Falling Angels

It was amusing today to watch him splutter over the angel that has been erected on the grave next to the urn (far too close to it, as it happens – they look as if they may bash each other at any moment). It was all I could do to keep a straight face.

‘How dare they inflict their taste on us,’ he said. ‘The thought of having to look at this sentimental nonsense every time we visit turns my stomach.’

‘It is sentimental, but harmless,’ I replied. ‘At least the marble’s Italian.’

‘I don’t give a hang about the marble! I don’t want that angel next to our grave.’

‘Have you thought that perhaps they’re saying the same about the urn?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with our urn!’

‘And they would say that there’s nothing wrong with their angel.’

‘The angel looks ridiculous next to the urn. It’s far too close, for one thing.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘You didn’t leave them room for anything.’

‘Of course I did. Another urn would have looked fine. Perhaps a slightly smaller one.’

I raised my eyebrows the way I do when Maude has said something foolish. ‘Or even the same size,’ Richard conceded. ‘Yes, that could have looked quite impressive, a pair of urns. Instead we have this nonsense.’

And on and on we went. While I don’t think much of the blank-faced angels dotted around the cemetery, they bother me less than the urns, which seem a peculiar thing to put on a grave when one thinks that they were used by the Romans as receptacles for human ashes. A pagan symbol for a Christian society. But then, so is all the Egyptian symbolism one sees here as well. When I pointed this out to Richard he huffed and puffed but had no response other than to say, ‘That urn adds dignity and grace to the Coleman grave.’

I don’t know about that. Utter banality and misplaced symbolism are rather more like it. I had the sense not to say so.

He was still going on about the angel when who should appear but its owners, dressed in full mourning. Albert and Gertrude Waterhouse – no relation to the painter, they admitted. (Just as well – I want to scream when I see his overripe paintings at the Tate. The Lady of Shalott in her boat looks as if she has just taken opium.) We had never met them before, though they have owned their grave for several years. They are rather nondescript – he a ginger-bearded, smiling type, she one of those short women whose waists have been ruined by children so that their dresses never fit properly. Her hair is crinkly rather than curly, and escapes its pins.

Her elder daughter, Lavinia, who looks to be Maude’s age, has lovely hair, glossy brown and curly. She’s a bossy, spoiled little thing – apparently her father bought the angel at her insistence. Richard nearly choked when he heard this. And she was wearing a black dress trimmed with crape – rather vulgar and unnecessary for a child that young.

Of course Maude has taken an instant liking to the girl. When we all took a turn around the cemetery together Lavinia kept dabbing at her eyes with a black-edged handkerchief, weeping as we passed the grave of a little boy dead fifty years. I just hope Maude doesn’t begin copying her. I can’t bear such nonsense. Maude is very sensible but I could see how attracted she was to the girl’s behaviour. They disappeared off together – Lord knows what they got up to. They came back the best of friends.

I think it highly unlikely Gertrude Waterhouse and I would ever be the best of friends. When she said yet again how sad it was about the Queen, I couldn’t help but comment that Lavinia seemed to be enjoying her mourning tremendously.

Gertrude Waterhouse said nothing for a moment, then remarked, ‘That’s a lovely dress. Such an unusual shade of blue.’

Richard snorted. We’d had a fierce argument about my dress. In truth I was now rather embarrassed about my choice – not one adult I’d seen since leaving the house was wearing anything but black. My dress was dark blue, but still I stood out far more than I’d intended.

I decided to be bold. ‘Yes, I didn’t think black quite the thing to wear for Queen Victoria,’ I explained. ‘Things are changing now. It will be different with her son. I’m sure Edward will make a fine king. He’s been waiting long enough.’

‘Too long, if you ask me,’ Mr Waterhouse said. ‘Poor chap, he’s past his prime.’ He looked abashed, as if surprised that he had voiced his opinion.

‘Not with the ladies, apparently,’ I said. I couldn’t resist.

‘Oh!’ Gertrude Waterhouse looked horrified.

‘For God’s sake, Kitty!’ Richard hissed. ‘My wife is always saying things she shouldn’t,’ he said apologetically to Albert Waterhouse, who chuckled uneasily.

‘Never mind, I’m sure she makes up for it in other ways,’ he said.

There was a silence as we all took in this remark. For one dizzy moment I wondered if he could possibly be referring to New Year’s Eve. But of course he would know nothing about that – that is not his set. I myself have tried hard not to think about it. Richard has not mentioned it since, but I feel now that I died a little death that night, and nothing will ever be quite the same, new King or no.

Then the girls returned, all out of breath, providing a welcome distraction. The Waterhouses quickly made their excuses and left, which I think everyone was relieved about except the girls. Lavinia grew tearful, and I feared Maude would too. Afterwards she wouldn’t stop talking about her new friend until at last I promised I would try to arrange for them to meet. I am hoping she will forget eventually, as the Waterhouses are just the kind of family who make me feel worse about myself.

LAVINIA WATERHOUSE

I had an adventure at the cemetery today, with my new friend and a naughty boy. I’ve been to the cemetery many times before, but I’ve never been allowed out of Mama’s sight. Today, though, Mama and Papa met the family that owns the grave next to ours, and while they were talking about the things grown-ups go on about, Maude and I went off with Simon, the boy who works at the cemetery. We ran up the Egyptian Avenue and all around the vaults circling the cedar of Lebanon. It is so delicious there, I almost fainted from excitement.

Then Simon took us on a tour of the angels. He showed us a wonderful child-angel near the Terrace Catacombs. I had never seen it before. It wore a little tunic and had short wings, and its head was turned away from us as if it were angry and had just stamped its foot. It is so lovely I almost wished I had chosen it for our grave. But it was not in the book of angels at the mason’s yard. Anyway I am sure Mama and Papa agree that the one I chose for our grave is the best.

Simon took us to other angels close by and then he said he wanted to show us a grave he and his father had just dug. Well. I didn’t want to see it but Maude said she did and I didn’t want her to think I was afraid. So we went and looked down into it, and although it was frightening, I also got the strangest feeling that I wanted to lie down in that hole. Of course I didn’t do such a thing, not in my lovely dress.

Then as we turned to go a horrid man appeared. He had a very red face and bristles on his cheeks, and he smelled of drink. I couldn’t help but scream, even though I knew right away it was Simon’s father as they have the same blue eyes like pieces of sky. He began shouting terrible things at Simon about where had he been and why were we there, and he used the most awful words. Papa would whip us if Ivy May or I were to use such words. And Papa is not a whipping man. That’s how bad they were.

Then the man chased Simon round and round the grave until Simon jumped right into it! Well. I didn’t wait to see more – Maude and I ran like fury all the way down the hill. Maude wondered if we shouldn’t go back and see if Simon was all right but I refused, saying our parents would be worried about us. But really I didn’t want to see that man again, as he frightened me. The naughty boy can take care of himself. I am sure he spends much of his time down graves.

So Maude is my new friend, and I hers – though I do not see why such a plain girl should have a beautiful muff, and a nanny too, neither of which I have. And a beautiful mother with such a tiny waist and big dark eyes. I could not look at Mama without feeling a little ashamed. It is really so unfair.

GERTRUDE WATERHOUSE

Once we heard the news I lay awake all night, worrying about our clothes. Albert could wear his black work suit, with jet cufflinks and a black band for his hat. Mourning has always been easier for men. And Ivy May is too young for her clothes to be a concern.

But Livy and I were to be dressed properly for our Queen’s passing. For myself I did not mind so much what I wore, but Livy is so very particular, and difficult if she doesn’t get exactly what she wants. I do hate scenes with her – it is like being led in a dance where I know none of the steps and she all of them, so that I feel tripped up and foolish by the end. And yet she is only five years old! Albert says I am too soft with her, but then he bought her the angel she wanted for the grave when he knows how little money we have for that sort of thing, what with our saving to move house. Still, I can’t fault him for it. It is so important that the grave be a proper reflection of the family’s sentiments to our loved ones. Livy knows that very well, and she was right – the grave did need some attention, especially after that monstrous urn went up next to it.

I rose very early this morning and managed to find a bit of crape I had saved after my aunt’s mourning. I had hidden it away because I was meant to have burned it and knew Livy would be horrified to see it in the house. There was not enough of it to trim both our dresses, so I did hers, with a bit left over for my hat. By the time I had finished sewing, Livy was up, and she was so delighted with the effect of the crape that she didn’t ask where I’d got it from.

What with the little sleep and the waking early I was so tired by the time we reached the cemetery that I almost cried to see the blue silk Kitty Coleman was wearing. It was an affront to the eyes, like a peacock spreading its feathers at a funeral. It made me feel quite shabby and I was embarrassed even to stand next to her, as doing so begged comparisons and reminded me that my figure is not what it once was.

The one comfort I could take – and it is a shameful one that I shall ask God’s forgiveness for – was that her daughter Maude is so plain. I feel proud to see Livy look so well next to drab little Maude.

I was of course as civil as I could be, but it was clear that Kitty Coleman was bored with me. And then she made cutting remarks about Livy, and said disrespectful things – not exactly about the Queen, but I couldn’t help feeling that Victoria had in some way been slighted. And she made my poor Albert so tongue-tied he said something completely out of character. I could not bring myself even to ask him afterwards what he meant.

Never mind – she and I shall not have to see each other again. In all the years we have owned adjacent graves at the cemetery, this is the first time we’ve met. With luck it won’t happen again, though I shall always worry that we will. I shan’t enjoy the cemetery so much now, I’m afraid.

ALBERT WATERHOUSE

Damned good-looking woman. I don’t know what I was thinking, saying what I said, though. Shall make it up to Trudy tomorrow by getting her some of her favourite violet sweeties.

I was glad to meet Richard Coleman, though, urn and all. (What’s done is done, I say to Trudy. It’s up and there’s no use complaining now.) He’s got a rather good position at a bank. They live down the bottom of the hill, and from what he says it could be just the place for us if we do decide to move from Islington. There’s a good local cricket team he could introduce me to as well. Useful chap.

I don’t envy him his wife, pretty as she is. More of a handful than I’d like. Livy is trouble enough.

SIMON FIELD

I stay down the grave awhile after the girls have gone. There don’t seem no reason to come out. Our Pa don’t bother to come after me, or stand at the top of the hole and shout. He knows where he can get me when he wants. ‘This cemetery has a high wall round it,’ he always says. ‘You can climb out but in the end you always come back through the front gate, feet first.’

The sky’s pretty from eight feet down. It looks the colour of that girl’s fur. Her muff, she called it. The fur was so soft. I wanted to put my face in it the way I saw her do.

I lie back on the ground and watch the sky. Sometimes a bird flies across, high above me. Bits of dirt from the sides of the hole crumble and fall on my face. I don’t worry about the hole collapsing. For the deeper graves we use grave-boards to shore up the sides, but we don’t bother with little ones like this. This one’s in clay, good and damp so it holds up. It’s happened before, the hole caving in, but mostly in sand, or when the clay’s dried out. Men have got killed down graves. Our Pa always tells me to put a hand over my face and stick my other hand up if I’m down a grave and it falls in. Then I’ll have an air hole through the dirt and they can see by my fingers where I am.

Someone comes then and looks into the grave. He’s black against the light, so I can’t see who it is. But I know it’s not our Pa – he don’t smell of the bottle.

‘What are you doing down there, Simon?’ the man says.

Then I know who it is. I jump to my feet and brush the dirt off my back and bum and legs.

‘Just resting, sir.’

‘You’re not paid to rest.’

‘I’m not paid nothing, sir,’ I say before I can stop myself.

‘Oh? I should think you earn plenty from all you learn here. You’re learning a trade.’

‘Learning don’t feed me, sir.’

‘Enough of your insolence, Simon. You are but a servant of the London Cemetery Company. There are plenty more waiting outside the gate who would gladly take your place. Don’t you forget that. Now, have you finished that grave?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then cover it over and go and find your father. He should be putting away the tools. God knows he needs the help. I don’t know why I keep him on.’

I know why. Our Pa knows this place better’n anybody. He can take apart any grave, remember who’s buried how far down and whether it’s sand or clay. He learned it all from our Granpa. And he’s fast digging when he wants to be. His arms are hard as rocks. He’s best when he’s had a bit of the bottle but not too much. Then he and Joe dig and laugh and I haul up and dump the bucket. But once he’s had too much it’s Joe and me does all the digging and dumping.

I look round for the long tree branch with the stumps on it what I use to climb out the little graves. Our Pa must’ve taken it out.

‘Mr Jackson,’ I call, but he’s gone already. I shout again but he don’t come back. Our Pa will think I’ve got out and covered the grave – he won’t come back either.

I try to dig toeholds into the sides of the hole so I can climb out, but there’s no spade, only my hands, and the ground’s too hard. ’Sides, it’s firm now but I don’t know for sure it’ll last. I don’t want it to cave in on me.

It’s cold in the hole now I’m stuck in it. I squat on my heels and wrap my arms round my legs. Every now and again I call out. There’s four other graves being dug today and a couple of monuments going up, but none of them near me. Still, maybe a visitor will hear me, or one of them girls’ll come back. Sometimes I hear voices and I call out ‘Help! Help!’ But no one comes. People stay away from graves just dug. They think something’s going to pop out the hole and grab ’em.

The sky over me is going dark grey and I hear the bell ringing to tell visitors the cemetery’s shutting. There’s a boy goes round every day ringing it. I yell till my throat hurts but the bell drowns me out.

After a time the bell stops and after that it’s dark. I jump up and down to get warm and then I crouch down again and hug my knees.

In the dark the hole starts to smell stronger of clay and wet things. There’s an underground branch of the Fleet River runs through the cemetery. Feels close by.

The sky goes clear of clouds and I start to see little pricks of stars, more and more appearing till the patch of sky above me is full, like someone’s sprinkled flour on the sky and is about to roll out dough on it.

I watch them stars all night. There’s nothing else to do in the grave. I see things in ’em – a horse, a pickaxe, a spoon. Sometimes I look away and back again and they’ve moved a little. After a while the horse disappears off the edge of the sky, then the spoon. Once I see a star streak ’cross the sky. I wonder where it goes when it does that.

I think about them girls, the one with the muff and the one with the pretty face. They’re tucked up in their beds, all toasty warm. I wish I was like them.

It’s not so bad as long as I don’t move. When I move it hurts like someone’s hitting me with a plank of wood. After a time I can’t move at all. My blood must be frozen.

The hardest part is towards the end of the night, when it might be getting light but it don’t yet. Our Pa says that’s when most people die ’cause they can’t wait any longer for the day to start. I watch the stars. The pickaxe disappears and I cry a little bit and then I must fall asleep because when I look up again the stars are gone and it’s light and the tears have frozen on my cheeks.

It gets lighter and lighter but no one comes. My mouth is stuck together I’m so thirsty.

Then I hear the hymn ‘Holy, Holy, Holy,’ which our Pa likes to whistle when he’s working. It’s funny ’cause he’s not been inside a church in years. The whistling gets closer and closer and I try to call out but it hurts too much to make a noise.

I hear him walking round the hole, laying down boards and then the green carpets what look like grass, to make the ground round the grave look nice and neat. Then he lays the flat ropes across the hole that’ll go under the coffin for lowering it, and then the two wooden bearers they lay the coffin on, one each end of the hole. He don’t look down and see me. He’s dug so many holes he don’t need to look in ’em.

I try to open my mouth but can’t. Then I hear the horses snorting and their halters creaking and the wheels crunching on the path and I know I have to get out or I never will. I straighten my legs, screaming from the pain ’cept there’s no sound ’cause I still can’t open my mouth. I manage to stagger to my feet and then I get my mouth working and call out, ‘Pa! Pa!’ I sound like one of them crows up in the trees. At first nothing happens. I call again and our Pa leans over the hole and squints at me.

‘Jesus, boy! Wha’re you doing there?’

‘Get me out, our Pa! Get me out!’

Our Pa lays himself down the edge of the hole and holds out his arms. ‘Hurry, boy! Take my hands.’ But I can’t reach him. Our Pa looks towards the sound of the horses and shakes his head. ‘No time, boy. No time.’ He jumps up and goes away and I yell again.

Our Pa comes back with Mr Jackson, who stares down at me with a terrible look on his face. He don’t say nothing, but goes away while our Pa just stands there looking after him. Then Mr Jackson is back again and throws down the rope we use to measure how deep we’ve dug. There’s a knot in it every foot. I grab a knot and hold on and he and our Pa pull me up out the hole so I land on the green carpet that’s like grass. I jump up, though I hurt all over, and there I am, standing in front of the undertakers in their top hats and the boy mutes in their tiny black coats and the horses nodding so the black feathers strapped to their heads move. Behind the carriage holding the coffin are the mourners in black, all staring at me. I want to laugh at the looks they give me, but I see Mr Jackson’s awful face and I run away.

Later, after our Pa’s got rum down me and sat me by the fire with a blanket, he knocks me round the ears. ‘Don’t ever do that again, boy,’ he says – like I planned to stay down the hole all night. ‘I’ll lose my job and then where’ll we be?’ Then Mr Jackson comes and whips me to make sure I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t care, though, I hardly feel the whip. Nothing can ever hurt so bad as the cold down that grave.

December 1901

RICHARD COLEMAN

I told Kitty we’ve been invited for New Year’s by the same people as last year. She was quiet, looking at me with those dark brown eyes that seduced me years ago but now simply judge me. If she hadn’t looked at me like that I might not have added what I did.

‘I’ve already told them we’ve accepted,’ I said, although I hadn’t yet. ‘With pleasure.’

We shall go on accepting their invitations every year until Kitty becomes my wife again.

March 1903

LAVINIA WATERHOUSE

It was nothing short of a miracle. My best friend at the bottom of our garden! Can anything be more perfect than that?

I was feeling decidedly melancholy this morning as I brushed my hair, looking out of the window into our new garden. Although it is a sweet little patch, and Ivy May and I have a lovely bedroom looking out onto it, I couldn’t help feeling a pang for our old house. It was smaller, and on a busy street, and not on the doorstep of a place as lovely as Hampstead Heath. But it was where I was born, and full of memories of my childhood. I wanted to take the bit of wallpaper in the hallway where Papa marked how tall Ivy May and I had grown every year, but he said I mustn’t because it would damage the wall. I did cry as we left.

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a fluttering, and when I looked over at the house backing onto ours, there was a girl hanging out of a window and waving! Well. I squinted and after a moment recognised her – it was Maude, the girl from the cemetery. I knew we had moved close to the cemetery but did not know she was here as well. I picked up my handkerchief and waved until my arm ached. Even Ivy May, who never pays attention unless I pinch her (and not even then sometimes), got up from her bed to see what the fuss was about.

Maude called out something to me, but she was too far away and I couldn’t hear. Then she pointed down at the fence separating our gardens and held up ten fingers. We are such kindred spirits that I understood immediately she meant we should meet there in ten minutes. I blew her a kiss and ducked inside to get dressed as quick as I could.

‘Mama! Mama!’ I shouted all the way down the stairs. Mama came running from the kitchen, thinking I was ill or had hurt myself. But when I told her about Maude she seemed not the least interested. She has not wanted me to see the Colemans, though she would never say why. Perhaps she has forgot them by now, but I have never forgot Maude, even after all this time. I knew we were destined to be together.

I ran outside and to the garden fence, which was too high to see over. I called to Maude and she answered, and after a moment her face appeared at the top of the fence.

‘Oh! How did you get up there?’ I cried.

‘I’m standing on the birdbath,’ said she, wobbling a bit. Then she managed to pull herself up, and before I knew it she’d tumbled over the fence and onto the ground! The poor dear was rather scratched by the rosebushes on the way down. I threw my arms around her and kissed her and brought her to Mama, who I am happy to say was very sweet to her and painted her scratches with iodine.