The Earth Hums in B Flat

by Mari Strachan

  Robinson Crusoe could have escaped from his desert island if he’d been able to fly. When I was little and wanted to fly I would crouch down and wrap my arms around my knees, like this, and then I would lift above the ground and skim over it. Fly, I say to myself now. Fly, fly, fly. But it won’t happen. All I do is fall over. If I were a lizard on Robinson Crusoe’s island I could stay here all day basking in the sun’s warmth; I wouldn’t have to go to Brwyn Coch and see Ifan Evans with his raw face and his eyes that are dark and sour as sloes. When I told Mam and Tada that Alwenna calls him Paleface, Tada laughed until Mam frowned at him. That Alwenna has no shame, she said.

  Look, the primroses on the bank at the side of the road are open and tiny violets hide their heads in the grass beside them. I’ll pick some primroses for Mam on the way back and I’ll pick a posy of violets now to take to Mrs Evans. Mrs Evans likes violets; she read a poem to us in an English lesson at primary school about a girl as shy as a violet, and once she made fairy cakes for a chapel supper that had pretty sugared violets on the icing. I can taste them now, sweet and scented and fizzy on my tongue. A posy of violets will cheer her up before she goes to Price the Dentist.

  Mr Price took out all Mam’s bottom teeth when I was five. She came home and sat on the step at the foot of the stairs and whimpered with pain, a handkerchief of Tada’s pressed to her mouth and soaked with blood. Alwenna says that Mr Price has to have a glass of whisky to steady his hands before he takes your teeth out; that’s why his breath smells so sweet. Tada says it’s worth the pain, he says his false teeth are much better than the real thing.

  Deep down where the stems of the violets leave the ground the grass is cool and wet. I tease several of the flowers from the bank and some of their true-hearted leaves to put about them, and then tie the stems around and around with a long blade of grass to make a posy.

  When I look up the Reservoir walls loom at me from the other side of the road. Last summer a dead sheep lay in the Reservoir for weeks before anyone found it. Alwenna says that maggots came through the taps in her house. My stomach shifts at the thought of it.

  There’s Mrs Williams talking to Guto’r Wern at the house gate to Penrhiw farm. Alwenna says everyone knows that Guto’s mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby so that he grew up strange. And now his mother’s dead and he can’t look after himself although he’s a grown man. Once, Guto told me he could fly, and he tried to show me how, but it didn’t work. Mam says I’m not to encourage him but Tada always says: There’s no harm in him, he’s innocent as a child. Mrs Williams waves me over to her; Guto waves, too, the torn sleeve of his coat flapping up and down, up and down, like a crow’s wing. Mrs Williams gives him a little push and he moves away, eating the bread and butter she’s given him. We both watch him hop and skip down the road to the town.

  ‘That poor boy,’ says Mrs Williams. ‘I don’t know what’ll become of him.’ She turns back to me. ‘So, Gwenni, are you off to Brwyn Coch this morning? Elin mentioned that she was having a tooth out. And how’s your nain? I haven’t seen her for weeks. Don’t tell me, I know what she’d say: Mustn’t grumble, Bessie. That’s what your nain always says, bless her: Mustn’t grumble. Tell her I’ve been churning butter and I’ve got plenty of buttermilk. She likes her buttermilk, I know. You look more like her every time I see you. How time flies. Last time I saw your Aunty Olwen was when the Silver Band came round playing at Christmas. Must be a bit noisy for your nain to live with that trumpet. Are those flowers for Elin? Don’t stand there with your mouth open, Gwenni. You’re probably late already. You’d better run the rest of the way.’

  Alwenna says that Mr Williams winds his wife up every morning; she says you can tell by the way Mrs Williams talks more slowly in the afternoons and has nothing at all to say by evening. When I told Mam she said: Don’t be silly, Gwenni.

  The gate to Brwyn Coch’s field opens with a groan, as if it doesn’t want to let me by. When I step into the long grass, I feel the wet seeping in through the sides of my shoes. I’ve forgotten to put my Wellington boots on. The lambs run away, bleating for their mothers, and their silly tails wobble behind them. Tada says Ifan Evans is good at his job, he says that Twm Edwards is lucky to have a man so useful with the sheep. Alwenna says that’s because Paleface likes anything female. When I told Mam her hands shook so much she dropped her Woman’s Weekly. That Alwenna has no shame, she said.

  The sun has vanished again but it’s not raining, so I’ll take the children outside to play. Why is there no smoke coming from Brwyn Coch’s chimney? Has Mrs Evans left already and taken Angharad and Catrin with her? Mam will be cross with me.

  I knock on the heavy front door. Mot starts barking around the side of the house; he doesn’t run at me so he must be tied up. Does that mean Ifan Evans hasn’t gone to see to the lambs yet? I can hear the geese honking in their pen behind the house but I can’t hear the sound of people. As I lift my arm to knock again the door swings open. Mrs Evans stands in the doorway with her apron held up over her mouth. Blood seeps through the apron onto her hands. She looks like Mam looked when she sat, all blood and tears, at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs Evans’s eyes are full of pain and her hair is coming loose from its silver combs.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Evans,’ I say, ‘you’ve been to Mr Price already, I’m sorry I’m late, Mam’ll be so cross with me.’ I hold the posy of violets out towards her bloodied hands. ‘I stopped to pick these for you.’

  3

  Mrs Evans’s hand trembles as she takes the posy from me. I try not to look at my own hand; I don’t want to see her blood on it. She mumbles something that I don’t understand and stands aside for me to walk into the narrow passageway. As I pass her she sways and her eyes flare open, the way John Morris’s eyes do when he’s frightened, and there’s a whiff of blood that makes my stomach tighten. I hold my breath as long as I can.

  Once we’re in the kitchen I say, ‘You ought to sit down, Mrs Evans. You’re bleeding more than Mam was when she had her teeth taken out. Did Mr Price forget to have his whisky?’

  She slumps into the high-backed chair by the range; my posy of violets drops to the floor. The room is cold without its fire. Mrs Evans shivers; her head shivers, her hands shiver, her legs shiver, until she shimmers. The fire is laid; it only needs lighting. But I don’t like to strike the matches.

  ‘I know a good thing to stop the bleeding,’ I tell Mrs Evans.

  I take a cup with a pattern of forget-me-nots on it from the dresser and carry it over to the cupboard beside the range where the salt box sits. Tada says salt water cures everything; if I have a scraped knee or a sore throat or a cut that won’t stop bleeding, he says: Use some salt water on it. I’m not sure how much salt to use for Mrs Evans so I put a handful into the cup.

  As I cross to the big stone sink I trip and have to catch hold of the edge of the table to stop myself falling. The poker with the brass phoenix on its handle is lying across the flagstones and when I push it aside with my foot I tread in something tacky. The leftovers from breakfast are scattered across the table with a jar of blackcurrant jam on its side staining the tablecloth; someone must have spilt some of the jam on the floor. And there’s a plate that matches the cup from the dresser in pieces on the floor between the table and the door. The children will have to be careful not to tread on the bits. What a mess everywhere. My stomach clenches. Tada says I have the family stomach. Whenever anything makes me feel queasy he says: It’s that old family stomach, Gwenni.

  ‘Where are Angharad and Catrin?’ I ask. ‘Are they with Mr Evans?’ But Mrs Evans rocks herself backwards and forwards on the chair and a high-pitched hum comes from her throat and she doesn’t answer.

  I hold the cup under the tap and fill it with water. I can’t see a clean spoon anywhere so I give it a good stir with my finger until the salt has dissolved. The water is icy and my finger turns white. Then I wash my hands under the tap; there won’t be any blood on them now. I pick up a blue bowl that’s drying on the draining
board and take that and the cup of salt water to Mrs Evans.

  ‘Here you are, Mrs Evans,’ I say. ‘If you rinse your mouth with the salt water it’ll stop the bleeding and clean out the old blood. You can spit it out into the bowl.’

  Mrs Evans lowers the apron from her mouth and takes the bowl from me and rests it on her lap. She trembles as she holds the cup and puts it to her lips. The skin on the back of her hand is scraped into little curls, and her mouth is swollen and purple.

  ‘Nain always says that Mr Price is brutal. Alwenna says it’s when he’s run out of whisky,’ I say.

  Mrs Evans sips the water and I try not to hear her spitting it into the bowl. I look at the photographs hanging above her on the wall next to the range. Here’s one of Mrs Evans when she was younger, holding two babies, one on each arm. They’re alike as twins. I wonder who they are. Mrs Evans’s dark hair is loose and reaches down to her waist. Beneath is a picture of Ifan Evans; with one hand he holds a long gun over his shoulder and from the other hand he dangles a fox by its tail. It looks just like Mrs Llywelyn Pugh’s dead fox. I look away, but not before I notice the hole in the fox’s head and have that old family stomach again.

  Mrs Evans holds her empty cup out to me and I take it and put it in the sink. She drapes her apron over the bowl and waves away my hand when I offer to take it from her. Then, she pushes herself up from the chair as if she’s worn out and takes the bowl to the sink and empties it. When she turns on the tap the water whooshes down into the bowl and then up again in a fountain and sprays me and her and the window behind the sink so that the whole world looks as if it’s crying. Mrs Evans doesn’t notice; she bends down, holding on to the sink, and starts to pick up the pieces of broken plate. I lean across and turn off the tap, then wipe my face with the sleeve of my mackintosh.

  ‘I’ll do that if you like,’ I say to Mrs Evans. ‘Shall I use a broom?’

  She nods at me. ‘In there, Gwenni,’ she mumbles, and points to the cupboard under the stairs in the back hall. As I unlatch the cupboard door I glance into the parlour and see Angharad and Catrin huddled together on the back window-seat sharing a large picture book that’s open on their laps.

  ‘Hello, you two,’ I say. ‘You’ve been very quiet. Have you been sitting in here reading? Don’t worry about your mam, she’ll be fine in a little while. My mam bled a lot, and cried a lot too, when Mr Price took her teeth out.’ They both look up at me and Catrin leans a little closer to Angharad and reaches up to whisper in her ear.

  I pull the broom and dustpan out of the cupboard and go back into the kitchen to sweep up the broken china. I try not to tread on the sticky jam. But what if it’s not jam? What if it’s Mrs Evans’s blood? I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t look at the stickiness as I sweep the pieces into a pile and push them onto the dustpan.

  As I take the china out through the back door to put it in the dustbin Mot barks again, and appears round the corner of the house, straining on his rope, lowering his belly to the ground and wagging his tail. ‘Be quiet, Mot,’ I say in a stern voice, and he stops barking. I lift the lid from the dustbin and disturb a wasp that drones sleepily around some broken bottles in the bottom of the bin. I wrinkle my nose at the sweet, sharp smell that drifts up. ‘You’d better move out of the way,’ I say to the wasp, and empty the dustpan over the bottles. The wasp makes an angry noise and I throw the lid onto the bin.

  When I go back indoors I put away the broom and dustpan. Mrs Evans is leaning on the sink looking out through the window. I try not to look at the dark stickiness on the floor, but I say, ‘Would you like me to wash the floor, Mrs Evans?’

  ‘Thank you, Gwenni, but no,’ she says, and I understand her better now. ‘D’you think you could take Angharad and Catrin out to play for a while so that I can put a cold compress on this?’ She points to her swollen mouth.

  ‘You have to be careful not to get a draught in it, Mrs Evans,’ I say. ‘Nain says you have to cover your mouth before you set a foot out through Mr Price’s door if you have a tooth out; he leaves such a big hole.’

  ‘I’ll be fine, Gwenni,’ she says. ‘Will you take the girls?’

  She starts to run the tap, holding a cloth under the cold water. I go through into the parlour to fetch the girls. The parlour has shelves full of books. Mrs Evans once said I could borrow as many as I wanted. When I told Mam she said: Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Angharad and Catrin are still huddled together on the window-seat.

  ‘What are you reading?’ I ask them.

  ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ says Angharad. ‘But I have to read it to Catrin, she can’t read yet. She’s a baby, she’s afraid of falling down a rabbit hole and never getting out again.’

  ‘I borrowed Alice in Wonderland from the library, a long time ago,’ I say. Mam says I’m allowed to borrow books from the town library, that’s what we pay the rates for. ‘Is yours from the library?’

  ‘Aunty Meg sent it to us,’ says Angharad. ‘Look at the lovely pictures in it, Gwenni. Isn’t Alice pretty? She looks like your Bethan.’

  ‘She’s a bit stupid, that Alice, isn’t she?’ I say.

  ‘She’s stupid to go down a rabbit hole. What if she can’t get out?’ says Catrin.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, and hold out a hand each to them. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find Alice’s rabbit hole and I’ll hold your hand tight, Catrin, so you won’t fall in.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll see the White Rabbit,’ says Angharad.

  ‘There’re lots of rabbit holes by the stream,’ says Catrin. ‘Are you sure I won’t fall in one, Gwenni?’

  Angharad slides from the window seat and helps Catrin down. They hold my hands and we go through into the back hall for them to put their coats on. I fetch their Wellington boots from the kitchen where Mrs Evans is pressing the cold compress to her lips. The girls stand in the doorway and watch her.

  ‘Better already,’ she says to them. ‘Now, you go out with Gwenni for a while and I’ll be fine when you come back. And remember what I told you.’

  The children catch hold of my hands again and Angharad’s hand tightens on mine as she nods at her mother.

  ‘I’ll ring the bell when it’s time for you to come in,’ says Mrs Evans.

  Catrin points to the big brass bell by the back door. ‘That’s Mami’s old school bell,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘We’ll be down by the stream, Mrs Evans.’

  ‘We’re going to look for the White Rabbit,’ says Catrin.

  4

  ‘White Rabbit, White Rabbit, we’re going to look for the White Rabbit.’ Catrin sings as she pulls at my hand, and we round the corner of the house and skip down the field towards the stream. Mot follows as far as his rope will let him, leaping into the air and barking at us.

  ‘Is your father coming back for Mot?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t know,’ says Catrin. ‘He’s got the black dog today. Sometimes he forgets all about Mot when he’s got the black dog.’

  ‘Look, Gwenni,’ says Angharad. She lets go of my hand and points to a shed hidden in a dip in the field. ‘Have you seen Tada’s fox hut? Look at all the tails he’s got nailed to the door.’ She runs towards the shed. I look away, but not fast enough to stop myself seeing the tails.

  ‘Come on, Gwenni,’ Angharad calls. ‘Tada’s got lots more tails inside.’

  Catrin’s hand is as weightless and warm as the baby blackbird Aunty Lol and I found fallen from its nest last spring, but her fingers clutch mine now. ‘I don’t like them, Gwenni,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t look,’ I say. Catrin and I gaze down the field and out to the sea until Angharad comes back to us.

  ‘Why does your father kill the foxes?’ I ask.

  ‘Because they go after the lambs and the geese, silly,’ says Angharad.

  ‘Tada likes killing them,’ says Catrin. She tugs at my hand and we start to run. From here it looks as if there is nothing between the sea and the three of us running down this field. If we could run and run
until our feet left the ground we’d soar into the sky and down to the bay the way I do in my sleep.

  Angharad trips and Catrin and I stop running and sit with her on the grass. The grass is damp and the earth cold beneath us. If I were living underground with the worms and the beetles and the grubs I wouldn’t feel the cold. Mr Hughes Biology says earthworms don’t feel a thing. Last term he said we had to cut a live worm in half, but I had stomach ache before I started and was sent to the sick room.

  Angharad points at the hills of Lln that have almost disappeared behind the clouds moving towards us. ‘Aunty Meg lives there, over the water,’ she says, ‘in Cricieth. Can you see her castle on its rock, Gwenni?’

  ‘Not in that cloud,’ I say. ‘But I know it’s not as big as our castle.’ In my sleep I have to fly up and up and up to avoid the gatehouse and the Red Dragon on our castle before diving down again to the sands and the sea.

  ‘We could fly across the sea to visit her.’ Catrin runs down the field, flapping her arms up and down; her faint shadow looks like a long bird running ahead of her. ‘We could tell her we’re looking for the White Rabbit.’ She wheels around and comes back, her arms like wings.

  Angharad laughs. ‘That’s silly, Catrin. People can’t fly.’

  ‘I can,’ I say.

  ‘What, fly?’ says Angharad.

  ‘Show us, Gwenni,’ says Catrin.

  I fold myself into a crouch and wrap my arms around my knees. ‘This is how I used to do it when I was little,’ I say. Angharad and Catrin copycat me.

  ‘We’re not flying,’ says Angharad.

  ‘You have to concentrate,’ I say. ‘Close your eyes and try to hover above the ground.’

  They close their eyes and snort and gruntle as they strain to lift themselves off the ground. Angharad falls over sideways. ‘This is silly,’ she says as she gets to her feet. ‘Come on, Gwenni. I want to find the White Rabbit.’