The Herbalist (13 page)

Sarah unfolded the softened paper one more
time, just to see Mai’s familiar round handwriting. A short note and directions to
the shop. It was sweltering. She had worn her Sunday coat; it was far too heavy to
carry. She found the shop easily: it was just off the market square, perched over a
narrow road where the windows of terraced houses glared across the street at each other.
Kelly’s was a small shop and a dark one at that. Sarah pushed the door. A bell
tied to a string gave a half-hearted clang. The place was empty. She put her case on the
ground, where it promptly fell on its side. She picked it up again.

The counter was coated in thick cream paint,
and she guessed that she’d soon know every crack and dent on its surface. Sarah
swung the door back and forth, hoping the bell would alert someone. A section began to
separate from the wall at the rear of the shop – a door. It was painted the same pale
mushroom as the walls. A man appeared: he was very tall, broad shouldered with dark
hair. She glimpsed the pink wallpaper behind him as he turned to link a woman’s
arm. The woman was fair and short. Her plump face had just passed pretty. Mrs Holohan
looked nothing like her brother, Master Finbar. Sarah tried to smile, but her lips were
so dry the skin cracked.

‘You must be Sarah.’ Mr
Holohan’s voice was jovial.

He patted his wife’s shoulder while he
told Sarah how welcome she was.

‘Isn’t that right,
Carmel?’

‘Yes, Dan.’

‘And where’s the child?’
Sarah managed a smile.

A bead of blood rolled down her chin. They
were interrupted by an untidy woman who bustled into the shop carrying a wicker
basket.

‘Morning, Aggie.’ Dan
frowned.

His wife turned on her heel and disappeared
into the wall, shutting the painted door behind her. Mr Holohan motioned for Sarah to
slip behind the counter alongside him.

‘Let’s get down to business.
Watch and learn. Tobacco, Aggie?’

‘And tea, a quarter-pound, Danny boy,
no more, no less.’

Dan measured out the leaves without
introducing Sarah. The woman was mid-aged but wore no headscarf to cover her untidy
copper knot and white roots. Her long navy coat was shiny at the cuffs, and its round
buttons were tugged to the last across her chest. Her shoes, however, weren’t
shabby at all: they were the latest in platforms. White, cork heeled. Something a
glamorous girl would wear. City shoes. Aggie was studying her too, and not in the most
friendly of ways. There was something familiar about the woman.

‘Who’s this one?’ Aggie
asked.

‘This is Sarah – she’s taking
over full time.’

‘You mean poor Emily’s out of a
job and her mother not even cold?’

‘Bad timing, Aggie, bad
timing.’

‘Bad timing my backside.’

Dan smiled as if Aggie were joking and
hurried her on her way. When she was gone, he shivered.

‘Well, I suppose her money’s as
good as anyone else’s.’

The woman’s coins went in a box under
the counter, instead of in the drawer with the other takings. He didn’t explain
why.

He took Sarah through the workings of the
measuring scoop and the weighing scales as if it were all terribly complicated or she
were a terrible fool. He never mentioned the ‘other one’, the one whose
mother had just died.

‘Add an extra few ounces on the day
they are settling up and make sure they see. Always say, “Here’s a bit extra
for luck.” Encourage them to pay something off every time they buy – God knows
money’s scarce, but mention it all the same.’

He opened a faded blue ledger and ran his
finger down the names and accounts of all the customers. As far as Sarah could see,
nearly
all the customers were in arrears. There were several more
ledgers on the same shelf. He took out one from 1908.

‘That’s my mother-in-law’s
handwriting; she passed away some time ago.’

He looked quite chirpy about that.
He’d a butt of a pencil and ran it down the lists, telling her which families went
back a long time. Good stock, he called them.

‘We’re making progress.’
He didn’t look directly at her, but at some place around her ear.

He seemed pleased, yet Sarah had done
nothing but nod at him. Her case was still on the floor. A smell was coming from beyond
the door, a soapy dank odour. Bacon and cabbage. She realized she was hungry. Mr Holohan
stretched his arms out in front of him and cracked his knuckles, as if he’d just
completed a hard day’s labour.

‘Well, sugar is thruppence a pound,
potatoes are sevenpence, eggs one shilling and twopence a dozen … Don’t look so
worried, the prices are all in here.’ He smiled and handed her a copybook.
‘I’ll leave you to it. We close at six on Saturdays, and nine the rest of
the week. Any trouble, give us a shout.’

Off he bolted through to their living
quarters without even offering her a glass of water. There wasn’t much to get the
hang of. The drawer for the cash was set into the counter: she pulled it out. Either
they didn’t make much or they didn’t trust her. Alongside the tray of coins
was a fountain pen, an inkwell, string, a short, sharp knife and a spool of navy thread.
The ledger was simple enough: what was bought, what was paid and what was yet to be paid
were listed each week for each customer. She was to use the copybook for totting up the
sums. She’d a ruler, a pencil.

Sarah leant against the high stool. There
was a whole shelf of glass sweet jars to her right. They had red cloves, toffee mints,
butterscotch, fruit drops, sherbet lemon, butter mint, bon-bons and acid drops. Again,
she wondered where the child was. Maybe they planned on keeping Sarah in the shop. She
wanted to wash, to rest.

She kept remembering: his face, the jolt
when she’d hit the ground, the waltz being played in the house, her going-away
party in full swing, and that horrible cold moon. She wouldn’t think about
that. She’d put it all behind her, like Mai had said.
Today’s a clean slate.

Everyone that came in that afternoon asked
about ‘poor Emily’. Her mother’s funeral had taken place that morning.
It made Sarah feel awkward. She had weighed tea, sugar, biscuits, flour, potatoes, sold
bread soda, Reckitt’s blue and soap, and twelve times said yes, it was a tragedy.
And no, she hadn’t known Emily or her mother. Her legs were killing her – she
wasn’t used to all the standing. Then, just as she thought the day was over, a
crowd of young people arrived, asking all at the same time for sweets, toffees,
Peggy’s Legs, broken chocolate, apples. That’s when Mrs Holohan finally came
in.

‘It’s the intermission crowd,
Sarah – you’ll get used to it.’

‘Who?’

‘From the Picture Palace up the road –
there’s a show and a ten-minute intermission on a Saturday. Do you like the
pictures?’

‘I’ve never been.’

Mrs Holohan saw her suitcase on the floor
then.

‘Go on in the back – there’s a
plate of cold meats and bread laid out in the kitchen. Wait for me there.’

Her case seemed much heavier than it had
earlier. The living room she landed in was dark and smoky; a glass door opened on to a
brighter room that Sarah guessed must be the kitchen. There was a tea towel over a plate
in the middle of the table. She lifted the cloth – sliced ham, a boiled egg, tomatoes
and scallions. She was ravenous. There was a jug of milk and a glass set out. She felt
shy about eating in a strange kitchen all alone, but she ate every morsel. The kitchen
was an odd shape: it was the width of the house. A window on one side looked into the
living room, and the two on the other looked out into the garden – it was most peculiar
sitting there, like being on display. She could see the man of the house out in the back
garden, which was long and narrow and dipped at the end, where the hedging was rather
wild and beautiful. He was running back and forth: he seemed to be playing with a dog.
She had just finished when Mrs Holohan came in.

‘You’re not what I was
expecting: you were meant to be older and
a lot plainer. Ah, well,
what can you do? Was the food all right for you?’

‘It was very nice, thank
you.’

‘Did it go well today? Do you have any
questions for me?’ She took a packet of Sweet Afton and matches from the dresser,
then put an ashtray on the table.

‘No, Mrs Holohan, it went
fine.’

She sat down beside Sarah and looked out on
the garden.

‘Is that eejit playing fetch with
Eliza?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Nothing. Never mind.’ She lit
her cigarette. ‘Who are your people, Sarah?’

‘Whytes.’

‘Yes, but what do they do, for a
living?’ The smoke rose between them, and Mrs Holohan began coughing.

‘My aunt Mai Fox reared me. My mother
died having me. Mai was in England at the time and stepped in to take care of me. Then
the Spanish flu killed my father …’

‘Oh, you’re an orphan. I’m
sorry to hear that.’

‘Ah, it’s not so bad.
Mai’s very good to me. When my father died, she gave up her position; we came to
Ireland and made our home near her sister Gracie. I never knew any different.’

‘It must’ve been hard, though –
how did she manage financially?’

‘Well, she’s a midwife, Mrs
Holohan, so she worked.’

‘Oh.’

That seemed to displease Mrs Holohan, and
made her cough again. Why did she smoke if it caught in her throat?

‘You can sweep the downstairs and
upstairs and polish; then your time is your own. And of course you have tomorrow off,
except for preparing dinner; we’ll be going to the holy well. You can come with
us.’

Sarah was exhausted by the time she got to
bed. At least she’d been given a bright, freshly painted bedroom. There was a
grand brass hook on the back of the door. She hung her coat on it and looked around.
There was a bed, a lovely rocking chair in the corner and lemon curtains. She tried the
bed: the springs were firm. In
front of the fireplace was a screen on
which someone had begun to paint a daisy but had given up after a stem and a few petals.
There was a tin monkey on the mantelpiece. There must’ve once been a drum or some
other instrument between its arms, the way they were stretched out. She turned the tiny
key in its back, and the arms came together and parted over and over again without a
sound.

She put her suitcase on to the bed and
opened it. She set her hairbrush on the mantelpiece and folded her under-things, blouses
and cardigans into a drawer in a small white locker. Sarah lifted out her tin of tricks.
She wasn’t a magpie, like Mai. The small box contained all of Sarah’s
treasures: her lipstick, cold cream, a powder compact, toothbrush, a set of linen
handkerchiefs, rosary beads, her missal and the green glass-droplet earrings. Left in
the suitcase was her fringed peacock shawl, a jam jar containing three and fourpence,
and a copybook that held Mai’s mother’s recipes. She removed the jam jar
before shutting the case and shoving it under the bed. No need for fringed shawls in her
new life. Sarah set the fire screen to one side, put her hand up the chimney and felt
for a ledge, somewhere safe for her savings. When she found it, she tested that the lid
of the jar was closed tight and then put it in its new hiding place. She was slow
moving, taking her time. No matter how strange this place was, she was glad to be here,
because home would never be the same again.

I was wrecked from crying. The mornings
were the worst. There was always that second when I forgot Mam wasn’t with us. How
could I? I don’t know. But I did, every single morning since the day she died. I
missed her so much, it was like my heart was cut out. I missed her hands, her voice, her
lovely soft hair. I even missed her giving out. Father was around less than ever. He had
a wandering soul. If we met of an evening, I couldn’t look at him: the skin was
near raw under his eyes. A bit late to be showing his feelings.

I called round to the herbalist. Told him it
felt like someone had picked me up and wrung me out, asked had he a cure for that? He
didn’t laugh; he invited me in and sat me down in the chair with the high back.
The one for proper visitors.