My plait has fallen forward over my shoulder and it tickles my chin. I throw it back and the pink polka-dot ribbon I took from the middle of the bed this morning to tie around the end flies off like a butterfly into the aisle. I lean over the pew door to reach it but Mam pulls me back and holds on tight, tight to my arm. I feel her trembling but I can’t move.
Jones the Butcher shouts, ‘Amen. Amen,’ as he agrees with part of the sermon and the Voice of God starts to build up to a fervour in the pulpit, already half singing some of his words and murmuring others so that the congregation has to lean forward to hear him. Mam is watching the Voice of God as if she’s mesmerised. ‘Amen,’ shouts Jones the Butcher again, but Mam doesn’t blink, her eyes are as wide open and still as the glass eyes on Mrs Llywelyn Pugh’s dead fox.
I try not to look into the dead fox’s yellow eyes. They remind me of the fox Ifan Evans flung at me when I went to look after Angharad and Catrin last Christmas holidays. I’d never been inside Brwyn Coch before and Mrs Evans showed me all those books in the parlour, the ones that Mam won’t let me borrow. It was dusk when I walked home. The grass sparkled with frost in the white light of the moon and it crunched beneath my feet as I walked across the field. I looked back from the top of the stile to watch the Christmas star flicker in the sky above the cottage. When I turned round again I saw Guto’r Wern leaping down the road, wailing like the fire brigade siren, his crow black coat flapping open as he ran. I climbed down the other side of the stile and didn’t notice the fox on the bottom step until I almost put my foot on it. There was a red wound in its side and I saw the fox’s spirit leave the wound like a warm breath in the cold air. Then, from nowhere, Ifan Evans appeared in front of me. He picked up the fox and swung it at me, laughing all the time. He said: This would make you a fine fox-fur if you were a fine lady, Gwenni. His face was scarlet as a holly berry and his breath smelt sweet. He made as if to put the dead fox around my shoulders. I couldn’t move quickly enough off the stile and I saw the fox’s eyes stare at me just before I felt its warm blood on my cheek. Mot, or perhaps it wasn’t Mot, perhaps it was the big black dog, leapt up and started to lick the blood from my face. I screamed and Ifan Evans laughed again. He staggered away and the dog went after him and I ran all the way across the next field to the gate and all the way down the hill and didn’t stop until I got home. Mam said: Don’t make such a fuss, Gwenni; it’s only a bit of blood. And she sent me into the scullery to wash my face. When I told her how piteous the fox looked she said: Don’t be silly, Gwenni.
In the pulpit the Voice of God intones, ‘And on the Day of Judgement, by that greatest of miracles, we shall all be resurrected, and we shall all be equal in the eyes of the Lord. The greatest and the least of us shall be . . .’ He pauses, and the congregation leans forward. ‘Equal,’ he murmurs.
‘Amen. Amen,’ shouts Jones the Butcher.
Mrs Llywelyn Pugh re-arranges her dead fox around her neck. Its tail has lost its bushiness and its ears droop and its fur is dull. Its little face is between its front paws, dangling down the back of Mrs Llywelyn Pugh’s pink jacket, and just on the end of its chin the fur is a creamier colour. Its glassy eyes stare at me and now I return the stare and see the sadness in those eyes. Is it sad because it didn’t have a decent burial? When our old Siani Nanti died Tada wrapped her in the Daily Herald and buried her in the back yard. Tada said: She was a good mouser; let’s give her a decent burial. Did the fox’s spirit go to Heaven, like Siani Nanti’s? Will it rise again? The dead fox lowers both eyelids in a slow blink at me just like John Morris does when he’s being friendly. I turn my head sharply to look at Mam but she’s too entranced by the Voice of God to notice that the greatest of miracles has taken place two pews in front of her.
8
The skin on the gravy ripples as I pull the slice of lamb from beneath it. I begin to cut away the fat and pack it into a neat pile at the edge of my plate.
‘Don’t play with your food, Gwenni,’ Mam says. ‘Eat it all up. You could do with a bit of fat on you.’
‘I don’t like the feel of it in my mouth,’ I say. ‘It’s like eating a lump of lard.’
‘I’ll have it,’ says Bethan. ‘I like the fat.’ She leans over and takes the cuttings with her fork and pushes them into her mouth. A dribble of grease shines at one corner of her lips.
Mam looks at Bethan and her tight face turns soft. ‘I could eat anything I liked when I was your age, too,’ she says.
‘I can eat anything I like,’ I say. ‘I just don’t like the fatty bits.’
‘Eat up the lean meat, then, there’s a good girl,’ says Tada. ‘It’s good for you. Makes you strong.’ He puts a forkful of meat into his mouth. ‘Think of the lion. It doesn’t eat anything except meat.’ I try not to watch as he pulls a piece of gristle from his mouth and puts it on the side of his plate.
I slice up my meat. The sun breaks through the cloud for a moment and shines through the living room window onto the meat plate and the lump of grey lamb with its leg-bone sticking up. The fat glistens and the bone gleams white beneath the crusted blood. I push the rest of my meat to the side of my plate and eat the carrots.
‘Lovely bit of lamb,’ says Tada. ‘Sweet as honey. Is there any more mint sauce? Pass it over, will you, Gwenni?’ The scent of the vinegary mint rises from his meat and gravy as he pours the sauce over them. ‘So, no news of Ifan Evans this morning in Chapel, then?’
‘Nothing in Chapel,’ says Mam. Her face has gone tight again, the way it’s been all morning. ‘Plenty after Chapel on the way home, though. You should have heard Nanw Lipstick.’
‘You wouldn’t let us stop to listen to her,’ says Bethan. ‘Mam just marched us home, Tada.’
‘Alwenna’s Mam always knows everything,’ I say. Like Alwenna.
‘Pity she doesn’t keep it to herself,’ says Mam.
‘I heard Nanw Lipstick say it was on the cards, Tada,’ says Bethan.
‘Mrs Thomas to you, Bethan,’ says Tada.
‘I don’t know how she knows these things,’ says Mam. ‘I think she makes up most of it.’
‘What did she mean, Mam?’ I ask.
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ says Mam. ‘More roast potatoes, Bethan?’ She proffers the plate.
‘I feel very sorry for Elin Evans,’ says Tada. ‘Nice woman.’
‘Nice is as nice does,’ says Mam, and puts the plate down without offering Tada any more potatoes.
‘What does that mean?’ I say.
‘Never you mind. Eat your dinner.’ Mam’s face is red as well as tight. ‘I haven’t slaved over that fire half the morning for you to push the food around your plate. Why can’t you eat properly like everyone else?’
Bethan lifts her eyebrows at me. I shrug. We eat without speaking now. The mantelpiece clock tick-tocks in counterpoint to the click-clack of the cutlery. The Toby jugs pretend to be interested in the ceiling but every now and then I see them glance down at us. When the clock strikes one it startles us all.
‘That rice pudding will be done,’ says Mam, and stands up. She takes her Sunday apron from the back of the chair and puts it on before opening the oven door. A bitter smell spills into the living room as Mam pulls out the pudding dish.
‘It’s burnt again,’ says Bethan. The dark brown skin clings to the sides of the dish and stretches over the pudding.
Mam bangs the dish down on the table. ‘It wouldn’t burn in an electric cooker,’ she says.
‘I like the skin like that,’ says Tada. He smiles at Mam with his bright, white, false teeth. ‘You make a beautiful rice pudding, sweetheart.’
Mam ignores him. ‘Take the dinner plates into the scullery and bring in the pudding bowls,’ she says to me.
I scrape the food off my plate onto Tada’s bit of gristle, stack the plates and carry them into the scullery. John Morris follows me. He purrs when I put the congealed gravy and scraps of meat into his saucer. I try not to touch them. The faces in the distemper have opened thei
r eyes again and watch everything I do.
I take the bowls to Mam and she dishes up the rice pudding.
‘No skin, please, Mam,’ I say when it’s my turn.
‘Eat what you’re given,’ says Mam. ‘There are little yellow children starving in China who would be glad of that.’
‘When I had rice pudding at Caroline’s house,’ says Bethan, ‘it didn’t taste like this and it wasn’t so thick.’
‘Rice pudding’s got to be thick. Got to have something to get your teeth into. Lovely, this.’ Tada speaks through a mouthful of pudding. He smiles at Mam.
‘That Mrs Smythe was advertising for a cook,’ says Mam. ‘Where does she think she’s going to find a cook around here?’
‘Smith,’ says Bethan. ‘They say it Smith and spell it S-m-y-t-h-e.’
‘Well,’ says Tada. His voice is still stuck in the rice pudding.
‘Caroline says they came down in the world when they came here,’ says Bethan. ‘There isn’t any good help to be had. Mrs Smythe wants to move back to England.’
Tada swallows his mouthful of pudding with a gulp. ‘Well,’ he says.
‘Caroline’s father’s rich,’ says Bethan. ‘Caroline’s got her own room. You should see it. I’d like my own room.’
‘I’d like my own room, too,’ I say. I want my own bed so I don’t have to land on top of Bethan every time I come back from flying, and a desk like Mrs Evans’s to sit at and write Catrin’s story with a rocker for the blotter, and a bookshelf instead of the box under the bed.
‘That’s enough of that,’ says Mam. ‘We can’t all be rich. Some of us have to scrimp and save for years to afford a house with a bathroom.’ She eats a spoonful of rice pudding. ‘And an electric oven.’
‘Caroline’s brother has got a huge room of his own,’ says Bethan. ‘Richard.’
‘You don’t go into boys’ rooms,’ says Mam, her voice shrill.
‘I only looked in, Mam,’ says Bethan. ‘He wasn’t even there.’
‘Nice-looking boy,’ says Tada. ‘Polite, too.’
Bethan’s face turns pink.
I look at her. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’ I say.
‘None of your business who I like, Gwenni Morgan,’ says Bethan. ‘Tell her, Mam.’
‘Now, now,’ says Tada.
‘Don’t be silly, Gwenni,’ says Mam. ‘Bethan’s far too young to be liking boys.’
‘I’m nearly fourteen,’ says Bethan.
‘Thirteen and a half,’ says Mam. ‘Much too young.’
‘You do like him,’ I say. ‘Yuck.’
‘Be quiet, Gwenni,’ says Mam.
‘Shall I make a cup of tea, sweetheart?’ says Tada. ‘Come on, Bethan, take the pudding bowls away.’
Tada swings the kettle onto the fire and when it boils pours the water into the teapot and gives it a stir. ‘Let it brew a bit,’ he says and sits back in his chair.
Mam puts out the Sunday cups and saucers that I like with their pretty blue make-believe flowers and their thin golden rims that catch the light.
I watch Mam pouring the tea and I take a deep breath and I say, ‘Mrs Llywelyn Pugh’s dead fox blinked at me in Chapel this morning. With both its eyes. I think it was resurrected.’
The teapot shakes in Mam’s hand and the bright golden tea splashes on the Sunday tablecloth and seeps into the embroidered flowers.
‘Don’t start,’ she says. ‘Emlyn, tell her not to start.’
‘Listen to your mam, Gwenni,’ says Tada. ‘Anyway, the dead fox has got glass eyes. It can’t blink at you.’
‘All you do is encourage her nonsense,’ says Mam. ‘Flying yesterday, dead animals blinking today. What will people think if she goes around saying silly things like that? They’ll think she’s simple.’
‘Of course they won’t,’ says Tada. ‘Everyone knows Gwenni’s a clever one.’
‘Clever is as clever does,’ says Mam.
‘What does that mean?’ says Bethan.
I know what Mam thinks of clever. She writes it in all my autograph books.
‘If you’re clever you’ll get on in this old world,’ says Tada.
‘No one will think Gwenni’s clever if she goes around saying she can fly and dead animals are resurrected,’ says Mam.
‘I think it wants me to help it,’ I say. ‘I think it wants a decent burial. Like we gave Siani Nanti.’
Mam stands up and leans over the table towards me. ‘Be quiet,’ she shouts. I can see the spittle spray from her lips and I lean right back in my chair so it misses me.
‘Sit down, sweetheart, and have your cup of tea,’ says Tada, and tries to take hold of Mam’s hand but misses. ‘Now, don’t worry about what people think. It doesn’t matter.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d heard Nanw Lipstick this morning,’ says Mam. ‘Poor Ifan missing like this, a lovely man, a real gentleman – I don’t care what Nain says – and all Nanw Lipstick can do is tittle-tattle about him.’
‘But everyone was talking about him, Mam,’ says Bethan. ‘And about Mrs Evans.’
‘Take a deep breath now, Magda, like Dr Edwards said,’ says Tada. He manages to take hold of Mam’s shaking hand. ‘Old gossips aren’t worth listening to. Ifan is bound to turn up again, large as life, you’ll see. Then what will the old gossips do, eh?’
‘Caroline says that Mrs Evans is pretty,’ says Bethan. ‘Do you think she’s pretty, Tada?’
‘Well, yes,’ says Tada. ‘Very pretty. And clever.’
Mam snatches her hand away from Tada and piles the teacups into each other with a clatter and takes them into the scullery.
‘I haven’t finished drinking my tea,’ says Bethan.
‘We’ll be late for Sunday School if we don’t get cracking,’ Mam says, then closes her mouth so tight her lips disappear.
9
I pull down the sleeves of my best coat to cover my hands; it’s always cold in Chapel during Sunday School. Mrs Davies Chapel House turns the heaters off after the morning service to save money; Alwenna says Mrs Davies spends the saved money on silk stockings and black satin suspender belts. When I told Mam she said: That Alwenna has no shame.
I slide into the pew next to Alwenna. She turns sideways to show me the seams in her stockings. ‘Look at that,’ she whispers. ‘Dead straight. Took me a quarter of an hour.’ Aneurin and Edwin turn round to bob their quiffs at her from the pew in front of us. They’re our bêtes noires; that’s French for black beasts. Monsieur Jenkins says it means something you can’t abide. But today Alwenna smiles at them.
Mrs Morris stops playing her repertoire on the organ and all the deacons in the Big Seat stand and turn to face the congregation. Tada was wrong; Ifan Evans has not turned up. The Voice of God announces that Young Mr Ellis will look after Mrs Evans’s class and welcomes the Beynon family to our Sunday School for the first time. Mam says they have a daughter my age who’ll make me a nice friend instead of Alwenna.
‘Why isn’t Mrs Evans here?’ Aneurin asks Young Mr Ellis when our class is sitting in the dark pews under the gallery overhang.
Young Mr Ellis blushes and his wire-rimmed spectacles slip down his nose. He pushes them back up with his little finger. The fingernail is dirty and Young Mr Ellis smells of the farm where he works. I try not to breathe too deeply.
‘Never mind that, Aneurin,’ Young Mr Ellis says. ‘Now, who can tell me what important point the Reverend Roberts was making in his sermon this morning?’
Aneurin stares at Young Mr Ellis, then he starts to snigger. ‘You’re not as pretty as Mrs Evans,’ he says. The quiff balanced on the edge of Aneurin’s forehead bobs up and down and a scent of Brylcreem wafts from it.
I narrow my eyes and stare hard at Aneurin’s back. He turns around; he always does. ‘What are you staring at, Gwenni Morgan?’ he says. ‘It’s true. He’s not as pretty as Mrs Evans.’
‘Mr Ellis,’ I say. ‘Mr Roberts’s sermon was about our spirits, wasn’t it? And the miracle of the resurrection
.’
Young Mr Ellis’s dirty little fingernail pushes his spectacles up his nose again. He swallows loudly so that his Adam’s apple rises and falls in his throat. ‘Very good, Gwenni. And what was the point he was making, can you remember?’
Aneurin makes gagging noises that Young Mr Ellis pretends he can’t hear.
‘Do you think Aneurin’s got a spirit, Mr Ellis?’ I ask.
‘Every human being has a spirit, Gwenni.’
‘But Aneurin is more of an animal, Mr Ellis. If he’s got a spirit it would mean that animals have a spirit, wouldn’t it?’
Aneurin launches himself backward out of his pew and tries to grab hold of my hair. ‘You’re the animal, Gwenni Morgan. You look more like a fox than a fox.’
‘Vixen,’ says Geraint.
‘What?’ says Aneurin. ‘What did you say, four-eyes?’
‘Vixen,’ says Geraint. He takes off his spectacles and polishes them with his fair-isle pullover. ‘She’s a girl.’
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Aneurin leans around Edwin and catches hold of a handful of Geraint’s pullover and pulls it towards him.
Young Mr Ellis stands up and flaps his hands at them. ‘Boys, boys,’ he says.
‘It’s a fight, Mr Ellis.’ Alwenna smiles at him and crosses her legs. Her stockings swish-swish against each other. ‘You’ll have to stop it.’
Young Mr Ellis pushes his spectacles back up his nose and looks at her stockings.
‘Mr Ellis.’ The Voice of God sounds like thunder. ‘What’s going on here?’
Young Mr Ellis jumps. ‘Just a touch of high spirits, Mr Roberts.’
‘It looks more like a fight to me. Come on out of there, man.’
Young Mr Ellis looks at the way out past Aneurin and Edwin and instead climbs over the front of the pew into the next one, then out into the aisle.
‘Aneurin,’ says the Voice of God. ‘I shall have to speak to your mother about your behaviour.’
‘Gwenni Morgan started it, Mr Roberts. It’s all her fault.’
The Earth Hums in B Flat Page 5
