Free Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier Page A

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