Is that true? I gasp as a sharp pain pinches my stomach.
‘You asked me to tell you,’ says Alwenna. ‘So don’t blame me if it’s not what you wanted to hear.’
‘So, who is Bethan’s father?’ I say. Not Tada?
‘Your mam never said. The minister talked to her about it, but she wouldn’t say. Not the Voice of God; the one before him. He had to go and meet your tada off the train when he came back from the war. Your mam was big by then, so she couldn’t very well pretend Bethan was your tada’s baby, could she? But she never said who the father was. Mam says your tada was a saint.’ She fiddles with some stalks of grass and looks up at me from under her eyelashes. ‘Of course,’ she says, ‘everyone thinks they know who it was.’
‘Who?’ I say.
‘You don’t want to know,’ she says, flicking at the grass.
‘Who?’ I say.
‘Guess,’ she says.
I can guess, can’t I? But Alwenna’s right, I don’t want to know. I look into her face and she smirks at me. She doesn’t look like my Alwenna. ‘Why haven’t you told me all this before?’ I say.
She stretches her arms up into the air and yawns. ‘I’ve only just found out.’
Who else knows? Is this one of those secrets Nain talked about? A secret everyone knows but no one talks about? Bethan doesn’t know. And I didn’t know. Is it the reason Mam likes Bethan and doesn’t like me? But Bethan’s father— Don’t think about that.
‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘I don’t want to talk about my family. I’m investigating a murder.’
Alwenna smirks again. She leans back on her elbows, jutting her chest in the air. ‘Oh, yes. You want me to tell you about Paleface. You’re lucky, then, because I’ve just found out all about him, too. Mam says he didn’t go to the war because he was a farm worker.’ She looks at me from under her eyelashes again. ‘Penrhyn way, where your mam lived.’
Don’t think about it; don’t think about the swimming when Tada wasn’t there.
Alwenna sits up and picks another daisy and starts to pull off its petals. ‘Mam says when he and Elin moved here they were so religious they went to Chapel three times every Sunday. No one knew he had nasty moods and drank when they made him a deacon. Maybe being married to Elin made him like that. She’s a bit prissy, isn’t she?’ Alwenna mimics a prissy face but it doesn’t look like Mrs Evans at all. ‘But he was horrible to her when he was drunk, Mam says. He hit her. You know those babies in the cemetery? Everyone says he killed them in his temper when he was drunk.’
I haven’t found the babies in the cemetery yet. Are they the babies in Mrs Evans’s photograph? And Ifan Evans killed them?
‘But the police would have arrested him,’ I say.
‘What did they know?’ says Alwenna. ‘Mam says they couldn’t prove he’d done it and Elin protected him. Silly woman. It just made him hate her worse, Mam says.’
‘How do you know all these terrible things are true?’ I say.
‘Everyone knows about them,’ she says.
‘That doesn’t make them true,’ I say. ‘And I didn’t know about them.’
Alwenna gets up with a little jump. She brushes the daisy petals from her dress and hitches her belt a notch tighter and twirls round to wave at Aneurin and Edwin who are watching her. ‘There’s something else you don’t know,’ she says.
I don’t say anything. Is this something else I don’t want to know? Another pain in my stomach makes me catch my breath.
‘I’m not your best friend any more. You’ll have to find someone else,’ Alwenna says.
28
Our cemetery is always cool and quiet. Tall grass laps at the edges of the graves and tombs without a sound, the way my night-time sea laps at the shore. The cemetery is the next best thing to the sky. When I lie on my tomb I almost believe that I’m flying. No one else visits the graves when I’m here, except Guto’r Wern, and yet, there are always flowers here and there on them.
The pain in my stomach gradually passes away as I rest on my tomb and leaves an empty place inside me. I watch rain clouds gather above me, hiding the sun.
How does Alwenna’s mam know all these things? And how do I find out what’s true and what’s not? If I were a detective in a book I would know exactly how to go about finding out. Do I want to find out if it’s true that Tada isn’t Bethan’s father?
Look at how lush the grass is and how high the hedgerows are all around. Already butterflies flit around honeysuckle that’s still in bud and blossom foams like seaspray on the hawthorn. Don’t take white flowers into your house or your mother will die. I once picked Mam a posy of windflowers with petals as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and she snatched the flowers from me and threw them out into the road where they lay for days, dying, until the wind took them. She said I wanted her to die. That was before Dr Edwards gave her tablets to make her happy. Sometimes when I’m flying, out of the corner of my eye I see the white petals blowing across the moon or floating on the sea.
Our family graves, Tada’s family graves, are here at the bottom end from the path. They’re difficult to reach because the grass has grown so high. Alwenna says the grass feeds on the corpses. She says never to pick up a worm in the cemetery, it will be full of dead flesh. But I won’t think about Alwenna. Or the worms.
See, here is the grave of Uncle Carwyn who died in hospital. I remember him packing his case to go away; it was laid across the arms of Nain’s big leather chair. He said he would be back soon, once the doctors had mended him; he said it would give him time to practise some new conjuring tricks to show me. His last conjuring trick was to disappear so that I never saw him again.
My Uncle Idwal is buried near Athens. That’s in Greece. Nain has a picture of his grave on her bedroom wall. It has a white cross, not a gravestone. There are white crosses filling the picture, with a red poppy on each one. Everyone who was killed had a special white cross. I wonder which ones in the picture belong to Mrs Llywelyn Pugh’s son and Nellie Davies’s husband. Tada says there are cemeteries full of white crosses all over Europe. Maybe they look like windflower petals if you look down at them from the sky.
Here is my grandfather’s grave. He died a long time ago when Tada was only fourteen. And now Bethan is nearly fourteen and maybe she’s lost her father but she doesn’t know it. And who would tell her something so terrible? Look at the story this gravestone tells about my grandfather. I pull my roughbook from my satchel and in it I write Taid’s dates and what it says on the stone. He was old when he died but his children were all young; Tada was the eldest. Taid must have been old when he married Nain. Much older than her. I didn’t know that. Another secret that everybody knows except me?
There’s a big stone next to Taid’s grave but the brambles have reached out from the hedgerow across its face and I push them back. A thorn rips my palm and I suck the blood from the wound. There’s a whoop behind me and I turn just in time to see Guto leap off my tomb with his arms spread like wings. I wave at him. He likes being here where there’s no one to bother him. Nain says: The dead don’t bother anyone, it’s the living you have to look out for. I wave at Guto and suck my palm again and then I look at all the names on the big gravestone. A list of names, and one squashed in at the top that says Sarah Morgan, beloved wife of William Morgan, my grandfather. Taid must have been married before he married Nain. And the babies, four of them. Four. All their names are here; three boys and a girl. All dead before they were even one year old. I must be related to them. But Bethan isn’t, is she? Not if Tada isn’t her father.
I shall have to go home soon. Mam will be cross with me. I’m not supposed to go anywhere on my own now there’s a murderer on the loose. And she’ll be cross when she knows I’ve been here finding out secrets. Don’t mention the dead.
Guto is still trying to fly from my tombstone. And now that he’s seen me stand up he rushes towards me and he does look as if he’s flying with his ragged black coat trailing from his arms like wings. He stands in
front of me and flaps his arms, grinning with all his crooked teeth showing. He’s innocent as a child, Tada says. From inside his coat somewhere he pulls out a bundle of wilting bluebells and with his free hand catches hold of my arm and runs with me half falling behind him until we reach the most secluded corner of the cemetery. I’ve never been down this end before where the big old yew tree overhangs the graves to make a dark cave around them. Guto pulls me forward and waves his arms about to encompass all the gravestones planted here. They are so small, they’re barely visible. I kneel down and brush the long blades of grass from the stone nearest to me. And read about four-year-old Iolo, taken to Heaven a long time ago. Maybe his parents and all his family are dead too. Why else would there be no flowers on his grave? And here is an angel taken home aged three years and three months. What happens to babies when they die? Who looks after their little spirits? Maybe my New Testament will tell me if I keep reading it.
I look around to see what Guto’s doing; he’s kneeling in front of a gravestone shaped like an open book. I’ve never seen a stone like this before. I kneel beside him and watch him empty the sludge from a jam jar set in the ground in front of the open book and fill it with fresh water from a bottle he has somewhere inside his coat. Guto’s coat is like the one the conjurer wore when he performed in the Memorial Hall. He puts his bunch of bluebells into the jam jar and then puts his hands together and closes his eyes as if he’s saying his prayers. But he’s still grinning. Each page of the open book has a name carved into it. I peer at the names in the gloom and make out Gwion and Nia and then beloved twin children of Elin and Ifan Evans and then:
Their story had barely begun
When the book was closed.
I copy the lines into my notebook. Mrs Evans’s beautiful babies. Dead. Is that why she’s melancholy? Is that why she thinks a lot?
What sad and secret stories I’ve found today. I put my book back in my satchel and tell Guto that I have to go home but he stays on his knees, his eyes closed, praying. Innocent as a child.
29
‘We had mince yesterday,’ says Bethan. She wrinkles her nose. She doesn’t look like Tada at all.
‘This isn’t mince,’ says Mam. ‘It’s shepherd’s pie.’ She passes Tada a plate of grey gravy with pellets of dark meat rolling in it.
‘My favourite,’ says Tada, showing Mam his bright, white teeth. He takes the plate. ‘Where’s the potato, Magda?’
‘Why do we have to have the same thing all the time?’ says Bethan. ‘In Caroline’s house they have different meals every day.’
Mam bangs a dish of potatoes on the table and empties some flabby cabbage from a saucepan into another bowl. Some of the cabbage water dribbles over the tablecloth to mix with all the other stains. I don’t look at them.
‘Lovely,’ says Tada. ‘Nothing like spring cabbage.’
I say, ‘Nain says you’re not meant to boil cabbage until it’s nearly pink. She says all the goodness goes out of it.’
Mam drops my plate of mince down in front of me so that it almost slops into my lap, and hands Bethan her plate. I try to push my fork into one of the dark pellets and the meat shoots across the table into Bethan’s plate.
‘Couldn’t do that if you were trying,’ says Tada. He piles cabbage onto his gravy.
‘Don’t encourage her,’ says Mam.
‘So, why have we got mince again?’ says Bethan.
‘Shepherd’s pie,’ says Mam. ‘And we’re having it because there was plenty of meat left over from the piece of brisket I cooked on Sunday for two more meals. I don’t want to hear any more about it, Bethan. And you stop playing with your food, Gwenni, and eat it. You’ve no idea how hard it is to cook for you all and then listen to you complain about it.’
Have I complained?
‘I’m not complaining,’ says Bethan. ‘I’m only saying that they don’t have the same thing all the time in Caroline’s house. Anyway, I like mince.’
‘You’ve always been a good little eater,’ says Mam.
‘Lovely meals your mother makes,’ says Tada. ‘Lovely.’
I look at the mince; the pellets look like rabbit droppings and the gravy is slimy with grease. Sometimes, even John Morris won’t eat Mam’s mince.
‘Eat it, Gwenni, or you won’t get any pudding,’ says Mam.
‘What’s for pudding?’ Bethan speaks with her mouth full of potato. I don’t look at her.
‘Instant Whip,’ says Mam. ‘Strawberry.’
‘Your favourite,’ says Bethan to me.
But I can’t eat the mince.
‘I’ll have her pudding,’ says Bethan.
‘I’ll eat your mince, Gwenni,’ says Tada and he takes my plate and scoops the mince off it. ‘You can eat the potato and the cabbage, can’t you?’
There are lumps in the potato but I try not to think about them, and the cabbage slides down my throat without me having to chew it at all so I hardly notice its bitter taste.
‘And,’ says Bethan, waving her fork at Mam and spraying me with globules of gravy, ‘you didn’t tell us that Aunty Siân’s expecting another baby.’
Mam gasps. ‘What?’ she says. ‘How do you know that? Who told you?’
The Toby jugs stir on their high shelf with a soft scuffle that I can barely hear above the tick-tock of the clock.
‘Is it supposed to be a secret, then? Is that why she hasn’t been here for months?’ says Bethan. ‘Because all the Penrhyn girls know. Gwenfair Jones told me.’
‘Who’s she?’ says Mam.
‘She lives next door but one to Aunty Siân,’ says Bethan. ‘You know her mother.’
Mam groans. ‘Big Beti,’ she says to Tada. ‘Penrhyn’s answer to Nanw Lipstick. Used to live in the council houses until her grandmother left her that house. You should see the state of it. Like living in a slum.’
Tada nods and chews. He swallows with a big gulp. ‘Hardly the sort of thing you can keep secret, is it?’ he says.
Mam’s face turns red and her hands start to shake.
‘And,’ says Bethan, scooping more cabbage from the bowl onto her plate, ‘we did human reproduction in biology today. The boys had to leave the lab so Miss Edwards could tell us about it. You never tell me things like that properly; the other girls knew it all. But now I know exactly how babies are made. Exactly. That’s why Gwenfair told me; she said Aunty Siân and Uncle Wil had been doing it.’
Mam gasps again. ‘She should wash her mouth out with soap,’ she says from behind her hand.
‘Well,’ says Bethan, ‘if Aunty Siân’s having a baby, they have been doing it, haven’t they?’
Tada’s got his head bent right down over his plate as if his food has become hard to see.
‘I bet you don’t know how babies are made,’ says Bethan to me.
I cross my fingers under the tablecloth’s overhang. ‘Yes, I do,’ I say. We’ve only got as far as rabbits in our biology lessons and that’s bad enough.
‘How d’you know?’ says Bethan.
‘Alwenna,’ I say. But I would never let Alwenna tell me.
‘That girl has no shame,’ says Mam. ‘She’s too old for you, Gwenni. It’s time you found yourself a friend your own age.’
‘Alwenna doesn’t want to be my friend any more,’ I say.
Everyone stops eating.
‘Be thankful for small mercies,’ says Mam to no one in particular.
‘Why not, Gwenni?’ says Tada. ‘She couldn’t find a better friend.’
‘Don’t encourage her,’ says Mam, but Tada looks at her and she closes her mouth into its tight, tight line.
‘Who’s going to be your friend now, then?’ says Bethan.
‘I don’t have to have a friend,’ I say.
Bethan shrugs. ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘Miss Edwards says it’s very clever, you know, this baby thing. There are these things called genes, and stuff like the colour of your baby’s eyes or hair depend on your genes.’ She digs her fork into her cabbage and puts some in he
r mouth. It must be cold by now. ‘See, two people with blue eyes can’t have a baby with brown eyes.’ She pauses, frowning, her fork halfway to her mouth. ‘I can’t remember exactly how the gene thing worked, now.’
Bethan wouldn’t. She peers at Mam and Tada, then at me. ‘See, Gwenni’s got your green eyes,’ she says to Tada. ‘But Mam’s eyes are blue, so a blue-eyed parent and a green-eyed parent can have a brown-eyed baby like me. You see how it works? I’ve got to do a diagram of it for homework.’
She puts some potato into her mouth and wrinkles her nose again. ‘It’s got cold now,’ she says.
‘You’re talking too much. Far too much,’ says Mam. ‘Just eat your food.’
‘But that’s not all,’ says Bethan. ‘Caroline and I thought we’d like to have babies, but not for a long time. There’s this other thing Miss Edwards told us about. It’s called contraception. She showed—’
‘That’s enough,’ Mam shouts. Her chair skitters back as she leaps to her feet. The Toby jugs jitter on their high shelf. Their cheeks are mottled with red, their eyes small and black as bilberries. ‘That’s enough of that sort of talk, Bethan.’
Bethan gapes at Mam. ‘Bloody hell,’ she says, in English.
‘And we don’t swear in this house,’ says Mam. ‘I’m beginning to think Caroline’s a bad influence on you. The sooner her mother takes them all back to England, the better.’
Bethan’s knife and fork clatter onto her plate.
‘Time for pudding?’ says Tada, lifting his glance from his clean plate to Mam’s face.
Mam takes a deep, shuddery breath. She walks to the scullery and jangles the dishes and cutlery, then brings in three pudding bowls of Instant Whip with a spoon stuck in each one. She gives one to Tada, one to Bethan and keeps one for herself. The Instant Whip fills the room with its smell of summer days, sweet and ripe. My mouth waters.
The Earth Hums in B Flat Page 16
