The Herbalist (23 page)

Mrs B was in a terrible way – came into
Kelly’s when I was there and said she couldn’t find Rose.

‘But it’s only two o’clock
in the day,’ said Mrs Holohan.

‘Why so worried – isn’t she all
of sixteen?’ I added.

‘Ach, what would either of you two
know about good mothering?’

Mrs B had tried to be nice to me since Mam
died, but she kept forgetting.

‘You see,’ said Mrs B to Carmel,
‘she’s not that well; she’s rather frail, not able for much
sun.’

‘I’m sure one afternoon of
warmth won’t kill her.’

Mrs Holohan was even grouchier than usual.
Maybe Dan was casting his eye over their shop girl’s big bum. She should’ve
kept me on. I’d have been less of a temptation, seeing as I had a man of my own,
and no behind to speak of. Think of the devil and he shall appear. Dan arrived in
wearing his sermonizing face. He shook out the newspaper.

‘You’re not going to believe
this propaganda!’

Mrs Holohan set her head on her arms, so she
could at least be bored in comfort. Mrs B suddenly had something important to do, so I
scarpered too.

It was one of those days when I just felt
homely on our road, glad to know every bump and turn. The hedges were alive with
butterflies, berries and bindweed. The sun was like a warm hand on my neck. It felt like
Mam was reaching down from heaven, touching me with her love.

I didn’t wait for the gate. I squeezed
through our hideout hedge and into our garden. When I was small I used to crawl through
it on my belly, with my elbows walking me through the grass like a red
injun. Mam used to tie feathers in my hair and draw stripes across my cheeks with her
lipstick.

I heard a laugh. A girl’s laugh. I put
my hand to my eyes to block the glare of the sun. Sitting on our parlour window-ledge,
swinging her feet, was the fragile Rose. Charlie was inside, leaning out of the open
window with his elbows on the sill. She looked very small, sitting there, very young.
She wore a red-and-white floral dress with a narrow white belt. I was most put out.
Didn’t she have a big fine house of her own without coming to our run-down
one?

Charlie was talking away, his head to the
side, looking up at her face. And she was smiling. Was he telling her about the
desperado coming to hide out in our parlour? Was he telling her everything about us? She
pulled a branch from the tea-rose bush, twisted off a small flower and handed it to
Charlie. Charlie put it behind his ear. He looked funny. It made me smile.

I started walking towards them. Rose saw me
first: she stopped laughing and hung her head, as if I was a mean person who
didn’t want people to have fun. Charlie hopped out on to the gravel.

‘Hey, Em,’ he said before I
could ask any question. ‘Rose came to see you, to see about that dress
you’re making up.’

‘Come back next week,’ I told
her. ‘I’m a very busy woman.’

I watched her walk to the gate with Charlie;
she seemed in a terrible hurry all of a sudden. She must’ve remembered she’d
a mother. What was Mrs B so afraid of, that she couldn’t let her daughter out of
her sight for more than a second?

Charlie was all for sweetening me up when he
came back – gave me a hug and a penknife. It wasn’t new or anything. Better than
that, it was his favourite penknife altogether. Our father got it for him, years ago,
when he’d had some sober days. It had a screwdriver, a corkscrew and a good sharp
blade. The blades and handle were polished. It looked like a glinting fish, and it was
heavy and smooth to hold.

‘I can’t take that,
Charlie.’

‘Oh, yes, you can.’

‘Give me your second best
one.’

‘It wouldn’t be a gift then. It
would be a hand-me-down. You’ve enough of them.’

That’s how I became the proud owner of
a blade that would take the eye out of you. All so’s I wouldn’t ask too many
questions. Charlie seemed so touchy about that girl. Jumping up when he saw me in the
garden, when all I wanted to do was join them; it would’ve been nice to have had a
bit of fun around here, a bit of chatter.

‘I near forgot about the present I
have for you.’

I got my mending bag, fished out the
sausages Birdie had given me and put them on a saucer.

‘You’d never be short if you
married Birdie.’ I punched his arm and he went brick red.

‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Have I hit
the spot? Have you finally fallen for Birdie’s charms? You’ll make a lovely
couple walking up the aisle.’

He laughed then. ‘Ah, feck
off.’

Birdie had been mad about Charlie since he
was a child – always had a sweet or a broken biscuit for him. ‘Sugar face’
was the name she had for him. Since Mam died she’d taken to calling me in from the
street to give me cold sausages or sliced ham or rashers for ‘poor Charlie’.
As if I’d no stomach. I liked her, though. She was gentle, and so very small. And
she missed Mam something terrible.

There was news for me when I got to the
herbalist’s that evening. It had all been fixed up. He was getting a proper roof
over his head. A small house on the road out of the town. A ‘friend’ had
assisted him in finding this new abode. No one I knew. And in exchange for what? He
tapped his nose, to indicate it was a secret. He did that a bit too often for my liking.
There would be two rooms, a lavatory out the back and a water pump outside the front
door, and best of all he still had his river behind him. His river? Sometimes I wondered
who he thought he was. But the herbalist had no doubts: he was moving up in the world.
He would be able to treat people in his house now, it would be like a proper surgery.
And between them and his regulars in the market, he wouldn’t know himself. He had
already started to pack. There were crates of glass bottles and jars stacked up in the
middle of the room. I would miss the shed, even the mice clanking
against the bottles at night. Aggie knocked on the door. Handed him something wrapped
in newspaper.

‘Don’t forget your old
friends.’ She turned to me then. ‘Did you hear that this fella got a
hiding?’

I looked at the herbalist and he smiled –
was his tooth chipped?

‘Did someone hurt you?’ I
suddenly felt like crying.

‘Miss Reilly’s talking nonsense
as usual – don’t mind her.’

I gave Aggie the dirtiest look I could
muster up.

‘Are you a stray or what, girl?’
she said. ‘Does no one care whether you go home or not?’

‘No, I’m me own woman,’ I
told her.

‘She hasn’t a clue,’ I
said to him when Aggie had gone.

‘Not a notion.’ He locked the
door.

We had our lives mapped out. As soon as he
was all fixed up and everything was settled and he had saved a few more bob, him and me
were going to up and move to Brighton; he’d run a practice and I’d be his
empress on a full-time basis. That’s what he called me, his empress, his goddess,
his queen. How can I serve thee tonight, my gracious one? He loved all sorts of gabbing.
Liked talking about it as much as doing it. He showered me with affection, took
clippings from my skirt lining, my hair, my fingernails, put them in a little box.
‘Offerings, tokens, lucky amulets!’ he cried, as if he was selling them to
the public. ‘Your body is a lucky rabbit’s foot all by itself.’ In
Brighton, we would be one, but until then I had to settle for being his mystery woman,
rapping at the back window of his new home, till I heard him whisper,
Who goes
there?

Carmel was slicing soda bread for their
supper. Sarah was gone for a walk. Dan was doing the crossword at the table, pretending
not to watch her movements, as she sawed into the loaf. She tried to calm her hands.
Carmel was upset. Was always upset these days, always in need of a drink.

Something was haunting – no, tormenting,
her. It was Mother. It wasn’t like Mother was a ghost or anything so tawdry. But
she heard her voice. She heard it when she sat in her chair and looked in the
dressing-table mirror. It was sharp, a sharp whisper, a cold breath on the back of her
neck. Saying horrible things, things she used to say years ago. Always giving out,
always complaining. The way, Carmel realized, that she herself did now.

She was thirty-six years of age and felt
withered, on the way out. Felt so sad about herself and Dan. Were they going to have a
lonely, barren marriage? What about love? Where had it gone? Silly thoughts for a woman
who was finding grey hairs amongst the blonde.

At the same time, Sarah had acquired the
glow of someone in love. Carmel had asked her about it – not in a pushy way, just a
friendly inquiry from one woman to another, ‘Is there anyone special?’ Sarah
had denied it, given a small dry laugh. This disappointed Carmel. Sarah could’ve
taken her into her confidence. It would’ve been nice to be asked for advice, to
chat about romance.

The handle of the butter knife came off in
her hand. How did that happen? Dan’s hand covered hers – it was warm.

‘Let me finish this – you sit down and
read a book.’

She pulled a volume from the dresser and
took her place at the table.
Tristram Shandy
. Even her books gave little
comfort. The stories were all getting mixed up in her mind, giving her headaches. Even
her bible stories. Oh, sacred holy mother, if only her baby
wasn’t in limbo. No matter where Carmel went when she died, heaven or hell, she
would never meet her baby. Get on with things, keep busy, Grettie said. Most women, they
just got on with it. Lived week to week, day to day, were grateful to have turf for the
fire, a roof over their heads and children to pray for. But most women she knew had
children to spare. Even Carmel’s one true faith meant nothing to her now. Dan sat
and began pouring the tea.

‘Maybe,’ he said, looking at her
sad face, ‘maybe we should get some hens.’

As if hens were aspirin. Instead of the age
gap closing, it seemed to be getting wider – with him not ageing and her, well, going to
the dogs. She took a bite of bread and excused herself.

Carmel was at the dressing table in her
bedroom, leaning into the mirror and hearing all the bad things again. She wasn’t
sure if it was memory, if it was her own mind talking to itself or if it was as real as
it felt.

You’re as pale as a ghost when you wear dark clothes. Have you not got a nice
blouse or something to go next to your skin? Those glasses do nothing for you.

‘Well, I have to wear them or I
can’t see.’

What are you going to do about that complexion – would you put a bit of rouge on?
Not there! Not there! Oh, God, and your poor thin hair, could you not do something
with it, a trim might thicken it up. Have you not got the shillings for a trim?

‘A trim isn’t going to give me a
head of thick hair I’ve never had. After all these years, would you leave it –
have you nothing good to say about me?’

Well, look at yourself!

‘Oh!’

Dan came in, said there was a racket, that
Carmel was making a racket. Grabbed her by the shoulders and made her look at the woman
in the mirror. Her face was patched with make-up: the rouge on her cheeks looked like a
clown’s, her mouth was dark and sticky. She was making sounds; there were words in
there somewhere.

‘Were you eating lipstick?’

‘I want my baby back.’

The woman in the mirror started crying.

‘You’re having a bad
dream.’

Dan guided her away from the mirror as if
she were a sleepwalker, led her towards their bed, made her lie down and smoothed the
sheets, and then her hair. He closed the bedroom door as though he were trying not to
waken her. But Carmel didn’t sleep: she wept, and wept. Later he brought her a cup
of strong sweet tea.

‘What in God’s name is wrong
with you, Carmel?’

‘I don’t know.’

How does it happen
, Carmel
wondered;
how do you become an embarrassment to yourself? Is anything ever going to
be good again?