The Herbalist (20 page)

‘His mother ruined him.’

‘Who’d blame her? I’d ruin
him.’

‘Died of a heart attack.’

‘The doctor’s dead?’ I
asked.

‘Whist, child. It’s John
Gilbert, Gilbert’s dead.’

‘Children should be seen and not
heard.’ Mrs Brennan reached out and slapped my hand.

‘He had an operation and got an
infection.’

‘Did not – he had a heart
attack.’

‘He died of an infection, I tell
you!’

‘He would’ve died of old age
waiting to be seen here.’

I got some dirty looks then, because it was
Mam holding some of
them up. I was crying snots from being smacked and
the shock of John Gilbert’s death.

‘Women swooned at his
funeral.’

‘Poor Garbo will kill
herself.’

‘Don’t be sacrilegious in front
of the child.’

‘I saw him once,’ I said,
heartbroken.

‘Will you stop, you’re only a
baba!’

No one paid any heed to my grief at home.
They thought it funny when I lit a few candles for him, hilarious when I asked for money
to get a Mass said for the repose of the soul of John Gilbert. That’s what too
much kissing gets you, Charlie said. Heartless. They hadn’t seen him. They
didn’t know.

Carmel went into the shop to collect the
tin of Aggie’s coins. Dan had insisted they rinse her money. Expected the notes to
be washed too, but she’d rather be damned than hang up pounds to dry. It was a bit
of a fuss, but Aggie was their only customer who didn’t owe a small fortune.

Dan was tightening a hinge on the shutters.
Sarah was on the ladder, taking down a box of caramel creams from the shelf above the
window. She tripped as she put her foot to the floor and Dan reached out and held her
elbow to steady her. Carmel could’ve sworn she saw something pass between them.
Sarah’s stupid smile
and that glance from Dan. If anything happened to
Carmel, that Sarah would be quick as lightning into her house, her kitchen, her bed.
Pictures of them together came to her, smiling into each other’s eyes, whispering
hot I love yous, full of that early sweetness. It made her feel pinched and angry.
Carmel wanted to turn around and slap Dan. He was beaming. Had he the same picture in
his head as she had?

It felt so real – more real than Carmel
standing there beside him, or these past few weeks of tiresome arguing. Or those long
stretches alone while he’d worked across the water. Dan hinted that he might go
again; a lot of the men were. He might be trying to keep her on her toes, or maybe he
was serious. Money was as scarce now as it had been then.

She hadn’t wanted her husband
labouring in England, mixing with all sorts. ‘My year as a widow’, Carmel
called it; eleven months, Dan always corrected her. As if there was a big difference,
though there was. She worried that he’d get more than his hands dirty.
‘It’s only for a few months,’ he had said. It was all Mick
Murphy’s idea. That gobshite was full of great ideas. Though only for Mick, Carmel
mightn’t be married at all. It was he who had met Dan working on a big job in
England and brought him to the town when
it finished up. Carmel and
Dan had been married for only three months when Mick announced there was more work for
them over there.

Every day he was away Carmel missed him
sorely. She couldn’t warm up in bed on her own. She couldn’t find a book to
settle into. The wireless was a poor substitute. Dan sent a few bob, but there was no
sign of him coming home. Carmel wrote she was going over. He wrote back,
‘Don’t be daft.’

She went so far as to go to the
chemist’s to get her photo taken for a Travel Identity card. Stood stiffly in
front of the hump-backed tripod with her hair coiffed, trying to look jolly in case
people started to talk.

‘A holiday, Carmel?’

‘That’s right, Mr
Martin.’

As she left, she heard him laughing to his
assistant – another one off to bring the husband home from England. Dan must’ve
got wind of her activities, because he was back within a fortnight.

She’d never forget the sight of him in
the doorway. His hair was shorn and his nose was sunburnt; he dropped his case and
opened his arms. He smelt of a soap she didn’t own. ‘My little wren,’
he whispered into her neck, as he squeezed her and lifted her high. Then, as if caught
unawares by his own affection, he started to cry.

It was through Lizzie that Carmel heard
about the lodgings the men had shared in London. Mick, the big eejit, told her
everything. Seemed the landlady had mixed lodgings, men and women. Mick’s rip of a
mother could barely conceal her excitement.

‘Delia was her name. And get this, Mrs
Holohan, she allowed women to lodge under the same roof as our fine men.’

‘Who on earth are you talking
about?’

‘The landlady across the water. Where
my Mick and your Dan and half the town stayed, stayed with fallen women, and their
offspring to boot. Widows, Mick said they called themselves. Aye, tin rings and
imaginary husbands.’

‘I highly doubt it,’ Carmel
replied; ‘my Dan wouldn’t stay a second in such a place.’

‘Ah, when in Rome …’ Lizzie
Murphy flashed a gummy grin.

Carmel had quizzed Dan.

‘Old gummy-face told me all about that
blowzy British bitch.’

‘Stop it,’ Dan said, looking
wounded. ‘She was a decent woman, and charged very reasonable rates.’

That infuriated Carmel.

‘There were female lodgers! Did you
meet them over breakfast? Oh, I can just see it: “Pass the buttermilk, you
trollop.” You wouldn’t tolerate the carry-on of that here!’

‘The rules are different over
there.’

‘Decency is decency, no matter where
you are.’

She tortured Dan and herself with questions
for months after. She’d say ‘Go back to London’ or ‘You’re
not in London now’, sounding just like her mother.

‘You deserted me.’

‘I sent a wage. Lots of men do
it.’

He would stand up and leave the room before
she could really get going.

Carmel thought she should tread easily this
time round. Maybe the glance between her husband and the shop girl was a figment of her
imagination. She didn’t want Dan scooting off to London.

‘Come into the back, Mr
Holohan,’ she said softly.

Dan looked up and smiled; she led him into
the kitchen and sat him down at the table. She took her husband’s hand.

‘Are you happy with me,
Dan?’

‘Don’t talk like that. Sure
isn’t everything grand? Aren’t we as happy as anyone else, on the
pig’s back?’

What pig’s back? How were they grand?
He bore her moodiness, the tears and the odd night sucking from the bottle. And she bore
him daily, for nearly everything he said nowadays chilled her.

‘Look, Carmel, aren’t we glad
enough? We’re moving towards happy, no different to anyone else.’ Dan rubbed
her hand and glanced towards the window.

‘I nearly forgot poor Eliza;
she’ll be wanting her feed.’

Carmel watched him leave. Maybe he was
right. Who’d be completely happy living like church mice all waiting to have fun
in the next life?

She called Sarah in, gave her a few bob and
sent her off to buy some stamps and envelopes at the post office – told her to take her
time. She hoped there was a queue. Carmel didn’t want stamps but she wanted the
time. She went into the shop to take over. The place wasn’t empty for more than a
second. The constant clattering of the bell as customers came in and out began to get on
her nerves. She wedged the shop door open, unhooked the bell and placed it on the
counter. Dan appeared, mentioned getting some timber for a bookshelf and went out on to
the street. Every now and then Dan would talk about building her a bookshelf; he would
even make drawings and ask her where she’d like him to put it; but the bookshelf
itself never materialized, probably never would. Time flew by – it was busy but Carmel
could do it in her sleep. Maybe her health was returning.

It was nice to work alone again. There was
something about Sarah. The air changed when she was about. The girl was a good worker
and people had taken to her, though they still asked after Emily – who would have
thought it? There were two old ones in today, wanting to drop off clothes for mending.
Carmel sent them on their way. Even Grettie B, the biggest snob in town, said she missed
her, even missed her inane chattering.

Carmel had begun to tot up the
afternoon’s takings when she felt, rather than saw, Sarah come back in. She was
radiant from being outdoors. Carmel excused herself and went through to the kitchen,
half hoping that one day soon Sarah would slip out the back door with the silverware
like serving girls were meant to.

It was chilly despite the evening sun, so
Carmel threw on her mother’s ancient brown fur. It had hung for decades on the
back door. By now the pocket had torn from the weight of her trowel. She must mend it.
She carried the small stool out into the garden. There were so many noises – blackbirds,
thrushes and a pigeon’s low cooing. The carrots were doing well, their ferny
fronds upright and shy. Eliza trotted over, expecting a treat, nudging a damp nose into
Carmel’s empty palm. She circled her feet like an excited puppy. Dan should sell
Eliza before she forgot she was a pig altogether. Carmel led the animal to her pen and
tied the gate before strolling towards the end of the garden.

She set her stool in the long grass by the
back hedge and sat down. Her back and belly ached. The rosebush was bare of flowers,
except for one stem that leant to the ground with the weight of two pink roses. A bumble
bee sailed from lavender stem to lavender stem, till one by one they nodded from its
attentions. She thought of her baby, his body in the earth, his soul in limbo – all she
wanted to do was to wrap some warmth around him. She recited Hail Marys through her
tears. She recited the Guardian Angel prayer. Then she sat in silence and listened to
the birds.

A dream returned from last night. Dan had
something to tell her, something important. She was at the basin rinsing dishes; he had
walked into the room and was watching her. He was preserving the seconds before he told
her something, something that would make her whole world come crashing down. So the
Carmel in the dream didn’t turn around; she just washed and washed the one white
plate, squeezing the sudsy dishcloth around its rim, circling in towards the centre and
out again, determined to wash that plate for ever. That was all she could remember.

Was this all there was going to be of their
marriage? A life half lived, love half given? She thought of all the foul words that had
been hurled relentlessly back and forth between them, of having nothing worth holding
close to her heart. Except for hope. She felt a sharp pain then, the pain that came with
every blood time, every month. It was back. She would go to the herbalist that
night.

Carmel hurried along. The moon moved behind
clouds till the houses, bridge and river flushed dark and melted into the blackness.
Rain washed her eyes, her cheeks, dripped from her hair on to the back of her neck. She
had left Dan dozing by the fire and would have to be home before he woke. As she walked,
she tried to loosen the stopper on the small glass bulb, to save time, but the rain ran
over her hands till they were blue knuckled and numb. She stopped at the entrance to the
alleyway to check that no one was around. Carmel realized that she was still wearing her
slippers, down at heel and sodden. Thank God for the dark. Suddenly she felt old – old
and desperate.

She ducked into the alley, ran to his doorway.
Gave it two short raps. Waited. Knocked again. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark,
she saw that there’d be no answer; there was a padlock on the grey door. She
yanked it, but it wouldn’t budge. Where was he? What about her, what about her
treatment?

As she shoved the empty bottle back into her
pocket, her fingers touched a wet handkerchief – she was soaked through. Carmel walked
back the way she had come, her heart pacing, her teeth chattering, ashamed and in naked
torment for all to see. In the depths of her pocket, she clutched the empty bottle – it
felt like a tiny skull.

You found the herbalist, didn’t
you, Aggie, after he was beaten? They said he was barely breathing, and that his own
cures brought him back from the brink
.

Not a bit of it: he wasn’t next nor
near death. That lad never missed an opportunity to advertise his own wares. But it was
me who found him all right. Curled up on his own doorstep. His face drenched red. It
took a while to find his key in the pool of blood, but I did and then I dragged him
inside. Do you know what he said as I wiped his face? ‘Who did it, Aggie?’
As if I would know. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

‘I saw nothing,’ said I, taking
a snort of snuff. ‘I heard a racket, looked out and saw you lying in the gutter.
Your old head’s sliced. A bottle, I’d say. Why would anyone do
that?’