The Earth Hums in B Flat Read online

  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. ‘Wh
at 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.

  ‘Lol. Lol,’ he mutters, still half asleep, and opens one small eye.

  ‘I’ll give you Lol, you silly bird,’ says Nain.

  ‘Mrs Evans’s family is dead,’ I say. ‘Like Mam’s. She’s just got her sister, and Mam’s got Aunty Siân.’

  ‘I believe Elin Evans lost both her parents when she was young,’ says Nain. ‘And that’s not a secret. Now let me open that cage door.’

  Nain unlatches the cage door and Lloyd George shuffles along his perch to the opening. I grab my Lion notebook and Tada’s socks and move towards the scullery.

  ‘And you mind your Ps and Qs when you’re up at Brwyn Coch,’ says Nain. ‘You can upset people by asking too many questions, you know.’ She pokes at Lloyd George who doesn’t want to leave his cage tonight.

  ‘Not Mrs Evans,’ I say. ‘She says you have to ask if you don’t understand things.’

  ‘Isn’t that just like a school teacher?’ says Nain.

  Lloyd George squawks and nips Nain’s finger before hurtling out of his cage with his skinny black legs pointing at my head and his claws extended to land. I bolt through the scullery door, slamming it shut behind me.

  19

  Tada stretches in his armchair, pointing his toes at the fire with the socks that Nain mended on his feet.

  ‘Nowhere like home,’ he says, ‘Nothing like Friday evening with Saturday and Sunday stretching out before you. Lovely.’

  ‘Lovely for some,’ says Mam. She knits faster. She’s almost finished little Helen’s bolero at last. Wisps of fuzzy-wuzzy float like thistledown from Mam’s lap onto John Morris’s nose and he sneezes and comes out from under her legs and crawls under Tada’s chair. Pale blue filaments spiral up on the heat of the fire and stroke the faces of the Toby jugs as they pass.

  ‘You’ll be all right tomorrow, won’t you?’ says Tada. ‘You always enjoy the Singing Festival, Magda.’

  ‘Some people’s husbands go with them,’ says Mam. She heaves the knitting around on the pink cushion in her lap to begin a new row. The fuzzy-wuzzy is beginning to tickle my nose, too.

  ‘Come on, Magda,’ says Tada. ‘We go through this every year. You know I’m not a chapel man.’

  ‘It’s that old football,’ says Mam. Her knitting needles clack faster and faster.

  ‘I daresay they’d have more men there if they didn’t hold it on Cup Final day,’ says Tada. ‘But not me.’

  ‘Are you going to see the game on Mr Williams’s television?’ I ask.

  ‘Like going to the pictures, eh, Gwenni? Lovely.’ Tada stretches again. ‘Special match this year, too. A sad day for United. They’ve done well to keep going after that terrible plane crash.’

  ‘I don’t know how Robin Williams’s wife can let you all into her parlour with your big feet to yell and shout,’ says Mam.

  ‘Only seven of us, Magda,’ says Tada. ‘Anyway, she won’t know anything about it, will she? She’ll be at the Singing Festival with you.’

  Tada pushes himself up from his chair and takes his tobacco tin from the mantelpiece and begins to roll a cigarette. I breathe in the scent of his Golden Virginia instead of the smell of the fish we had for supper.

  ‘When’s Bethan coming home from what’s-her-name’s, then?’ he says.

  I open my mouth to answer him, but Mam glares at me and says, ‘Caroline, her name’s Caroline. You know that. Bethan will be back by nine.’

  Mam doesn’t believe what Alwenna told me about Bethan. And I was going to say Caroline, not Richard.

  ‘Well,’ says Tada. He lights his cigarette from the fire with a spill and comes round behind his chair to the table and looks at the roll of paper I’ve unfurled. ‘That’s a big sheet of paper you’ve got there, Gwenni,’ he says. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘It’s lots of sheets glued together to make one big one. See?’ I point out the joins to him.

  ‘Very tidy,’ he says. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Draw our family tree,’ I say. I pull out my notebook from under the sheet and open it to where Mrs Evans has shown me how to make a family tree. ‘You’re a leaf on it, and so is Mam. And so am I. And Bethan. But I have to find all the other leaves to go on it before us.’

  ‘That’s very clever, Gwenni. Did you do that at school?’

  ‘No. Mrs Evans drew this tree in my notebook for me to copy. She gave me the paper and glue and helped me make this big sheet.’

  Mam’s needles have stopped clacking and the room is quiet apart from the hissing of the wood on the fire and the tick-tock of the mantelpiece clock. The Toby jugs yawn on the top shelf.

  Tada draws on his cigarette and blows smoke rings into the air. The smell of the smoke mingles with the smell of fish. Samuel Fish’s van brings fresh fish round every Friday morning but Tada says there’s no telling when the fish was fresh. John Morris always eats the heads with their staring eyes. Sometimes they smell like the fish in my night-time sea. Sometimes they smell like blood. I won’t think about the blood.

  ‘Will you put down that I can blow perfect smoke rings?’ Tada says, blowing some more.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘You’re only supposed to put down when someone is born and when they get
married and what children they have and when they . . .’ I look at Mam but she’s staring at the fire with her knitting needles quiet in her hands.

  ‘Die,’ says Tada.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  But why can’t a family tree record other things? Things that are passed down like noses and hair and freckles and religious mania and blowing smoke rings and whistling and being clever and flying.

  ‘Let’s have a look at what you’ve got so far, then,’ says Tada and draws my notebook towards him. He reads out loud the names Nain told me.

  ‘Is this what you were doing next door last night?’ he says.

  I nod. ‘But I think Nain’s missed out a lot, hasn’t she?’

  ‘I expect we can fill in the missing bits, Gwenni,’ he says. He smoothes the big sheet flat on the chenille tablecloth. ‘You’ll have to take this cloth off if you’re going to write on here or your pencil will make a hole in the paper.’ He pulls the cloth out from under and drapes it on the back of his chair. ‘It was very good of Mrs Evans to spend time doing this with you when she’s got so many troubles.’

  ‘She says it helps her to do something different,’ I say.

  ‘Gwenni should stop going up there,’ says Mam. She drops her knitting on her pink cushion. Her fingers tap and tap on the wooden arms of her chair. ‘Heaven knows what goes on up there. You should never have agreed to let her go to look after those children. I don’t like her being mixed up with that woman. People will begin to talk, if they’re not talking already.’

  Tada takes his cigarette from between his lips and pinches the lit end and puts the rest of it behind his ear. He pushes his family hair back from his forehead. ‘The poor woman can’t help what’s happened to her husband, Magda.’

  ‘Poor woman. Huh,’ says Mam. ‘What did she do to make him leave so fast he fell in the Reservoir? Have you thought about that?’

  ‘Well,’ Tada says. He gazes at Mam. She gets up and goes to the scullery and comes back with two chunks of wood for the fire and throws them into the grate where they fizz and crackle then spit like a jumping jack.