My Sister's Bones(15)

‘I should do the same,’ says Paul. ‘Then there’s no confusion.’

We walk through the older graves and my stomach contracts when I see a familiar name.

‘Alexandra Waits,’ I say, stopping at a moss-covered stone. ‘Still here.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asks Paul. ‘Who’s Alexandra Waits?’

‘She’s the girl with angel wings,’ I say, pointing to the ornate sculpture atop the grave. ‘When I was little I used to scare myself by imagining I could see ghosts in this graveyard. I particularly liked this stone because of the wings and the fact that the little girl was my age. I used to sit here and talk to her, tell her my problems.’

‘That’s a bit weird, Kate,’ says Paul, laughing awkwardly.

‘It was probably all the gothic stories I was reading,’ I say, running my fingers over the gnarled wings. ‘But, seriously, I always felt calm when I came and sat with Alexandra. It felt like she was really listening.’

‘Like your mum and her priest,’ says Paul.

‘Yeah, I suppose so. I used to hide out here while the mass was going on. Sometimes I even had a sneaky cigarette.’

‘Always the rebel,’ says Paul.

‘Hardly.’

‘How old were you?’

‘About eleven,’ I reply. ‘I would sit for hours and imagine what kind of life Alexandra had lived, what she looked like. I guessed she would have had dark hair like me and that she liked writing, but because it was the 1800s and she was just a girl no one took her seriously. So she threw herself into the sea, because if she couldn’t be a writer then it was no use living any more. That’s the story I came up with anyway.’

‘It’s a good story,’ says Paul. ‘Though she probably died of TB like everyone else in those days.’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ I say. ‘The last time I visited her I got scared out of my wits. I was being silly and trying to summon her by repeating her name over and over: “Alexandra Waits, Alexandra Waits.” And I heard someone say my name. My full name.’

‘You serious?’ says Paul, frowning. I can tell he’s uncomfortable with all this.

I nod my head and look back at the angel wings, remembering the terror of that evening and how I ran all the way back to the church, looking over my shoulder to see if Alexandra was chasing me.

‘That’s really creepy,’ says Paul, shuddering. ‘I hate anything like that. Makes me go all funny.’

He stumbles as we leave the old graves behind and I smile. I didn’t realize he was so easily scared.

‘There’s no need to worry,’ I say as we head towards a cluster of new graves. ‘Sally told me, years later, that she’d followed me out of the church and hidden behind a tree. It was her voice that scared me half to death.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ says Paul quietly. ‘She’s still scaring us half to death, isn’t she?’

I nod my head as we go on, names and ages flashing in front of my eyes: Helen Stamp, 56 years; Judy Turner, 78 years; Morgan Hyatt, 6 months; Ian St Clair, 30 years. Some of the gravestones have photographs on them and ones where babies are interred are festooned with balloons and pictures of cartoon characters. A halogen Minnie Mouse floats in the breeze above a white headstone, its smiling face bearing down ominously on to the graves.

‘Look at that, eh,’ says Paul as we pass the tiny gravestone. ‘Six months old. No age to die that, is it? No age at all.’

I shake my head and try not to think of that terrible night but as we cross the path I’m back in the lift, falling through space. I put my hand on Paul’s arm to steady myself and as I look up I see the mulberry tree and I know that Mum is near. She’s come to save me from falling further.

‘Bury me beneath the mulberry tree,’ I whisper.

‘What’s that?’ asks Paul.

‘Oh, nothing,’ I say. ‘Just a memory of Mum.’

It was something she had written at the back of her Sunday missal. I never knew what it meant but the line stayed with me over the years. Now it all makes sense. She wanted to be buried next to her baby son.

‘It does that to you, this place,’ says Paul. ‘Brings back all sorts of memories.’

‘Yes,’ I reply, walking past the stones that lead to the tree.

Past Rita Mathers who has been ‘sleeping peacefully’ since 1987 and Jim Carter who has been ‘one more angel in Heaven’ for the last thirty years, until there it is. A simple rectangular piece of granite, slim and unobtrusive, marking the final resting place of my parents and brother.

As I look at my father’s name I go cold. Why would she want to be buried with him? But then I think of the mulberry tree. David is here. There is nowhere else my mother would want to be.

‘Here we are,’ says Paul, standing back so I can get a closer look. ‘The stonemasons got it finished in time for your visit, thank goodness.’

‘Yes,’ I mumble as I stand holding the sweet peas tightly in my hands.

The flowers that must have been placed there on the day of the funeral lie shrunken and brown on the grass by the stone. I pick them up and set them aside then place the fresh sweet peas on the ground. The air smells of soil and the delicate scent of the flowers as I crouch by the stone and read the inscription. Here it is. Mum’s life and death neatly summed up in three lines.