The Earth Hums in B Flat (3 page)

‘I know a good thing to stop the bleeding,' I tell Mrs Evans.

I take a cup with a pattern of forget-me-nots on it from the dresser and carry it over to the cupboard beside the range where the salt box sits. Tada says salt water cures everything; if I have a scraped knee or a sore throat or a cut that won't stop bleeding, he says: Use some salt water on it. I'm not sure how much salt to use for Mrs Evans so I put a handful into the cup.

As I cross to the big stone sink I trip and have to catch hold of the edge of the table to stop myself falling. The poker with the brass phoenix on its handle is lying across the flagstones and when I push it aside with my foot I tread in something tacky. The leftovers from breakfast are scattered across the table with a jar of blackcurrant jam on its side staining the tablecloth; someone must have spilt some of the jam on the floor. And there's a plate that matches the cup from the dresser in pieces on the floor between the table and the door. The children will have to be careful not to tread on the bits. What a mess everywhere. My stomach clenches. Tada says I have the family stomach. Whenever anything makes me feel queasy he says: It's that old family stomach, Gwenni.

‘Where are Angharad and Catrin?' I ask. ‘Are they with Mr Evans?' But Mrs Evans rocks herself backwards and forwards on the chair and a high-pitched hum comes from her throat and she doesn't answer.

I hold the cup under the tap and fill it with water. I can't see a clean spoon anywhere so I give it a good stir with my finger until the salt has dissolved. The water is icy and my finger turns white. Then I wash my hands under the tap; there won't be any blood on them now. I pick up a blue bowl that's drying on the draining board and take that and the cup of salt water to Mrs Evans.

‘Here you are, Mrs Evans,' I say. ‘If you rinse your mouth with the salt water it'll stop the bleeding and clean out the old blood. You can spit it out into the bowl.'

Mrs Evans lowers the apron from her mouth and takes the bowl from me and rests it on her lap. She trembles as she holds the cup and puts it to her lips. The skin on the back of her hand is scraped into little curls, and her mouth is swollen and purple.

‘Nain always says that Mr Price is brutal. Alwenna says it's when he's run out of whisky,' I say.

Mrs Evans sips the water and I try not to hear her spitting it into the bowl. I look at the photographs hanging above her on the wall next to the range. Here's one of Mrs Evans when she was younger, holding two babies, one on each arm. They're alike as twins. I wonder who they are. Mrs Evans's dark hair is loose and reaches down to her waist. Beneath is a picture of Ifan Evans; with one hand he holds a long gun over his shoulder and from the other hand he dangles a fox by its tail. It looks just like Mrs Llywelyn Pugh's dead fox. I look away, but not before I notice the hole in the fox's head and have that old family stomach again.

Mrs Evans holds her empty cup out to me and I take it and put it in the sink. She drapes her apron over the bowl and waves away my hand when I offer to take it from her. Then, she pushes herself up from the chair as if she's worn out and takes the bowl to the sink and empties it. When she turns on the tap the water whooshes down into the bowl and then up again in a fountain and sprays me and her and the window behind the sink so that the whole world looks as if it's crying. Mrs Evans doesn't notice; she bends down, holding on to the sink, and starts to pick up the pieces of broken plate. I lean across and turn off the tap, then wipe my face with the sleeve of my mackintosh.

‘I'll do that if you like,' I say to Mrs Evans. ‘Shall I use a broom?'

She nods at me. ‘In there, Gwenni,' she mumbles, and points to the cupboard under the stairs in the back hall. As I unlatch the cupboard door I glance into the parlour and see Angharad and Catrin huddled together on the back window-seat sharing a large picture book that's open on their laps.

‘Hello, you two,' I say. ‘You've been very quiet. Have you been sitting in here reading? Don't worry about your mam, she'll be fine in a little while. My mam bled a lot, and cried a lot too, when Mr Price took her teeth out.' They both look up at me and Catrin leans a little closer to Angharad and reaches up to whisper in her ear.

I pull the broom and dustpan out of the cupboard and go back into the kitchen to sweep up the broken china. I try not to tread on the sticky jam. But what if it's not jam? What if it's Mrs Evans's blood? I hadn't thought of that. I don't look at the stickiness as I sweep the pieces into a pile and push them onto the dustpan.

As I take the china out through the back door to put it in the dustbin Mot barks again, and appears round the corner of the house, straining on his rope, lowering his belly to the ground and wagging his tail. ‘Be quiet, Mot,' I say in a stern voice, and he stops barking. I lift the lid from the dustbin and disturb a wasp that drones sleepily around some broken bottles in the bottom of the bin. I wrinkle my nose at the sweet, sharp smell that drifts up. ‘You'd better move out of the way,' I say to the wasp, and empty the dustpan over the bottles. The wasp makes an angry noise and I throw the lid onto the bin.

When I go back indoors I put away the broom and dustpan. Mrs Evans is leaning on the sink looking out through the window. I try not to look at the dark stickiness on the floor, but I say, ‘Would you like me to wash the floor, Mrs Evans?'

‘Thank you, Gwenni, but no,' she says, and I understand her better now. ‘D'you think you could take Angharad and Catrin out to play for a while so that I can put a cold compress on this?' She points to her swollen mouth.

‘You have to be careful not to get a draught in it, Mrs Evans,' I say. ‘Nain says you have to cover your mouth before you set a foot out through Mr Price's door if you have a tooth out; he leaves such a big hole.'

‘I'll be fine, Gwenni,' she says. ‘Will you take the girls?'

She starts to run the tap, holding a cloth under the cold water. I go through into the parlour to fetch the girls. The parlour has shelves full of books. Mrs Evans once said I could borrow as many as I wanted. When I told Mam she said: Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Angharad and Catrin are still huddled together on the window-seat.

‘What are you reading?' I ask them.

‘
Alice in Wonderland
,' says Angharad. ‘But I have to read it to Catrin, she can't read yet. She's a baby, she's afraid of falling down a rabbit hole and never getting out again.'

‘I borrowed
Alice in Wonderland
from the library, a long time ago,' I say. Mam says I'm allowed to borrow books from the town library, that's what we pay the rates for. ‘Is yours from the library?'

‘Aunty Meg sent it to us,' says Angharad. ‘Look at the lovely pictures in it, Gwenni. Isn't Alice pretty? She looks like your Bethan.'

‘She's a bit stupid, that Alice, isn't she?' I say.

‘She's stupid to go down a rabbit hole. What if she can't get out?' says Catrin.

‘Come on,' I say, and hold out a hand each to them. ‘Let's go and see if we can find Alice's rabbit hole and I'll hold your hand tight, Catrin, so you won't fall in.'

‘Perhaps we'll see the White Rabbit,' says Angharad.

‘There're lots of rabbit holes by the stream,' says Catrin. ‘Are you sure I won't fall in one, Gwenni?'

Angharad slides from the window seat and helps Catrin down. They hold my hands and we go through into the back hall for them to put their coats on. I fetch their Wellington boots from the kitchen where Mrs Evans is pressing the cold compress to her lips. The girls stand in the doorway and watch her.

‘Better already,' she says to them. ‘Now, you go out with Gwenni for a while and I'll be fine when you come back. And remember what I told you.'

The children catch hold of my hands again and Angharad's hand tightens on mine as she nods at her mother.

‘I'll ring the bell when it's time for you to come in,' says Mrs Evans.

Catrin points to the big brass bell by the back door. ‘That's Mami's old school bell,' she says.

‘I know,' I say. ‘We'll be down by the stream, Mrs Evans.'

‘We're going to look for the White Rabbit,' says Catrin.

4

‘White Rabbit, White Rabbit, we're going to look for the White Rabbit.' Catrin sings as she pulls at my hand, and we round the corner of the house and skip down the field towards the stream. Mot follows as far as his rope will let him, leaping into the air and barking at us.

‘Is your father coming back for Mot?' I ask.

‘Don't know,' says Catrin. ‘He's got the black dog today. Sometimes he forgets all about Mot when he's got the black dog.'

‘Look, Gwenni,' says Angharad. She lets go of my hand and points to a shed hidden in a dip in the field. ‘Have you seen Tada's fox hut? Look at all the tails he's got nailed to the door.' She runs towards the shed. I look away, but not fast enough to stop myself seeing the tails.

‘Come on, Gwenni,' Angharad calls. ‘Tada's got lots more tails inside.'

Catrin's hand is as weightless and warm as the baby blackbird Aunty Lol and I found fallen from its nest last spring, but her fingers clutch mine now. ‘I don't like them, Gwenni,' she says.

‘Don't look,' I say. Catrin and I gaze down the field and out to the sea until Angharad comes back to us.

‘Why does your father kill the foxes?' I ask.

‘Because they go after the lambs and the geese, silly,' says Angharad.

‘Tada likes killing them,' says Catrin. She tugs at my hand and we start to run. From here it looks as if there is nothing between the sea and the three of us running down this field. If we could run and run until our feet left the ground we'd soar into the sky and down to the bay the way I do in my sleep.

Angharad trips and Catrin and I stop running and sit with her on the grass. The grass is damp and the earth cold beneath us. If I were living underground with the worms and the beetles and the grubs I wouldn't feel the cold. Mr Hughes Biology says earthworms don't feel a thing. Last term he said we had to cut a live worm in half, but I had stomach ache before I started and was sent to the sick room.

Angharad points at the hills of Ll
n that have almost disappeared behind the clouds moving towards us. ‘Aunty Meg lives there, over the water,' she says, ‘in Cricieth. Can you see her castle on its rock, Gwenni?'

‘Not in that cloud,' I say. ‘But I know it's not as big as our castle.' In my sleep I have to fly up and up and up to avoid the gatehouse and the Red Dragon on our castle before diving down again to the sands and the sea.

‘We could fly across the sea to visit her.' Catrin runs down the field, flapping her arms up and down; her faint shadow looks like a long bird running ahead of her. ‘We could tell her we're looking for the White Rabbit.' She wheels around and comes back, her arms like wings.

Angharad laughs. ‘That's silly, Catrin. People can't fly.'

‘I can,' I say.

‘What, fly?' says Angharad.

‘Show us, Gwenni,' says Catrin.

I fold myself into a crouch and wrap my arms around my knees. ‘This is how I used to do it when I was little,' I say. Angharad and Catrin copycat me.

‘We're not flying,' says Angharad.

‘You have to concentrate,' I say. ‘Close your eyes and try to hover above the ground.'

They close their eyes and snort and gruntle as they strain to lift themselves off the ground. Angharad falls over sideways. ‘This is silly,' she says as she gets to her feet. ‘Come on, Gwenni. I want to find the White Rabbit.'

Catrin takes hold of my hand and leans over and whispers, ‘Can you really, really fly, Gwenni?' Her milky breath tickles my ear.

‘When I'm asleep, I can,' I say. ‘But I have to practise more if I want to fly when I'm awake.'

‘Mami says we can do anything we want,' says Catrin. ‘If we work at it.'

I stand and pull her up after me.

‘She doesn't mean being naughty,' she says.

‘Come on,' I say. ‘Let's go and find that old White Rabbit.'