The Earth Hums in B Flat (38 page)

Look at me. I'm flying.

49

Outside, the sun is hot in a clear sky, and when I walked home from Sunday School with Alwenna the smell of rose petals was strong in the air. In the living room it's much darker because the sun has moved to the west now, and it's cooler, too, so Tada has lit a small fire. John Morris is stretched out on the hearth, as close as he can get to the grate. We don't need a big fire because we don't have to cook; we're going to Nain's house for supper.

Tada's folded the chenille cloth and hung it over the back of his chair and I've spread a big sheet of drawing paper on the table. It's really six sheets that I glued together to make one big one and it's crinkled a bit along the edge of one piece where my cardigan sleeve got stuck to the glue, but Tada says we won't notice that once he's drawn the map on it. He's drawing a map to show me where Mam is, and the roads to reach her, so that I can see that she's not so very far away. I've put out all my colouring pencils and my fountain pen for him, and my blotter rocker with a clean square of blotting paper in it that Aunty Lol gave me. The old blotting paper is covered with Mrs Evans's back-to-front writing and is in my box.

Every Saturday, after breakfast, Tada borrows Aunty Lol's Lambretta and travels to visit Mam along the map he's drawing. Her treatment isn't working yet and she doesn't speak to him. He sits all afternoon and holds her hand and tells her about his plan to buy a house with an electric stove and a bathroom for her. And then he arrives home after supper and goes to bed and cries. I hear him through the bedroom wall. But he doesn't cry on any other day of the week.

Today, he went to visit Bethan at Aunty Siân's house. He says she likes living with Aunty Siân and Uncle Wil and little Helen. And she likes helping with the baby. Is that true? I see her every day at school and she pretends she doesn't see me. But she always did that. Alwenna asked me if Bethan is ever going to come home. I don't know. Can you glue together two halves of a split tree like two pieces of paper?

‘Will you put Penrhyn on the map?' I say. I pull my chair closer to Tada's. ‘With Aunty Siân's house?'

‘I'll put all the places you want on it, Gwenni,' says Tada. ‘And you can write their names on them.'

I haven't got a pen with golden ink but my fountain pen has a good nib in it for map-writing.

Tada has drawn the shape of the land. He's got the arm of Ll
n almost to its hand, although we don't know anybody there. He's drawn the coast down to Bermo where he's put a little chapel, and where our town stands he's made a castle with the Red Dragon flying on it. Tada would make a good cartographer. Miss Eames says cartographers have to be neat and accurate. He draws Aunty Siân's house in the armpit of the map, and then begins to put in mountains of all shapes and sizes, and winding roads.

‘You can colour the mountains, if you like,' he says.

‘Does Aunty Lol's Lambretta go up and down all those mountains?' I ask.

‘The roads go round, mostly,' he says. ‘But it takes a while. It's all right now, but I wouldn't want to ride the Lambretta in snow and ice. Or strong winds. Still, your mam will be home long before winter.'

‘Guto's never coming home to the Wern, though, is he?' I say.

‘Poor Guto,' says Tada. ‘Innocent as a child. But he's not ill in the same way as your mam, Gwenni. I've seen him a few times. He's quite happy there, you know. Quite happy.'

But he can't ever fly away, can he? It's like being in prison, like Mrs Evans. She can't get away. Or in a cage, like Lloyd George. Though he never wants to leave it now, Nain has to prod him out.

The fire hisses and a blue flame shoots up from the coals. John Morris twitches in his sleep. Nain will have a bigger fire going to cook supper for us all.

‘I wonder what Nain will make for supper,' I say.

‘I don't think it matters, does it, Gwenni?' says Tada. ‘You always seem to enjoy it.'

I do. My cardigan is getting a bit tight, and my gymslip is really short now. Nain says she'll try letting the hem down. She says I'm all legs, like Aunty Lol. Or like a horse.

I watch Tada's pencil skimming the paper. He's making a beautiful building that looks like a palace of golden stone.

‘What's that?' I say.

‘That's where your mam is,' he says.

I didn't know asylums were so beautiful. Maybe Mam likes it, just like Guto. Maybe she really will get better there. Dr Edwards said her illness is one he's very interested in, and explained it to Tada and me. Bethan wouldn't stay to hear him. He said Mam was in the best place to have the best treatment for her condition, and once the treatment works she can come home. But there's no cure for her illness, and she'll have to keep taking special drugs for ever, and will need Tada's help to stay well. Tada said: I'll do anything for her, doctor, anything.

Dr Edwards said that Nain Eluned probably had the same illness as Mam, because it can be passed to your children. When I told Alwenna, she cried and said: I didn't mean it when I said you were doolally like your Nain. I told her Dr Edwards says it's not all bad anyway. He says lots of people with the illness are creative. That means having a good imagination so you can be an artist or writer or a clever detective or cartographer or doctor. I'd like that.

‘Are you all right doing this?' says Tada. ‘Have you got homework to do for tomorrow?'

I shake my head. ‘Alwenna and I did our homework yesterday. She came up here.'

‘I'm glad you two are pals again,' says Tada.

He lays down the blue pencil he's using to draw the rivers, and stands up to look at the map. ‘You can see the whole thing better like this,' he says.

‘It's like when I'm flying,' I say.

‘It is,' he says. How does he know that? He reaches to the mantelpiece for his tin of Golden Virginia and his Rizla papers, and begins to roll a cigarette. Then he lights it with a spill from the fire, and stands there smoking it. ‘You're still doing it, then?' he says.

‘Flying?' I say.

He nods, sucking on his cigarette, narrowing his eyes against the smoke so that I can't see what he's thinking.

‘Yes,' I say.

‘Well,' he says. He sits down again and carries on drawing the rivers. I never knew we have so many rivers where we live. Tada'll have to tell me the names to write on them.

‘And are those Toby jugs still keeping an eye on us?' he says.

I dusted the Toby jugs just yesterday. They gleam in the light from the window. ‘No, Tada,' I say. ‘That was just my imagination – you know that.'

‘Right, then,' he says. ‘Now, anything more for the map?'

‘Catrin,' I say. ‘And Angharad.' They're in my heart, but they're in Cricieth too. ‘Can you draw their castle?'

‘Cricieth is just here,' says Tada, making a neat grey rock and small grey tower. ‘See, it's directly across the bay. That's why we see it so clearly.'

One day I'll fly over the bay to find Catrin, my little wren, and I'll take her up into the sky, holding her tight, tight by the hand so that she doesn't fall. We'll fill ourselves with the Earth's song and trail it behind us like a comet's tail across the sky, high above all the faraway countries and all the seas of the world, and everyone and everything will hear its sonorous hum, even Mam, and be filled with wonder. And then I'll make a map of it all.

‘How would you draw music on there?' I ask. ‘So people can hear it when they look at the map?'

‘Music people can hear,' says Tada. ‘I'll have to think about that one, Gwenni. Anything else?'

‘Mrs Evans,' I say.

Tada looks up from the map. ‘You know more than you're saying about all that business, Gwenni.'

I do. Is Tada asking me to tell him? I can't tell anyone. Not even him.

‘Well,' says Tada. He finishes his cigarette and flicks the stub into the fire. ‘The place where Mrs Evans . . . lives is too far away to be on the map, Gwenni. But if we both remember her when we look at the map it'll be just the same as if she was on it.'

The place where Mrs Evans lives is a prison. Does it look like a castle with high walls and small windows?

‘Pull your chair nearer,' says Tada. ‘We'll both do this colouring or we won't finish in time for supper.'

We sit side by side, shading the mountains and the lowlands, the rivers and the seas, and the winding roads that lead anywhere you want to go. And I write the names of the places and the people where Tada has drawn them and blot the ink tidily with my rocker.

We both start when the back door rattles and Nain shouts, ‘Yoo-hoo. Supper's ready.' And as she races into the living room, John Morris races out; he's afraid of Nain. She looks at what Tada and I are doing and says, ‘How long did that take you? You should have asked Lol for her mapbook, Emlyn. You know she's got one. And she never uses it.' And she rushes out again, calling, ‘Come for your food,' just before the back door bangs shut after her.

Tada and I look at our map. Aunty Lol's maps are nothing like this one. This map is beautiful, and when Tada works out how to write the Earth's hum into it, it will be perfect.

‘Are you sure you don't fly, Tada?' I say.

‘Only in my dreams, Gwenni,' he says.

But I'm not so sure.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you, above all, to Glenn Strachan, and, for help ranging from expert advice to bad jokes, to: Lindsay Ashford, Heather Beck, Llio Evans, Richard Hollins, Adam Ifans, Rachel Ifans, David Llewelyn, Beverley Naidoo, Gladys Roberts, Orion Roberts, Anya Serota and all the lovely people at Canongate, Cai Strachan, Kate Strachan, Lavinia Trevor, and Barry Williams.