The Earth Hums in B Flat (34 page)

‘I don't want to have old things,' I say. ‘You can have them.'

Mam is still watching me and watching the blood, but her eyes are seeing something else. ‘So much of it,' she says. ‘It bloomed like the roses in her garden.'

‘Whose garden?' says Bethan. ‘What are you talking about now, Mam?' She pulls off the knickers and cloth and throws them at me. ‘Here,' she says. ‘It's just not fair. I should have started first. I'm older than her.' She snatches her nightdress from the chair and drags it over her head. She looks at Mari the Doll where she's tumbled on the floor and then she looks at me. ‘Stupid doll,' she says and kicks Mari the Doll under the bed. ‘What a baby you are, Gwenni.'

I have to stop the blood running. I pull the knickers on and arrange the cloth inside them. Then I rub my arms and legs dry with a patch of my nightdress that is clear of blood and put on my clean nightdress.

‘Change the sheet, Gwenni,' says Mam. ‘Take the dirty things and put them in some cold water in the sink, and put plenty of salt in with them. I'm going back to bed.' She leaves the bedroom with a swirl of her dressing gown and a gust of Evening in Paris that mingles with the smell of the fish. I hold my breath and look at Bethan. She's crying again.

‘You made all the mess,' she says. ‘You clear it up.' And she folds her arms and stands with her back to me looking at her picture of Buddy Holly and his Crickets, and her shoulders shake and shake.

44

I am as limp as Mari the Doll. I thought I would never walk up the hill all the way home without having to lie down in the road. My arms and my legs won't do what I want them to do and my insides shake like Mam's hands. How many pints of blood did Edwin say are in the human body? Eight? I don't think I've got any left inside me. It's lucky Aunty Lol had plenty of pads to give me this morning; Mam was in bed looking at the wall again.

I lean on the front door to stop my insides shaking and my legs wobbling, but the door creaks open and I stumble backwards into the house. Can I go upstairs out of the way without Mam or Bethan noticing? I'm invisible to them, after all. I squeeze past the hat-stand that takes up half the space at the bottom of the stairs and a stinging smell smacks me in the face. I know what it is but can't place it for a second. I sniff, not too hard. Perm lotion. Perm lotion? Perm lotion means Aunty Siân.

The living room doorknob rattles as I turn it but no one in the room hears me except the Toby jugs up on their high shelf who look so bored they only just manage to swivel their eyes to watch me in the doorway. This is like looking at a picture of a happy family. Another picture that tells a lie. John Morris is asleep on Tada's chair with his head under the cushions, and Bethan is curled up like another cat in Mam's fireside chair, looking at a magazine. There's a pile of them on the floor by the chair leg. Aunty Siân always brings magazines with pictures in them that Mam and Bethan like to read. Mam sits on one of the hard chairs with her head covered in rows of pink curlers and Aunty Siân is carefully undoing one of them to test the curl in the hair. She has to stand sideways to do it because her baby bump is so big. She didn't have a bump at all last time I saw her.

‘I think that's cooked, Magda,' Aunty Siân says. ‘All we have to do now is put your head under the dryer. Stay there and I'll pull it over.' From behind the door she drags Aunty Lol's great big hairdryer that looks like a machine from outer space and stands it behind Mam's chair. ‘Bethan,' she says, ‘you'll have to get on the chair to plug this into the light. I'm too awkward.' And she holds both sides of her baby bump with her hands.

I push the door wide open and drop my satchel and hold my arms out to Aunty Siân.

‘Gwenni. Gwenni,' she says, hugging me sideways. ‘My dear little Gwenni.' Her baby bump is big and solid, though I'm sure I can feel something move in there. It must be the baby. I pull away in case I squash it. ‘Look at you,' says Aunty Siân. ‘How pretty you're getting, Gwenni.'

Pretty? It's not a word anyone else has ever used about me. But Aunty Siân means it even when it's not true.

‘Gwenni can stick the dryer plug into the light now that she's here,' says Bethan. She picks up her magazine from where she's laid it on top of the pile.

‘Fine,' says Aunty Siân. ‘And you can put the kettle to boil and make us all a nice cup of tea, Bethan.' She turns her head so Bethan can't see her and winks at me. ‘I could do with a sit down and a cuppa.'

I drag a chair over under the light, click the switch off on the wall, then in the dimness climb the chair, take the bulb out and twist the plug from the hairdryer into the socket.

‘Good girl, Gwenni,' says Aunty Siân. ‘Now let me get this hood over your mam's head, and you clear the perm stuff away and we can all have a sit down. I expect you could do with a sit down, too, couldn't you?'

I could. But I clear the Toni home perm box and all the bits of cotton wool from the table and put them out in the dustbin. I put the dish with the smelly lotion in it into the sink to be washed and turn the tap on over it. It smells even stronger. Maybe I shouldn't have done that.

I walk to Tada's chair past Mam under the dryer. I smile at her, but she looks through me. I don't know what I've done this time. Unless it was having a period before Bethan. But what could I do about that?

I lift John Morris from Tada's chair so Aunty Siân can sit down. He doesn't want to move so he pretends to be dead and I carry him into the scullery with my hands under his fat body; his head and paws hang down one side and his tail and back legs hang down the other. He looks like poor Mrs Llywelyn Pugh's dead fox but I won't think about Mrs Llywelyn Pugh and her flowing blood or her dead fox. The scullery floor is hard and cold, and when I lay John Morris down on it he struggles to his feet and turns his back to me.

‘Bring in the cake from the bottom of my bag in there, Gwenni,' calls Aunty Siân. I ease a round, upside-down cake tin from her bag and pull the bottom off. Inside the lid is a pretty doily and on the doily is a tall chocolate cake with thick white butter cream in the middle and chocolate icing on top. My favourite cake in the whole world.

I rinse my hands under the tap. Can Ifan Evans's sins get inside me through my skin? Maybe the smell from the perm lotion will drive his sins away. But I dry my hands quickly on the stripey towel, just in case, and hang the towel on its hook.

The scullery seems bigger and lighter since Tada distempered it a blue as pale as Mam's eyes. Or maybe I'm shrinking, like Alice. I wonder if all the faces drowned in the paint; there are patches here and there that could be mouths trying to bite their way through.

I pick up the tin lid with the cake on it and take it into the living room. The kettle is on the fire and Bethan is laying out cups and saucers on the table.

Aunty Siân makes a sound like a purring cat as she kicks off her shoes and stretches her legs out to rest her feet on the fender. ‘This is the life,' she says. ‘I could get used to this. So long as that fire doesn't start sparking like a firework again. Put Emlyn's cup out as well, Bethan. He won't be long, I'm sure.'

Bethan bangs Tada's cup on its saucer.

‘Bethan,' says Aunty Siân.

‘Sorry,' says Bethan.

Bethan takes notice of Aunty Siân. She likes her. Everyone likes Aunty Siân. She must have come on the train this morning; it takes a whole day to perm Mam's hair. What have Aunty Siân and Mam and Bethan been talking about all day?

Stuck under the dryer, Mam can't hear us. But she's smiling and I can just about hear her humming above the drone of the dryer. Does that mean she's all right now? I don't know. Her hands are trembling where they're clasped together in her lap.

‘Cut the cake, Gwenni,' says Aunty Siân. ‘A small piece for me or I'll be the size of a house.' She wriggles her toes against the warmth of the fire. ‘This is nice, isn't it? Like having a tea party. Your mam always liked a tea party. Maybe it'll cheer her up a bit.'

Tada distempered the scullery to cheer her up but it didn't work. Only Dr Edwards's tablets cheer her up. But when she is cheered up, is it on the inside as well as the outside?

With a hiss and a splutter the kettle boils, and Bethan pours the water onto the tea leaves in the teapot. We're waiting for the tea to brew when Tada comes in from work. Today, he doesn't say: There's nowhere like home. Instead, he says, ‘I'll go up and get changed, Siân,' and leaves his jacket and beret and food sack on the hat-stand and goes upstairs.

Mam doesn't look as if she's heard him arrive. I watch the firelight flicker on our faces and for a moment we look like a family in one of Aunty Siân's magazines. With a machine from outer space in our midst. Maybe the aliens have captured Mam and left her empty, smiling shell behind. I don't say this out loud.

‘Let's have a look at your mam,' says Aunty Siân, and she heaves herself out of Tada's chair to take the dryer hood off Mam's head. I'm sure I can see steam coming from some of the curlers and Mam's ears are scarlet. It must be hot inside that hood. Perhaps the aliens have cooked Mam's brain.

Aunty Siân undoes one of the curlers. ‘Feels dry,' she says. ‘Bethan, switch this thing off. And Gwenni, you get up on the chair again and unhook it. Here, I'll pass you the bulb to put back in.'

When I put the bulb back in the light comes on with a loud pop and I nearly fall off the chair. Black spots dance in front of my eyes.

‘Silly me,' says Bethan. ‘I switched it on too soon.'

‘Don't make a fuss, Gwenni,' says Mam. I jump at the sound of her voice. All I'm doing is rubbing my eyes so I can see to get down.

‘Bethan,' says Aunty Siân, ‘you be more careful. Gwenni could have been hurt. Come down, Gwenni; give me your hand. A nice piece of cake will sort you out.'

Then she carries on taking out Mam's curlers until Mam's head has yellow worms crawling all over it. The yellow has a greenish tinge, but no one else mentions it so I don't either.

‘Has it taken?' says Mam.

‘Definitely,' says Aunty Siân. ‘We'll leave it to cool thoroughly, Magda, and comb it later. No point in risking a frizz.'

Aunty Siân's hair is a natural frizz. She always says what she needs is a perm to make it straight. Her hair is so black it has blue lights in it like a blackbird's feathers. And it curls and curls, all round her face and down to her shoulders. She ought to look like a witch but she looks more like the angel I've written into
Catrin in the Clouds
.

Tada limps down the stairs and stands in the living room doorway. He's put on his Saturday clothes and combed his family hair back with Brylcreem. He smells like Aneurin.

‘Ready?' says Aunty Siân.

Tada nods and moves over to his seat at the table.

‘Pour the tea, Bethan,' says Aunty Siân and Bethan begins to fill everyone's cup. I put a slice of cake on a plate for everyone, the smallest slice for Aunty Siân and the biggest for Tada.

‘Let's all sit round the table for our tea and cake,' says Aunty Siân. ‘Come on, Magda.' Mam laughs as Aunty Siân pulls her out of the chair and onto her feet. But she looks at Tada and stops laughing.

So, we sit around the table to eat our cake and sip our tea. I have to share a chair with Bethan and she scowls at me. Aunty Siân chatters all the time. She tells us funny stories about her train journey and her walk up the hill with her bump. But we all seem to be waiting for something.

When we've all eaten our cake, even Mam, Aunty Siân says, ‘Gwenni, at the bottom of my bag is an envelope. It was under the cake tin; did you notice it?'

I shake my head. Is this what we're waiting for?

‘Well, it's there,' says Aunty Siân. ‘Would you get it for me, please?'

I go into the scullery where John Morris pretends he can't see me and sits with his bottom suspended just above the floor. I dip my hand into Aunty Siân's bag and bring out a fat and furry brown envelope. I'm sure I can see a mouth gaping in the blue distemper as if it would swallow the envelope, but I don't stay to look too closely.

I give Aunty Siân the envelope. She turns it over and over in her hands.

45

Aunty Siân takes a deep breath and begins to open the envelope. ‘What I have here,' she says, ‘are some photographs of your grandmother to show you. Your mother's mother.'

Mam's hands begin to shake so much they drum on the table.

Aunty Siân puts her hand over Mam's hands. ‘Because,' she says, ‘I'm going to tell you your grandmother's story.'

Mam whimpers and the fat, yellow worms on her head writhe. ‘You promised,' she says. ‘You promised.'

‘I did,' says Aunty Siân. She looks at Bethan and then at me. ‘I'm breaking my promise to your mam by telling you about your grandmother. But I've thought for a while that the two of you should know what happened to her. So, when Emlyn came to see me yesterday . . .'

‘What?' says Mam.

‘I went to see Siân,' says Tada, ‘and asked her to come here soon. The girls ought to know what happened to Eluned. I didn't know exactly what happened to her because you wouldn't tell me, would you, Magda? When I spoke to Siân, she told me the whole story. I don't know why you couldn't tell me.'