Falling Angels (12 page)

Worse'n that, the mortar holding the angel to the base of the plinth ain't strong. I see the angel wobble back and forth.

"Joe," I says, "stop."

Joe stops with the crowbar but he's still leaning against the plinth, and the angel wobbles again. I can see the crack in the mortar now, but before I can say something the angel starts to topple. I hear a woman shout just as the angel falls sideways and hits the Coleman urn. The head cracks right off, and it falls one way and the body the other. In fact the body falls right where Mr. Jackson's standing, 'cept he ain't there now 'cause our pa's knocked him right out the way.

It all happens slow and fast too. Then Kitty Coleman and the girls run up to us. Livy takes one look at the headless angel and shrieks and faints, which is nothing new. Mrs. C. helps up Mr. Jackson--his face is all pale and sweaty. He's breathing heavy and he takes out a kerchief and wipes his face. Then he looks at the base of the plinth and the cracked mortar, clears his throat, and says, "I'm going to strangle that mason with my bare hands."

I know what he means.

Then he says, "Thank you, Paul," real quiet and solemn to our pa. It sounds funny 'cause he never calls our pa by his name.

Our pa just shrugs. "Dunno what they need an angel up there for anyways," he says. "Urns and angels and columns and whatnot. Bloody nonsense. When you're dead you're dead. You don't need an angel to tell you that. Give me a pauper's grave any day." Our pa taps one of the paupers' wood crosses. "My pa were buried in one and that'll suit me too."

"Just as well," Mr. Jackson says, "for that's where you're likely to end up."

You might think our pa would be offended, but something in the way Mr. Jackson says it makes our pa smile. The guvnor smiles, too, and it's a funny sight, given he's just almost been struck down dead. It's like they're mates sitting over a jar in the pub, laughing at a joke.

"Anyhows, best see to the girlie," our pa says then, nodding at Livy. Maude's crouching by her, and Mrs. C. goes over to her too. Livy sits up. She's all right--she always is.

Ivy May's standing next to me. "You should have marked that angel," she says.

Takes me a minute to work out she means the skull'n' crossbones. "Can't," I say. "Livy won't let me."

Ivy May shakes her head and I feel bad, like I let her down. No time to say more, though, 'cause Mr. Jackson says to me, "Simon, run to the mason's yard and tell Mr. Watson he's wanted here immediately. If he complains, give him this." He hands me the angel's head, whose nose is broke off. It's heavy and I almost drop it, which makes Livy shriek again. I tuck it under my arm and run.

I were in the garden beating carpets when he came tumbling over the fence and fell right at my feet. "Ow!" I shouted. "What's this boy doing here? You muddy little rascal, jumping the fence like you own the place. Don't you come tracking that mud from the grave into this garden!"

Cheeky boy just grinned at me. "Why not?" he said. "You track enough of it here yourself on the bottom of your skirts. Though we ain't seen much of you these days up at the cemetery."

"Shut your trap," I said. Oh, he were cheeky, all right. Simon, he's called. Never said much to him at the cemetery but the girls talk about him all the time. He's the brother Maude never had, I always think.

I seen him creeping behind graves to have a look when I been busy with that gardener. He thought he were hidden, but I seen him. Wanted to see the business. I didn't care--I thought it was funny. Not now, though. Gardener don't want no more to do with me. Bastard.

"I never thought much of him," Simon said now like he knew exactly what I was thinking. "You're well clear of him, I'd say."

"Shut it," I said. "No one asked you." But I weren't really mad at the boy. Talking to him gave me a chance to rest my back--these days beating rugs is a killer. "Anyways, what you come here for?"

"Want to see where the girls live."

"How'd you find it?"

"Ran after their cab. Lost it for a bit, so I just walked round till I saw it again, leaving Maude and her mum here. Must've already let out Livy."

"Sure, she lives right there, Miss Livy and her sister." I pointed at the house across the way.

Simon had a good look at it. He's a scrawny boy, for all his digging. His face is pinched round the eyes and his wrists are all red and knobbly, busting out of a jacket too small for him.

"Wait here a minute," I said. I went into the kitchen, where Mrs. Baker was cutting up a chicken. "Who's that boy?" she said right away. She don't miss nothing round here. Can't keep a thing from her. I seen how she looks at me sideways these days, though she don't say nothing.

I ignored her, cut a slice of bread and spread it with butter. Then I took it out to Simon, who looked glad to see it. He ate it fast. I shook my head and went in to get some more. As I was spreading the butter, thicker this time, Mrs. Baker said, "If you give a stray scraps, it'll never leave you alone."

"Mind your business," I snapped.

"That bread is my business. I baked it this morning and I'm not baking more today."

"Then I'll go without."

"No, you won't," she said. "If I let you, you'd eat the entire kitchen these days. You watch yourself, Jenny Whitby."

"Leave me alone," I said, and ran out before she could say more.

While Simon ate the bread I started to beat the rugs again.

"Look," he said after a bit, "there's Livy in the window. What's she doing?"

I looked up. "They do that all the time, them two. Stand in the windows of their nurseries and make signs at each other. Got their own language no one understands but them."

"Bet I'd understand it."

I snorted. "What's she saying, then?" Miss Livy was pointing up and bowing her head. Then she pulled a finger across her throat and pouted.

"
She's talking about the cemetery," Simon said.

"
How'd you know that?"

"That's what the angel on her grave looks like." Simon bowed his head and pointed. "Or did, anyway. The head come off--that's why she did that with her throat."

Then he told me about what happened to the angel and how his pa saved the guv's life. It were thrilling stuff.

"
Look,
"
Simon said then. "Livy's seen me."

Miss Livy was pointing at Simon.

I heard a window open above us and when I looked up Miss Maude was poking her head out to look down.

"I should go," Simon said. "I got to help our pa with the grave."

"Nah, stay. Miss Maude'll be down to see you."

"Thanks for the bread," Simon said, getting up anyway.

"If ever you come there's always bread for you here," I said, looking out over the garden and not at him. "And you don't need to climb the fence to get back here. If the gate's locked the key's hid under the loose stone by the coal chute."

Simon nodded and went out of the gate.

I should've given him something to take with him. I hate to see a boy go hungry like that. Made me hungry just thinking of it. I went inside to get some of that bread for me. To hell with Mrs. Baker.

I went stargazing on the heath with Maude and her father tonight. I wasn't sure I ought to do such a thing on the night of the very day of dear Auntie's funeral, but Mama and Papa said I should go. They both seemed very weary--Mama even snapped at me. I looked up in
Cassell's
and
The Queen
under stargazing, but neither mentioned it, which I took as a sign that I could go, as long as I didn't enjoy it too much.

And I didn't, at first. We went at twilight because Maude's father wanted to see the moon just as it appeared above the horizon. He was looking for something called Copernicus. I thought that was a person, but Maude said it was a crater that used to be a volcano. I am never certain what she and her father mean when they talk about the moon and stars. They let me look through the telescope and asked me if I could see any craters--whatever they are. Really I couldn't see anything but to please them I said I could.

I much preferred looking at the moon without the telescope--I could see it so much better. It was lovely to look at, a half-moon hanging all pale orange just above the horizon.

Then I lay down on a blanket they had brought with them and looked up at the stars, which were just appearing in the sky. I must have fallen asleep because when I woke it was dark and there were many more stars. And then I saw a falling angel, and then another! I pointed them out to Maude, though of course they were gone by the time she looked.

Maude said they are called shooting stars but are actually little pieces of an old comet burning up, and are called meteorites. But I know what they really are--they are angels stumbling as they take messages from God to us. Their wings make streaks across the sky until they are able to find their footing again.

When I tried to explain this, Maude and her father looked at me as if I were mad. I lay back down to look for more, and kept it to myself when I saw one.

The moon was magnificent tonight, with Copernicus clearly visible. I was reminded of a night years ago when I took Kitty and her brother out to look at the moon. We were able to see Copernicus then almost as clearly. Kitty looked so lovely in the moonlight and I was happy, even with Harry babbling on in the background about Copernicus the man, trying to impress me. I decided that night I would ask her to marry me.

Tonight, for the first time in a long while, I wished Kitty were with us instead of sitting at home with a book. She never comes stargazing now. At least Maude is interested. Sometimes I think my daughter is the saving grace of this family.

When it came to it at last, he did not hesitate at all. He laid me back on a bank of fading primroses, my body crushing them so that their almond scent filled the air around us. An angel hovered overhead, but he did not want to move. He was daring it to frighten him as the other angel had yesterday. I did not mind it being there, its head bowed so that it looked straight into my eyes--I had cause to thank an angel for driving him into my arms.

I lifted up the skirt of my gray dress and bared my legs. They looked like mushroom stems in the dim light, or the stamens of some exotic flower, an orchid or a lily. He put his hands on me, parted my lips down there, and pushed himself into me. That much was familiar. What was new were his hands remaining there, kneading me insistently. I pulled his head down to my breasts and he bit me through my dress.

At last the heaviness that has resided inside me since I married--perhaps even since I was born--tifted, boiling up slowly in a growing bubble. The angel watched, its gaze blank, and for once I was glad its eyes could not judge me, not even when I cried out as the bubble burst.

As I lay there afterward with him holding me I gazed up through the branches of the cypress arching over us. The half-moon was still low in the sky, but above me stars had appeared, and I saw one fall, as if to remind me of the consequences in store. I had seen and felt the signs inside me that day, and I had ignored them. I had had my joy at last, and I knew I would pay for it. I would not tell him, but it would be the end of us.

MAY 1906

Why I have received two invoices from the mason's yard at the cemetery is a mystery. "For repairs to grave furniture," one read. This was separate from the invoice for chiseling my sister's name into the plinth. At her funeral I didn't notice anything wrong with the grave. Trudy said she knows nothing of it, but Livy became quite upset when I mentioned it, and ran from the room. Later she said it was because she was having a coughing fit, but I didn't hear any coughing. And Ivy May just looked at me as if she knew the answer but wasn't about to tell me.

My daughters are an even greater mystery to me than the rogue invoice--which I have sent on to the superintendent with a query. Let him sort it out--he seems a capable fellow.

JULY 1906