The Earth Hums in B Flat

by Mari Strachan

  ‘Have you got a bowl for Gwenni?’ says Tada.

  ‘She didn’t eat her mince,’ says Mam.

  Tada makes to get up from his chair. Mam takes another shuddery breath and narrows her eyes at him. ‘There isn’t any left,’ she says.

  Tada sits back. He pushes his bowl away from him.

  ‘All the more for me,’ Bethan sings. ‘All the more for me.’

  And she spoons the beautiful pinkness into her greedy mouth. ‘They never have Instant Whip in Caroline’s house. She and Richard have never heard of it. Fancy that.’ She pauses with her spoon halfway to her mouth. ‘I don’t like that Richard any more; he’s a proper mother’s boy,’ she says, and eats the spoonful of Instant Whip.

  Will Bethan find out from her eye colour that Tada isn’t her father? I wonder how many of the people in the cemetery didn’t belong to their mother or father.

  ‘I went to the cemetery after school,’ I say, ‘to get some of the dates off the gravestones for my family tree.’

  ‘I thought you were late.’ says Mam. ‘You’ve been told not wander about on your own. I may as well talk to the man in the moon.’

  ‘You’re mam’s right, Gwenni,’ says Tada. ‘You come straight home from now on, there’s a good girl.’

  I nod. ‘But about the family tree,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know my taid had been married to Sarah before he married Nain. And they had all those dead babies. Should I put them all on my tree? Are they related to me?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gwenni,’ says Mam sending a wave of strawberry scented breath over me. ‘And I’ve told you before, it’s unhealthy to hang about in that cemetery.’

  ‘It’s not silly,’ says Tada. ‘My tada and Sarah had five children who lived, as well, Gwenni. They were my half brothers and sisters, but they were so much older than me that I hardly knew them. All except for William who was born when Sarah died. He lived with us when I was growing up but he ran off with a circus that came passing through town one year and we never saw him again, although he sometimes sent your nain a postcard from wherever he was.’

  ‘What rubbish,’ says Mam. ‘Gwenni gets all her oddness from your family, that’s for sure.’

  That’s not what Alwenna said.

  ‘What did he do in the circus?’ asks Bethan. She’s scraped her bowl of Instant Whip clean and is halfway down Tada’s bowl.

  ‘He sent us a picture postcard of himself once,’ says Tada, ‘hanging from a flying trapeze in a tight suit with shiny spangles all over it. Just like the song.’ He begins to tra-la the song.

  No one mentioned flying on a trapeze being in the family before. Nain must have forgotten. ‘Maybe that’s where I get my flying from,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t want to hear another word of your flying nonsense,’ says Mam. ‘All you do is encourage her, Emlyn. Do you want her to turn out odd?’

  Tada gives his head a little shake. ‘You put whoever you want on your tree, Gwenni,’ he says. ‘They’re all related to you. Nain could give you the names of all the grown-up children.’

  ‘I don’t want you going near that cemetery again,’ Mam says to me.

  ‘I wouldn’t go poking about in the cemetery if you paid me,’ says Bethan. ‘It’s creepy.’ She shudders and scrapes the last of the Instant Whip from Tada’s bowl. ‘And,’ she says, ‘that Guto’s always hanging about in there. I’ve seen him. And he’s creepy too.’ She shudders again.

  ‘He was there today,’ I say. ‘Practising his flying from the big tombstone at the top.’

  Mam’s hands start to shake again as she pours the tea into the cups so that the tea splashes over the tablecloth to make more stains to give me that old family stomach when I’m eating.

  ‘There’s no harm in him, Bethan,’ says Tada. ‘He’s innocent as a child.’

  ‘He showed me the babies’ grave,’ I say. ‘Mrs Evans’s twins. He was putting flowers on the grave.’ I take a deep breath. ‘How did the babies die?’

  There is a small silence. Tada glances at Mam and then he says, ‘A terrible accident, Gwenni.’

  ‘I heard . . .’ I say. I cross my fingers. ‘I heard at the Sale of Work meeting . . . someone said that Ifan Evans killed them.’

  The silence stretches tighter and tighter until it snaps when Mam screams and slaps my face. We don’t move in our seats; Bethan’s mouth hangs open and my cheek burns. Then Tada stands up and catches hold of Mam’s arm and says, ‘I’m going to take your mother upstairs to lie down. You two clear away and wash up.’

  Mam hisses. She sounds like an adder that Alwenna and I disturbed under a sheet of corrugated iron one hot day last summer. But I won’t think about Alwenna.

  ‘Not my daughter,’ Mam says from between her clenched teeth. ‘Not mine. I never wanted her.’

  Tada pulls the door shut behind them. Bethan and I stare at the closed door then Bethan turns to me. ‘Bloody hell,’ she says. ‘If she didn’t want to have you, all she had to do was use contraception.’

  30

  We’re too early. I can hear the men still singing in the cemetery; a choir of them, with Mr Thomas’s tenor voice breaking out on its own in a lament for Ifan Evans.

  I can’t take Angharad and Catrin along the cemetery path to the Chapel vestry for the funeral meal so I pull them quickly in through one of the big Chapel doors. Do they understand what is happening to their father around the corner?

  ‘The men are singing to send Tada to Heaven,’ says Catrin.

  ‘No, they’re not,’ says Angharad. ‘They’re singing to put him in the ground in a coffin where the worms will eat him. And it’s your fault.’

  Catrin begins to cry. ‘It’s not true, is it, Gwenni? The worms won’t eat him, will they?’

  But they will, just as they’ve eaten everyone else in the cemetery. ‘But the spirit leaves the body and goes to Heaven,’ I say to Catrin. Was Ifan Evans good enough to go to Heaven? And if his spirit is in the Reservoir, how will it get from there to Heaven, or Hell?

  ‘See?’ says Catrin to Angharad. ‘Now he’ll be with the babies. Maybe he won’t be cross all the time, now he’s dead. Maybe he’ll look after them. Who looks after babies in Heaven, Gwenni?’

  So, the babies are not a secret at all. ‘Angels, I suppose,’ I say, though I don’t know. ‘The babies – is that your brother and sister?’

  ‘They died when they were little,’ says Catrin. ‘They fell downstairs. We always take them flowers on a Sunday. But not since Tada fell in the water. Mami’s been too . . . too . . .’

  ‘Worried,’ says Angharad.

  ‘Sad,’ says Catrin.

  I help them take off their raincoats and smooth their black velvet dresses down and straighten their white collars. I lick my handkerchief and rub the mud spots off their shiny patent leather shoes. They look like two cherubs except that Angharad is a cross cherub and tries to kick my hand when I’m cleaning her shoes.

  I take off my school mackintosh, which is splattered around the hem. The rain has made everywhere muddy. I tug my gymslip down; Mam said I had to put my gymslip on because it’s the only dark thing I’ve got. It’s to show respect. But I didn’t have any respect for Ifan Evans.

  I gather our coats up and we walk down the aisle and up the steps to go through the door into the vestry, which is full of plates of food and women dressed in black. It’s as if the crows have left their nests in the castle and flown here and all started croaking at the same time. Mrs Evans said she would be in the little Meeting Room so I push my way through the women. Catrin grips my hand hard but I have to make sure I hold on to Angharad.

  ‘Bless them.’ The words float above us. ‘Poor, fatherless mites.’ A murmur of sympathy swells behind us. Angharad snatches her hand from mine and turns round to face the women and opens her mouth but I catch hold of her and push her through into the Meeting Room before she can say anything. What would she have said?

  Mrs Evans sits by the grate where Mrs Davies Chapel House has lit a grudging fire. Her sister is w
ith her and some other women I don’t know. And there is Mrs Llywelyn Pugh sitting in the corner with tears running down her cheeks. She would have had her dead fox on today because it has turned so damp and cold. Poor Mrs Llywelyn Pugh. Maybe I could knit her a scarf before winter, if I could do it without Mam finding out. And then I could leave it for her so that she would find an anonymous gift on her doorstep one icy winter morning which would make her warm and happy.

  ‘Thank you, Gwenni,’ says Mrs Evans and holds her arms open to her children. Catrin runs to her at once but Angharad holds back and slumps onto a bench by the door. ‘Gwenni looked after Angharad and Catrin for me during the service,’ says Mrs Evans to the other women and they all smile and nod at me and murmur words I can’t hear.

  Mrs Evans is dressed in a black darker and denser than a moonless night. There is no shine or gleam to it. Her hat with its big black veil is beside her on the bench and her hair is escaping its silver combs in smoky wisps around her face, working up to a halo again.

  ‘You leave Angharad and Catrin here with me, Gwenni,’ she says, ‘and go to find your parents and have something to eat. The Chapel women have been very thoughtful and made plenty of food.’

  I back out through the door and turn around to look for Mam and Tada but I can’t see them in the crowd. The men have come in from the graveside now, bringing a misty steam with them from the rain, and the vestry is full of people. No one takes any notice of me, they’re all too busy eating and talking, talking and eating and wondering aloud why their cups of tea are so long coming.

  ‘She’s better off without him, and that’s the truth of it,’ says a voice behind me. It’s Miss Owen Penllech.

  ‘It’ll be hard to bring up those girls without a father. That little Angharad is a bit of a handful,’ says Mrs Davies Chapel House. ‘Elin would never say a word against him, you know.’

  ‘She always put a good face on it,’ says Mrs Morris. ‘But everyone knew what was going on, didn’t they?’

  ‘I suppose it could be just gossip.’ Mrs Beynon sounds as if she hopes it isn’t. Why is she here? Ifan Evans died the day before she ever came to our Chapel.

  ‘You haven’t lived here that long, have you?’ says Miss Owen Penllech. ‘He’s no loss, believe me.’

  ‘Why are you standing there, Gwenni?’ says Mrs Twm Edwards.

  ‘She’s keeping me company, ladies. Aren’t you, Gwenni?’ says Mrs Williams Penrhiw. ‘Wasn’t that a beautiful service the minister gave, Mrs Edwards? Quite beautiful.’ She puts her arm around my shoulders, and draws me away. ‘You’re a good girl to help Elin with the children, Gwenni. It’s difficult for her; little Angharad has taken it so badly. And there’s so much to do. But there, it comes to us all sooner or later. And how’s your nain? Don’t tell me, I know what she’d say: Mustn’t grumble, Bessie. I didn’t expect to see her here, of course. She’s not a one for funerals, is she? I thought Guto would be here, though. He’s so fond of Elin. I was sure he’d come. You didn’t see him on your way here with Angharad and Catrin, did you? No? I don’t know what’s to become of that boy. The police were asking him all sorts of questions, you know. And in English, too. The poor boy didn’t know what they wanted from him. Well, he wouldn’t, would he, being the way he is? You’d think they could see that. He’s too innocent for this old world. No harm in him, just as your father says. On my word, Gwenni, there’s your father by the vestry door. He’ll be looking for you. Off you go.’

  I spy Tada’s family hair above the crowd and push through everyone towards him.

  ‘Take a plate, Gwenni, and get some food before this lot falls on it,’ he says. They’ve already fallen on it but I can see a plateful of egg sandwiches near us on the table. Inside my head I say: Please let them be Mrs Edwards the Bank’s egg sandwiches. And I take three.

  ‘Did Angharad and Catrin behave themselves for you?’ says Tada. ‘They must have been a bit upset, considering.’

  ‘They were good girls,’ I say. ‘But Angharad is angry all the time, Tada. I don’t know why. She’s angry with her mother.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s got no cause to be angry with Elin,’ says Tada. ‘The woman’s a saint.’ I look round for Mam but she’s not nearby. And then I hear her. Her voice is rising and falling like the waves of my sea at night, and someone is calling, ‘Is Emlyn Morgan here? Find Emlyn; he’ll take her home.’

  Tada puts his half-eaten sandwich back on his plate, and the plate on the table, and the crowd parts to let him through. Mam is on her knees upon the hard wooden floor of the vestry, sobbing. Tada walks up to her and scoops her up in his arms and limps towards the door. I run after him.

  ‘You stay here and have something to eat, Gwenni,’ he says. ‘I’ll take your mam home to bed. It’s her nerves, look. It’s no good her staying here.’ He heaves her over his shoulder. She seems to have fallen asleep now and her arms hang down his back like the dead fox’s paws on Mrs Llywelyn Pugh’s pink jacket.

  As the vestry door swings shut behind them everyone starts to chatter again. Someone puts a hand on my shoulder and I spin around to see Mrs Williams Penrhiw.

  ‘Don’t worry, Gwenni, your father will take care of her,’ she says. ‘Now, eat your sandwiches before they curl up on the plate. Oh, look, here comes the minister. I must tell him what a lovely service he gave . . .’

  Mrs Williams Penrhiw winds down as the Voice of God holds his hands in the air as if he’s blessing us all. ‘Dear people,’ he says. ‘Dear people. A terrible mistake has been made. The police have arrested Guto Edwards for killing Ifan Evans and they’ve taken him away to the police cells in Dolgellau. Mr Pugh is going to take me there in his car to see what we can do for Guto. But I must see Mrs Evans and the children before I set off.’ He shakes his head. ‘A terrible mistake.’ He pushes past all the silent people, standing with cakes and sandwiches and cups of tea halfway to their open mouths, and goes into the Meeting Room and pulls the door closed behind him.

  ‘Oh, Gwenni,’ says Mrs Williams Penrhiw. ‘Oh, Gwenni. That poor boy. That poor boy. Innocent as a lamb, Gwenni.’

  But everyone knows what happens to lambs, don’t they? That’s not a secret.

  31

  By the time Nain and I manage to get out through the front door, Lloyd George has disappeared. Nain and I look at one another. ‘You go down and I’ll go up,’ she says and she runs up the road, her legs kicking out sideways, screeching, ‘Lloyd George. Lloyd George.’ I’ve never seen Nain run before.

  I’ve been in her house all evening because Tada’s taken Mam to the pictures to take her mind off the funeral. Tada said not to mention Guto being arrested to her yet. Poor Guto. Nain said: Those detectives of yours must be bird-brained if they think Guto killed Ifan Evans; they won’t keep him in Dolgellau long, you’ll see. She was bird-brained to let Lloyd George out of his cage when the window was still open. But I didn’t tell her that.

  I run down the hill, then slow down. Lloyd George might be sitting on the wall outside Nain’s house. How far can budgies fly? He’s probably scared; he’s never been outside Nain’s living room before. If we don’t find him, the other birds will kill him and Aunty Lol will cry. She cried when we found the baby blackbird fallen out of its nest, and that didn’t even belong to her.

  ‘Potato flower. Potato flower,’ I call. I try to squawk like Lloyd George. ‘Lol. Lol.’

  But he’s not on Nain’s wall. I cross the road to lean on the Youth Hostel’s garden wall where the moss is wet and squidgy, and narrow my eyes to look through the rhododendrons in the front garden. But there are no bright blue feathers lying on the ground.

  It’s difficult to see anything in the mist and the rain. It’s as if someone’s spread Tada’s old army blanket over the world. Lloyd George is so tiny, but his bright feathers would show up, wouldn’t they?

  I’m not sure which way to go now, down to the high street or along the track behind the primary school. Maybe Lloyd George made for the trees along the track. I meander along, try
ing to look up into all the leafy branches through the dense air. Lloyd George could be hiding anywhere. I call again in his voice, ‘Potato flower. Potato Flower.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ says a voice in English from the gloom beneath the trees. A boy’s voice. I don’t like boys. I peer into the gloom. It’s Richard, Caroline’s brother.

  ‘Looking for an escaped budgie,’ I say, and carry on walking.

  He catches up with me, lighting his way with a torch. ‘And I’m escaping from my sister and your sister.’ He smiles at me. ‘Shall I help you find your budgie?’ His two big front teeth have a gap between them like mine and Aunty Lol’s. Aunty Lol’s gap makes her a good whistler, but my gap doesn’t seem to work. I wonder if Richard can whistle.

  ‘It’s not my budgie, it’s my Aunty Lol’s,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to help.’

  ‘But I’d like to,’ he says. ‘Was that the budgie’s name you were calling?’

  I have to think for a second. He has freckles over his nose, like me, too. ‘No,’ I say. ‘That’s something Aunty Lol taught him to say: blodyn tatws. It means potato flower.’

  ‘Potato flower?’ says Richard. ‘What’s his proper name?’

  ‘Lloyd George,’ I say. ‘I can’t stay here to talk, I’ve got to look for him.’

  ‘My grandmother’s got a grey parrot called Blind Pew,’ he says. ‘It swears a lot. She says it’s because he used to belong to a sailor. She has to put a cover over his cage when she has visitors.’

  ‘Lloyd George doesn’t swear,’ I say. ‘Blind Pew from Treasure Island?’

  Richard nods. ‘Have you read it?’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But I like his verses better. You know: The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out, through the blinds and the windows and bars. And high overhead and all moving about, there were thousands of millions of stars.’

  ‘It’s a bit babyish,’ he says.

  Babyish? ‘I like it,’ I say. ‘It was in a book I borrowed from the town library ages ago with lots of verses and pictures.’ The picture for that verse was exactly like my night-time sky when I’m flying.