The Herbalist (27 page)

‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer
do.’

‘Make them go away.’ I tugged at
the herbalist’s arm.

He pulled me on to his lap and whispered,
‘They’re gone. They’re not really here. It’s just you and
me.’ He rocked back and forth. ‘It’s just you and me. You and
me.’

Carmel took Grettie B’s invitation
down from the mantelpiece. She wanted to look at it again. It was quite lovely: a square
of thick, creamy card requesting her company for supper on Sunday. She had never been to
anything formal at the Birminghams’. It had been an ambition of hers once, to get
something like this, but not so much now. The invitation was for her alone. It must be a
woman’s thing, one of Grettie B’s do-good groups.

Carmel plonked herself into the armchair. It
was so nice to put up her feet after a long day. Sarah was taking in the washing. Dan
had fixed the line at the weekend, so Sarah had been catching up on laundry all week. Of
course Dan went and bought enough rope for every washing line on the street. Just to
annoy her –
You want rope? Here’s rope for you
– but she refused to take
the bait and saw him throw it into the shed after it had sat out on the grass for a few
days.

When Sarah finished, she would offer her a
tipple and they could have a bit of a chat; she must miss her aunt’s company.
Sarah had received post too, probably from home, but she didn’t say. It annoyed
Carmel the way Sarah tucked her letters into the waist of her skirt and patted them like
they held top secrets. Today’s missive was peeking out of Sarah’s belt as
she rushed in and out, draping sheets on the clothes horse in front of the fire.

‘Sit down and join me, Sarah,’
Carmel said, when the sheets were all in.

‘Thank you but I have to be
elsewhere.’ Sarah went straight towards the coat stand. Just who did she think she
was?

‘Hold on. Where do you think
you’re going?’ Carmel jumped up and walked over to her.

‘The herbalist’s, for
cards.’

‘First I heard of it. Are Sundays not
enough for you? Well, you’re
not going and that’s
that.’ Carmel had had enough of Sarah suiting herself. She knew she’d been
staying late at the herbalist’s despite her strict instructions. She took the coat
from her and hung it back up.

‘What’s this all about?’
Dan said. She hadn’t heard him come in. The sympathetic look he gave Sarah irked
her.

‘I’m informing madam here that
under no circumstances is she waltzing off to the herbalist’s.’

‘Sure Sarah wouldn’t want to,
would you?’

‘No, I’d rather stay home;
it’s so much
nicer
here.’

‘Enough!’ Carmel’s hand
flew at Sarah, just missed slapping her face.

‘Carmel, what’s wrong with
you?’ Dan grabbed her wrists. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Did you hear her, the spiteful witch,
did you hear what she said?’

Sarah backed away from them; she had one
foot on the bottom of the stairs.

‘Go on, Sarah, go on …’ Dan
said.

He let go of Carmel’s wrists when the
girl had gone upstairs.

‘You can’t be doing that, you
can’t be hitting out like that. Do you hear me? Do you hear me, Carmel?’

‘I feel weak.’ Carmel sank on to
the sofa and put her hands over her face. ‘Did you not hear the insolence of
her?’

‘Ah, Carmel, just leave it, leave it
be.’

Dan lifted his own coat from the stand.

‘Don’t dare say you’re
going down to the pub. Don’t dare put on your coat.’

‘Why not?’

‘Can’t you see I’m upset,
that I’m not myself?’

‘You’re always upset;
you’re never yourself lately. It doesn’t mean the world has to stop going
about its business.’

‘God forbid. Look, Dan, look.’
She beckoned him over to her. ‘I’d like us to try again. We can’t do
that if you’re not even in the same premises of an evening, can we?’

‘Shush. The girl will hear.’

Carmel put out her arms towards him.
‘Sit with me tonight – stay home, let’s try again for a child.’

‘Will you speak quietly? Do you want
the whole world to know? And besides, there’s tomorrow night – Sunday – for
that.’

‘For that,’ Carmel began to
weep. ‘Ah, Dan.’

‘Stop, please.’ He sat down
beside her. ‘Please stop. Don’t.’

‘I never knew marriage was going to be
so lonely.’

‘That’s because you don’t
have children like other women.’

‘Well, give me one, please. Tonight
give me one.’

‘Stop, she’ll hear. Hush,
don’t cry, don’t. I’ll tell you what, I’ll be home early, how
about that?’

She didn’t bother answering; just put
her hands back over her face. He was gone by the time she looked up. The room looked
different, gauzy with hurt.

Carmel hadn’t really expected him to
stay. She shouldn’t have asked, humiliating herself, begging for her husband to
make love to her. His voice, humouring her. Carmel was tired of being humoured. Tired of
watering down what she really wanted to say just because that girl might hear them. She
was tired of the sounds of their voices, of all their voices, knocking around this small
house, saying the same things, day in day out.

And what about her medicinal tonic? There
was hardly any left again. The herbalist had told her to call round to the shed, said he
kept some items locked up there, but he’d never showed. Offered no real
explanation, no apology either. She had queued at the market stall, asked for hand cream
and whispered her complaint as she handed over the money.

‘I forgot,’ was all he had said;
‘will you take a bottle now?’

She nodded. He had tossed her a small glass
bottle with no label on it. Carmel was mortified; anyone with eyes could see that it
wasn’t a hand cream. And it was tiny. She was too proud to ask for a larger bottle
while so many people were listening. So she took what she was given and now she was
caught short again. The room was getting dark. Carmel felt a chill. Could have done with
something to warm her up.

The floorboards creaked upstairs. The girl.
Carmel should let her
have a few days off, arrange a ride home for her
with Seamus. It would give Dan and Carmel a bit of breathing space. Time alone together,
without any distractions. She felt bad about lashing out at Sarah. It was her tone, that
haughty tone of voice –
It’s so much nicer here.
That’s what had
made Carmel snap. The insinuation that life with her and Dan was far from nice. Maybe
poor harmless Emily wasn’t so bad after all.

There was a clatter and a thump from
Sarah’s room. She’d better go up and talk to her – what if all that toing
and froing was the sound of her packing her bags? She was the type, unpredictable,
sneaky. They all were, that class of girl.

Carmel went up the stairs, taking it nice
and slow and not making a sound. There was movement coming from the bedroom; the door
was closed. Carmel put her ear to the wood. It sounded like someone was jumping around
in there. She was about to turn the brass door knob when it turned all by itself and the
door flew open. Sarah was standing there: the belly of her nightdress was all puffed out
and blackened with soot, and in her hand was a dead bird.

Carmel screamed. A silly woman scream that
made her angry at herself. The girl was holding the bird as casually as if it were a
purse. Carmel gathered herself.

‘Another one?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I thought Dan had blocked the
chimney?’

‘He jammed newspapers up it; they
must’ve fallen down.’

Sarah shrugged her shoulders, looked
uncomfortable. She was trying to get past. Carmel moved aside, watched her go down to
dispose of the bird. Heard the back door open. She was going out to the garden –
don’t say she was burying the thing? Carmel would have flung it out of the window
and been done with it.

The room was in disarray, Sarah had probably
tried to catch the bird before it knocked itself out. The fire screen was toppled over;
there was soot sprinkled all over the floor. The walls weren’t too bad – it
must’ve headed straight for the window, for the opened curtains. Carmel looked at
the rocking chair: there was a bright blue shawl hanging over it, beautiful gold fringes
trailing over the
floorboards. The stain wasn’t there any more;
Dan had washed the blood clean away. She knelt and looked more closely and found where
the grain of the wood was much darker. Once you saw it, you couldn’t un-see it: a
round shadow. The only sign that there had ever been a baby.

So Finbar had been right about the birds
coming down the chimney – but why only that chimney? Why not the one in her and
Dan’s room? Oh, what did it matter? It was only the girl’s room now and it
hadn’t caused any damage. She would instruct Dan to block it properly and that
would be the end of it.

She wanted to get out of there before Sarah
came back; there was something distasteful about talking to her in her nightclothes.
Come to think of it, she was wandering around outside now in nothing more than a
nightdress. Anyone could see her. Sarah must’ve guessed that Dan was out. Maybe
she’d heard their conversation earlier? Carmel blushed. Nonsense. She didn’t
need to eavesdrop to know that Dan went out almost every evening. She felt a pain unfurl
deep in her womb, the familiar wretched kick. It was back again, the curse. She went to
the press to fetch her rags.

Sarah’s hands were shaking; she got
into bed as quickly as she could. There was something wrong with that woman. She
wondered how Dan put up with her. She had slapped Sarah, or tried to, and in front of
her husband. And what business was it of hers where Sarah went on her time off? Sarah
could have done with winning a few bob. There was no guarantee but so far she had been
lucky at the card-playing sessions, and a good bluffer. Every penny counted. She would
have loved to tell Mrs Holohan she could keep her old job, but she needed the position
for just a little longer.

Sarah lit her bedside candle; it
wouldn’t do to be wasting electricity, or drawing Carmel’s attention back to
the room. She could hear Carmel uncapping a tonic in the living room. She’d be up
all night now, wandering around the house. Once or twice Sarah had heard her stop and
listen outside her bedroom door. Dan mentioned in confidence that Carmel had been a
sleepwalker since that time.
That time
was the way he’d put it. He meant
when she lost the child.

It came into Sarah’s mind that maybe
the child was sleepwalking somewhere too, and that maybe some night they would meet each
other. She didn’t say that, though, in case it shocked Dan, in case he thought she
was a heathen. It wasn’t like Mai’s house here; in Mai’s they used to
spend long afternoons discussing dreams and their meanings. Here it was very different:
there were no warm conversations. Carmel gossiped with Mrs Birmingham and didn’t
include Sarah. They tended to turn their backs to her and blab only about people they
knew between them. Sarah said nothing; it was better than most jobs a single girl could
get.

She took a piece of chocolate from her side
table. Broke a fraction off and put it in her mouth. Rose had given it to her earlier
when she’d popped in with her mother; they were collecting Carmel for some picture
or other. Mrs Birmingham and Carmel
had gabbed in the shop doorway,
half in and half out, for almost half an hour.

‘Come on, Mother, we’ll miss the
funnies!’ Rose had eventually said.

Taking the usual bar of chocolate from her
blouse pocket, she broke off half and passed it to Sarah with a wink as they left. That
wink seemed to say ‘I wish you were coming too’, or at least that’s
what Sarah thought. Rose was a nice girl, but they never had the opportunity to chat.
Mrs Birmingham hung on as tight to her gorgeous daughter as she did to her purse
strings. It wouldn’t cost them a penny to ask Sarah to join them. The door had
barely closed before they were out on the pavement, buttoning up their coats and
laughing. It gave Sarah a roaring headache. A tear had run down her cheek. Lately the
slightest thing made her weep. She had turned into an old cry-baby, she who used to be
such a tomboy. At least if she’d been home, she could have roamed the field and
blubbed in privacy. As it was, she took a deep breath, stood tall and worked on. Some
people stood straight through grace; some people were holding themselves up against
something – people like Sarah.