The Earth Hums in B Flat (4 page)

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?'