The Earth Hums in B Flat

by Mari Strachan

  Mam comes in from the scullery, her face tight and red as her thin red mouth. ‘About time, too,’ she says. ‘This place doesn’t need a woman like that.’ The water in the kettle she’s carrying slops out of the spout. Tada takes it from her and sets it on the fire. He doesn’t say anything.

  The Toby jugs lean forward to watch Mam walk back to the scullery. And now that she’s closed the door, Tada says to me, ‘I expect Mam was worried about you, not knowing where you were. What with a murderer on the loose. It’s got quite late, you know, Gwenni.’

  ‘I thought Guto did it,’ says Bethan. ‘I thought he was the murderer. Anyway, Mam wasn’t worried about that. She was doolally because she knew where Gwenni was, not because she didn’t. Kitty Hawk saw Gwenni going up the hill.’

  ‘We all know Guto doesn’t have it in him to do something so terrible,’ says Tada.

  That’s what Nain said, too. But I know he has it in him. I remember the way he killed a rabbit that had been hurt and was screaming in pain. Guto picked up a stone and hit the rabbit on the head and when it was dead, he cried. Mrs Evans said he put the creature out of its misery, and it took courage to do that when your nature was as gentle as Guto’s. But what if he thought he was helping Mrs Evans and Angharad and Catrin by killing Ifan Evans?

  ‘And don’t speak about your mother like that, Bethan.’ Tada says. ‘Now, how about laying the table. We’re late with supper tonight. We’ll have to listen to Calling Gari Tryfan when we’re eating, Gwenni.’

  ‘Why do I have to do it?’ says Bethan. ‘Gwenni should do it. She’s the one who’s misbehaved, not me. She’s the one that should be punished.’ She turns over a page of the School Friend she’s holding. My School Friend.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I say. Tada passes me the tray from the sideboard and I put it on one of the chairs. I spread the tablecloth over the chenille cover; I put the least stained part next to where I sit so that I don’t get the family stomach when I’m eating. Then the knives and forks; the special sharp knife for Tada that he had in the army and Bethan’s silly spoon with the rabbit on it. A big plate each for our food. The pepper and salt pots. The bottle of brown sauce for Tada. Cups and saucers for us all. A big bowl of sugar; Tada likes two spoonfuls in his tea. The small milk jug that I like with the forget-me-nots around the rim like the china Mrs Evans used to have on her dresser. Don’t think about that. The chipped brown teapot with the tea in it, ready to be filled once the kettle has boiled. The bread board and the bread knife, the Hovis and the butter, the blue striped plate. Mam is too quiet in the scullery. Better make sure everything is set out right.

  ‘What are we having?’ I ask Tada.

  ‘Corned beef, and cold potatoes from dinnertime,’ he says. ‘And an early lettuce from Lol’s allotment. She likes her rabbit food, your Aunty Lol.’

  Corned beef makes my stomach turn over. I couldn’t eat the faggots at dinnertime either. I’ll never be strong like the lion.

  The kettle starts to boil over the logs and Tada leaps to take it off the fire. The water hisses along the wood in little balls, bringing a smoky smell with it. Bethan waves the smell away with my School Friend. She looks just like Mam as she sits there in Mam’s chair; her skin is smooth and pink and her face round and her hair yellow. But her eyes are dark brown.

  ‘I think Mam should cancel Gwenni’s School Friend to punish her for disobeying,’ she says.

  ‘You’ve got punishment on the brain tonight, Bethan,’ says Tada.

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to read it then, either,’ I say.

  ‘I can read Caroline’s,’ she says. ‘She gets Girl’s Crystal as well. And Richard gets Hotspur. Every week.’

  I know Richard gets Hotspur. Yesterday, at school, he said he would lend it to me. To make up for running away the night before.

  The scullery door rattles open and Mam brings in a plate with the sliced corned beef and the potatoes, and the lettuce broken up in the salad bowl she and Tada had for a wedding present that I have to be careful with when I’m washing up. Tada jumps up from his chair and takes the dishes from her and puts them on the table. Mam cuts the Hovis into thick slices, spreads butter on them and slaps them on the blue striped plate.

  ‘You’ve forgotten the fork for the meat and spoons for the potatoes and lettuce,’ she says to the living room and Tada and Bethan and I look at one another and Bethan shrugs and turns another page of my School Friend. I run into the scullery and take the fork and spoons from the cutlery holder and try not to see all the eyes in the distemper watch me. I take them into the living room and Mam snatches them from my hand and lets them clatter on the table.

  ‘Let’s get Gari Tryfan on so we don’t miss him,’ Tada says. I like Calling Gari Tryfan, too, he’s a good detective. Tada fiddles with the wireless knobs. Howls and whistles come from the set and stuttering foreign voices. Tada finds the right station just in time. He grins at me, his bright teeth glittering. No one has to talk about anything if we listen to Gari Tryfan’s adventures. And the Toby jugs settle back on their shelf and close their eyes.

  Tonight, Gari Tryfan is rescuing a villain he was chasing who has fallen and been hurt on the Wyddfa. ‘No idea, these people,’ says Tada as he forks corned beef onto his plate. ‘No idea how dangerous the mountains are.’

  I try to choose the potatoes that haven’t touched the corned beef but Mam picks up the plate and pushes some onto my plate from right next to the meat. Her mouth is still thin and red.

  ‘I like corned beef,’ says Bethan. ‘I’ll have Gwenni’s if she doesn’t want it.’

  ‘Shush,’ says Tada as Gari Tryfan climbs down a treacherous rock to arrest the injured man. How will he get him away?

  Tada and I are waiting to see if Gari will reach the man without falling on the steep rock; Tada has his fork suspended halfway to his mouth with a big lump of potato on it. Gari slips and Tada gasps and there’s a loud bang that I think is Gari falling but I realise it came from our back door as Nain rushes through into the living room. Gari is fighting to find a foothold as Tada stands up.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mam?’ he says. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Nain peers around the table. Her spectacles are perched on top of her head. ‘Is that you, Gwenni?’ she says. ‘Thank goodness you’re safely home.’ Nain’s out of breath. She looks at Mam, then at Tada. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’ says Tada. ‘What’s happened?’

  Gari Tryfan is hanging off a ledge by one hand; his life is in the balance. The villain is taunting him but I don’t know who he thinks will rescue him if Gari falls.

  ‘Elin Evans,’ says Nain. ‘Eric’s just been round to see Lol about some Silver Band business, we heard it from him. The news is spreading like fire through bracken. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.’

  Mam is on her feet now as well. ‘We don’t talk about that woman in this house,’ she says.

  Nain looks surprised. ‘Well, if you really don’t want to know . . .’ she says, backing to the door.

  ‘We know,’ says Bethan. ‘They’ve left Brwyn Coch. This afternoon.’

  Nain shakes her head at Tada. ‘Bigger news than that, Emlyn.’

  ‘Go on, Mam,’ he says. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Wil the Post saw a big black car with Sergeant Jones and those policemen from Dolgellau in it going up to Brwyn Coch and coming down again with Elin Evans in the back.’ Nain pauses as if she’s in a play on the stage at the Memorial Hall.

  ‘But why?’ I say. Perhaps Guto didn’t kill Ifan Evans. Perhaps Mrs Evans had to identify someone else at the police station. ‘Have they found the real murderer?’

  ‘They’ve found the real murderer all right, Gwenni,’ says Nain. ‘They’ve arrested Elin. Arrested her for killing her own husband.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ says Tada.

  Mam’s thin red line of a mouth becomes a red cavern as she screams and laughs until Nain goes over to her and slaps her face and she begins to cry instead.

 
The Toby jugs rock with the shock on their high shelf and John Morris races from under Tada’s chair into the scullery.

  ‘They’ve made another terrible mistake,’ I say, but no one is listening to me or to Gari Tryfan.

  34

  ‘No Chapel this morning, then?’ says Nain as she opens the back door to let me in.

  ‘Mam’s too ill,’ I say. ‘Tada said Bethan and I didn’t have to go on our own.’

  ‘So where’s Bethan?’ says Nain.

  ‘Gone to see Caroline,’ I say and manoeuvre my way around the ironing board in the living room. ‘She doesn’t go to a chapel or anywhere. Bethan says Mr Smythe’s an atheist. Because of the war. He was an aeroplane pilot and he bombed people.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ says Nain.

  ‘It means he doesn’t believe in God,’ I say. ‘I looked it up in the dictionary at school.’ I looked at S words last for my list of words from the dictionary; my favourites are serendipity, sidereal, sonorous, stellar . . . They move like music in my mouth.

  ‘Bit like me, then,’ says Nain. She waves the toasting fork at me. ‘D’you want to make yourself some breakfast?’

  ‘Please, Nain,’ I say. ‘I couldn’t get to the larder because Tada’s decided to distemper the scullery. In blue. To cheer Mam up.’ Will the mouths be drowned by the paint before they shout out all our secrets?

  ‘I think it’ll take more than that to cheer her up after her turn last night, don’t you?’ says Nain. ‘She’s in bed, is she?’

  I nod and push a thick slice of Nain’s soft white bread onto the toasting fork. Nain pokes at the fire and clears a glowing cave for me to put the bread to toast. The phoenix on top of the poker dances in the firelight. Nain’s brasses are always polished. Our phoenix doesn’t dance at all since Mam used the poker to burn the dead fox. And Mrs Evans’s phoenix has flown away for ever. I don’t want to think about Mrs Evans yet.

  ‘How’s Lloyd George?’ I say. He’s sitting on his swing with his head on one side looking at himself in his mirror.

  ‘He still hasn’t said a thing since he came back,’ Nain says. ‘Lol’s worried, but he seems all right to me. I quite like him quiet.’

  ‘Maybe he had a bad scare when old Dafydd Owen opened his window and started yelling,’ I say.

  ‘He probably did,’ says Nain. ‘But at least it sent him straight back to his cage. And what was your mother shouting about? She was making more noise than old Dafydd. I could hear her from the top of the hill.’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say and yank the toast back from the fire as smoke spirals from it. But it’s only burnt on one edge. I turn it over on the fork and hold it in the fiery cavern again.

  ‘Hmm,’ says Nain. ‘I’ll get the butter for you.’

  She brings it from her larder under the stairs. ‘Nothing like slate for keeping things cold,’ she says. ‘And nothing like hot toast with a slab of cold butter on it. You can toast me a slice when you’ve eaten yours, Gwenni.’

  The toast is crunchy at the edges and hot, and the butter is yellow and salty and so cold I can see the marks my teeth make in it although it’s melting by the time I’m on the last two bites and drips down my chin. I wipe my chin with my handkerchief and put a slice of bread on the fork to toast for Nain.

  Nain takes her smoothing iron from the ironing board and puts it back in its holder on the range. ‘I’ll put this back in the fire for a bit when you’ve finished toasting,’ she says. ‘Lol’s fire service jacket needs a bit of a press before tomorrow evening. I said I’d do it today for her. No time tomorrow with all the washing to do.’

  ‘Where is Aunty Lol?’ I say.

  ‘Big football club meeting this morning,’ Nain says. ‘And that great horse of a girl is secretary, treasurer and goodness knows what else all rolled into one and has to be there.’

  ‘Tada says she’s a good footballer,’ I say.

  ‘It’s not a woman’s place though, is it, Gwenni, a football field?’ says Nain.

  What is a woman’s place? What is my place? I turn Nain’s toast on the fork. ‘Is prison a woman’s place, Nain?’ I ask.

  ‘I wondered when we’d get round to that,’ says Nain. ‘I can’t tell you any more than I told you last night.’

  ‘She didn’t do it,’ I say. ‘Tada says he can’t believe it either.’

  ‘None of us can believe it, Gwenni,’ says Nain. ‘But that doesn’t mean to say it isn’t true. Is that smoke coming from my toast?’

  I pull the toast off the fork and she takes it from me with one hand and pushes the iron in its holder onto the fire with the other hand. Then she puts a thinner slice of butter on her toast than she put on mine and sits in her rocking chair to eat it.

  ‘What will happen to her?’ I say.

  Nain shrugs. ‘I don’t know, Gwenni,’ she says. ‘Nothing like this has ever happened around here before. And at least they’ve let Guto go.’

  ‘Where to?’ I say. ‘Is he back at the Wern?’

  ‘Dinbych,’ she says. ‘They’ve sent him to Dinbych.’

  ‘What?’ I say. ‘To the asylum?’

  ‘They’ll know how to look after him there,’ she says.

  ‘How can they know?’ I say. ‘He won’t be able to fly in there, will he? Will they let him outside so he can fly? I thought the asylum was for people who’re ill. Guto isn’t ill. And he can almost look after himself properly. What will they do to him?’

  ‘Hush, Gwenni,’ says Nain. ‘I’m sure he’s in the best place, poor boy. They’re bound to have gardens he can walk round there. And he’ll have all his meals. It’s for the best.’

  But is it for Guto’s best? What if he can never fly again all the way down from the Wern to the town with his coat flapping like an old crow’s wings?

  ‘And now the detectives have made another mistake with Mrs Evans,’ I say. ‘I just know she didn’t do it.’ But how do I know that? ‘And I’m going to solve the mystery and find the real murderer. They won’t send Mrs Evans to Dinbych when they let her go, will they, Nain?’

  Nain wipes the butter and crumbs from her fingers and puts her handkerchief back in her apron pocket. She shakes her head. ‘Leave it alone, Gwenni,’ she says. ‘Now, talking of mysteries, Lol left another of her books for you to take. She finished it last night. It’s under her cushion, that one with the birds on it.’

  I shift in the armchair and pull a book out from beneath the bird cushion behind me. The Beckoning Lady. I open it to shake any Marie biscuit crumbs into the grate, although I never get them all out when I do that.

  ‘The crumbs that great girl drops in her books,’ says Nain. ‘We could open a biscuit factory with them.’

  It’s true, we could. I look at what the cover says about the book. It’s got Mr Campion and Amanda and Charlie Luke and Lugg in it. And murders. I’m not sure any more that murders in books are like real murders. But I want to be a detective like Mr Campion who always solves the mystery and catches the murderer, not like the detectives from Dolgellau who always get it wrong or like Sergeant Jones who worries more about his garden than about detecting.

  Nain wraps a thick cloth around her hand and takes the smoothing iron from its holder. She spits on it and the spit hisses, then she shakes out her damp cloth to put over Aunty Lol’s jacket and begins to press it. Steam writhes above the ironing board and a smell of damp wool snakes about the room as if Nain has lambs drying out by the fire the way Mrs Evans did at Brwyn Coch early in the spring. Don’t think about Mrs Evans.

  Nain hums as she presses. Her humming always makes me sleepy. I hug The Beckoning Lady. I won’t start reading it until I’ve finished Matthew; I’m almost at the end. It’s taking me a long time to read all my New Testament. But I did stop for a bit to read The Maltese Falcon instead. I still haven’t found anything useful about animal spirits or flying. But Matthew tells some good stories. There aren’t many women in them but there’s one near the end called Magdalen, like Mam.

  I jump when Nain puts the iron down in
the grate. ‘There,’ she says. ‘Isn’t that smart?’ She holds Aunty Lol’s jacket by the shoulders to show me and then slips it onto a hanger and stands on a chair to hang it on the clothes pulley above the fire. ‘It’ll finish airing there.’ The jacket moves in the hot air from the fire, its bright buttons glinting like stars against the sky-black fabric. Nain folds her cloth and collapses the ironing board and takes them both into the scullery.

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ she says. I hear her run water into the kettle, and as she comes back from the scullery with it there’s a frantic knocking at the front door.

  ‘What on earth?’ says Nain and hands me the kettle to put on the fire. When she opens the door Nellie Davies from next door stumbles into the house.

  ‘Gwen, Gwen,’ she says, clutching at Nain. ‘Terrible news. Terrible news.’

  ‘Now, Nellie, sit down,’ says Nain and lowers Nellie Davies into her rocking chair that no one else is allowed to sit in. ‘Gwenni, make a pot of tea as soon as that kettle boils.’

  Nellie Davies leans back in the chair and her eyes stare at Nain as if they’re going to pop from her head and she won’t let go of Nain’s hand.

  ‘I didn’t realise you knew Elin Evans so well,’ says Nain, patting her free hand on Nellie Davies’s knee.

  ‘Not Elin. Not Elin,’ says Nellie Davies.

  ‘Not Elin?’ says Nain.

  ‘Not Elin.’ Nellie Davies shudders until her whole body ripples. ‘Ceridwen Llywelyn Pugh. The poor woman. It’s all been too much for her. How shall I manage without her, Gwen?’

  ‘What do you mean, Nellie?’ says Nain. She points at the kettle and the teapot for me.

  I nod, but I can’t make the kettle boil any faster, can I? I put three scoops of tea into the pot and lay out three cups on three saucers. Should I use the best cups and saucers with the green pattern on them?

  ‘Dead,’ says Nellie Davies. ‘Her heart broken once too often. The poor, dear woman.’