The Earth Hums in B Flat Read Free Page A

your mouth open, Gwenni. You’re probably late already. You’d better run the rest of the way.’
    Alwenna says that Mr Williams winds his wife up every morning; she says you can tell by the way Mrs Williams talks more slowly in the afternoons and has nothing at all to say by evening. When I told Mam she said: Don’t be silly, Gwenni.
    The gate to Brwyn Coch’s field opens with a groan, as if it doesn’t want to let me by. When I step into the long grass, I feel the wet seeping in through the sides of my shoes. I’ve forgotten to put my Wellington boots on. The lambs run away, bleating for their mothers, and their silly tails wobble behind them. Tada says Ifan Evans is good at his job, he says that Twm Edwards is lucky to have a man so useful with the sheep. Alwenna says that’s because Paleface likes anything female. When I told Mam her hands shook so much she dropped her Woman’s Weekly. That Alwenna has no shame, she said.
    The sun has vanished again but it’s not raining, so I’ll take the children outside to play. Why is there no smoke coming from Brwyn Coch’s chimney? Has Mrs Evans left already and taken Angharad and Catrin with her? Mam will be cross with me.
    I knock on the heavy front door. Mot starts barking around the side of the house; he doesn’t run at me so he must be tied up. Does that mean Ifan Evans hasn’t gone to see to the lambs yet? I can hear the geese honking in their pen behind the house but I can’t hear the sound of people. As I lift my arm to knock again the door swings open. Mrs Evans stands in the doorway with her apron held up over her mouth. Blood seeps through the apron onto her hands. She looks like Mam looked when she sat, all blood and tears, at the bottom of the stairs. Mrs Evans’s eyes are full of pain and her hair is coming loose from its silver combs.
    â€˜Oh, Mrs Evans,’ I say, ‘you’ve been to Mr Price already, I’m sorry I’m late, Mam’ll be so cross with me.’ I hold the posy of violets out towards her bloodied hands. ‘I stopped to pick these for you.’

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    Mrs Evans’s hand trembles as she takes the posy from me. I try not to look at my own hand; I don’t want to see her blood on it. She mumbles something that I don’t understand and stands aside for me to walk into the narrow passageway. As I pass her she sways and her eyes flare open, the way John Morris’s eyes do when he’s frightened, and there’s a whiff of blood that makes my stomach tighten. I hold my breath as long as I can.
    Once we’re in the kitchen I say, ‘You ought to sit down, Mrs Evans. You’re bleeding more than Mam was when she had her teeth taken out. Did Mr Price forget to have his whisky?’
    She slumps into the high-backed chair by the range; my posy of violets drops to the floor. The room is cold without its fire. Mrs Evans shivers; her head shivers, her hands shiver, her legs shiver, until she shimmers. The fire is laid; it only needs lighting. But I don’t like to strike the matches.
    â€˜I know a good thing to stop the bleeding,’ I tell Mrs Evans.
    I take a cup with a pattern of forget-me-nots on it from the dresser and carry it over to the cupboard beside the range where the salt box sits. Tada says salt water cures everything; if I have a scraped knee or a sore throat or a cut that won’t stop bleeding, he says: Use some salt water on it. I’m not sure how much salt to use for Mrs Evans so I put a handful into the cup.
    As I cross to the big stone sink I trip and have to catch hold of the edge of the table to stop myself falling. The poker with the brass phoenix on its handle is lying across the flagstones and when I push it aside with my foot I tread in something tacky. The leftovers from breakfast are scattered across the table with a jar of blackcurrant jam on its side staining the tablecloth; someone must have spilt some of the jam on the