The Earth Hums in B Flat Read online

  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.’

  Angharad is already down by the stream, sitting on the grassy bank, pulling off a Wellington boot and her sock. The clouds’ reflections make patterns in the water as the stream rushes and splashes over jagged stones on the way to the Reservoir. Does the water in the Baptism Pool come from the Reservoir? Don’t think about the Reservoir, or the Pool.

  ‘I want to paddle,’ says Angharad.

  ‘I haven’t got anything to dry your feet with,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t care,’ she says and tugs off the second boot and sock. She dips her feet into the water and catches her breath with a shudder. ‘It’s cold, it’s so cold,’ she says. ‘You put your feet in, Catrin.’

  ‘No,’ says Catrin. ‘I don’t like cold.’

  ‘I’m going to have a drink,’ I say. I kneel at the stream’s edge and dip my cupped hand into it, pushing aside the little flurries of twigs that race past, and lift the water to my mouth to sip. It’s cold as winter. Tada says the snow stays on the hills that the streams run from long after spring has arrived down here.

  ‘Is it nice?’ says Catrin. ‘Mami says water is the best drink in the world. Is it nice like pop, Gwenni? Tada likes pop. He gets cross when Mami pours it away.’

  Alwenna says that her mother buys a whole crate of pop from the Corona lorry every month. When I told Mam she said: Those people in the council houses spend their money like there’s no tomorrow.

  ‘It tastes like . . . like melted icicles,’ I say to Catrin.

  ‘Can I try some, Gwenni?’

  ‘Make your hand like a cup,’ I say.

  Catrin cups her hand into the stream, then slurps the water from it. ‘It’s dripped down inside the front of my jumper, Gwenni,’ she says. ‘It’s cold, it’s so cold.’ She hops up and down like a little wren on the bank.

  ‘Rub it with your jumper,’ I say. ‘You won’t notice it in a minute. Then we’ll look down those rabbit holes.’

  ‘D’you think the White Rabbit will be down one of them?’ asks Angharad as she jumps out of the stream.

  We all kneel to peer down into the rabbit holes. Angharad has rabbit droppings stuck to the wrinkled soles of her feet. ‘Better put your socks and boots back on,’ I say. ‘Rub your feet with some of the long grass; that should be dry enough.’

  ‘I’ll dry my feet with the socks and put my Wellingtons on without them,’ says Angharad. She rubs hard at her toes and then gives the bundle of damp socks to me. ‘You look after them,’ she says, pulling the first boot on. ‘Ouch. That hurt.’ She shakes the boot upside down and a piece of china falls out. It has a little forget-me-not on it. ‘It was right in the toe,’ she says. ‘I didn’t feel it when I had my sock on.’

  ‘It must’ve jumped from that dropped plate,’ I say, and pick up the piece and throw it into the stream. ‘Lucky you didn’t cut yourself on it.’

  ‘Nobody dropped it,’ says Catrin. ‘Angharad threw it at the black dog to stop it making Tada cross with Mami.’

  ‘Wasn’t your mam cross with you for throwing it?’ I ask Angharad.

  ‘She’s never cross with us,’ says Angharad. ‘And she says that Tada can’t help being cross when the black dog jumps on him. So there.’ She sticks out her tongue at Catrin.

  ‘Didn’t you make the dog cross?’ I ask.

  ‘Don’t know,’ says Angharad. She pushes the toe of her boot into a rabbit hole. ‘I couldn’t see it. Anyway, Catrin climbed right up on the table and hit it and hit it with the poker to get it off Tada. That’s worse. Then Tada had to run out with it.’ Angharad shrugs and kneels and peers into the rabbit hole. ‘Gwenni, Gwenni. There’s something here. I heard it, I heard it.’

  ‘Is it the White Rabbit?’ says Catrin.

  ‘You put your hand into the hole, Gwenni. See if you can feel anything.’

  Don’t think about the black dog. ‘I don’t want to put my hand in when I don’t know what’s there,’ I say. I pull a floating twig from the stream and push it into the mouth of the rabbit hole. The earth is dry on the inside and crumbles when I poke at it. Musty air rises from the hole, like that from the mouse nest Tada uncovered in our back-yard wall last summer. I pull my hand away. Nain says mice can give you a nasty bite any time, you don’t have to be holding them by the tail. ‘There’s something down there,’ I say. ‘You can smell it.’

  Catrin kneels down on the grass and sniffs hard at the rabbit hole. ‘D’you think it’s the White Rabbit, Gwenni?’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Is that what it smells like?’

  ‘You remember how Alice saw the White Rabbit, don’t you?’ I say. ‘She was asleep on the grass. We could try that.’

  We lay ourselves down on the grass and the dandelions, with me in the middle. Catrin holds my hand. ‘Just in case we have to go after it in a hurry,’ she says. ‘You won’t let me fall down the rabbit hole, will you, Gwenni?’ I squeeze her hand.

  ‘The first one to fall asleep, whistle,’ I say. That’s what Aunty Lol used to say to me and Bethan after she put us to bed when we were little. Aunty Lol is the best whistler I know. She can whistle all the tunes she plays with the Silver Band and imitate any bird. Nain always says: Like a hen crowing, Lol.

  We stretch out on the grass, our feet pointing towards the sea, the watery sun trying hard to warm our heads. A chill creeps through my mackintosh from the damp earth, but I feel myself begin to drift away like one of the twigs on the stream. What if I fall asleep and fly away? I’ll take Catrin with me, high into the sky, holding on tight, tight to her hand so that she doesn’t fall, and let her feel the song of the Earth all around her.

  The clang of the old school bell makes me leap just before I slip into sleep. Its noise starts Mot barking and the geese honking and all the lambs in the next field bleating for their mothers. Catrin and Angharad jump up; Catrin still clings to my hand. She drags me upright, even though she’s so little and light.

  ‘Time to go back,’ I say.

  ‘But we haven’t seen the White Rabbit yet,’ says Catrin.

  ‘Alice saw him in England. He’s probably still there,’ I say. ‘We didn’t think about that.’

  ‘That’s far away isn’t it, Gwenni?’ says Catrin. ‘I wish I had stories about here and not about old England.’

  ‘I’ll write one for you,’ I say.

  ‘Really, Gwenni?’ Catrin swings my hand back and forth. ‘Mami says you’re clever at writing stories.’

  ‘I’ll begin it tonight,’ I say.

  The bell clangs again.

  ‘Come on, you two,’ I say. ‘Last one back’s a smelly rabbit.’

  5

  We race each other back to the cottage. I pretend to hurt my foot and hobble along so that Catrin and Angharad can overtake me. They run, shrieking, around the side of the house. I limp after them. Mot ignores me. He’s busy lapping from a blue-rimmed enamel basin, slopping the water over the sides in his haste.

  ‘You’re last, Gwenni. You’re the smelly rabbit,’ Angharad shouts at me from the back door.

  ‘Mami, Mami, I am so, so thirsty,’ says Catrin. She hangs out her tongue the way Mot does and pants.

  Mrs Evans stands on the threshold. Her mouth is still purple but not so swollen. And she’s tidied her hair up into its silver combs, except for the wisps that always escape from it like little curls of smoke. She has a white handkerchief with lace around its edges in her hand that she lifts to cover her mouth before she speaks. ‘You’re just in time. Those clouds look as if they’re bringing more snow,’ she
says. ‘Come inside and take your Wellingtons off, then you can have some buttermilk. Gwenni, would you like some?’

  I say, ‘Yes, please, Mrs Evans.’ Nain sometimes sends me to Penrhiw with the billycan to fetch buttermilk and gives me a glassful when I take it back to her. Nain always says: It’s good for you, Gwenni; drink it quickly and try not to think about the lumps.

  In the back hall Angharad and Catrin are holding on to each other to pull off their Wellington boots and push their feet into slippers. I wipe my shoes hard on the doormat. Maybe they’ll be dry by the time I get home.

  When we’re in the kitchen Mrs Evans takes three glasses from the dresser cupboard and puts them on the table. My posy of violets is on the table, too, sitting in a cup painted with gold leaves that dance under the electric light. Mrs Evans has cleared the mess and washed the floor and the fire is leaping and crackling in the range, the flames reflected in the polished phoenix on the poker. A saucepan on the side has a whisper of steam escaping from it that smells of stew. Angharad and Catrin won’t have to eat Jones the Butcher’s faggots for dinner.

  Mrs Evans reaches for a large jug from the larder and the buttermilk glugs from it into each glass. Angharad and Catrin and I drink the buttermilk in long swallows. It’s cold and sharp and I try not to think about the lumps. When she catches me gulping down a drink Mam always says: Don’t drink it on your forehead like that, Gwenni; it’s common as dirt.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Evans,’ I say, and put the empty glass on the draining board. ‘Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘I’m fine now, Gwenni,’ she says.

  ‘Mr Price will soon make you some false teeth,’ I say. ‘Tada says they’re much better than the real thing.’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Gwenni,’ says Mrs Evans. ‘I’ve got something for you. Look.’ She picks up a book from the table and gives it to me. It’s fat with thin pages edged in gold. The cover is soft and green as moss and the golden letters on it curl like the ones I imagine on the map of my town. William Wordsworth say the curling letters, and Poems.

  ‘Look,’ says Mrs Evans again. With her free hand she opens the book at a page marked by a card with a bunch of violets painted on it and points to the poem that she read to us at school. She recites, ‘A violet by a mossy stone half hidden from the eye! Fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky.’ When she puts the card back it puffs a faint, powdery scent into the air.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I say.

  ‘You can borrow it, Gwenni,’ she says. ‘I know how much you like reading.’

  ‘And writing, Mami,’ says Catrin. ‘Gwenni’s going to write me a story. A story about here. Specially for me, Mami.’

  ‘I hope you’ve thanked Gwenni,’ says Mrs Evans. ‘D’you know, I think I’ve got just the thing for her to write it in.’ Her voice is muffled behind the white handkerchief.

  Catrin leans against me for a moment. I hardly feel her weight. ‘Thank you, Gwenni,’ she says.

  ‘You two girls stay in here and lay the table for dinner,’ says Mrs Evans, ‘and you come with me, Gwenni.’ She walks through into the parlour. ‘You can borrow the book for as long as you like.’

  I follow her. ‘But I can’t, Mrs Evans,’ I say. ‘Mam always says: Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’

  ‘I tell you what, Gwenni, why don’t I just give it to you? Here,’ she takes the book then hands it back to me. ‘It’s your book now.’ Mine.

  The parlour is better than the town library. On each side of the inglenook tall bookshelves sag with the weight of the books they hold. And the wall opposite has shelves in rows, with books squashed together on them and more books laid flat on top of the upright books. Angharad and Catrin’s Alice in Wonderland is on the window-seat. Alice in Wonderland is all a dream. A falling dream. Is falling like flying?

  ‘Come over here, Gwenni,’ says Mrs Evans from behind her handkerchief. She has a table that smells of polish set out like a desk under the front window. On it are a brass holder for her fountain pens, and two bottles of ink, one black and one red, with narrow necks and fat bellies. Next to the ink bottles is a wooden rocker for her blotting paper with primroses and bluebells painted on its sides and a knob on the top with a tiny violet on it. When I told Mam I wanted a blotter rocker like Mrs Evans’s she said: I want never gets, Gwenni. I didn’t tell her I wanted a desk like Mrs Evans’s, too. A tower of exercise books, most of them covered in brown paper, stands on the edge of the table. The tower wobbles as Mrs Evans pulls two uncovered books from its base and gives them to me. ‘I knew I had some unused ones here,’ she says. ‘One for your rough work and one for the finished story, Gwenni.’

  I take them and tuck them under my arm with the soft green book. ‘Thank you, Mrs Evans,’ I say.

  She turns away, and taps her fingers on her desk, as if she’s playing a tune on it. She stares for a long time out through the window towards the sea and the sky. Tada always says you can see that Mrs Evans has had an education. She thinks a lot, he says, and Mam always replies: Huh, I wish I had time to think.

  ‘So,’ Mrs Evans says, ‘what did you and the girls do in the field this morning?’

  ‘We played looking for the White Rabbit,’ I say. I don’t mention the flying.

  ‘And . . .’ Mrs Evans pauses and turns around to look at me, but I can’t see her face because she’s got her back to the window. The light makes a halo of the smoky wisps of her hair, like the halo around Jesus Christ’s head in the picture that hangs in our Chapel vestry. ‘Did you see Mr Evans?’

  ‘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.’