The Earth Hums in B Flat

by Mari Strachan

  ‘It’s a bit chilly, isn’t it?’ says Sergeant Jones. ‘I can see snow on the Wyddfa from the bedroom window. That’s April for you.’ He leans back in his chair. Mrs Sergeant Jones is beating the carpets faster now. Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Maybe she thinks it’s going to rain again. Or snow.

  ‘It’s about Ifan Evans,’ I say.

  ‘Thought so,’ says Sergeant Jones.

  ‘Are you trying to find him?’

  ‘The police don’t usually try to find grown men who’ve gone away of their own accord, Gwenni.’

  ‘Why not? What if their wives want them back? What if their children want them back?’

  Sergeant Jones sighs. His chair groans again as he leans forward over the desk. His breath is warm and smells of Mrs Sergeant Jones’s famous vanilla biscuits. ‘Men leave their families and homes for all sorts of complicated reasons, Gwenni. Sometimes, their families are even glad to see them go.’

  ‘But Mrs Evans will be cast out of her house and Angharad and little Catrin will starve and become ill if Ifan Evans doesn’t come back.’

  Sergeant Jones laughs again, then looks at me and stops. He drums his fingers on his desk in time with Mrs Sergeant Jones’s carpet-beating. ‘Come on, Gwenni,’ he says. ‘Sometimes I think you read too many books. This is real life; I don’t think things will be quite that bad. And, anyway, Ifan Evans will probably turn up again, like the bad penny.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Nothing, Gwenni, it’s just something people say.’

  ‘But what if he doesn’t turn up like the bad penny?’

  Sergeant Jones heaves his shoulders up in a giant shrug. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Gwenni, not officially. I have asked one or two people who might have known something about where he might have gone, of course I have, but—’

  ‘Have you talked to Guto?’

  ‘I’ve tried, but you know what he’s like, Gwenni. Anyway, no one’s got any idea about where Ifan might be. So that’s that. And it’s no good giving me that old-fashioned look, I’ve done as much as I can and I’ve got a lot of other work to do, you know.’

  I look out at the garden through the window behind him. Mrs Sergeant Jones has finished her carpet-beating but there are still little clouds of dust hovering above the clothesline.

  ‘I mean a lot of police work, Gwenni, not gardening work.’

  It’s become much warmer in the office with the window closed. I get up from my chair to undo the belt and buttons on my mackintosh. A poster on the wall next to the door has a picture of a man’s face on it and the words Have you seen this man? printed underneath the face. ‘Why can’t you make a poster of Ifan Evans like this one and put it up in lots of places? Is this man missing too?’

  ‘He’s missing all right,’ says Sergeant Jones, ‘but he’s a criminal, he escaped from custody. He’s a murderer, Gwenni, that’s why I’ve got to keep an eye out for him. Though he’s not likely to come this way.’

  ‘A murderer.’ I move closer to the poster. So this is what a murderer looks like. Just like anybody else. Maybe that’s why they’re hard to catch.

  ‘Have you ever caught a murderer, Sergeant Jones?’ I sit down in my chair again. Maybe Mrs Sergeant Jones should make a cushion for it. A cushion with embroidered flowers all over it and dried lavender inside it like she makes for the Chapel’s Sale of Work. She’s almost as good as Aunty Siân at sewing. It would make Sergeant Jones’s office smell summery all year.

  ‘Not here, Gwenni. There hasn’t been a murder since I’ve been stationed here.’

  ‘I thought that was what the police did, catch criminals and murderers.’

  ‘Plenty of criminals here of one sort or another. Just plain silly, most of them. And greedy.’

  ‘Did you catch a murderer where you were stationed before, then? When I asked you, you said: Not here.’

  ‘You’re a sharp one, Gwenni.’ Sergeant Jones looks at his golden watch, which has some writing etched into it, and then swings it back on its golden chain into his waistcoat pocket before I can make out what it says. He always does that. ‘Well, yes, I helped to catch a murderer when I was a constable at Dinbych. Just starting out I was.’ He looks hard at me. ‘But it wasn’t exciting, you know, like in books or the pictures. It was just trudging from door to door asking people the same questions over and over.’

  ‘Questions like that?’ I nod towards the poster.

  ‘Something like that,’ says Sergeant Jones. ‘And warning people to be careful. The man had run away from the asylum and he’d killed somebody almost immediately; he wasn’t responsible for his actions.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘We caught him and he was sent back to the asylum. He wasn’t fit to stand trial.’ Sergeant Jones sighs. ‘He died soon after.’

  ‘Who did he murder?’

  ‘A farmer who was trying to help him. It was all very sad, Gwenni. And a long time ago.’ He tugs the watch out of its pocket and looks at it again. ‘I have to do some paperwork now, Gwenni, so you’ll have to go home. Tell your mam I was asking after her.’

  I scrape my chair back along the floor and stand up. ‘But can’t you make a poster like that for Ifan Evans?’

  ‘No, of course I can’t,’ says Sergeant Jones. ‘Ifan Evans isn’t a criminal.’

  ‘But he’s gone away and left Mrs Evans and Angharad and Catrin and Mot and the lambs.’

  ‘It’s odd, I grant you, Gwenni. But it’s not a crime. I can’t chase after him for that.’

  Sergeant Jones puffs and huffs as he pulls himself out of his chair and stands up. I wait by the door and put my hand up to feel the poster; the paper is smooth and thick. ‘But I can,’ I say. I know just what to do. I’ll ask Mrs Evans for a photograph of Ifan Evans to make a poster like this one.

  ‘No, Gwenni, you can’t,’ says the Sergeant. His face is purply red from the effort of getting out of his chair.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ I say. ‘I can ask people if they’ve seen him and they’ll think it’s just one of my games. I’ll say I’m playing detectives; I’ll say I’m being Albert Campion or Gari Tryfan.’

  Sergeant Jones pulls out his little black notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket that’s over the back of his chair, and his pencil from behind his ear. He flips the pages of the notebook and licks the pencil. His tongue is purply red, too. I look away.

  ‘I’ll make a note of our conversation, Gwenni,’ he says, ‘but I don’t want you asking people about Ifan Evans as if he’s done something wrong. I don’t think your mam would like it very much, either, do you?’

  Mam wouldn’t like it at all. That’s why I didn’t tell her I was coming to see Sergeant Jones on my way to Brwyn Coch.

  He comes closer and peers at my face. ‘Your mam does know you’re here, doesn’t she, Gwenni?’

  The black telephone on his desk jangles and we both jump at the noise. Sergeant Jones lumbers back to the desk and picks up the receiver. A voice crackles at him through the earpiece. I can hear it over by the door. ‘Yes, sir,’ answers Sergeant Jones. ‘No, sir. The holiday has held things up a bit, sir.’ He pulls out his big handkerchief and mops his head. ‘Certainly, sir.’ He puts the phone down on its cradle and looks at me. The phone call has made even his bald head turn purple.

  I look closely at the poster as I open the door. Goose pimples prickle my skin again. It’s lucky there are no murderers around here.

  12

  ‘Have you seen this man?’ I hold my poster high up so that Nellie Davies can see it clearly.

  ‘Don’t stand on that step if your shoes are muddy,’ she says. ‘It took me half an hour to scrub the smell of your old tomcat off it this morning. You tell your mam.’

  I step back down and try not to breathe in the fumes of the Jeyes fluid. I hold the poster as high as I can. ‘Have you seen this man?’ I ask her again.

  Nellie Davies pulls her spectacles down her nose and squints at the poster. ‘That’s an old photograph,’ she says. ‘W
ho is it?

  ‘Ifan Evans,’ I say.

  ‘Mr Evans to you,’ she says, ‘and if I’d seen him I’d be telling Mrs Evans, not you.’ She shuffles backwards in her big old felt slippers and bangs the door shut.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Davies,’ I say to nobody. I take my pencil and my red Lion notebook from the pocket of my school mackintosh and next to Mrs Davies, Number 7, I put a question mark.

  I pass Nain’s house and our house and climb the steps to Number 4 and hang over the railings to see if Alwenna is coming. I waited and waited for her this morning, she always comes to fetch me in the mornings during the holidays. Mam won’t let me go down to the council houses. But the only thing coming up the hill is the jangly sound of music from someone’s wireless. I turn to the blue door and knock hard on it until my knuckles sting. Everyone knows that Mrs Thomas goes back to bed for a little nap after Mr Thomas has gone to work. I wait, tapping my foot to the music, and after a while the door opens a little crack and one of Mrs Thomas’s bleary blue eyes appears. ‘Oh, it’s you, Gwenni,’ she says. She opens the door wider. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea with me.’

  Having a cup of tea with Mrs Thomas means making it for her and I haven’t got time this morning. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Thomas,’ I say and push the poster close to her face. ‘Have you seen this man?’

  Mrs Thomas gathers her dressing gown around her and looks at the photograph through narrowed eyes until my arms start quivering with the effort of holding it up. She pats her hair into place and smiles at me. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing him at all, Gwenni,’ she says, ‘a good-looking man like that. Who is it?’

  ‘Ifan Evans,’ I say.

  ‘Ifan Evans?’ says Mrs Thomas. And she narrows her eyes at the photograph again.

  ‘When he was young,’ I say.

  ‘Who gave you that picture?’ she says.

  I cross my fingers. ‘Mrs Evans.’

  ‘That poor woman’ says Mrs Thomas, ‘and those poor little girls left without a father.’

  ‘I’m trying to find Ifan Evans for them,’ I say.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, Gwenni,’ says Mrs Thomas. ‘It’s meddling. Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?’ She licks her lips. ‘I’ve got a big chocolate cake I made yesterday.’

  I shake my head. As she shuts the door I put a question mark next to her name in my notebook. Why can’t people just answer my question? I leap down all three steps into the road and land at somebody’s feet; I don’t know they’re Alwenna’s until I look up.

  ‘I didn’t see you coming up the road,’ I say. ‘Why are you in your Sunday clothes?’

  ‘They’re not just for Sunday,’ Alwenna says. ‘This is how I always dress now.’

  She twirls around in front of me. Her yellow skirt flares out showing her big net petticoat and throwing out a sweet scent. It’s not Evening in Paris. ‘I have to be very careful not to ladder my stockings,’ she says. ‘You’re not going through any fields, are you? Because I can’t go through any fields in these.’ She points at her shoes, which are narrow and pointy and have a silly bow on the front.

  I shake my head. ‘No fields,’ I say. ‘But we might have to run. Can you run in them?’

  ‘I’ve given up running,’ says Alwenna. ‘Why are you wearing that thing?’

  ‘What thing?’ I say.

  ‘Your school mac.’

  ‘It might rain, or snow. And anyway, it’s got good pockets. Look.’ I pull out my notebook and pencil and show them to her, but she’s too busy tugging her white jumper down tight over her chest to look. ‘Aren’t you cold without your coat?’

  ‘Not much,’ she says. ‘You won’t get a boyfriend looking like that.’

  Boyfriend? We hate boys, she knows that. But I think of her laughing with Aneurin and Edwin after Sunday School.

  ‘I don’t want a boyfriend,’ I say. ‘I hate boys.’

  Alwenna sighs. She pulls her jumper down again. ‘Boys are all right,’ she says. ‘They don’t come from outer space, you know. They’re not aliens.’

  ‘And I especially hate our bêtes noires,’ I say.

  ‘I think . . .’ says Alwenna, then stops and pulls a square of bubblegum from her skirt pocket. She undoes the wrapping and pops the gum into her mouth and begins to chew. My mouth waters.

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘You think what?’

  ‘I think,’ she says again, ‘that, really, you like Aneurin. And he likes you.’

  ‘No. Yuck,’ I say. ‘I hate him. He hates me. You’re the one who likes Aneurin all of a sudden.’

  ‘Aneurin’s related to me,’ she says. ‘Didn’t you know? Through Mam’s second cousin in Dyffryn.’

  Almost everyone is related to Alwenna’s mam. She’s got more relations than Jesus Christ in my New Testament. Maybe that’s how she knows everything about everybody. But my family is not related to her.

  ‘I like Edwin,’ says Alwenna.

  ‘But Edwin’s stupid,’ I say.

  ‘He’s quite good-looking, though,’ she says.

  Edwin looks like Mrs Williams Penrhiw’s old horse. I just stare at Alwenna. She jigs a little dance to the jangly music still sounding in the air around us. ‘Your Bethan’s got a boyfriend,’ she says.

  ‘Mam won’t let her have a boyfriend,’ I say. ‘She’s too young.’

  ‘I’ve just seen her with that Richard.’

  ‘You can’t have. She’s gone to play with Caroline.’

  ‘Gone to play with Caroline’s brother, more like,’ says Alwenna. She twirls again so that her skirt and her petticoat flare out around her and I can see the tops of her stockings. ‘I can’t stay long,’ she says. ‘What are you doing?’

  I show her the poster, which is already creased and furred after showing it to only two people. ‘I’m trying to find Ifan Evans.’

  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish is what my mam says,’ says Alwenna. ‘Nobody wants him back.’

  ‘His little children want him back.’

  ‘I don’t know why. That little Catrin’s always scared of him.’

  ‘We’ll have to go round together, because I’ve only got one picture of him,’ I say.

  Alwenna studies the poster. ‘No one’ll know him from that,’ she says. ‘That must have been taken ages ago. He was good-looking when he was young, wasn’t he?’

  ‘It was the only one I could get,’ I say.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘From Mrs Evans. Yesterday.’

  ‘She gave it to you, just like that?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I say. ‘I sort of borrowed it.’

  ‘You’ll get into trouble,’ says Alwenna.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Or we’ll never get round the whole town.’

  I knock on the door of the next house. I can hear Miss Hughes grunt as she tries to pull the door open. Across the road the Youth Hostel echoes with voices and light glows in most of the windows. In winter the Youth Hostel is dark and silent and the twisted rhododendron trees in its garden start writhing when you glimpse them out of the corner of your eye.

  At last Miss Hughes opens her door, gasping with the effort. ‘It’s swollen from the damp,’ she says, looking swollen and damp herself. ‘What do you want, girls?’ A musty smell drifts out from the hallway behind her. I try not to breathe too deeply.

  ‘Have you seen this man?’ I show her the poster. ‘It’s Ifan Evans,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Miss Hughes. ‘Of course it’s Mr Evans. Of course I’ve seen him. He’s one of our deacons, Gwenni. What are you talking about?’

  ‘I meant have you seen him since he vanished?’

  ‘Oh, oh, who told you to ask me that?’ says Miss Hughes and puts her hand over her mouth. ‘Does your mam know you’re doing this, Gwenni?’

  ‘When’s the baby due, Miss Hughes?’ says Alwenna.

  ‘Oh, oh,’ says Miss Hughes again. ‘You wash your mouth out with soap, Alwenna Thomas.’

  Alwenna blows a bubble of pink gum. It has a j
uicy strawberry scent. Miss Hughes stumbles around and pushes the door in our faces, pushing and pushing until it shuts.

  ‘What baby?’ I ask Alwenna.

  ‘Her baby,’ says Alwenna. ‘Didn’t you know about it? Everyone knows about it. Mam says no prizes for guessing who the father is. He hasn’t run off with her, then.’

  ‘She’ll tell your mam,’ I say.

  ‘No point,’ says Alwenna. ‘But she’s sure to tell yours.’

  I pull out my notebook and put a question mark next to Miss Hughes’s name. ‘No one will answer the question,’ I say.

  I know that everybody’s out at work at Number 2 so I’ll have to come back later. That leaves Dafydd Owen at Number 1. ‘Do you want to knock on Dafydd Owen’s door?’ I say to Alwenna.

  ‘I’m not knocking on his old door,’ she says.

  ‘We’ve got to question everybody,’ I say. ‘Or we might miss the one person who’s seen Ifan Evans.’

  ‘Do it yourself, then,’ she says. ‘I’ll stay here.’ And she leans against the wall at the bottom of the steps.

  I take a big breath and knock politely on the door.

  ‘He won’t hear that,’ says Alwenna. ‘Knock harder.’

  I bang on the door and it swings open.

  ‘No need to break the door down,’ says Dafydd Owen’s creaky voice. ‘What do you want, Gwenni?’ His pipe is clenched between his teeth and chugs out little clouds of smoke like a train. The tobacco doesn’t smell as nice as Tada’s Golden Virginia.

  I thrust the poster at Dafydd Owen. ‘Have you seen this man?’

  Dafydd Owen takes his spectacles from where they dangle at his waistcoat pocket and pulls out a handkerchief to polish them. The handkerchief should be white and I try not to look at it. He puts his spectacles on the tip of his nose and then peers over them.

  ‘It’s young Ifan Evans,’ he says. ‘Where did you get this picture, Gwenni?’

  Alwenna loudly pops a gum bubble. Dafydd Owen looks around me at her.

  ‘You’re Nanw Thomas’s girl,’ he says. ‘You’re just like her. Just as badly behaved.’

  Alwenna blows a huge pink bubble that bursts over her nose and chin.