The Healer: a dark family drama

by Sharon Thompson

  Her feet are on the stairs now, as I hear the puffing of her and then she’s in the room with me. Her socks are ripped more and the hatred dripping off her.

  ‘NOT ONE excuse did you give! Not one reason for what happened. It’s like you don’t care!’

  I’m on the floor now trying to get under the bed with its bad springs and she’s stomping nearer with each word. ‘Not one fucking care do you have for us. All you care about is Molly McCarthy. You won’t even talk to anyone other than – himself. The great man of the house! The fecker who thinks you’re the bees’ knees and soooooo beautiful. Who made you beautiful? WHO? You, the wee bitch who burned the hole off me when you came out and ruined my innards so no other baby would grow in there, until now. This baby better be all right I can tell you! I can tell you here and now this baby better be normal. It’s all your fault if it’s not! It will be your fault! YOU who took the best years off me and you who doesn’t give one shit about your mother who brought you to life.’

  She’s trouncing her fists off any part of me that she can find. Hailing the words out in wails.

  I’m supposed to put up with it. ‘Children must respect their elders and try to please them,’ Daddy says.

  I want her to die. I know it’s wrong but with me pains, I just want her to die and leave me alone. The baby is suffering, I can tell. I don’t know how I do it but I grab her wrist and pull it backwards. She howls. I hold her shoulder and drag her off me. Leaning on the bed her belly faces up at me. The angels tell me that the beauty of her is caked in tears and fear.

  ‘Stop it,’ I tell her. ‘The baby. Please.’

  The panting of her eases for a few breaths. I feel her nod as I can’t look at her face again. I scuttle away over into the corner and sit on my hunkers and wait.

  ‘You’re always right, aren’t you Molly? Always in control. All knowing.’

  ‘No,’ I whisper.

  ‘And yet you know nothing at all. You know nothing! You’re not able to read or write despite all the schooling you get. Two schools and not learning at all. Ya can only speak a few sentences! Won’t look anyone in the eye either and hold your ears like you’re doing now. You’re just trouble for us all – that’s what you are. Sweet Jesus we are tortured with you.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I mutter, cause I am sorry that I’m not able to reach her air and… make her stop.

  ‘Sorry?’ she asks. I can hear her shuffle up to sit on the side of the bed. The springs make a noise and she stares on at me. ‘Sorry?’ she says, slower this time. ‘What are you sorry for? Making us the laughing stock of the whole county of Sligo? Are you sorry for having no sense of anything at all? Are you sorry for not being able to read and write or play like the other children? You’re not normal. Are you sorry about that? No, you are not one bit sorry! What are YOU sorry for Molly, eh? Which shit are you sorry for?’ She whispers the last line and I look at her. Despite her beautiful face, the air is tighter and coiled around her like a snake. ‘You know, don’t you, that he doesn’t love you like he loves me? I’m a woman. His woman.’

  ‘Who?’ I mutter, thinking she means the Lord himself.

  ‘You know who!’ She’s crying. I can hear her sobbing through the fingers over my ears. I don’t know what she’s on about any more. I just know if I say anything, it always gets worse. Much worse. The rocking I do also drives her over the edge of reason, but I must be doing it as she wails, ‘DON’T FOR THE LOVE of GOD start that rockin’! Ya hear me? He loves me! ME! It was me he wanted until you came along. Me, who knows what you make him do. It’s me who’s carrying his child now. Me, who will survive all of this. Me, who won’t be laughed at for being barren or bearing a halfwit.’

  The good things the shadows talk about mustn’t be coming, as Mammy’s definitely the worst she’s ever been. There’s no sign of the shadows even coming to help me or tell me what to do.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say louder this time. It’s all I know that might work.

  She’s standing over me and she stamps her foot and the floorboards make dust. ‘You will be sorry. You sure will be fuckin sorry.’

  3

  There is no word of me getting dinner even though I can smell the cabbage and bacon all the way up the stairs. There are loud voices but I cover my ears and fall asleep. Daddy didn’t come to beat me. She will be queer cross with us both.

  It is dark now and me awake and shivering from the bitter cold. The nuns call it winter and the men years ago, who tried to take ‘the devils out of me’, said it was the best time for all the badness to be stopped. The winter and cold kills off all badness.

  I lie now shivering, hoping the Lord will make me die and make my life better. Treasa and the ones like her say that heaven’s where they will go when they die, but that I’ll go to hell with the demons.

  The shadows tell me there’s goodness in me and that brighter days are a-coming. They’re always right. They might mean that I’d go to heaven now? Even though Treasa says I’ll never go there because I’m not pure. I’ll find heaven, though. I know I could get there when I try hard enough. I can make myself pure – whatever that is.

  The shadows don’t know what a ‘halfwit’ is, as they don’t let me know what it means. I only get told what’s important and that’s not a lot sometimes. I know, though, that I must look out for a bearded man. A man with a nice beard will save me someday. I trust the shadows. They’ve been ‘righter’ than anyone. The shadows are not here now, though. No matter how much I squint my eyes down to the left and right trying to see them, they don’t come. If there’s a bearded man coming, where is he? Where is the something that must be bringing the good things? I know Jesus has a beard, so maybe that’s who I am waiting on. If dying of the cold is what I have to do, then so be it.

  The dying is taking a long time and the shivering is worse now. Even closing my eyes doesn’t help the death sleep that folks talk about. I crawl more under the blanket in my clothes and whisper to the saints and the Lord himself.

  Daddy wakens me.

  He moves a curl and places it out on the bed. My long hair is never matted. That annoys Mammy too. She complains, ‘She never needs to even brush it. Like some sort of magical child.’

  He has the look that he wants me to do the healing on him. I close my eyes again and want away.

  ‘It’ll all be better when the baby comes?’ he whispers. ‘Won’t it?’

  I nod and keep my eyes closed tight as tight can be.

  ‘What do you know about the baby? Is it going to be all right?’ he whispers, and then we hear Mammy on the stairs. ‘Just checking on Molly,’ I hear him tell her, as he races to the door to have it ajar. He is pretending there’s nothing in his head, as usual. I learn lots from Daddy about play-acting.

  ‘She doesn’t need anything. That biddy doesn’t need us at all.’ Her voice is full of anger.

  I cry at that. The sobs make my hair wet and the mattress under my cheeks gets damp. Even me, who knows nothing at all, knows I need a mammy’s love. The shadows come to hold me, they touch my hair and pat my shoulder, but it’s not the same. Their little fingers run through my hair to soothe me.

  They tell me that my voice is for me to use carefully and my gift is to heal those who need it, but I must save myself and my heart from the badness that’s everywhere. I should shield my goodness and hide it deep inside me, then no-one can harm it or me. When the time is right, I will know what to do and when to use my few words.

  I won’t tell Daddy what I think I know about the baby coming. He doesn’t care about what happened to me at school or the pains I have from Mammy’s beating. All he cares about is this son of his in her belly and the money I can make him for the porter. Sitting up tall on the bed, the breath of me is like smoke and the holes in my blanket get moved around, and that makes my feet stick out the bottom. Even in my boots, my toes are cold. I yank up the socks a bit, thinking it will help.

  My little friends come to me. I see them down and to the right and left of my eyes. They si
t and wait on me to notice them off to the side. They are in this world but they’re not here as well. It’s hard to explain. They are just forms of light and shade, but they tell me that I’m part of them too. My chest is heavy with the sadness in me but, slowly, with every swipe of their love through my hair, the tangles lift away. Inside me, they tell me that I am whole and will stay that way if I remember to heal myself. They tell me that no matter what, they will always be with me. But… they don’t promise me much when I ask about the better days.

  I ask, too, about how long these good days will stay. A day can be a short time or a long time. I know that better than most. A day of thumping and whacking from Mammy can last months and on the trains with just Daddy and me, they can be as quick as a blink.

  My heart hurts even when I hold where I think it is. I feel it thump when I hold my hand there. I heal it as best as I can myself. I worry that when my udders grow, they will kill the goodness inside in my heart, like the udders killed the goodness in Mammy and all the others. There’s no-one I know with them that’s kind. There’s no sign of the mounds growing yet. I have time and, sure, there’s no point in ‘going up to the meet the rain’. But there’s something huge bothering me about the night.

  Death is coming. I know it is. I pray that it takes me and hurries up about it. At least if I go to hell, I’d be a damn sight less cold.

  My knees roll up to meet my chin and like the hedgehog Daddy showed me once, I stay curled up and pull my hair around my face to keep me warm. I can tell now that dying must not be coming for me, because it’s a whole lot harder to die, than I thought it was. Thinking and willing it to happen isn’t enough, as my eyes close in sleep.

  It isn’t the morning, but there’s noise and then Daddy’s shouting at me.

  ‘Mind your mother. I’m off to get help.’

  I go to the door of their room.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch me with those hands of yours,’ she hollers at me from the bed at the far wall, when I peek in to see what’s the matter with her. I know I’m not allowed in their room, unless I’m sweeping about the boards and lifting the piss-pot from under the bed.

  I’ve no notion of going in any further. There’s no want in me to touch her. I stay where I am and start my humming to clear the air. It drives her silly, but I know by the panting she’s at that she’s not fit to move off the bed. ‘Stop that cursed humming! For Christ’s sake! I cannot take the sight of you. I told him not to call you. I want none of you or those healing hands of yours.’

  I’m happy that she’s in pain because I still have the bruises from her. It’s her innards that are hurting her, pushing the boy out too soon. The screams out of her are long and loud. I’m sure the neighbours up the lane won’t be happy and it’s the middle of the night. She’s up on her knees, her back to me and her holding on to the railings at the head of the bed. There’s blood on her nightie and there’s more soaking into it. I could stop that, but I hum on.

  ‘I’m going to die,’ she says at me without turning around. ‘It was all that annoyance from you today. You are the one who did this to me.’

  The air is clearing in the room despite her bad chat and I stop my song. She’s sweating in the cold, even the back of her lovely dark hair is wet. I wouldn’t want to see an animal like her suffering, but there’s little I can do.

  ‘God, don’t let me die here like this. The baby…’ she whispers turning around. The pretty face of her changes to someone I don’t know and she pleads at me. ‘Don’t let me die, Molly. Save the baby, please?’

  I don’t think she’s ever spoken to me so nicely before. She beckons me to her and I obey. She holds my sleeves with her bloodied hands and pulls me into her. She smells funny and is all wet with tears, sweat and blood. My hands go to her belly, because that’s where they need to be. Her breath eases and she leans on me. Her head leans on my shoulder and me rubbing the baby boy inside her telling him all the time with my soul, that it is going to be all right.

  ‘That feels better. What you’re doing is helping,’ Mammy admits through her weak voice. ‘I don’t know what to do. I can’t bear the thoughts of what’s happening.’

  ‘Dying ain’t so bad,’ I tell her. She grips my arms so tightly I think she will break them. She didn’t want to really believe she was leaving this earth. I tell her, ‘I knew death was coming, but I thought it might take me.’

  She pushes me out from her but keeps a hold of my arms. Staring deep into my eyes, she begs me with every morsel in her, ‘Don’t let the night take the baby. Please. Save the baby.’

  ‘I’ll save him,’ I say looking down at the swollen mass of him before he’s truly living. ‘I’ll save the baby… But Mammy, I’m going to let death come and take you.’

  4

  There’s a whole lot of fuss when Daddy comes home with the birthing woman. They had to send out for the doctor because they were all too late in coming back. There’s a whole lot of whispering about this and that.

  The baby boy is out of Mammy. It came out as she fell forward on her hands in the bed. It came out of her arse. I knew to lift it, wipe it in the clean towel. I knew, too, to bite the cord that tied him to her and use the bread-knife. It was hard to do but the baby was breathing and as she lay back her own breathing got less raspy. I needed our baby boy away quickly from her, before the death came to take her soul.

  ‘Little Molly probably stopped Nancy’s bleeding,’ Daddy is explaining to the birthing woman and Dr Brady. ‘Molly’s got the gift, you see. She stopped the blood. Why did Nancy die, though? Why’s my Nancy not living?’

  The birthing woman shakes her head and the doctor peels the baby out of my arms. He makes our baby cry. I’m crying, too, cause my face is wet.

  ‘A child, though,’ the doctor is saying. ‘How did she know what to do?’

  Daddy’s hands are on top of what hair he has and he’s looking down at the dead woman on his bed. ‘She shouldn’t have had to do anything. It all happened so fast. The poor critter. I left to get help. I thought I had time. It all came on her so fast. Nancy knew she was dying. She said it to me before I left, but I thought it was just the pain of it. Sweet Christ of Almighty, what’s a man to do now?’

  ‘She’s got bruises on her face,’ the doctor mentions and I see him staring at me, instead of Mammy and the baby. He’s not sure what to think about me. There’s whimpering coming from the naked little fellow who’s back in my arms.

  ‘His mickey’s cold,’ I tell the doctor and point at the precious little life Mammy left us. ‘Mammy is gone with death now. We need to bury her before she starts to smell.’

  Daddy starts explaining about me being a halfwit. I go to the drawer with the baby things that I know Mammy wrapped in tissue paper and start to cover the little fellow in the tiny clothes.

  Dr Brady stands and says, ‘Blessed be the life and death before me.’

  The birthing woman is back with the hot water from the range downstairs and she motions for us all to leave the room until ‘she cleans up’.

  ‘I’ve got no teets for the feeding,’ I tell the woman and she nods for me to go on out. The door clicks closed. Me and baby watch the men’s backs go down the stairs.

  Daddy reaches into the sideboard and his arm goes in a long ways and without looking his hand comes back with the whiskey bottle. He pulls the stopper with his teeth and takes two mugs in his fist from the dresser. The glug of the whiskey always makes me worry. He starts to make no sense when he’s pouring whiskey into the mug and himself. The doctor’s eyes haven’t left me. They both are at the whiskey, so I snuggle the baby into me, until I see that I’m covered in blood too. The front of my dress, my nails and my wrists even. I’m dirtying the baby with it too.

  ‘It’s on your face,’ the doctor says. ‘Around your mouth. Did you bite through it?’

  I know he means the gristly string that kept the baby tied to Mammy. I nod.

  ‘And what did you say about the bleeding and her stopping it?’ he asks.
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br />   Daddy’s about to start on about that but there’s a thumping on the door and the men in uniform step in the back door.

  The paleness of Daddy goes whiter still and with them being ‘sorry for our loss’ and shaking hands. Myself and baby are ignored until the men go upstairs to check that Mammy’s gone with death. They nod and do a whole pile of blessing themselves and saying what a great woman she was. There’s a few questions about who was with her and what-not but no-one asks me much. Daddy does the explaining even though he wasn’t even here and has no idea what happened.

  ‘Molly is a bit simple. But she has the healing gifts. I left her here while I went for the experts. She’s a great help to her mother and…’ he stops and does a bit of a cough. ‘She was a great help to her sweet mother and, for the love of all that’s holy, has anyone any notion what happened to my Nancy?’

  ‘Childbirth is a dangerous business,’ a voice in the room says. I’m busy minding the baby soothing him with my finger and feeling his mouth suck around the tip of it. His dark eyes are wide and big like saucers in his scrunched-up face. His nose is like a button and his lips soft like his cheeks and chin.

  ‘What happened, Molly?’ It’s the doctor’s voice. What a clever man he is. I’m the one that knows.

  ‘She doesn’t speak much at the best of times,’ Daddy starts but the doctor hushes him and asks me the same question again.

  ‘It’s safe to tell us, Molly. It might help to tell us what happened to your poor, sweet mother. Be good to let it all out now. You’ve been through a lot. Seeing that baby come out and all. How’s about you tell us now what you saw?’