Falling Angels

by Tracy Chevalier

  So I put on my blue dress. At least it is dark blue—dark enough that from a distance it could be taken for black.

  What is sad about today is not simply that the King is dead, but that his mother is truly gone now. If it were she who died I would not have thought twice about wearing black. I have begun to feel recently that I am the only one who still looks back to her as an example to us all. Even Mama is looking forward. I am getting tired of swimming against the tide.

  Maude Coleman

  I lay in bed for a long time and tried to guess which bells belonged to which church: St. Mary’s Brookfield up one hill, St. Michael’s and St. Joseph’s up the hill in Highgate, our church St. Anne’s at the bottom. Each rang just one low bell, and although each was at a slightly different pitch and tolled ever so slightly more or less slowly, still they all sounded the same. I had not heard such a noise since Queen Victoria’s death nine years ago.

  I stuck my head out of the window and saw Lavinia crossing herself in her window. Usually when I caught a glimpse of her somewhere—in her garden or on the street—a jolt ran through me as if someone had shoved me from behind. But now it was so strange to see her make such a foreign gesture that I forgot to be upset at seeing her. She must have learned to cross herself at the Sainte Union. I thought of her years ago being frightened of going into the Dissenters’ section of the cemetery where all the Catholics are buried, and smiled. It was funny how things change.

  She saw me then, and, hesitating for a moment, she nodded to acknowledge my smile. I had not meant it as a smile at her, really, but once she nodded I felt I ought to nod too.

  We turned away from our windows then, and I went to get dressed, hesitating over the dresses in my wardrobe. The black silk hung there still, but it would need altering to fit me now—I had filled out since last wearing it, and I was wearing a corset besides. I had worn black for almost a year following Mummy’s death, and for the first time I had understood why we are meant to wear black. It is not just that the color reflects a mourner’s somber mood, but also that one doesn’t want to have to choose what to wear. For the longest time I would wake in the morning and be relieved that I did not have to decide among my dresses—the decision had been made for me. I had no desire to wear color, or to be concerned about my appearance. It was only when I did want to wear color again that I knew I was beginning to recover.

  I wondered sometimes how Lavinia fared with such a long period of mourning for Ivy May—six months for a sister, though I expect she kept up with her mother and wore black for a year. I wondered now what she would wear for the King.

  I looked at my dresses again. Then I saw Mummy’s dove-gray dress among them and thought that perhaps I could manage that. It still surprises me that her dresses now fit me. Grandmother does not approve of me wearing them, but the stroke has left her unable to speak easily, and I have managed to ignore her dark looks.

  I suppose she is thinking in part of Daddy, and I do try not to wear Mummy’s dresses in front of him. I could see him now, smoking a cigarette out in the garden—something Mummy forbade him to do, as he always flicks the butts into the grass. I went downstairs in the gray dress and slipped out before he saw me.

  On Swain’s Lane the paperboys were crying out about the King’s death, and some shops were already hung with black and purple banners. No one was painting their ironwork black, though, as they had done after the Queen’s death. Some people were dressed in black, but others weren’t. They stopped to speak to one another, not in the hushed tones of mourners, but jovially as they spoke of the King. I remembered that when the Queen died everything ground to a halt—no one went to work, schools were closed, shops shut. We ran short of bread and coal. Now, though, I sensed this would not happen—the baker would deliver his bread, the milkman his milk, the coal man his coal. It was a Saturday, and if I went over to the heath, children would still be flying kites.

  I had been planning to return a book to the library, but when I got there it was shut, with a small notice announcing the King’s death pasted to the door. Some still honored the tradition. I glanced across the road at the cemetery gate, remembering the white banner from the library falling onto the funeral procession, and Mr. Jackson, and Caroline Black. It seemed a long time ago, and yet I also felt as if I’d lost Mummy only yesterday.

  I didn’t want to go home, so instead I crossed the road, entered the gate, and began walking up the path toward the main part of the cemetery. Halfway up, Simon’s father was sitting on a flat tombstone and leaning against a Celtic cross. He had a hand on each knee and was gazing into the distance the way old men do by the seaside. His eyes flashed with the blue of the sky so that it was hard to tell what he was looking at. I wasn’t sure that he saw me, but I stopped anyway. “Hallo.”

  His eyes moved about but did not seem to fix upon me. “Hallo,” he said.

  “It is a shame about the King, isn’t it?” I said, feeling I ought to make conversation.

  “Shame ‘bout the King,” Simon’s father repeated.

  I had not seen him in a long while. Whenever I looked for Simon at work, his father did not seem to be digging with him, but was off getting a ladder or a wheelbarrow or a bit of rope. Once I had seen him propped up against a grave, asleep, but had thought he was sleeping off a night of drink.

  “Do you know where Simon is?” I asked.

  “Where Simon is.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. Although they were turned in my direction, they did not show any recognition. It was as if he were blind, though he could see. Something was wrong with him—he clearly would not push a spade into clay again. I wondered what had happened to him.

  I squeezed his shoulder. “Never mind. It’s been lovely to see you.”

  “Lovely to see you.”

  Tears pricked my eyes and nose as I continued along the path.

  I tried to stay away from our grave, and wandered for a time around the cemetery, looking at the crosses, columns, urns, and angels, silent and shining in the sun. But somehow in the end I still found my way there.

  She was already waiting for me. When I saw her I thought at first that she was wearing a black dress, but when I got closer I realized it was blue—which was what Mummy had worn so scandalously for Queen Victoria. I smiled at that, but when Lavinia asked why I was smiling, I knew better than to say.

  Simon Field

  They’re sitting each on her own grave, like they used to. I ain’t seen them together in a long time, though neither would ever tell me what the matter was with the other whenever I saw one alone. Too much happened in too little time for them girls.

  They don’t see me—I hide well.

  They ain’t quite themselves now—they don’t have their arms linked, and they don’t laugh the way they used to. They’re sitting far apart and making polite talk. I hear Maude ask, “How is your mother?”

  Livy gets a funny look on her face. “Mama is going to have a baby any day now.”

  Maude looks so surprised I almost laugh and give myself away. “That’s wonderful! But I thought—I thought she was too old to have children. And—after Ivy May . . .”

  “It seems not.”

  “Are you pleased?”

  “Of course,” Livy says. “Life does go on, after all.”

  “Yes.”

  They both look at their graves, at Ivy May’s and Kitty Coleman’s names.

  “And your grandmother—how is she?” Livy asks.

  “She is still living with us. She had a stroke a few months ago and can’t speak.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “It’s just as well, really. It’s much easier to be with her now.”

  The two of ‘em giggle as if Maude’s said something naughty. I come out from behind a grave and scrape my feet in the pebbles on the path so they’ll hear me. They both jump. “Hello,” Maude says, and Livy says, “Where have you been, naughty boy?” and that’s like old times. I squat by our granpa’s grave across fr
om them, pick up two pebbles from the path, and rub ’em ‘tween my fingers.

  “How did you know we were here?” Maude asks.

  I shrug. “I knew you’d both come. King’s dead, ain’t he?”

  “Long live the King,” they say together, then smile at each other.

  “Isn’t it a pity?” Livy says. “If Mama has a boy she shall have to name him George. I don’t like that name as much as Edward. Teddy, I would have called him. Georgie isn’t quite so nice.”

  Maude laughs. “I’ve missed your silly remarks.”

  “Hush,” Livy says.

  “Simon, I saw your father just now,” Maude says suddenly.

  I let the pebbles drop back onto the path.

  “What happened to him?” she asks real quiet.

  “Accident.”

  Maude don’t say nothing.

  “He were buried. We got him out, but . . .” I shrug again.

  “I’m sorry,” Maude whispers.

  “And I,” Livy adds.

  “I got something to ask you,” I says to Livy.

  She stares at me. Bet she’s thinking ‘bout that kiss down the grave, years ago. But that’s not what I’m going to ask her.

  “You know I marked all the graves here. Got all of ‘em in the meadow, far’s I know. ’Cept yours.” I jerk my head at the Waterhouse angel. “You told me not to, all them years back, after the Queen died. So I didn’t. But I want to now. For Ivy May. To remember she’s there.”

  “What, to be reminded she’s just bones?” Livy says. “That’s horrid!”

  “No, no, it ain’t that. It’s to remind you she’s still there. Some of her rots, sure, but her bones’ll be there for hundreds of years. Longer’n these stones, even, I’ll bet. Longer’n my mark. That’s what matters, not the grave and what you put on it.”

  Maude looks at me funny, and I can see that all these years she ain’t understood my skull ‘n’ crossbones either, for all her being smarter than Livy.

  Livy don’t say nothing for a minute. Then she says, “All right.”

  I get up and go behind the plinth with my pocket knife.

  While I’m back there, scratching the mark, they start talking again.

  “I don’t care if Simon marks the angel,” Livy says. “I’ve never felt the same about it since it fell. I’m always expecting it to fall again. And I can still see the break in the nose and neck.”

  “I have never liked our grave,” Maude says. “I look at it and none of it makes me think of Mummy, even though her name’s on it. Did you know she wanted to be cremated?”

  “What, and placed in the columbarium?” Livy sounds horrified.

  “No, she wanted her ashes scattered where flowers grow. That’s what she said. But Daddy wouldn’t do it.”

  “I should think not.”

  “It’s always felt wrong, burying her here, but there’s nothing to be done. As you said, life goes on.”

  I finish the mark and fold up my knife. I’m glad to have done it, like I finally scratched an itch on my back. I’ve owed Ivy May a long time. When I come out I nod at them. “I has to get back to work. Joe’ll be wondering where I am.” I’m quiet a minute. “You’ll be coming back to see me, both of you?”

  “Of course,” they say.

  Don’t know why I asked that, ‘cause I know the answer, and it ain’t the one they gave. They’re growing up and they don’t play in the cemetery anymore. Maude’s got her hair up and looks more like her mother every day, and Livy’s ...well, Livy. She’ll be married at eighteen, to a soldier, I expect.

  I hold out my hand to Maude. She looks surprised but she takes it.

  “Good-bye,” I say. She knows why I’m doing it, ‘cause she knows the real answer too. Suddenly she steps up to me and kisses my dirty cheek. Livy jumps up and kisses the other one. They laugh, then they link arms and start down the path together toward the entrance.

  I got an idea back there behind Ivy May’s grave. Listening to Maude made me think about her ma’s grave, and how our pa got buried in it. I always thought maybe it were a sign she didn’t want to be buried there. Sometimes I think Mr. Jackson thought the same thing. The look on his face when her coffin were lowered into the grave was like a knife turning in his gut.

  I go down to see Mr. Jackson. He’s in the lodge meeting with a family ‘bout a burial, so I wait in the courtyard. A line of men are pushing wheelbarrows ’cross to the dumping ground. This place don’t stop even for a king.

  When Mr. Jackson’s showed his visitors out, I clear my throat. “Can I have a quick word, guvnor?” I say.

  “What is it, Simon?”

  “Something I need to say inside. Away from everybody.” I nod at the wheelbarrows.

  He looks at me surprised, but he lets me into the lodge and shuts the door. He sits behind his desk and starts straightening the ledger he’s been writing in, recording the next burial—date and time and place and depth and monument.

  He’s been good to me, Mr. Jackson. He don’t never complain ‘bout our pa not digging. He even pays him same as ever, and gives me and Joe extra time to finish. Some of the other diggers ain’t happy ’bout it, but Mr. Jackson shuts ‘em up. They looks at our pa sometimes and I can see ’em shiver. “Grace of God,” they whisper. “There but for.” They don’t talk to us much, me and Joe. Like we’re cursed. Well, they’ll have to live with me. I ain’t going nowhere, as far as I can see. ‘Cept if there’s a war, what Mr. Jackson sometimes says there might be. They’ll need diggers then.

  “What did you want, Simon?” Mr. Jackson says. He’s nervous of what I might say, wondering if I got any more surprises to tell him. I still feel bad, giving that one up ‘bout Kitty’s baby.

  It ain’t easy to say it. “I been up at the Coleman grave,” I says at last. “Maude and Livy were there.”

  Mr. Jackson stops moving the ledger and lays his hands on the desk.

  “Maude were saying how her mother wanted to be burn—cremated. And how she looks at the grave now and there ain’t nothing there of her mother‘cept her name.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “Yep. And I were thinking—”

  “You were thinking too much.”

  I almost don’t go on ‘cause he sounds so miserable. But something about Kitty Coleman keeps linking him and me.

  “I think we should do something ‘bout it,” I say.

  Mr. Jackson looks at the door like he’s scared someone might come in. He gets up and locks the door. “What do you mean?” he says.

  So I tell him my idea.

  He don’t say nothing for a time. Just looks at his hands laying on the desk. Then he balls his hands into fists.

  “It is the bones that pose the problem,” he says. “We have to get the fire hot enough for long enough. Special coal, perhaps.” He stops.

  I don’t say nothing.

  “It may take some time to organize.”

  I nod. We got time. I know just when to do it—when everybody’s looking somewhere else.

  Gertrude Waterhouse

  When she came in I didn’t say a word to Livy about the blue dress. I hadn’t noticed her wearing it this morning. Though it did surprise me, I managed to hide it behind burbling about the baby. I hope at least that she wears black on the day of the King’s funeral. They say it is to be set for a fortnight’s time.

  But then, perhaps it is just as well that Livy is wearing blue. I don’t think just now that I could face the drama she brings to mourning. Dear Ivy May would have been appalled at how her sister has carried on over her, when she never did when Ivy May was alive.

  I do miss her. That feeling never leaves, I have discovered, nor my guilt—though I have managed at last to forgive myself.

  Perhaps I am being unfair on Livy. She has grown up quite a bit over this past year. And she said that she has made it up with Maude. I am glad. They need each other, those girls, whatever has happened in the past.

  “Do you know, Mama,” Livy was saying ju
st now, “the Colemans have had electricity installed? Maude said it’s wonderful. Really I think we should have it too.”

  But I was not listening. I had felt something inside me that was no kick. It was beginning.

  Albert Waterhouse

  I confess I’d had a fair few. What with toasting Trudy’s health and the old King’s passing and the new King’s health, the pints did add up. And I was in there since midafternoon, when Trudy started. By the time Richard came in I was more or less propping up the Bull and Last’s bar.

  He didn’t seem to notice. Bought me a pint when he heard Trudy was abed, talked about the cricket and which games would be canceled for the King.

  Then he asked me something peculiar. Fact is, I still wonder whether or not he did say it or it was the pints talking in my ear. “Maude wants to go to university,” he said.

  “Come again?”

  “She came to me today and said she wants to go to a boarding school that will prepare her for the exams to get into Cambridge. What do you think I should do?”

  I almost laughed—Richard always has trouble with his women-folk. But then, anything can happen with those Coleman women. I thought of Kitty Coleman holding my arm that time I took her home, and her ankles flashing slim and lovely under her skirt on her bicycle, and I couldn’t laugh. I wanted to cry. I studied the foam on my beer. “Let her,” I said.

  Just then our char ran in and told me I have a son. “Thank God!” I shouted, and bought the whole pub a round.

  Richard Coleman

  Maude sat with me in the garden tonight while I smoked a cigarette. Then Mrs. Baker called for her and she went inside, leaving me alone. I looked at the smoke curling through my fingers and thought: I will miss her when she goes.