right.

We’re shoveling in the sand awhile, and the grave’s half full. It’s chucking down rain and we’re soaked. Then our pa’s cap falls in.

“I’ll get it,” I says to our pa.

“Nah, son, I’ll get it,” he says, and jumps right in like he’s a boy again. Lands straight on his cap and starts to laugh. “Bull‘s-eye,” he says. “You owe me a pint.”

“Where you going to get a pint?” I laugh. “You’ll have to walk a long way for it.”

Only pub round here that’ll serve gravediggers is the Duke of St. Albans the bottom of Swain’s Lane, and they won’t let our pa in anymore ‘cause he got so drunk he tried to kiss the landlady, then wrecked a chair.

Just then there’s a crack and the shoring on the side by Ivy May’s grave pops out. It does that when the ground round it’s shifting. Before our pa can do anything but duck the flying wood, that side of the grave collapses.

It must happen fast, but it don’t seem like it. Seem like I got lots of time to watch our pa look up like he’s just heard thunder overhead and is waiting for the next flash of lightning. “Oh,” I think I hear him say.

Then the dirt is raining down on him, piling round him up to his waist. There seems to be a little pause then but it can’t be long‘cause Joe and I ain’t moved at all yet, ain’t said a word, ain’t even breathed.

Our pa catches my eye for a second and seems to smile at me. Then a pile of dirt comes down and knocks him over.

“Man in!” I shout as loud as I can through the rain. “Man in!” It’s words no one likes to hear in this place.

The dirt is still moving like it’s alive but I can’t see our pa now. Just like that he’s not there. Joe and I scramble round the grave, trying to keep from setting off more dirt. The hole’s three quarters full now. We need a big timber or ladder to lay‘cross the hole, to give us something stable to work from, but there ain’t one around. We had a ladder but someone’s borrowed it.

There ain’t no time to wait when a man’s buried like that. He’ll die in a few minutes if he ain’t got no air. I jump into the hole though I’m not supposed to, landing in the mud on all fours like a cat. I look and look and then I see the thing our pa taught me. I see his finger sticking out the dirt, just the tip of it, wiggling. He remembered to put his hand up. I start clawing round the finger with my hands. Don’t dare use a shovel. I dig so hard the sand gets jammed under my nails and it hurts bad.

“Hang on, our Pa,” I say as I’m digging. “We’re getting you out. I see your fingers. We’re getting you out.”

Don’t know as he can hear me, but if he can it might make him feel better.

I’m digging and digging, trying to find his face, hoping he put the other hand up to it. There ain’t no time, not even to look up. If I did look up, though, I know I’d see Joe standing on the edge of the grave, looking down at me, hands at his sides. He’s a big man, and can dig for hours without stopping, but he’s no thinker. He don’t do the delicate work. He’s better off up there.