The Herbalist (12 page)

Mrs B lingered beside the coffin. She wore
her red fox-fur coat. She had let me touch the sleeve once: it was so soft, it melted
under my fingers. She blessed herself, reached in and tucked a strand of hair behind
Mam’s ear. Her face was heavily powdered and baggy from crying. Her husband
quickly stepped forward to steer her away. Was it possible that the grand Mrs B and my
poor mother had once been friends? Once upon a time, before Mother got mixed up with my
father and his lot, before Mrs B had Rose and Mother had us? Doctor B had hinted at some
connection that time he called up. Yet Mrs B had never set foot in our house, not in my
lifetime.

I felt the herbalist’s presence the
second he walked in. Who had told him? I hadn’t left the house since I’d got
the priest.

‘Poor Mo was a lonely soul,’
someone muttered.

‘Her name was Maureen,’ I said
softly.

I was facing the body, looking at her hands.
Beads were woven
through the fingers, which were so thick and pale
they didn’t look like hers. Hers were brown from the garden.

There was consternation by the door behind
me. Doctor Birmingham was taking his leave, and signalling as such to Mrs B, who was
chatting with Mrs Daly and didn’t look like she was going anywhere soon.

‘I’ll follow you in a while,
Albie,’ she whispered louder than most people shout.

He had no choice, with all gawking at him.
Off he went with Rose in tow. The poor girl was blushing. Someone said to me then, some
old drinking friend of my father’s, ‘It’s up to you now, young Emily;
it’s up to you to keep things going.’

Keep what going – Charlie and my father? A
half-arsed yard? I looked at Mam’s death-bed: I was almost seventeen years of age
and it felt like mine. The herbalist was moving near me, I could feel him. Then, his
hand on my shoulder. The heat off him. I looked up. He handed me a holy card with a
piece of fabric stuck to it. A relic of St Thérèse, the Little Flower. I smiled, despite
myself; it was a piece of blue serge I’d left in his place. I didn’t say a
word. I was only thinking, God forgive me,
Now he’s seen where I live.
I
felt ashamed, like something that I’d hid could be hid no more. I was
heart-sore.

I took a break from my vigil and went into
the kitchen for a drink of water. Three of the women had gathered together around the
table, greedy beady-eyed birdies – Mrs B, Mrs Daly and Mrs Nash having a real good root
through Mam’s box of photographs. I went over and stood there. I put out my hand,
but they didn’t even notice. Mam liked photos. She didn’t have a fancy album
or any album, just a small cigar box that she liked to keep to herself, which was fine
because no one besides me was interested in pictures, and none had been taken since I
was born.

‘That’s you, Grettie! In a
swimming costume!’ said Mrs Daly. ‘You certainly didn’t look like that
in school!’

‘Oh, Jesus Christ, get that out of
there this minute,’ squealed – yes, squealed – Mrs B.

The stuck-up biddy mauled Mam’s photo
and tried to cram it into her pocket.

‘That’s stealing,’ I
said.

Mrs B didn’t have the decency to look
embarrassed, but she handed over the photograph all the same. They sobered up a bit
then, started munching on the fruit cake. I lifted the box from the table and left the
room. I wanted air. I’d heard people say that before and never known what
they’d meant, but I did then.

I found the photo that had caused the
shrieks. It was taken on a rocky beach, and a group of seven were wearing dark
old-fashioned swimming costumes. Four men, two women and a girl. They seemed to be
mostly in their twenties, a bit old to be dressed so friskily. The men’s costumes
were black vests and shorts; the women wore belted tunics that were edged in white at
the neckline and ended above the knee. They seemed to have some sort of bloomers
underneath, but still it was all very indecent, to be half dressed in mixed company and
probably wet from the sea to boot. They looked kind of ordinary all the same, like there
was nothing to be fussed about. A couple sat on the sand, four perched on a rock, and a
man stood behind, leaning down. He had his hand on the girl’s shoulders. She was
the only one not wearing a cloche swimming hat; she was reaching back so her hand lay on
his forearm. The standing man was striking and somewhat familiar. He had black hair and
muscled shoulders. His face was flushed and very handsome. Though he was older than the
other men, he made them look old, all fuddy duddy in their duds.

Which one was Mrs B? I was searching from
face to face, trying to find her, when I suddenly locked on a pair of eyes: Mam’s.
How had I not seen her? She was the girl reaching back towards the man with the muscles,
but she looked so young, so tiny, compared with the others.

And the man on whose arm her fingers lay? I
knew the answer as soon as I’d thought of the question – that was the man who had
turned into my father.

Let the other women stay at home – I was
going to the funeral Mass. They couldn’t stop me if they tried. I always felt weak
in chapel, but this time was the worst, when we were seated at the top
of the church and our mother was in the centre of the aisle in a wooden box and the
priest looked straight at me every time he spoke.

The brothers always made a laugh of how
afraid I was of that Father Higgins. Whenever I saw his gaunt white face, all I thought
of was the first time he’d come to our house. I was only seven but I never forgot
it. He came in without knocking. Mam was all about him –
‘Father’ this,
‘Father’ that.
I just looked at my plate. It was blue and white.
There was a bridge over a stream, and on the bridge was a maiden wearing a round-brimmed
hat. Pastures and blue skies – that’s all you want underneath your Sunday dinner,
under your potatoes, ham and cabbage. The more you eat, the more you see the whole
picture. I looked harder. Didn’t taste a thing. Tried not to listen to what Mam
and the priest were saying.
A blessing … a casting out … yes, Father … of course,
Father.
There was a smoking chimney on the roof. The whole picture appeared as
I cleared my plate. The woman in the wide-brimmed hat was leading a cow over the bridge
to market. When he came back into the kitchen, the priest had a rope.

Charlie carried me out of the church. Said
I’d fainted. He didn’t make me go back in, said I’d been through
enough.

Dan was asleep, but Carmel couldn’t
rest. Yet she was so tired all the time, couldn’t manage to stand and wash over
the tin, felt ill at the line, kept wanting to curl up in the hedge at the bottom of the
garden. The house felt alive with dust, like it was calling her to get up and clean it.
So she pulled back the covers and quietly got out of bed. She had already spent the day
getting the place ready for the help that was coming. She had intended to put her in the
spare room, to leave Samuel’s room as it was, ready, in the hope of another
chance. Carmel walked down the hall, opened the door and switched on the light.

She sat in the rocking chair. She had been
expecting the last time she had done that. There was bird noise from the chimney. She
listened carefully: no. No, there was nothing; just the usual night rustling. She would
leave this room be; it had witnessed his silent birth. Carmel would use the spare room
if she was lucky enough to be blessed. This bedroom would do the woman coming.

Carmel wondered what she was like, this
Sarah? Carmel hoped she was strong and able. She felt bad for sacking Emily. With her
poor mother passing, it was unfortunate. She must make up a parcel of food for the
Maddens next week, that would be the appropriate way to help out. She would send the new
help, so she didn’t have to go to the house herself. The wake tonight had been bad
enough.

And she would find a way to be soft towards
her without giving Emily the impression there was any chance of her working in the shop
again. She wasn’t a bad girl, but she was going the way of her mother before her,
besotted with an unsuitable man far too old, making a fool of herself, and look how that
had ended for Maureen? Living in poverty with a shell-shocked alcoholic. Everyone had
warned her at the time: what would a travelling
salesman – if
that’s what he was at all – know about land? All Brian knew about was drink and
women. God, he was lovely in his day, though, had put the
d
into dashing. But
Maureen had paid for her silliness, God bless and save her – all her lovely fields were
eventually let out to neighbours, and for half nothing at that.

Perhaps Carmel should also take it upon
herself to talk to Mr Don Fernandes. He must be mortified by the moony-eyed attentions
of a scrawny girl like Emily. Carmel could advise him on how to let her down easy. The
direct approach was more effective with some people.

She hoped he had found himself somewhere
better to live; she wasn’t going back to that place, and being seen at the market
stall buying potions wasn’t a good idea. People would guess, they would jeer. She
had hid her distaste on entering his premises – his shack, really – but he must have
noticed, because he immediately told her that it was only temporary, that he was looking
for suitable accommodation from which to practise. Come to think of it, the herbalist
could give his remedies to Carmel, on a sale or return basis, and Carmel could sell them
in the shop. They would seem more reputable then. She would suggest it to him:
he’d be delighted. And then she wouldn’t have to leave her own premises to
get cured at all.

She had taken her tonic this evening before
bed; the herbalist said it would take some weeks before it made any difference. Told her
that she was still in recovery and had to mind herself – she enjoyed hearing that. It
made her feel looked after. She asked him for a month’s supply. She wondered if he
knew why.

She didn’t sleep well any more, walked
the house, in and out of every room, checking, tidying, moving things. Sometimes she
heard him crying. The first time she had been sleepwalking. That’s what Dan said.
He had found her here, opening the drawers, pulling out the blankets.

‘Where is he?’ she had said.
‘I hear Samuel crying – he’s crying so softly, where is he?’

Grettie B told her to concentrate on other
things – the business, the garden, the parish, the community – that there was more to
life than babies.

‘Should I give up? You know …
trying?’ Carmel had whispered.

‘What do you mean, give up? Sure that
would be a sin. Hush now; you don’t want Rose to hear such indiscretion, do
you?’

‘God forbid.’

Rose was doing what she always did when her
mother was deep in conversation: standing there, daydreaming, pushing back her cuticles.
She was well used to waiting for her mother. Carmel was sure she was privy to many
indiscretions.

Concentrate on something else. She had
cleared some brambles at the back of the garden, cut back the climbing rose on the shed,
taken a wire brush to the garden gate so she could give it a lick of paint. But she
always ended up in the same place: the back corner of the garden. It was overgrown but
got the most sunlight. She’d find herself sitting on her old childhood stool, her
eyes closed, the warm sun on her face, feeling close to Samuel, the closest to praying
since he had been lost. She kept the soft blanket he had been wrapped in. It smelt of
him yet. If she sat there and held the blanket to her, she too felt still-born,
suspended, almost at peace.

Theresa Feeney had been in the shop earlier,
her brood with her as usual. She had been a few years ahead of Carmel in school, and,
though she had been harassed by life, she was always good-natured. Her eldest daughter,
Tessie, was carrying the latest addition to the family. Mrs Feeney rubbed its tiny chin
and looked towards Carmel, expecting the usual congratulations. Carmel gave her best
smile.

‘Is that your grandchild?’

‘It’s my new baby, you know it
is.’

‘You’re at the age to be a
granny, not a mammy.’

Carmel left the bewildered woman and ran
into the back. She felt a meanness rising up in her, pure hatred for the stupid fat
bitch at the counter. She knew it was wrong – that Theresa Feeney couldn’t help
having all those babies – but it wasn’t fair, and until she calmed down Carmel
almost wanted to kill her. She had locked the shop when the Feeneys left, and just sat
at the counter looking at her hands: they were shaking.

As she rocked, she wondered what was
happening to her?
Throwing spite at an exhausted mother? The chair
rocked noiselessly as Carmel stole into a fretful sleep.

When she woke, she was on Dan’s lap.
They were still in the rocking chair. His arms were around her, and he was fast asleep.
His neck was at an awkward angle, and there was sweat on his forehead. His vest was damp
where her face had been resting. Had she been crying in her sleep? Had she cried out for
him? She inhaled the scent of his warm skin. Her husband. That he had come to her in the
middle of the night, that he had lifted her from the chair and set her on his lap
without waking her, made her feel a terrible tenderness, gave her hope.