The Earth Hums in B Flat (5 page)

‘No,' I say. ‘Catrin said he was out with the black dog this morning, but we didn't see him.'

Mrs Evans leaves her desk and cups my face in her hand for a moment. Her hand is cold, and I try not to shiver. ‘You're a good girl, Gwenni,' she says. ‘Why don't you stay in here for a while and have a look to see if there are any other books you'd like to have? As a thank-you for helping. Come through to the kitchen when you're done.' She walks through the back hall and into the kitchen, still holding her lace handkerchief to her mouth, and closes the door behind her.

I take a deep breath. The room smells of books and polish and a powdery scent like the violet card's. Where shall I begin? On the bottom shelves opposite the inglenook I see books I've borrowed from the town library. I sit on the floor to pull them out.
Heidi
has her picture on the cover with a snow-covered mountain behind her, higher than the Wyddfa. And there are pictures inside, too. And here's
Anne of Green Gables
that I made Alwenna read so that she could see how we're Kindred Spirits, and right next to it
Anne of Avonlea
that the library hasn't got. I hug it to me. Anne's hair is red and wild like mine. And, look,
Robinson Crusoe
that I borrow often, although Alwenna wouldn't play castaways with me in the back yard on Thursday because it's too childish. It wasn't too childish last week. I put them all in a pile. Here's
Little Women
and
Good Wives
in one book instead of two; I cry every time Beth dies and Mam says: Don't be silly, Gwenni. So, now I don't read that part. I'll leave
Pinocchio
where it is. When I read it I had nightmares where robbers chased me and put a sack over my head and Mam made me take the book back to the library before I finished it. She said: I must have my beauty sleep, Gwenni. That's five books in the pile, six with the green book. I won't look any more in case I see something else I want. Six books and two exercise books.

I go through the hall and knock on the kitchen door. Mrs Evans opens it and lets me in. The table is laid and Angharad and Catrin are sitting squeezed together in the chair by the range.

‘I've got five more, Mrs Evans,' I say, and try to hold them for her to see. ‘Is that all right?'

She glances at them. ‘They're yours, Gwenni,' she says.

‘I'm hungry, Mam,' says Angharad. ‘When can we have dinner?'

‘When your father comes home,' says Mrs Evans.

‘Do we have to wait?' says Angharad.

‘You know we do,' says Mrs Evans. ‘Why don't you take Catrin through into the parlour and read your
Alice in Wonderland
for a while? I want to talk to Gwenni about something.'

Angharad and Catrin's slippers squeak along the flagstones in the hall as they shuffle through into the parlour.

‘I think I'd better go home if it's nearly dinnertime,' I say. ‘Mam will be cross if I'm late.'

‘It's hard work cooking for a family,' says Mrs Evans. ‘But this won't take long, Gwenni. Sit down for a minute.'

We sit down at the laid table and she says, ‘You know that Mrs Williams Penrhiw looks after the girls for me sometimes after school so that I can catch up with my marking?'

I nod; my six books and two exercise books threaten to slide off my lap. I tighten my grip on them.

‘Well, she's finding it a bit difficult now that they're getting older and I thought you might like to help her with looking after them. You're a kind girl, Gwenni, and Catrin and Angharad like you. It would mean going up to Penrhiw on a Tuesday and Thursday straight from school and playing with the girls until I come for them on my way home. I'd pay you, of course. It would be like having a little job. What do you think?'

If I had money I could buy my own paper and pens and comics and books and if I wanted to buy someone a present, I could. I say, ‘I'd like to do it, Mrs Evans. But I'll have to ask Mam.'

‘Of course you will, Gwenni,' says Mrs Evans. ‘And I'm sure your mother will be glad to have you do it. Let me know when you've spoken to her. It would be good if you could start at the beginning of the new term.'

‘I'll let you know at Sunday School tomorrow, Mrs Evans,' I say. ‘And thank you very much for the books.'

‘You won't be able to carry them like that, Gwenni, and they'll get wet if you're caught in the snow,' she says. ‘Let me make them into a parcel for you.' She goes to the cupboard under the stairs to fetch brown paper and lays it on the hall floor. She wraps the six books and the two exercise books in the paper and ties the parcel round with string. ‘There, Gwenni,' she says. ‘I've made a little loop for you to carry it with.'

I can see Angharad and Catrin sitting on the window-seat in the parlour just the way they were when I first saw them this morning. But now they're not reading the book that's open on their laps.

‘I'm going home,' I say. ‘Goodbye, you two.'

Catrin slithers down from the window-seat and runs into the hall and holds me round my legs. ‘Don't go, Gwenni, please don't go,' she says.

‘Catrin,' says Mrs Evans. ‘Let go of Gwenni. Now, Catrin.'

‘I have to go, Catrin,' I say. ‘Mam will be cross with me if I'm late for dinner.'

Catrin steps back. ‘Is your mam always cross?' she asks. ‘Tada's always cross. He was very cross this morning.'

‘Catrin,' says Mrs. Evans from behind her white handkerchief. ‘Come on, girls. Say goodbye.'

I hurry through the door with my parcel of books. I don't have to go past Mot or the hissing geese on the way home. I turn and wave at the girls before I round the corner to the path. ‘See you tomorrow,' I shout. The string loop is already cutting into my fingers so I lift the parcel up under my arm and run as fast as I can with it across the first field and over the stile into the next one. And I don't look left or right or back again until I reach the gate into the road in case I see Ifan Evans and his big black dog.

I race down the hill past Penrhiw and don't look at the Reservoir or the Baptism Pool. Then I put down the parcel and pick Mam a bunch of primroses with leaves that are furry as John Morris's ears and try not to think about having Jones the Butcher's faggots for dinner when I get home.

6

In the living room the curtains are closed to keep us hidden from the world. They overlap where they meet so that not even the daylight can peek at us. The wind whines in the chimney and makes the fire slow to draw and we can't boil the kettle to make a pot of tea yet. Smoke gusts down into the room and swirls up past the mantelpiece and around the Toby jugs on their high shelf. They look as if they're puffing hard on their pipes as they watch Mam.

‘Pull,' says Mam. ‘Come on. Pull.'

Bethan holds the hooks' edge of the new pink corset wrapped around Mam and I hold the eyes' edge, and we pull and pull to make the hooks meet the eyes. But there's a big gap no matter how hard we pull. A big gap full of trembly flesh. I try not to touch it.

‘It's too small, Mam,' says Bethan.

‘It can't be,' says Mam. ‘It's exactly the same size as my old one.'

‘Can't you wear the old one?' I ask.

‘Don't be silly, Gwenni,' says Mam. ‘I can't get into my blue costume in the old one.'

‘You don't have to wear the blue costume,' says Bethan.

‘I always wear my blue costume on Easter Sunday,' says Mam. ‘And I've got that new half hat that Siân helped me choose. She said the blue feathers are a perfect match for my eyes.' She snatches the corset from us and starts to fasten up the hooks and eyes. Her hands shake but when I try to help her she slaps my hand away. On the mantelpiece the Toby jugs narrow their eyes as Mam's blue satin dressing gown slithers open and closed around her. They puff and puff at their pipes.

‘Right,' says Mam, and she steps into the corset. ‘Let's try pulling it up instead of around.'

Bethan and I take hold of the top of the corset each side of Mam. The blue satin dressing gown slides over me. I hold my breath as long as I can in case Evening in Paris makes my head throb. The corset is much narrower than Mam. Bethan and I tug and tug and the corset creeps up over Mam's belly. I close my eyes so that I don't see the bulges.

‘Don't pull faces, Gwenni,' says Mam. ‘Keep pulling.'

‘I don't know how you can breathe in it, Mam,' says Bethan.

‘Never mind breathing,' says Mam. ‘I have to get into that blue costume for Chapel.'

‘Can we stop for a minute?' says Bethan. ‘I'm getting boiling hot.'

Mam pulls her dressing gown around her. ‘Gwenni,' she says, ‘close the damper and put the kettle on. We'll see if the fire's hot enough to boil it now.'

I place the kettle on the logs. A flame flares up and I jerk my hand away. Bethan pulls out yesterday's
Daily Herald
from under the cushion on Tada's chair, tumbling John Morris from his sleep, and fans herself with it. John Morris curls up tighter against the breeze she makes.

‘Why don't you get changed upstairs?' Bethan asks Mam.

‘Your father's there,' says Mam. ‘Stop waving the paper about. Let's try this corset again. Pass me that powder.'

Mam sprinkles the talcum powder on her skin above the corset until it mists the air. John Morris and I sneeze at the same time.

‘Come on,' Mam says. ‘It won't take much longer now. It'll slide easily over the talc.'

‘Mam,' I say as Bethan and I heave on the corset. ‘You know what I said last night about Mrs Evans wanting me to look after Angharad and Catrin after school? Can I do it? Mrs Evans said she'd pay me.'

‘Teacher's pet,' says Bethan. ‘Did you see all the books she gave her, Mam?'

‘Can I, Mam?' I ask.

‘I don't see why not,' says Mam. ‘Better than sitting about here with your beak in a book.' She pants as the corset inches up, squashing her stomach upwards above it. ‘And have you put all those books out of the way?'

‘Yes,' I say. The cardboard box under the bed has the six books and two exercise books in it, my
School Friend
comics, the detective stories Aunty Lol lends me, the
Famous Five
books I have for Christmas every year from Aunty Siân, a list of favourite words from the dictionary at school, and my three autograph books, a blue one, a green one and a red one. Every time someone gives me a new autograph book Mam chooses a blue page and writes the same verse in it:

Be good, sweet maid,
And let who will be clever,
For after all that's said and done,
The good will live forever.

Tada always draws the family face with the family nose, the family hair done in red pencil and the family freckles done in brown. It looks like me. I used to have a diary in a red Lion exercise book in the box with
PRIVATE
written on the front underneath the lion's head. When she read it Mam said: There are no secrets in this house, Gwenni.

‘Concentrate, Gwenni,' says Mam. ‘You're not pulling hard enough.'

‘I've got to stop for a minute,' says Bethan. ‘Look at my fingers. They've gone all white. I can't feel them.'

She waves her hands at me and Mam. The corset is only just over Mam's belly button and the rest of her wobbles like a strawberry blancmange above it. I try not to look at the blancmange. But the Toby jugs are looking; they've stopped smoking their pipes and their fat cheeks are a fiery red.

The mantelpiece clock tick-tocks and Mam breathes along with it in little gasps. Her face is cross and crinkly underneath her yellow pincurls. She didn't have her beauty sleep last night; I had a bad dream and woke her up. For a moment we all three stand motionless. When the latch on the back door rattles it makes us all jump.

‘Yoo-hoo,' calls Nain from the scullery.

‘Quick,' says Mam. ‘Where's my sash gone?' Her blue satin dressing gown slips around her as she catches hold of the sash and ties it round her vanished waist.

Nain comes through the scullery door and peers into the room; she hasn't got her spectacles on her family nose. ‘Why is it so dark in here?' she asks. ‘And what's that sickly smell?' She's in her old tartan dressing gown and her hair hangs over her shoulder in a grey plait that gets thinner and thinner on its way down.

‘Magda,' she says to Mam. ‘I came round straight away, as soon as Nellie next door told me. I couldn't let you go to Chapel knowing nothing about it. Poor Guto's been flapping about all over town like an old crow, in a panic about it. Nellie says the news is spreading like spilt milk. Everyone'll have heard.'

She looks at the three of us as we stare at her. ‘I saw something in the tea leaves yesterday, but I couldn't read it,' she says. ‘Well, who could?' She squints at Mam. ‘Are you all right?' she asks. ‘What's happened to you?'

‘Never mind Mam, Nain,' says Bethan. ‘What did you come to tell us?'

Nain ignores Bethan. ‘It's Ifan Evans, Magda,' she says. ‘He's run off.'