Edward looked at her bent head, got up and moved to the door. He stood there restlessly, hands hunched in his pockets, back to Margaret. Matthew hurried to be with him.
‘Are you going out, Edward?’
‘Probably.’
‘Can I come?’
‘No. I’m going home. Gran, I’ll get some mates to be pallbearers. You’ll need them.’
‘Thank you, Edward. We’d be grateful.’
Edward glanced again at Margaret. She didn’t look up but continued to jab the needle through the cloth, sharp, hard, cruel little jabs like pain—pain that wakes you in the night demanding your immediate and undivided attention.
The church smelt cold and closed and old like books and letters shut too long in a cardboard box. It was silent, the silence of emptiness which stretched upwards to where the arched ceiling disappeared in wooden gloom. After the outside brightness everything seemed half-lit, diminished into semitones of colour. Except for the window behind the altar. It was blue, a blue that had the same quality blue as the green in his piece of silk. It was the violet blue of water where it shades from jade shallows, but this blue contained no shadows, no depths. This blue was all light. It was as if the sun had fallen into the sea and then risen upwards through the blueness until it became incandescent with light.
The blue, he realised, was a cloak, which flowed from the shoulders of the central figure, past her feet and outwards into waves and folds of cloth. Above the shoulders a face serenely pale, perfectly oval, gazed frozenly into the spaces of the church.
‘Gran,’ he whispered, ‘Gran. Look. It’s the Snow Queen. Isn’t she beautiful?’
Gran took his hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s Mary, darling.’
He didn’t know who Mary was. It was an ordinary name. ‘I didn’t think she had a name,’ he whispered back. ‘Gerda and Kay just call her the Snow Queen.’
Gran wasn’t attending. The priest, in black, had entered. He had worn black to their house when Father died. Margaret was wearing black and a veil. ‘Do you think that is really necessary, Margaret?’ Gran had asked at home. ‘A black hat, perhaps?’ But Margaret looked sorrowful and patted the corner of her eye. ‘It’s different for me. I’m a widow now—a bride of death.’ ‘What rubbish! Don’t be dramatic!’ Gran had said sharply. Mother had pouted but went on fixing the veil on her hat.
In front of them Edward sat with several of his friends, bulky men bulging out of their good clothes like cargo in the nets which swung it ashore. They wore black armbands. The priest spoke strange words: ‘In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti … perpetua lucent eis.’
‘What is he saying?’ Matthew whispered.
‘It’s Latin.’
‘What’s Latin?’
‘A dead language.’
A dead language. Of course, Matthew thought. It wouldn’t be right to have real words for a dead person. His mother said that words had meant nothing to his father because he was dying. Now words were as dead as his father was. Real words belonged to living people.
The priest sprinkled water on the coffin and then circled it waving a small gold casket. The smell of Margaret’s sandalwood napkin ring filled the church. It was a nice smell, better than the cold, closeted smell of earlier, but he preferred it when his mother opened the box, with the Indian lady and the deer on it, and the smell jumped out at her and she said, ‘Oh.’
Edward’s friends carried the coffin and helped lower it into the grave. Gran and Margaret took him home before this happened.
‘That’s enough,’ Gran said.
‘Can’t really bear … too awful,’ Margaret whispered.
‘Not necessary. Go home,’ Edward reassured them.
Later the men came to tea.
‘Those rough men … must they?’ Matthew heard his mother say.
‘Who carried the coffin for us,’ Gran replied, ‘and need a cup of tea and our thanks.’
They were awkward, holding their teacups clumsily, winking at Matthew, smiling nervously at Margaret. When they prepared to leave, Matthew jumped up and taking Edward’s hand walked with them to the gate.
‘Well, King Jack,’ one of them laughed, ‘nothing to stop you now.’ And he slapped Edward on the back.
‘Why do you call him King Jack?’ asked Matthew.
‘That or Jack the King.’
‘My name’s Edward John,’ he explained. ‘Edward John Kingsley—Jack for John and King for Kingsley.’
‘You can play all sorts of tricks with words, can’t you, Jack?’ said his friend. ‘For instance, there’s that word Anna-Kist. Now who did Anna kiss and what a naughty girl she was to stir up so much trouble.’
Edward laughed. ‘Go on home, you old buffoon. There’s no Anna here, kissed or otherwise. You’re the trickster.’
‘Not me, Jack. Not half enough education to get into trouble.’ And his friend laughed, winked again at Matthew and left.
‘What is Anna-kist, Edward?’
‘Just a joke, Matthew. Just a joke. They’re good mates.’
People called after the funeral. May Goodman put an arm around Margaret. ‘You poor young thing, you poor dear. So much to endure. So brave. So very brave.’
They sat in the parlour talking in low voices. Margaret summoned Matthew to meet Mrs Goodman and he stood awkwardly with his mother’s arm around him, like a small ornament on a shelf placed neatly for display. Mrs Goodman admonished him to be grown up now, the man in the house.
Mother said sadly: ‘He’s all I’ve got.’
Matthew, remembering the ghosts in the garden, said: ‘But, Mother, there’s Edward.’
‘Edward! Nonsense! No one,’ she repeated firmly. And Mrs Goodman patted her hand and kissed her cheek.
‘You don’t think she’s rather patronising?’ Gran asked later. ‘Riches bending to poverty?’
‘Not at all,’ Margaret snapped. ‘Not at all. She knows we have come down in the world. She recognises breeding when she sees it; class.’
‘That’s certain.’
Gran’s dryness provoked her. ‘Then who am I to mix with?’
‘Edward,’ said Gran.
‘Edward?’
‘Yes, Edward. And don’t pretend to me, Margaret. Even Matthew has seen ghosts in the garden.’
‘Ghosts!’ And she blushed.
‘So what about Edward?’ asked Gran.
For a moment Margaret’s eyes softened dreamily. Then she shrugged. ‘I’m tired of being poor,
