Falling Angel

Maude Coleman

I know I shouldn’t say this, but Grandmother always manages to ruin our day when she visits, even before she arrives. Until her letter came yesterday we were having such a lovely time, sitting around the table on the patio and reading out bits from the papers to each other. That is my favorite time with Mummy and Daddy. It was a warm spring day, the flowers in Mummy’s garden were just beginning to bloom, and Mummy for once seemed happy.

Daddy was reading little snippets out from the Mail, and Mummy from the local paper all the crimes committed that week-fraud, wife beating, and petty theft the most common. She loves the crimes page.

“Listen to this,” she said. “ James Smithson has appeared before the court charged with stealing his neighbor’s cat. In his defense Mr. Smithson said the puss had made off with the Sunday joint and he was only reclaiming his property, now inside the cat.‘”

We all three laughed, but when Jenny arrived with the letter, Mummy stopped smiling.

“What on earth am I going to do with her for the day?” she said when she had finished the letter.

Daddy didn’t answer, but frowned and kept reading his paper.

That was when I suggested visiting the columbarium. I was not entirely certain what a columbarium is, but one has opened at the cemetery, and it sounds grand enough for Grandmother.

“Good idea, Maude,” Mummy said. “If she’ll agree.”

Daddy looked up from the Mail. “I would be very surprised if she agreed to see such an unsavory thing.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mummy said. “I think it’s rather a clever idea. I’m surprised you don‘t, given how much you like urns.”

When I heard the word urn, I knew they would argue, so I ran down to the bottom of the garden to tell Lavinia that we might go to the cemetery the next day. Daddy and Mr. Waterhouse have put up ladders so that we can climb the fence more easily, after I sprained my wrist once from falling.

I am rather frightened of Grandmother. She looks as if she has swallowed a fish bone and can’t get it out, and she says things that I would be punished for saying. Today when she arrived she looked at me and said, “Lord, child, you are plain. No one would guess you were Kitty’s daughter. Or my granddaughter, for that matter.” She always likes to remind everyone that she was a beauty when she was younger.

We went up to the morning room, and Grandmother said once again that she did not approve of the colors Mummy had done the room in. I rather like them. They remind me of the workman’s café Jenny sometimes takes me to as a treat, where there is a pot of mustard and a bottle of brown sauce on each table. Perhaps Mummy saw them there and decided to use them in her morning room-though it is hard to imagine Mummy in a workman’s café, with all the smoke and grease and the men who have not shaved. Mummy has always said she prefers a man with smooth skin like Daddy’s.

Mummy ignored Grandmother’s remarks. “Coffee, please, Jenny,” she ordered.

“Not for me,” Grandmother said. “Just a cup of hot water and a slice of lemon.”

I stood behind them by the window so that I could look out through the venetian blinds. It was dusty outside, what with all the activity in the street-horses pulling carts loaded with milk, coal, ice, the baker’s boy going door to door with his basket of bread, boys bringing letters, maids running errands. Jenny always says she is at war with dust and is losing the battle.

I liked looking out. When I turned back to the room, where dust floated in a shaft of sunlight, it seemed very still.

“Why are you lurking back there?” Grandmother said. “Come out so we can see you. Play us something on the piano.”

I looked at Mummy, horrified. She knew I hated playing.

She was no help. “Go on, Maude,” she said. “Play us something from your last lesson.”

I sat down at the piano and wiped my hands on my pinafore. I knew Grandmother would prefer a hymn to Mozart, so I began to play “Abide With Me,” which I know Mummy hates. After a few bars Grandmother said, “Gracious, child, that’s terrible. Can’t you play better than that?”

I stopped and stared down at the keys; my hands were trembling. I hated Grandmother’s visits.

“Come, now, Mother Coleman, she’s nine years old,” Mummy at last defended me. “She hasn’t been taking lessons for long.”

“A girl needs to learn these things. How’s her sewing?”

“Not good,” Mummy answered frankly. “She’s inherited that from me. But she reads very well. She’s reading Sense and Sensibility, aren’t you, Maude?”

I nodded. “And Through the Looking-Glass again. Daddy and I have been re-creating the chess game from it.”

“Reading,” Grandmother said, her fish-bone look even stronger. “That won’t get a girl anywhere. It’ll just put ideas in her head. Especially rubbish like those Alice books.”

Mummy sat up a little straighter. She read all the time. “What’s the matter with a girl having ideas, Mother Coleman?”

“She won’t be satisfied with her life if she has ideas,” Grandmother said. “Like you. I always said to my son that you wouldn’t be happy. ‘Marry her if you must,’ I said, ‘but she’ll never be satisfied.’ I was right. You always want something more, but all your ideas don’t tell you what.”

Mummy didn’t say anything, but sat with her hands clasped so tightly in her lap I could see the whites of her knuckles.

“But I know what you need.”

Mummy glanced at me, then shook her head at Grandmother, which meant Grandmother was about to say something I should not hear. “You should have more children,” she said, ignoring Mummy. She always ignores Mummy. “The doctor said there’s no physical reason why you can’t. You’d like a brother or sister, wouldn’t you, Maude?”

I looked from Grandmother to Mummy. “Yes,” I said, to punish Mummy for making me play the piano. I felt bad the moment I said it, but it was true, after all. I am often jealous of Lavinia because she has Ivy May, even though Ivy May can be a nuisance when she has to come everywhere with us.

Just then Jenny arrived with a tray, and we were all relieved to see her. When she had served them I managed to slip out after her as she left. Mummy was saying something about the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. “It’s sure to be rubbish,” Grandmother was saying as I shut the door.

“Rubbish,”Jenny repeated when we were in the kitchen, her head shaking and her nose wrinkling. She sounded so much like Grandmother that I laughed till my stomach hurt.

I sometimes wonder why Grandmother bothers to visit. She and Mummy disagree on almost everything, and Grandmother is not very polite about it. It is always left to Mummy to smooth things over. “The privilege of age,” Daddy says whenever Mummy complains.

For a moment I felt bad about abandoning Mummy upstairs, but I was still angry that she said my sewing was as bad as my piano. So I stayed in the kitchen and helped Mrs. Baker with lunch. We were to have cold cow’s tongue and salad, and lady’s fingers for pudding. Lunches with Grandmother are never very interesting.

When Jenny came down with the coffee tray she said she had overheard Grandmother say she does want to visit the columbarium, “even though it is for heathens.” I didn’t wait for her to finish, but ran to get Lavinia.

Kitty Coleman

Frankly I was surprised that Mrs. Coleman was so keen on seeing the columbarium. I expect the idea appeals to her sense of tidiness and economy, though she made it clear it would never be appropriate for Christians.

At any rate I was relieved to have something to do with her. I always dread her visits, though it is easier than when I was first married. It has taken these ten years of marriage to learn to handle her-like a horse, except that I have never managed a horse-they are so big and clumsy.

But handle her I have. The portraits, for example. As a wedding present she gave us several dark oil portraits of various Colemans from the last century or so, all with the same dour expression that she wears as well-which is remarkable given that she married into the family rather than inheriting the look.

They are dreary things, but Mrs. Coleman insisted they be hung in the hallway where every visitor could see and admire them; and Richard did nothing to dissuade her. It is rare he will cross her. His one rebellious act has been to marry a doctor’s daughter from Lincolnshire, and he will probably spend the rest of his days avoiding other conflict. So up went the portraits. After six months I found some botanical watercolors exactly the same size, and hung them instead, replacing them with the portraits whenever Mrs. Coleman came to call. Luckily she is not the kind of woman to pay surprise visits-she always announces her arrival the day before, giving me plenty of time to switch paintings.

After several years of swapping I grew more confident, and at last felt able to leave up the watercolors. Of course on arrival she noticed them first thing, before she had even unbuttoned her coat. “Where are the family portraits?” she demanded. “Why are they not in their places?”

Luckily I was prepared. “Oh, Mother Coleman” (how it grates to call her that-she is no mother to me), “I was concerned that the drafts from the door might damage them, and so I had them rehung in Richard’s study, where he can take comfort from his ancestors’ presence.”

Her response was typical. “I myself don’t know why you’ve left them there all that time. I should like to have said something, but this is your home, after all, and far be it from me to tell you how to run it.”

Jenny almost dropped Mrs. Coleman’s coat on the floor from giggling-she knew all too well the palaver that had gone on over the pictures, for it had been she who’d helped me switch the paintings each time.

I did have one victory over Mrs. Coleman early on, and it has seen me through many a grinding afternoon with her when afterward I have had to lie down with a dose of Beecham’s. Mrs. Baker was my triumph. I chose her as our cook because of her name-the frivolity of the reason was irresistible. And I could not help it-I told Mrs. Coleman as well.

When she heard she spat out her tea, appalled. “Chosen for her name? Don’t be ridiculous! What way is that to run a household?”

To my immense satisfaction, Mrs. Baker-a small, self-contained woman who reminds me of a bundle of twigs-has turned out to be a gem, a thrifty, able cook who instinctively understands certain things so that I do not need to spell them out. When I tell her Mrs. Coleman is coming for lunch, for example, she serves bouillon rather than mulligatawny, a poached egg rather than an omelette. Yes, she is a gem.

Jenny has been more of a trial, but I like her better than I do Mrs. Baker, who has a way of looking at everyone sideways and so appearing constantly suspicious. Jenny has a big mouth and wide cheeks-a face made for laughing. She is always going about her work with a smirk on her face, as if she is about to burst with some great joke. And she does too-I can hear her laugh all the way up from the kitchen. I try not to think it but I can’t help wondering if the laughter is ever directed at me. I am sure it is.

Mrs. Coleman says she is not to be trusted, of course. I suspect she may be right. There is something restless about Jenny that suggests one day she will crash, and we will all suffer the consequences. But I am determined to keep her on, if only to annoy Mrs. Coleman.

And she has been good for Maude-she is a warm girl. (Mrs. Baker is cold like pewter.) Since Maude’s nanny left and I am meant to be looking after her, Jenny has become indispensable in keeping an eye on her. She often takes her to the cemetery-a whim of Lavinia’s that Maude has unfortunately adopted and which I did not nip in the bud as I ought to have done. Jenny doesn’t complain much-I suspect she welcomes the chance for a rest. She always leaves for the cemetery in high spirits.

Maude said the Waterhouses would like to come along to see the columbarium, too, which was just as well. I suspected that Gertrude Waterhouse is, if not the class of woman Mrs. Coleman would have had her son marry (not that I was either), then at least more compatible with her. They could talk about their mutual adoration of the late queen, if nothing else.

The columbarium is housed in one of the vaults in the Circle of Lebanon, where a sort of channel has been dug round a big Lebanon cedar and lined with a double row of family vaults. To get to it one walks up the Egyptian Avenue, a gloomy row of vaults overhung with rhododendrons, the entrance done in the Egyptian style, with elaborate columns decorated with lotus flowers. The whole thing is rather theatrical-I am sure it was very stylish back in the 1840s, but now it makes me want to laugh. The tree is lovely, at least, its branches crooked and almost horizontally spread, like an umbrella of blue-green needles. With the blue sky behind it like today it can make the heart soar.

Perhaps I should have prepared the girls more for what they were about to see. Maude is quite phlegmatic and robust, and Ivy May, the younger Waterhouse girl with the big hazel eyes, keeps her thoughts to herself. But Lavinia is the kind of girl who will find any excuse to fall into a faint, which she promptly did the moment she peered through the iron grillwork into the columbarium. Not that there is much to see, realty-it is a small, high vault lined with cubicles of about one foot by eighteen inches. They are all empty except for two quite high up which have been covered over with stone plaques, and another with an urn sitting in it, with no plaque as of yet. Given that there are urns everywhere on graves here, it is hard to see what Lavinia made such a fuss about.

It was secretly gratifying, too, I must confess, for up until that moment Gertrude Waterhouse and Mrs. Coleman had been getting on very well. I would never say I was jealous, but it did make me feel rather inadequate. However, when Gertrude had to attend to her prone daughter, waving smelling salts under her nose while Ivy May fanned her with a handkerchief, Mrs. Coleman grew more disapproving. “What’s wrong with the girl?” she barked.

“She’s a bit sensitive, I’m afraid,” poor Gertrude replied. “She’s not meant to see such sights.”

Mrs. Coleman humphed. Her humphs are often more damaging than her words.

While we waited for Lavinia to revive, Maude asked me why it was called a columbarium.

“That’s Latin for dovecote, where birds live.”

“But birds don’t live there.”

“No. The little cubbyholes are for urns.”

“But why do they keep urns there?”

“Most people when they die are buried in coffins. But some people choose to be burned. The urns hold their ashes and this is where you can put them.”

“Burned?” Maude looked a bit shocked.

“Cremated is the word, actually,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. In a way it’s less frightening than being buried. Much quicker, at least. It’s becoming a little more popular now. Perhaps I’d like to be cremated.” I threw out the last comment rather flippantly, as I had never really considered it before. But now, staring at the urn in one of the cubbyholes, it began to appeal-though I should not want my ashes placed in an urn. Rather they be scattered somewhere, to help the flowers grow.

“Rubbish!” Mrs. Coleman interrupted. “And it’s entirely inappropriate for a girl of Maude’s age to be told about such things.” Having said that, however, she couldn’t resist continuing. “Besides, it’s unChristian and illegal. I wonder if it is even legal to build such a thing”-she waved at the columbarium-“if it encourages criminal activity.”

As she was speaking a man came trotting down the steps next to the columbarium that led from the upper to the lower level of the circle. He stopped abruptly when he heard her. “Pardon me, madam,” he said, bowing to Mrs. Coleman, “I couldn’t help overhearing your comment. Indeed, cremation is not illegal. It has never been illegal in England-it’s simply been disapproved of by society, and so it has not been carried out. But there have been crematoria for many years-the first was built at Woking in 1885.”

“Who are you?” Mrs. Coleman demanded. “And what business is it of yours what I say?”

“Pardon me, madam,” the man repeated with another bow. “I am Mr. Jackson, the superintendent of the cemetery. I simply wished to set you straight on the facts of cremation because I wanted to reassure you that there is nothing illegal about the columbarium. The Cremation Act passed two years ago regulates the procedures and practice throughout all of Britain. The cemetery is simply responding to the public’s demand, and reflecting public opinion on the matter.”

“You are certainly not reflecting my opinion on the matter, young man,” Mrs. Coleman huffed, “and I am a grave owner here-have been for almost fifty years.”

I smiled at her idea of a young man-he looked to be forty at least, with gray hairs in his rather bushy moustache. He was quite tall, and wore a dark suit with a bowler hat. If he had not introduced himself I would have thought he was a mourner. I had probably seen him before, but could not remember him.

“I am not saying that cremation should never be practiced,” Mrs. Coleman went on. “For non-Christians it can be an option. The Hindu and the Jew. Atheists and suicides. Those sorts who don’t care about their souls. But I am truly shocked to see such a thing sited on consecrated ground. It should have been placed in the Dissenters’ section, where the ground is not blessed. Here it is an offense to Christianity.”

“Those whose remains lie in the columbarium were certainly Christian, madam,” Mr. Jackson said.

“But what about reassembly? How can the body and soul be reunited on the Day of Resurrection if the body has been…” Mrs. Coleman did not complete her sentence, but waved a hand at the cubicles.

“Burnt to a crisp,” Maude finished for her. I stifled a giggle.

Rather than wilting under her onslaught, Mr. Jackson seemed to grow from it. He stood quite calmly, hands clasped behind his back, as if he were discussing a mathematical equation rather than a sticky question of theology. Maude and I, and the Waterhouses-Lavinia having recovered by this time-all stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

“Surely there is no difference between the decomposed remains of a buried body and the ashes of a burnt one,” he said.

“There is all the difference!” Mrs. Coleman sputtered. “But this is a most distasteful argument, especially in front of our girls here, one of whom has just recovered from a fit.”

Mr. Jackson looked around as if he were just seeing the rest of us. “My apologies, ladies.” He bowed (again). “I did not mean to offend.” But then he did not leave the argument, as Mrs. Coleman clearly wanted him to. “I would simply say that God is capable of all things, and nothing we do with our remains will stop Him if He wishes to reunite our souls with our bodies.”

There was a little silence then, punctuated by a tiny gasp from Gertrude Waterhouse. The implication behind his words-that with her argument Mrs. Coleman might be doubting the power of God Himself-was not lost on her. Nor on Mrs. Coleman, who, for the first time since I have known her, seemed at a loss for words. It was not a long moment, of course, but it was an immensely satisfying one.

“Young man,” Mrs. Coleman said finally, “if God wanted us to burn our dead He would have said so in the Bible. Come, Maude,” she said, turning her back on him, “it is time we paid a visit to our grave.”

As she led away a reluctant Maude, Mr. Jackson glanced at me and I smiled at him. He bowed for the fourth time, muttered something about having a great deal to do, and rushed off, quite red in the face.

Well, I thought. Well.

Lavinia Waterhouse

I didn’t mean to faint, really I didn’t. I know Maude thinks I bring it on deliberately, but I didn‘t-not this time. It was just that when I looked into the columbarium, I was sure I saw a little movement. I thought it might be the ghost of one of the poor souls with their ashes in there, hovering about in search of its body. Then I felt something touch the back of my neck and I knew it must be a ghost, and I fainted.

When I told Maude afterward what had happened she said it was probably the shadow from the cedar against the back wall of the columbarium. But I know what I saw, and it was not of this world.

Afterward I felt quite wretched, but no one paid any attention to me, not even to get me a glass of water-they were all agog at that man talking about burning and whatnot. I could not follow what he said at all, it was so tedious.

Then Maude’s grandmother dragged her off, and our mothers began to follow, and only Ivy May waited for me. She can be a dear sometimes. I got to my feet and was brushing off my dress when I heard a noise above me and looked up to see Simon on the roof of the columbarium! I couldn’t help but scream, what with the ghost and all. I don’t think anyone but Ivy May heard me-no one came back to see what was wrong.

When I had recovered I said, “What are you doing up there, naughty boy?”

“Looking at you,” he said cheekily.

“Do you like me, then?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Better than Maude? I’m prettier.”

“Her mum’s the prettiest of all,” he said.

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.

Edith Coleman

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.

Simon Field

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.

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.”

“Oh, it seems so trivial now, compared to all this.” She waves her hand round her. I’ll have to ask our pa what trivial means.

“Nothing is trivial here. What is it?”

“It’s about our grave down in the meadow. Some ivy from another grave is growing up the side of it. Though I believe it is our responsibility to cut it, it’s rather upset my mother-in-law, who feels the cemetery should complain to the neighboring grave owner.”

Now I understand what trivial means.

Mr. Jackson smiles a smile you only see when he’s with visitors, like he’s got a pain in his back and is trying to hide it. Mrs. C. looks embarrassed.

“I’ll have someone remove it at once,” he says, “and I shall have a word with the other owners.” He looks round as if he’s looking for a boy to give orders to, so I step out from the stone I was standing behind. It’s risky, ‘cause I know he’s still mad at me for hanging round Livy and Ivy May rather’n working. But I want Mrs. C. to see me.

“I’ll do it, sir,” I say.

Mr. Jackson looks surprised. “Simon, what are you doing here? Have you been harassing Mrs. Coleman?”

“I don’t know what harassing means, sir, but I ain’t been doing it. I’m just offering to clear off that ivy.”

Mr. Jackson is about to say something but Mrs. C. interrupts. “Thank you, Simon. That would be very kind of you.” And she smiles at me.

No lady’s ever said such a nice thing to me, nor smiled at me. I can’t move, staring at her smile.

“Go, boy. Go,” Mr. Jackson says quietly.

I smile back at her. Then I go.