The Earth Hums in B Flat (15 page)

I pull the poster from the pocket of my best coat. This pocket is not as good as the pockets on my school mackintosh and the poster is folded over again and become faintly green and furrier than ever where it's rubbed on my coat. I unfold the poster and smooth the creases from Ifan Evans's picture. What if Mrs Evans is cross with me? What if she's sad that I've done this to the photograph of her dead husband? I hand the poster to her. ‘I'm sorry that I took the photograph without permission and I'm sorry I showed it to everybody,' I say. ‘And I'm sorry about Mr Evans.' Maybe I should have crossed my fingers when I spoke the last bit.

Tada nods at me; I'm not sure what he means by it. Does he want me to say more? ‘But I thought I was helping,' I say. ‘I thought I could find Mr Evans for you and Angharad and Catrin so you didn't have to be thrown out of your home into the cold, and starve and become ill.'

‘Well,' says Tada. ‘Gwenni, Gwenni.'

Mam said I was only supposed to apologise, and not make excuses. No need to make a meal of it, she said. I forgot.

Mrs Evans smoothes the poster with her palm. The scrapes on the back of her hand have healed over into neat scabs. ‘I should have been clearer when we spoke, Gwenni,' she says, ‘about what I did and didn't want you to do. You did ask but I gave you no answer; I was distracted. I noticed that the picture was missing before you'd gone home but I didn't do anything about it.' She looks up at Tada. ‘My fault, Mr Morgan, not doing anything about it there and then.' She smoothes and smoothes the poster as she speaks. ‘My fault.'

‘It's very good of you to take it like this, Mrs Evans,' says Tada. Mrs Evans sits and looks at the photograph in silence and Tada clears his throat and makes to move towards the parlour door. ‘Time Gwenni and I were off. Leave you in peace.'

‘I've never liked this picture of Ifan with the fox,' says Mrs Evans and she scrumples up the poster and throws it on the fire, where it catches light immediately. Tada jumps towards it as if to save it from the flames but she waves him away. ‘Gwenni is a kind girl, Mr Morgan. She doesn't always do things the way other people would, but that's because she's got the intelligence to see that there are different ways of doing things. Don't be too hard on her.'

Poor Tada. He's never hard on me. I look at him. But he's grinning at Mrs Evans with his even white teeth. His family hair is flopped over his forehead with all the leaping about he's doing. He pushes it back.

‘I've always said Gwenni's a clever one,' he says. ‘But she upsets Magda with her . . . unusual ideas. That's the trouble, you see, Mrs Evans. Magda's worried that people will think Gwenni's . . . well . . . odd.'

‘Ah,' says Mrs Evans. She takes a few more sips of her tea. ‘Our families seem to do or say the wrong things sometimes, Gwenni. But they always care about us. Family is important, Gwenni. You know, my sister and I used to argue all the time.' She looks at Tada, ‘But Meg would help me in an instant if I asked her.'

‘That's good.' says Tada. ‘And if there is anything . . . you know, just ask.'

‘If Gwenni can carry on helping with the children after school, that would be a great help,' says Mrs Evans. ‘To keep them occupied, and amused. She's very good with them. It would give me time to start sorting out a few things.'

‘Of course,' says Tada. ‘You'd like that, wouldn't you, Gwenni?'

I nod. But Mam won't like it, will she?

Tada goes on, ‘Is there a day set for the funeral yet, Mrs Evans?'

‘No,' she says. ‘There has to be an inquest. No one knows exactly what happened to Ifan, you see.'

‘Well,' says Tada. ‘An inquest.'

It's lucky that Aunty Lol lends me so many detective stories. I wouldn't know what an inquest was otherwise. And I wouldn't know that you have a post mortem before an inquest. Will Ifan Evans's blood flow like water when the pathologist cuts up his body? Aunty Lol's books don't tell me that. And I won't think about it.

18

‘Lol. Lol. Potato flower,' says Lloyd George in a voice that sounds like a fingernail scraping an empty tin can. He sways on the swing in his cage and pecks at his own face in his little round mirror so that the bell on the mirror tinkles.

‘Does he think he's got another budgie in there with him?' I ask Nain.

‘Who knows?' she says. ‘But I wish that great horse of a girl would teach him something sensible to say.'

Lloyd George hasn't got much room in his cage so Nain usually lets him out to fly around the room during the evening. He always sits on my head and digs his claws into my scalp, and I have little scabs there for days afterwards. When I pick at the scabs in school Alwenna says I look as if I've got nits. When I told Mam she said: That Alwenna should wash her mouth out.

I sink and sink into the big leather armchair because the springs are worn, but it's cosy like this. I pull out my Lion notebook and a pencil. The pencil is stubby, and it's not easy to write with it. Nain rattles the fire with the poker that has a phoenix gleaming on it like Mrs Evans's and throws on some lumps of coal. She settles herself comfortably in her rocking chair and puts her crocheted shawl over her shoulders and her spectacles on her family nose. I wonder who the very first person was to have our family nose. Nain takes out a grey sock from her sewing box. Is she darning Tada's sock with the hole in the heel?

‘Where's Aunty Lol tonight?' I say. I thought Aunty Lol would help me with my research. She tells me what I want to know.

‘Football,' says Nain, and clamps her lips shut. Nain doesn't like Aunty Lol playing for the women's football team, especially when it's her turn to bring home all the shirts to wash. I won't mention the football again.

‘So, you want to find out about the family?' she says. ‘What's brought all this on?'

‘Mrs Evans Brwyn Coch said it's important to know about your family,' I say. ‘So I thought I'd find out about mine. She's shown me how to make a family tree.'

Nain pokes a darning mushroom into the heel of the sock. ‘You've been up there a lot these last few weeks,' she says. ‘Your mam's happy about that, is she?'

‘Dr Edwards gave her some tablets,' I say. ‘They work a lot better than deep breaths.'

‘Hmm,' says Nain. ‘Well, let's do this before the light goes. Have you got your pencil ready?'

I nod.

‘You have to have the names right,' she says. ‘Now, my mother was Gwen Evans and my father Edward Jones. He was a smallholder but he helped other farmers tend their animals because he knew what herbs to use to treat what disease.' As she speaks Nain threads some grey wool onto a long darning needle and begins to weave around the hole in the sock, as if she's about to weave the story of our family into it. ‘Am I going too fast for you?' she says.

I shake my head as my pencil scribbles across the page. Will I find out who was mad soon? Who it was Alwenna was talking about?

Nain carries on weaving. ‘I was their third child, but the first girl. So, I was named for my mother. And my mother had been named for her mother. So, you see, you became part of a long line of Gwens when you were named for me.' Nain likes to tell me the story about the long line of Gwens. It was Nain's own Gwen who died of the terrible disease when she was small. Mam says I must never mention that Gwen.

‘But I'm Tada and Mam's second girl,' I say. ‘Who was Bethan named for?'

‘She wasn't named for anybody,' says Nain. ‘As far as I know. You'll have to ask your mam about that. Anyway, I married your grandfather, William Morgan, and we had seven children. Your father was the first and your Aunty Lol was the last.'

Mam says I mustn't mention Taid who died when Tada was fourteen, either, nor Idwal who died in the war and is buried far away in Greece, nor Carwyn who used to pull eggs from my ears and make pennies disappear, and then made himself disappear into the cemetery.

‘So, is Tada the only one of your children with children?' I ask.

‘I think you'd know if you had cousins, don't you?' says Nain. ‘Your Aunty Bet in Birmingham lost her husband in the war and your Uncle Dafydd is showing no signs of settling down. As for Lol, well, who'd have that great horse of a girl?' ‘Lol. Lol. Potato flower,' says Lloyd George and rattles his beak on the bars of his cage.

‘Apart from the budgie,' says Nain. And she stabs her darning needle into the heel of the sock.

‘What about Mam's family?' I say. Mam's family is all dead except for Aunty Siân so we don't mention them. But Nain might.

‘You'll have to ask your mam,' says Nain. ‘It's not my place to tell you the story of that half of your family. Ask her. You and Bethan are old enough to know now.'

‘Know what?' I say.

‘Whatever there is to know,' says Nain. She ties off the darning thread and cuts it with her teeth. False teeth, like Tada's. They clack as she shifts them back into place. My stomach shifts a little with them.

‘Like what, though?' I say.

Nain bends her face over to examine her darning before rolling the sock into a ball with its partner and dropping it into the mending basket. ‘You can take those home with you when you go,' she says.

‘Potato flower,' says Lloyd George. He fluffs up his blue feathers and pecks harder at his face in the mirror. What does he see?

It's becoming colder and darker in Nain's living room. Nain doesn't like wasting coal or electricity.

‘I can't see properly to write, Nain,' I say.

‘First of May, today, Gwenni,' she says. ‘You know I don't use the electric light in the evenings from the first of May. Anyway, I've told you all there is to know.'

I close my notebook and uncurl from the armchair. Something sharp digs into me and I pull out the book Aunty Lol is reading from under the edge of the cushion.
The Maltese Falcon
. She's almost at the end. She'll give it to me to read when she's finished it. I push it back into place.

‘Nain,' I say.

‘Say it,' says Nain. ‘What do you want?'

‘Was anyone in your family doolally?' I ask.

‘Only your Aunty Lol,' says Nain. ‘What made you ask that?'

‘Something Alwenna half said,' I say. ‘It doesn't matter.'

‘She's probably got half a story from her mother about something,' says Nain. ‘Nanw Lipstick's always made it her business to know other people's secrets. Trouble is, she can't see what's true and what isn't and she's not clever or sensible enough to see that everyone knows these things but most of us don't talk about them.'

‘But everyone's talking about Ifan Evans,' I says. ‘Not just Alwenna's mam.' Even Nain, but I don't say that.

‘That's because they don't know his secrets, Gwenni. He and Elin only came to Brwyn Coch after they were married. No one knows anything much about him before that so they make it up.'

‘Has our family got secrets, Nain?' Mam has secrets, hasn't she?

‘Every family has, Gwenni. Big secrets, small secrets, silly secrets, bad things we want to hide. But, usually, people know what they are from the minute they happen. It's just that anyone with any sense doesn't talk about what doesn't concern them.'

‘What are our family secrets about? A doolally person?'

‘I suppose Nanw Lipstick could have found out about my grandfather on my father's side who died of religious mania,' says Nain. She gets up from her rocking chair and puts three pieces of coal on the fire and begins to blow under them with the brass bellows.

‘But is that catching?' I ask. ‘Is that what Alwenna thinks I've got? Religious mania? I don't even know what it is, Nain.'

‘I'm pulling your leg, Gwenni,' says Nain. ‘My grandfather died when I was a small girl. Nanw Lipstick will never have heard of him. Take no notice of what Alwenna says.'

‘But he was doolally?' I say.

‘Who's to say?' says Nain. ‘I have to let this bird out of his cage for some exercise, Gwenni. Move to one side so I can reach.'

‘Wait, Nain,' I say. ‘Do you know all our family's secrets?'

‘Probably not,' says Nain.

‘But you'd know about anyone who could fly?' I say.

‘You and your flying,' says Nain.

‘What if it's something like names,' I say, ‘that's passed down the family?'

‘You'll have to try your mother's side for that one,' says Nain.

‘It's no good asking Mam,' I say. ‘But maybe Aunty Siân'll know. Maybe Mam'll let me visit her.'

‘There you are,' says Nain. ‘There's always a way.' She peers in the direction of the birdcage. ‘My word, it has got dark suddenly,' she says. ‘Maybe I'd better have the light on just for a minute to see what I'm doing here.'

She switches on the electric light. It wakes Lloyd George who has settled into a still blue bundle on his perch.