Falling Angels. Tracy Chevalier
way, and was quite puffed at the top, though if she hadn’t used her breath for complaining she might have been all right. All our hurrying didn’t make any difference anyway – Ivy May refused to run, and Jenny made Lavinia go back and get her. At times it can be a trial having Ivy May with us, but Mrs Waterhouse insisted upon it. Once we got to the cemetery, though, Jenny let us do whatever we liked, as long as we kept Ivy May with us. We immediately ran off to find Simon.
It was such a treat to be in the cemetery without anyone to look after us. Whenever I go with Mummy and Daddy or Grandmother I feel I have to be very quiet and solemn, when really what I want to do is just what Lavinia and I did – rush about and explore. As we looked for Simon we played all sorts of games: jumping from grave to grave without touching the ground (which is not difficult, as the graves are so packed in); taking a side each of a path and scoring points for seeing an obelisk, or a woman leaning on an urn, or an animal; playing tag around the Circle of Lebanon. Lavinia does shriek when she’s being chased, and some grown-ups told us to hush and mind our manners. After that we tried to be quiet but we had such fun playing that it was hard.
At last we found Simon, right up the top of the cemetery not far from the north gate. We didn’t see him at first, but his Pa was standing next to a new grave, pulling a bucket of soil up using a rope and pulley on a frame set over the hole. He dumped it into what looked like a big wooden box on wheels, several feet high and heaped with soil.
We crept closer and hid behind a headstone, not wanting Simon’s Pa to see us, for he is dirty and red-faced and whiskery, and we could smell the drink on him even from where we were. Lavinia says he’s just like a character out of Dickens. I suppose all gravediggers are.
We could hear Simon singing in the grave, a song Jenny sometimes sings along with the crowds on the Heath on a Bank Holiday Monday:
‘Now if you want a ’igh old time
Just take the tip from me,
Why ’Ampstead, ’appy ’Ampstead is
The place to ’ave a spree.’
Simon’s Pa wasn’t even looking at us, but somehow he knew we were there, for he called out, ‘Well, little missies, wha’re you wanting?’
Simon stopped singing. His Pa said, ‘Come out from there, all three of youse.’
Lavinia and I looked at each other, but before we could decide what to do, Ivy May had stepped out from behind the headstone, and we had no choice but to follow.
‘Please, sir, we want to see Simon.’ I was surprised that I called him sir.
He seemed surprised too, looking at us as if he couldn’t believe we were there. Then he suddenly shouted into the hole, ‘Boy, you got visitors!’
After a moment Simon’s head popped out of the grave. He stared at us.
‘Well, naughty boy,’ Lavinia said, ‘aren’t you going to say anything?’
‘Can we switch places for a bit, our Pa?’ he said.
‘’Tain’t much room down there for me and Joe,’ Simon’s Pa said. Simon didn’t say anything, and his Pa chuckled. ‘Oh well, then, go on there with your girlies.’
Simon climbed out and his Pa climbed in, grinning at us before disappearing into the grave. Simon pulled the bucket up and dumped it into the wooden box. He was very muddy.
‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing at the box.
‘Lamb’s box,’ Simon said. ‘You put what you’ve dug in it, then when the coffin’s in the hole you roll it up and open the side – see, it’s got a hinge – and let the dirt go straight into the grave. So as you don’t make a mess round the grave, see. There’s two more over there, already full.’ He waved at the other boxes, pulled up against the boundary wall. ‘You just leave a little pile of dirt at the end of the grave for the mourners to drop in.’
‘Can we look in the grave?’
Simon nodded and we edged up to the hole. It was deeper than I’d expected. Simon’s Pa was at the bottom with another man. I could only see the tops of their heads – Simon’s Pa’s like steel wool, the other man’s completely bald. They were hacking at the sides of the hole with spades. There was hardly room for them to turn around. The bald man looked up at us. He had a long face and a nose like a sausage. He and Simon’s Pa seemed to be digging partners, with Simon helping.
Simon hauled up another bucket full of clumps of clay. I could see a worm wriggling on top.
‘Do you ever find anything while you’re digging?’ I asked, ‘besides worms?’
Simon dumped the clay into the Lamb’s box and lowered the bucket back into the grave. ‘Pieces of china. Some fountain pens. A spinning top. This were school grounds before it were a cemetery. And before that it were the gardens of a big house.’
Simon’s Pa looked up. ‘Need more shoring down here, boy.’
Simon began handing down planks of wood from a pile. I noticed then that wood had been pushed in at regular intervals around the edges of the hole.
‘How deep is it?’ I asked.
‘Twelve feet so far,’ Simon said. ‘We’re going down to seventeen, ain’t we, our Pa?’
I stared down. ‘That deep?’
‘Lots of people to bury over the years. Coffin’s eighteen inches, plus a foot ’tween each coffin, makes space for six coffins. That’s a family.’
I added it in my head – it was like a puzzle my tutor would give me. ‘Seven coffins.’
‘No, you leave a bit more than a foot at the top.’
‘Of course. Six feet under.’
‘Not really,’ Simon said. ‘That’s just a saying. We just leave two feet atop the last coffin.’
‘What on earth are you two going on about?’ Lavinia said.
Simon’s Pa began hammering on a piece of wood with a mallet.
‘Are they safe down there?’ I asked.
Simon shrugged. ‘Safe enough. The wood shores up the grave. And it’s clay, so it’s not likely to cave in. Holds itself up. It’s sand you got to watch out for. Sand’s easier to dig but it don’t hold. Sand’s deadly.’
‘Oh, do stop talking about such tedious things!’ Lavinia cried. ‘We want you to show us some angels.’
‘Leave him alone, Lavinia,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see he’s working?’ While I love Lavinia – she is my best friend, after all – she is rarely interested in what I am. She never wants to look through the telescope Daddy sets up in the garden, for instance, or dig about in the Encyclopaedia Britannica at the library. I wanted to ask Simon more about the graves and the digging but Lavinia wouldn’t let me.
‘Maybe later, when this is done,’ Simon said.
‘We only have half an hour,’ I explained. ‘Jenny said.’
‘Who’s Jenny?’
‘Our maid.’
‘Where’s she now?’
‘Up in the Village. We left her by the gate.’
‘She met a man,’ Ivy May said.
Simon looked at her. ‘Who’s this, then?’
‘Ivy May. My little sister,’ Lavinia said. ‘But she’s wrong. You didn’t see any man, did you, Maude?’
I shook my head, but I wasn’t sure.
‘He had a wheelbarrow and she followed him into the cemetery,’ Ivy May insisted.
‘Did he have red hair?’ Simon asked.
Ivy