The Herbalist (15 page)

‘Oh, they’ll love you, Dan. You
look wonderful,’ Carmel mocked. ‘Off to Murphy’s done up like a film
star. They’ll lap you up.’

‘Night, night!’ And he was
gone.

Carmel sat by the stove with her mug of
tonic, her closed bible and her dying Sweet Afton. She began to cry.

She went on up to their bedroom, where she
changed into her nightgown and got down on her knees. Closing her eyes, she recited
aloud her nightly prayer against nightmares.

Anne, mother of Mary, Mary, mother of Christ, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist;
these three I place between me and the malady of the bed, suffocation, drowning or
injury …

As she prayed she began to feel comforted,
protected. On reaching the last line, she heard a sound, a low echo behind her, a voice
joining in, whispering the same meaning at the same time, but in
the Irish
.
Her mother’s voice.

Carmel wanted to call out for Dan. He was
too far away. She blessed herself with shaking hands and slowly turned around. There was
no one there. The wardrobe and the dressing table were the only black shapes. She
slipped on to the bed and between the sheets. They felt so cold.

It wasn’t a voice, she decided; just
the memory of a voice. Her mother had taught her that prayer in Irish when she was an
infant. Carmel used to call it the ‘Anna Maha Mirror’ prayer. She
didn’t understand what the words meant, just that they were good.
Let’s
say the Anna Maha Mirror and make the bad things go away!
In school,
they’d been taught the English version, which vexed her mother. Then Carmel
realized the Irish words were ‘Áine, mháthair Mhuire’ – ‘Anne,
mother of Mary’.

The prayer didn’t seem to be working
lately. If anything, the nightmares had become stronger and stronger. That night she
felt the cool shadow of a bad dream spread its wings as she closed her eyes.

Sarah was smiling to herself over what Mr
Holohan had said this morning. ‘Sarah, you’d sell sand to the Arabs!’
She had persuaded Mr Gogarty to settle his account just by squinting at the ledger with
a woefully sad expression on her face. She wondered would it get her a rise in her
wages. It was embarrassing having to wear the same few clothes day in, day out. Carmel
had gleaming white cuffs on her satin blouse – no rayon for her – but by six
o’clock she usually stank to high heaven anyway.

Was Mrs Holohan ever going to get up? Sarah
was weak on her feet, had had nothing to eat since breakfast. Sacks of potatoes, flour,
sugar and tea surrounded her, crowded her. A woman came in wearing a long cream coat
fastened with a belt. She left the door wide open.

‘And who,’ she asked,
‘might you be?’

‘I’m Sarah – pleased to meet
you.’

The woman ignored her offer of a handshake.
So much for Mr Holohan saying how much all the customers were looking forward to meeting
their new girl. The women only wanted boiled sweets. On tick. Opening the ledger, Sarah
glanced up.

‘Your name, ma’am?’

It was as if she had slapped the
woman’s face.

‘Mrs Birmingham! Have you not been
taught anything at all? Have you ever worked in a shop before?’

‘This is my first time,
ma’am.’

A girl swung in on a breeze of perfume.

‘Ah, Rose, love, there you
are.’

The girl had a painted mouth and blonde
waves swept high off her forehead. While Mrs Birmingham was busy tutting and sighing,
Rose whispered to Sarah from behind cupped painted fingers: ‘You poor thing, stuck
in here for the summer!’

The girl looked at Sarah with genuine pity.
Sarah made a face, as if the shop were something she’d got landed with rather than
a safe haven. Mr Holohan stuck out his head from the living quarters.

‘Such lovely ladies loitering in this
drab place, when you could be enjoying the sights!’

Rose started to giggle.

‘My dear’ – he slipped an arm
through Mrs Birmingham’s – ‘let me accompany you.’

He turned and winked at Sarah as he escorted
mother and daughter from the shop. But it was all part of his act for them; he had
nothing to be winking at her for.

Mrs Holohan appeared then, looking for
titbits of gossip. The customers didn’t tell Sarah much. She was still ‘the
new one from the country’. Knew she was from the country without being told. Her
hair was the tell-tale sign, she realized, so long and old-fashioned. And the dowdy
skirt, almost ankle length, didn’t help either. Even if they did talk, she
didn’t know who they were talking about, except for the stranger in the market.
She figured out that he was the same hawker who’d asked her to pretend to be a
satisfied customer, the one who’d given her the skin cream that had ended up in a
ditch.
Don’t think about it.

‘Any news from the great
unwashed?’ asked Mrs Holohan.

‘The herbalist is making a fortune;
they say he’s going to buy a car.’

‘I could do with making a fortune
myself.’

‘I know, Mrs Holohan.’

Sarah thought she was very well off
indeed.

‘Don’t call me Mrs Holohan – it
makes me feel old. Call me Carmel.’

‘You’re not old at all,
Carmel.’

‘I certainly feel it. This scrimping
and saving life is bearing down on me – I’ll be woollen legged and exhausted
before I’m thirty-seven.’

Carmel’s eyes were baggy, and there
were deep lines across her forehead. Her complexion was, as Mai would say, the colour of
a
boiled shite. She looked well past thirty-seven and in need of some
sound beauty advice.

‘I cut out the Pond’s Cold Cream
advertisement and taped it to my mirror; I follow the face-massage instructions every
morning.’

‘How old are you, Sarah?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘It’s easy for you, but I
don’t have time for such nonsense.’

Neither did Sarah, seeing as she now spent
every waking hour behind a shop counter. She noted the sag beginning at her
employer’s jawline and wondered if it would happen to her own. Sarah took care of
herself, but sometimes she wondered why she bothered. Brushing her hair a hundred times
just to sell groceries to housewives. Sometimes Sarah wished she were a man and could
have adventures.

A customer came in and Carmel put on her
shop smile. ‘Ah, Nora, Nora!’

Nora was a faded woman in a blue coat. Her
shoulders were hunched, and her headscarf had slipped over the tops of her glasses. She
took her time, pointing out the various boiled sweets and broken chocolates that her
nephews liked. Her hands were raw knuckled. She reminded Sarah of her aunt Margaret,
Mai’s eldest sister, not so much in stature as in her air of worried kindness. The
woman had Carmel divide the sweets evenly into three paper bags and pop a gobstopper
into each.

‘Now,’ she said to Carmel,
‘will you give one of them bags to that nice new girl?’

Carmel wasn’t pleased but she handed
Sarah the bag of sweets.

‘Thank you very much.’ Sarah was
touched; she put the bag in her pocket.

‘I know what it’s like to be a
blow-in. And speaking of blow-ins, Carmel, you know, I didn’t believe all they
were saying about that dark man –’

‘The herbalist?’

‘Yes, him. I didn’t believe what
they were saying, but he gave me a remedy for my rheumatism, and it has worked
wonders.’

‘He knows his trade.’

‘It’s more than that, Carmel.
We’ve a healer among us now.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Mark my words,’ the woman said
as she left.

‘I will, Nora, I will.’

Carmel turned to Sarah when she was gone.
‘Seems we’ve a miracle man on our hands.’

‘That man’s no
healer.’

‘How would you know, sure you
haven’t even met him? And that’s the least of what they’re saying. Mrs
Cranny said he’s better than any doctor. Mrs Nash claims he knows your heart, can
even read your life. Maybe he’ll foresee a wedding for you, Sarah? Would you like
that?’

‘I’d rather join the convent
than be a wife.’

Carmel reached out and pinched the top of
Sarah’s arm. ‘That’s for your lack of respect for the sacred sacrament
of matrimony.’

Shocked, Sarah ran up to her room. She had
got the impression that they were becoming friends.
You’re not her friend,
you’re her skivvy.
There was a sharp knock and Carmel walked in. She was
carrying a cup of tea, and there was a biscuit on the saucer. She left it on the
mantelpiece. She looked and sounded apologetic but didn’t say sorry.

‘You shouldn’t rile me
so.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

The following morning Sarah worked alone in
the shop. She recognized her first customer – Emily. The girl just stood there without
speaking. She seemed jittery. Sarah filled the silence.

‘I love your blouse.’

‘Oh, thank you. I made it myself; I
can draw you a pattern if you like?’

An elderly woman in a mauve beret passed the
window, and made no bones about stopping and staring in at Sarah.

‘That’s Miss Birdie Chase. She
owns the shop across the road. Mrs Holohan’s not too fond of her, calls her Lady
Chatterley. Birdie’s all right, really, keeps lodgers sometimes, not that she
needs the money. She and her spinster sister own this whole row except Mrs
Holohan’s shop. They love the theatricals. The sister runs a shop the
next town over. Her and Birdie used to go to the shows in the town
hall. Sat right up front every time. Frank Taylor said you could smell the excitement
off them. Guess what the sister is called, go on.’

‘I really wouldn’t
know.’

‘Veronique! Seems they were musical in
their youth. Birdie would take out her harmonica if you asked. You should ask;
she’s not bad. She keeps her harmonica in her trousers pocket. Yes, you heard
right. Trousers! She’s fond of an old puff too, at her age! And to look at her
you’d think she was the plainest driest piece of cake you ever did see.

‘She’s mad about our Charlie.
He’s my brother. He’s nineteen. Always asking after him. “Tell Charlie
to come and see me.” Who does she think she is, Mae West? Most lodgers don’t
stay long. She overcooks everything, a bit forgetful, more money than sense. Her and
Veronique are twins, you should see them together, shrivelled peas in a pod. Both wear
the same gold and red headscarves knotted at the back of their neck instead of under
their chin. Same old birdies, down to the voice. Can’t abide to live together, get
on each other’s nerves, you see. That happens when people are too alike, you know.
They’ve had a big bust-up and they’re not talking. I don’t know why.
Are you listening to me at all?’

‘I am of course, it’s very
interesting. You must know everyone.’

‘That I do.’

Emily put her elbows on the counter and
began to read aloud from the paper without asking Sarah whether she wanted her to or
not.

‘Get this: Mrs Alfred Gwynne
Vanderbilt, a well-known society woman in New York, was selected by the American fashion
academy from twelve of the best-dressed women in the United States as
the
fashion trail blazer!’ She lifted the page to show Sarah a photograph of a gaunt
woman in slacks.

‘She looks like a man,’ Sarah
said.

‘You’re just raging bet she has
a dress for every occasion, instead of one-for-all like you.’ The girl looked
miffed.

A sharp tongue had Emily, and sharp eyes
too.

That night Sarah shivered under her thin
blankets. There was a draught from the fireplace. She heard footsteps on the path
outside, the sound of someone coming near, pausing under her window and moving away
again. Then nothing except the wind whistling in the chimney. The town was too quiet at
night. She was afraid to go asleep. Her nightmares were filled with Hottentots coming
after her with spears, and she kept turning into a chicken with no opening and all her
eggs were building up inside, going off, cracking. A cat’s chorus laughed at the
high notions she used to have
. Where are your fine clothes? Where’s your
jewelleree?

She thought about the farewell party Mai had
prepared. Mai, who’d never had a party in her life. All that food, and drink and
music. It was too much, Sarah had said. But she hadn’t meant it; she was delighted
then. She hadn’t known what was to come.

Oh, why didn’t Mai let Sarah go
quietly, with no fuss, no little sing-song? Before Sarah fell asleep she had the
clearest memory of Mai that night: she was laughing and flinging a wishbone in the air.
Sarah had caught it neatly. Put it on the back of the stove to dry, so she could make a
wish later, when it was all over.