Free The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan Page A

that count as bringing a death?
    This grey blanket scratches under my chin, so I fold the sheet over it and hold them both against my mouth and nose. If I breathe in the warm, aired scent of the sheet it will make me sleepy. I try not to see Buddy Holly watching from the wall at the foot of the bed, the lens of his spectacles glinting in the moonlight. I have to dress and undress under the bedclothes ever since Caroline gave Bethan the picture to pin up on the wall, but Bethan doesn’t care if Buddy Holly and all three of his Crickets see her without any clothes on at all.
    I leap as the back door groans on its hinges beneath the bedroom window. John Morris squawks as Mam throws him out for the night, and then yowls as soon as the door is shut on him. He likes to sleep in the chair by the fire, not out on the wall in the cold. Two doors up, Nellie Davies’s bony tabby cats join in the caterwauling. I hear Nellie Davies’s sash window crash open and the slosh of the water she keeps in a chamber pot by her bed as she throws it over her two cats. Nellie Davies has got good aim; the cats are quiet now.
    And listen, Mam and Tada are coming upstairs; because of his limp, Tada never manages to miss all the squeaky treads. I close my eyes and keep still. The bedroom door swings open and Evening in Paris floats in on the draught. ‘Fast asleep, both of them,’ says Tada. He closes the door, and as I pull the sheet tighter around my nose the landing light goes out.
    I feel the thump of the bed as Tada climbs into it on the other side of the wall from me, and the bedsprings twang as he settles himself down. Bethan flings her arm over my face. I pinch it and shove it back again. Alwenna has her own bed; she doesn’t have any sisters to share with. But her three brothers all have to sleep in one bed. I try not to think about Alwenna.
    â€˜Don’t put the light out, sweetheart,’ says Tada. The light switch clicks all the same and the bedsprings twang again as Mam gets into bed.
    â€˜Don’t do that, Emlyn,’ says Mam. I pull the sheet and the blanket up over my ears.
    â€˜Why not, Magda? What’s the matter tonight?’ says Tada through the sheet and the blanket.
    â€˜Can’t you see I’m worried?’
    â€˜This will stop you worrying, sweetheart.’
    The bedsprings twang in a frenzy; I push the sheet into my ears.
    â€˜Don’t do that,’ says Mam.
    Bethan grunts and turns over onto my side of the ribbon. I roll her into her own space and pinch her leg hard to make her stay there. She lies on her back and snores.
    â€˜You’ll wake the girls,’ says Mam.
    The quiet lasts until Tada starts to breathe heavily. I slow my breathing to keep pace with Tada’s and I begin to feel distant and drowsy. I close my eyes. I wonder if I’ll fly in my sleep tonight; I didn’t last night, I had that bad dream instead. I want to be up in the quiet sky on my own, with only the light of the moon and the hum of the Earth for company. I wonder if I’ll ever see the spirit in the Baptism Pool again.
    â€˜Emlyn,’ says Mam. I jump out of sleep. ‘Emlyn. Don’t go to sleep.’
    â€˜Then just tell me what’s worrying you, Magda.’
    â€˜What do you think’s happened to Ifan?’ says Mam.
    â€˜Ifan?’ says Tada. ‘I don’t think anything’s happened to him. He’ll turn up. Why are you worrying about Ifan?’
    â€˜I’m . . . I used to be quite fond of him. You know that.’
    â€˜It was a long time ago, Magda,’ says Tada. ‘No reason for you to worry about him now.’
    â€˜Nanw Lipstick is stirring up old stories about him. And she says he’s gone off with a fancy woman.’
    I wriggle towards the wall and put my ear against it. The wallpaper has rubbed into a furry patch that tickles my ear.
    Tada gives a spluttery laugh. ‘Is that what’s worrying you?’ he says.