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 just 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.
Dorothy Baker
I shouldn’t have waited so long to bring Miss Maude into it. But I wasn’t to know, was I? I try to mind my business. And I couldn’t say anything while her grandmother was running the house. That stroke has been the biggest blessing in disguise. I could see Miss Maude blossom once her grandmother’s mouth was stopped.
I didn’t say anything straightaway after the stroke-it would’ve looked bad to go against a woman after something like that. But the other day a letter was returned I’d meant for Jenny, reading “gone away.” Of course the letter had been slit and the coins stolen. I’d been sending her the odd shilling when I could spare it, trying to help her out. I knew they were close to the edge, her and her mother and Jack. Now it seemed they couldn’t manage the rent.
Later when I was going over the week’s menus with Miss Maude, I decided I had to say something. Perhaps I should have said it more casual, but that’s not my way. We finished, and I shut the book and said, “Something’s wrong with Jenny.”
Miss Maude sat up straight. “What’s the matter?” We don’t speak of Jenny, so it was a surprise to her.
“I’ve had a letter returned-she and her mum have moved.”
“That doesn’t mean something’s wrong. Perhaps they’ve moved someplace-nicer.”
“She would’ve told me. And she doesn’t have the money for nicer.” I’d never told Miss Maude how bad it was. “Fact is, Jenny’s had a hard time of it ever since your grandmother let her go without a reference.”
“Without a reference?” Miss Maude repeated like she didn’t understand.
“Without a reference she can’t get another job as a maid. She’s been working in a pub, and her mum takes in washing. They’ve hardly a shilling between them.”