The Pharmacist's Wife

by Vanessa Tait

  ‘She is in her room,’ said Jenny.

  Rebecca twisted the key and began to speak as she walked through the door: ‘I told Jenny I would be resting only then I decided to go out.’

  ‘Out? And at this hour!’

  ‘Just – to take the air. It is a lovely evening.’ Rebecca looked back, as if for confirmation, at the lime tree, ruffling its leaves in the breeze.

  Alexander smiled, showing his small white teeth. ‘Strange that a maid should not know her mistress’s whereabouts.’

  ‘Not really, I think. She has been out herself, for it is her afternoon off.’

  ‘You took a bag with you,’ said Alexander.

  ‘I thought I might need to take something, in my condition, even for a short walk.’ She clasped the carpet bag tighter under her arm.

  ‘Such a large bag seems unnecessary.’ He stared as if he could see through the sides of it. Rebecca spread her hand, the thread of the carpet hot under her palm.

  ‘Do you not know what happens if you over-exert yourself?’

  ‘Yes, you have told me—’

  ‘See how your breath labours? Menstruation is a disease and someone with a disease ought not to leave their bed. You have not the blood to support it.’

  And now Mr Badcock stepped into the hallway from the parlour, nodding his head and smiling. ‘The future of our race depends on it, hmmm? Even you, Jenny, yes, even the servant class, if they are British, are good daughters of Albion and must take care in the same way. Do you, Jenny?’

  ‘Do I what, sir?’

  ‘Do you take care of yourself?’

  ‘I – I haven’t long started it, sir.’

  He moved towards her. ‘Speak up, I cannot hear you!’

  ‘She says she has only just begun to be a woman,’ said Rebecca, moving to put herself between Jenny and him.

  ‘Even more important then! Oh Jenny …’ He took a step to the side so he could still see her, his hands drumming on his belly. ‘If you exert yourself in your menses, either physically or mentally, say by reading – though I expect you cannot read, can you?’

  Rebecca and Jenny glanced at each other. Rebecca gave a tiny shake of her head.

  ‘No,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Let us into the parlour, John,’ said Alexander, growing impatient, ‘for I have business with my wife.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to your room, Jenny?’ said Rebecca, adding under her breath, ‘And lock the door.’

  ‘A good girl that, Alexander, eh?’ said Mr Badcock, smoothing his beard.

  ‘Too young,’ said Alexander shortly. ‘And too idle. You have put me off my stride, John.’

  ‘Your stride, Alexander? Your stride is a very good one. Very direct, as I always think.’

  ‘Well,’ said Alexander, ‘you have put me off it. I do not think the reproductive organs of servant girls are important. They breed like rats.’

  ‘Well, who or rather what do they breed, eh? More of themselves, that is the answer. Low types. The race needs to be raised up.’

  ‘Someone needs to clean the grate, John, and would you rather it be my wife?’

  Rebecca had still not had a chance to put down her carpet bag. Sweat stuck her dress to her ribcage.

  ‘I don’t think it has been blackened this week. Look here.’ Alexander ran his finger across the fireplace. ‘I think the maid is idle.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Mr Badcock.

  ‘And the Turkey carpet has not been beaten for over a month,’ Alexander carried on. ‘It holds the dirt of all of Edinburgh in it. I will beat it, since you and the maid lack will, and the strength. Where is the stick?’

  ‘Beat it now?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Where is the stick?’

  ‘But it is nearly dark!’

  ‘Come now, Alexander,’ said Mr Badcock, with a smile on his face. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I can do it with a broom handle, fetch me that.’

  ‘A broom handle?’ said Rebecca, her heart starting to thump.

  ‘The house is full of dust. The fires are not lit. Get me the broom.’

  When Rebecca returned to the parlour with the broom Alexander had rolled up the Turkey rug and put it under one arm. ‘Come, John,’ he said. ‘Here she is.’

  ‘But the air has a chill to it!’ Mr Badcock cried. ‘I do not want to go outside.’

  ‘You may find it – amusing.’

  ‘You are not known for your humour, Alexander, as I am,’ Mr Badcock said. ‘Let me see, then. But I must fetch my scarf.’

  Outside darkness had almost fallen and windows up and down the street flared with brightness. Alexander unrolled the rug with a snap and began to haul it over the spikes of the railings. But it was awkward, the spikes caught on the nap and it would not go on.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he said peevishly, dropping the rug and holding his hand to his chest. ‘I have caught myself on the iron. The paint is flaking.’

  ‘It can be dreadfully sharp, if you should happen to get a flake of it under your nail, yes?’

  ‘This is woman’s work! Get the rug in place, will you, wife?’

  Rebecca bent down and tried to pull the rug over the spikes. It would not come. One last bird, confused by the lamps, still sung out. ‘Like this?’

  ‘No, said Alexander. ‘Over the railings, not hanging like that.’

  ‘I had a note from my banker today,’ remarked Mr Badcock. ‘I have put the greatest part of my fortune into this venture, as you know. He does not approve, but I told him that it was bound to be a success. Yes?’

  ‘I hardly see how it can fail. I have never been more certain.’

  ‘Like this?’ said Rebecca. Sweat blossomed down the sides of her dress where her corset gripped her.

  ‘Further over. The two sides ought to be even.’

  ‘Yes, yes; that is what I told him. We shall all be rich!’

  ‘That will do,’ said Alexander. ‘Now, John, do you see how to beat a rug?’

  ‘You will show me, I think, yes?’ He clasped his hands.

  Alexander raised the broom high over his head and brought it down. His bowler hat tipped backwards with the effort and a cloud of dust rose from the rug. Mr Badcock pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and sneezed into it.

  The crack bounced backwards and forwards between the houses like something solid. Surely it would bring everyone out of their homes!

  Alexander brought the broom handle down again. ‘And you continue to beat it until it is clean,’ he said, wiping off his brow. ‘Rugs are like wives in that respect.’

  ‘Hee hee, dear boy, I see your purpose now. Only—’

  He brought the stick down again. Thwack, thwack! The violence of it flattened Rebecca against the wall. P’raps it would wake somebody, and they would come out and complain, and Alexander would have to stop.

  ‘Only I do wish I had not got so dirty in the process. See now, I am going to sneeze again.’ Mr Badcock gave another hiccough into his handkerchief.

  Rebecca shrank further back into the shadows. Her breath rose around her in clouds.

  ‘It is lucky I am strong. For this rug is quite the worst I have ever come across.’

  ‘Yes, yes; oh very good!’ Mr Badcock said.

  ‘But I will go at it again, because it needs it, would you not agree, John?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes!’

  Alexander worked at the rug, putting his weight into the task, grimacing, narrowing his eyes. Rebecca found she was shivering. She tried to move back towards the house, but Alexander saw it and called her forward.

  ‘What are you doing back there? When all this is for your benefit!’ He brought the stick down with another grunt. ‘I must say I am enjoying this more than I thought!’

  ‘The benefits of exercise, Alexander, can never be underestimated.’

  Alexander smashed it down again, but this, at last, was too hard. ‘Look now, I have broken the broom handle. You had best order another from the hardware store tomorrow. Yo
u can run to that, can you, Rebecca?’

  Rebecca licked her lips. ‘May I go in now?’

  ‘I am tired. You may bring the carpet in and set it back in its usual place. Let us go inside, John, I need some refreshment.’

  But all the beating had pushed the rug so firmly onto the spikes that no matter how hard Rebecca tugged, it would not come free. She felt like weeping. She tried pulling on it from every angle, until her hands burned, but it was too big. Eventually she sat on the step and put her head on her knees.

  A minute passed, maybe more.

  The door opened again. Rebecca jumped up with a start. ‘Oh, Jenny, thank God, it is only you!’

  ‘What has happened? What did he do?’

  ‘Will you help me, Jenny? I must get the carpet off the railings.’

  Jenny nodded. She did not ask why it was on there.

  ‘My husband’s idea,’ Rebecca swallowed, then sniffed, ‘of a joke.’

  They worked together to free the Turkey rug; between them both it came off all right. Then they rolled it up and took one end each. At the door Rebecca listened out for the men. They were in the parlour; she heard the sound of another drink being poured.

  ‘Bring it in here please!’ called Alexander. ‘And roll it out. Now we may walk upon it without dirtying our feet.’

  The wood was slippery and it was hard to get the rug straight in the silence with the men’s eyes at their backs. It slid about on the floorboards like a live thing.

  ‘A little to the left, Jenny, I think,’ said Mr Badcock. ‘A little further towards me.’

  ‘I can do it on my own now, thank you, Jenny,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Yes, that will do,’ said Alexander. ‘For it is time for your medicine, wife. Do you feel the need of it?’

  ‘Medicine,’ Rebecca said. ‘Yes, I have need of medicine. I am feeling weak.’

  ‘And this,’ he held out the blue bottle, ‘shall make you strong. Let us go upstairs. You are in your menses after all.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Rebecca settled herself as quickly as she could, trying to calm her breath and the beating of her heart. She had run to put back the shoe where she had found it and hidden the carpet bag back in her room, but when Alexander came in he had his own black bag in his hand, and he set it down now, to unfasten it.

  ‘The neuralgia has not returned?’

  ‘The remedy you gave me quite cleared it up.’

  ‘Yes, it is a powerful remedy, as I told you.’

  ‘But it has worn off.’ She thought of Gabe then, and his freckled arm, and longed for it.

  ‘That is to be expected,’ said Alexander. ‘Even the best remedies wear off. Is there an ache at the womb’s neck?’ He pulled up his sleeve and palpated her stomach.

  ‘Yes. And I feel dizzy.’ Both were true, and easy to say.

  ‘And in your mind, how are you?’ He looked at her. His cheeks were flushed, his hair was dark, his lips were red. He was very handsome.

  Rebecca bit her lip. ‘My mind has been better.’

  ‘Continued use of the medicine would do you very well, then.’ Alexander shook out the salts onto his scales. ‘A smaller dose this time, I think, as the pain is not as acute.’ He took out the smallest weight and adjusted it until the scales hung evenly, then tipped the salts into a glass of water.

  Rebecca reached out for it, the ruby in her engagement ring catching in the light.

  ‘Now, now! It is not all dissolved.’ Alexander agitated it some more and held it before his eyes. ‘There. Now you may have it.’

  This time the taste was worse for the water was not flavoured and struck at the back of her throat. But the wrongness to her would soon be made right, so she drank it all down.

  After the first rush of warmth into her chest Rebecca lay back. The space between physical and mental had melted away: the feeling in her body corresponded exactly with the feeling in her mind.

  Oh, but the release of anxiety, ’twas better than anything! Only now that the rippling-out darkness smoothed out from the centre of her did she realize what she usually endured. If only her skin did not itch so, and the very tip of her nose! She had made it raw with scratching.

  Never mind.

  Never mind.

  Never mind.

  Down she sinks, and further down.

  ‘We have been down here since morning. I am hungry! And I think they will begin to miss us.’

  ‘There is nothing unusual about spending the day together on the beach. Stay a moment longer, please.’ Gabe puts his head to one side and blinks up at her.

  ‘Ah, all right then!’

  ‘And kiss me, just here.’ He points to his nose.

  She leans forward. ‘There, your nose is wet! I knew it. Y’are a dog.’

  ‘Aye,’ say Gabriel, ‘say it again.’ He tickles her between the ribs.

  She gets her knee up and pushes him away, gasping. ‘Now I will have you!’ She pushes him back and sits across his chest. He breathes up and down hard on purpose and she feels as if she is riding a whale.

  They are in a space between two great rocks. Far away the sea rushes onto the beach and off again in a great many layers of sound. It is chilly and damp and seaweed clings to the walls.

  ‘I saved a boy, did you know? Look, I have the scars to prove it,’ he says, holding out his arm.

  ‘Those marks there – that look like dots?’

  ‘They are not dots! They go very deep. They are the marks that pins make when they are stuck in wax and thrown. They were not meant for me, they were meant for Fontmell—’

  ‘Fontmell?’

  ‘A poor wee boy, always bullied. But I put out my arm, and stopped them. Do you see how deep they go?’

  ‘Y’are very brave, Gabriel,’ she says, laughing at him. But he is cross and turns away and she must chase him and kiss him again to bring him round. She is not surprised to find that his lips taste of the sea. His tongue, as she takes it into her mouth, is cold. Even though she has kissed him like this before, his moustache is fuller this time and it tickles her. Though it is not wiry but soft, as soft as a girl’s hair. She pulls back to stare at him, as if by staring she can see through him, beyond his bones.

  But he still looks to be the same Gabe as ever – though he is flushed and his reddish hair is sprightly with sand. His breath is as hot, it warms her face. As he gets closer her heart grows tighter, and then he puts his lips on her bottom lip as lightly as the wind skates from a seagull’s wing, but even so she thinks her heart will get crushed by it. Softly he draws her lip into his mouth and sucks on it. She opens her mouth to put her tongue on his – to play, she thinks, a game. But when their tongues meet they start to kiss in earnest, their mouths open, each one’s hand on the other’s breast.

  Rebecca is surprised to find muscle where a few months ago there had been only bone. She wants to feel his skin. She draws back and fumbles with his waistcoat until it flaps open. But when she looks up at him he is smiling.

  ‘What are you trying to do, freeze me to death?’

  Overhead the ragged laugh of a seagull.

  She falters. ‘I only meant to … to touch you.’

  But, ‘Here then,’ he says, and undoes buttons of his shirt quickly and then his collar and looks about for a place to put it.

  She takes the collar from him and throws it on a rock, where it curls again. When she turns back she finds she is afraid to look at his face, afraid that something will be revealed in hers. She looks instead at his ribs and his chest, with its little bit of hair, and the size of him blots out everything.

  Now he comes to her and starts to unbutton her gown, only his hands are shaking so much that he manages only three or four buttons before she puts them down on either side of her waist. But her own hands are shaking almost as much and she cannot force the tiny hoops over their mother-of-pearl buttons, they are held in place just as surely as an anchor. Gabe pulls open a few more, one of them comes off and falls away lost into the sand, but he must st
ill unhook the eyes from her corset and she must pull away from him to let him do it and now the thought strikes her again: how strange to be getting undressed here in between the rocks that have the air of a haunted house! And she almost falters, only now he has her corset unhooked at last and she can breathe in the air in great green gulps. But she feels too free, and is about to put her arm about her waist, until he pulls up her chemise without bothering to unbutton it and plants his hand underneath it on her bare breast.

  And she realizes that the only familiar thing here is Gabe.

  She wants him to touch her, not softly, but to knead her and press on her. She kisses him again, hard, and pushes against him. He pushes his tongue into her mouth. His hand cups her breast, then pulls and tugs at one nipple, then the other. His thigh presses and presses between her legs.

  She is liquid, she is water; she wants to throw her skirts over her knee and feel him there. She wants him to put his hand inside her. She sets up a rubbing against him, for she feels as if she is gathering up and must burst. She tries to show him how, what she wants, only he does not understand, or her skirts and her petticoats are too heavy and he cannot reach her.

  ‘There! Just there!’ she cries.

  ‘Where, madam?’

  ‘There, oh there!’

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘I want—’ Rebecca is not confused as she would usually be on waking from such a dream. She is only disappointed. After her maid is gone out she may close her eyes again and go back.

  ‘I want a glass of water, please, if you could.’

  ‘Will that be all?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, thank you. You are so thoughtful, Jenny dear!’

  The door closed and Rebecca lay back with a sigh. Her eyes were black sea stones, her cheeks were as big as caverns, her brows were as wide as the sea.

  She need not have worried about having nothing to do after the house was finished, not with this medicine! So many women, so many wives, would drink these salts down and be the happier for it.

  CHAPTER 11

  The days began to shorten and the wind brought the first autumn leaves down from the copper beech across the road. Rebecca found herself looking forward more and more to the moment when Alexander shook out the white crystals onto the scales. Sometimes she went with her husband to the pharmacy, where she waited as he retrieved the medicine from his laboratory upstairs. On other days she had her draft just before breakfast from a supply he kept in his study, and some mornings, if she had a headache, say, or felt the onset of a cold, she could hardly bear to wait.