‘For heaven’s sake, don’t go wandering off on your own, Rosemary. Keep to the paths.’ My mother could not understand my delight in being in the old cemetery, with its massive black, white or grey carved angels peering down at the people who stared up at them. The cheeky cherubim on children’s graves, smiling at the grief of bereaved parents never seemed quite right to me, though I smiled back at their chubby little faces, so perhaps that was the point.
The graveyard surrounded our little church, spreading out and encroaching on the cornfields behind. The newly formed ‘Friends of St Ethelburga’s’, including my mum and me, arrived each weekend, carefully clipping back the grass, restoring the fallen headstones and replacing the grave borders. Neat flowerbeds now edged the path up to the West door and soon they would be starting on the next section.
But the unkempt expanse to the north, they had agreed to leave. They said it was because they wanted a part of the churchyard for the wildlife; for the blackbirds whirring away into the bushes, piping a warning; for the robins that sat on the highest bough and sang to the glory of God and the protection of their territory. Wrens too, if you watched carefully, darted around the undergrowth, scolding furiously at any intruder. And anyway, there were no records of anything in this area. Just a note that it was unconsecrated ground.
The overgrown grass, waist high, splashed wetly against my jeans. I loved this area, with its dark, menacing trees that sent drops of rain unerringly down the back of my neck and pushed the heavy grave stones out of their way as they reached upwards to the sky to join hands in a dark canopy over the forgotten mounds below.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ My mother’s voice echoed right behind me.
‘Gosh, Mum, you made me jump, creeping up on me. Look, isn’t this strange. All these trees, wild flowers, nothing cultivated. But look. Just there. That’s a rosemary bush, isn’t it?’
‘So it is. Needs cutting
back now, of course, but I love that earthy smell. Reminds me of
Italy somehow, roast vegetables. I expect someone planted it.’
‘Why? Why here of all places?’
‘Over a grave I expect. Victorian you know. Rosemary for remembrance. Ironic isn’t it, that it’s planted in the forgotten graveyard.’
She didn’t want to follow the tiny coffin, but it was the only thing she could do for her daughter. Black dress rustling, she lowered the dark veil and stepped out of the carriage, then turned to pick up the little box, cradling it in her arms.
‘Come on.’ The vicar beckoned, hustling her along the path, round the church to the cold, northern end of the graveyard. He stood back, motioning to Elizabeth to drop the coffin into the dark hole the grave digger had just excavated. Reluctantly Elizabeth stepped forward, kneeling on the wet grass, settling her daughter’s body in the grave. Gently she scraped up a handful of earth and scattered it over the tiny casket. Rising, she nodded to the man who took up his shovel, plunging it into the pile of loose soil, to send it bouncing down, rattling on the coffin lid.
Elizabeth choked back her tears, stepping forward again, to throw in her small posy of freshly picked wild cyclamen from the woods that backed on to her cottage. ‘Goodbye’ she said, quietly.
‘Shuld’ve ‘ave ‘ad it baptised,’ the grave digger muttered, glaring at her. ‘Seed it was sickly. You shuld’ve ‘ad it to church. No name, no proper burial, no rising on Judgement Day. Shuld’ve ‘ad it –’
‘Enough, Reuben,’ the vicar intervened. ‘Just finish the job you’re paid for.’
Reuben slammed his shovel down into the soil again and again until a small mound rose above the roughly cut grass. He glared once more at Elizabeth, but without another word turned and stomped off across the graveyard.
‘May I … may I just add this?’ she asked the vicar, holding out a diminutive plant, cradled in her hand.
‘Hm, if you must. But nothing else. Not in this part of the graveyard.’ He too turned away, leaving her to her misery. Elizabeth knelt and scraped back the fresh earth, just enough to cover the roots of the little plant.
‘There,’ she said, ‘now you have cyclamen for goodbye, and rosemary for remembrance. Goodbye my little one, I will never forget you. Never.’
Clutching her shawl around her, she walked away along the rough path.