The Pharmacist's Wife

by Vanessa Tait

  ‘He will not know,’ Rebecca took Eva’s arm, as if they were two ladies on a stroll, ‘because I have the key.’ She opened her reticule and felt about inside. ‘I picked up a spare one for the pharmacy in error. It has been jangling about all night.’ She pulled out a single key, hanging on a leather strap, long enough to open the doors to a palace.

  ‘What would Alexander say?’ said Eva, her eyes great holes in her face.

  ‘That we must not.’ Rebecca could not get the image of Alexander as she had last seen him out of her mind. Perhaps it was the same when someone died. ‘But he will never know, will he, if we are careful?’

  ‘Oh, Rebecca, do you think we could?’ Eva’s fury had thawed and her face now showed only longing. ‘I had been dreading the night, for I cannot sleep, you know, not if I start to feel the sickness. And now … now things are worse still. But, if we can get into the pharmacy, and have our medicine, there might be some respite, do you think?’

  Eva spoke brokenly, but her pace began to quicken. The soles of Rebecca’s shoes were thin – she had not thought to change into her walking shoes. The paving stones of South Bridge were uneven and piled up with horse dung and straw, she felt it all. ‘You knew,’ she said, ‘all this time, that Alexander frequented that brothel.’

  ‘Yes. The judges and politicians who visit and show their arses to the rod, you cannot imagine.’

  ‘But how did you know it?’

  Eva’s voice crept along like a beetle to match their pace. ‘Can’t you guess? Have you not, even by now?’

  Rebecca tried to fix her eyes on her friend but the gloom seemed to gather round her and obscure her, and her eyes would not stay still long enough for her to see her face. ‘You work there yourself.’

  ‘Not any more. But once, not so long ago.’ Eva sighed. ‘Now I get by on my savings, as I said, and what Mr Badcock gives me.’

  ‘But you were a governess!’

  ‘In the bawdy house, aye.’

  ‘In the house.’ The air was sharp in Rebecca’s nostrils. ‘I see, I see it now. And that is why Alexander forbade me to see you.’ Rebecca’s heartbeat seemed to push the sweat out of her pores as she spoke.

  ‘I could not tell you earlier, I thought you would cut me, and I could not have borne it. But …’ Eva took her arm away and hugged it to her. ‘I suppose you will cut me now.’

  ‘Eva, no, I will not cut you. Of course I will not! How could you have thought it?’

  ‘Everybody I once knew has cut me,’ said Eva.

  ‘I will not. How could I? I only wish you had told me earlier.’

  ‘Oh Rebecca you are a true friend!’ Eva put her arm back into Rebecca’s and they walked on. Around them the windows of the old houses showed blank, except for one, which still had a line of washing hanging from it like broken teeth. ‘You cannot know what it means to hear you say that.’

  They went carefully, for there were no street lights here, only pools of darkness and greater darkness. A light flared briefly in a window and went out.

  It was hard to see what they stood on; the stars were all obscured by clouds. They passed a rag and wool shop and another that only sold string. A rat ran across their path, shrieking. Then they crossed the bridge that arched over the slumbering railway carriages and linked the Old Town with the New Town and came onto the North Bridge, their breath coming faster now that they were so close. From here it was the work of only a few minutes to get to the pharmacy.

  Rebecca had not seen the place in darkness before. The liquid in the carboys, so bright in the daytime, at night were all as dark as arterial blood. They looked like strangely shaped people hunched in the window.

  Her hand was shaking as she drew out the key and turned it in the lock. But Lionel must have oiled it recently for the key slid into place and turned in the lock with three soft clicks. The door was not so quiet, though, it shrieked on its hinges as if it knew what they were about. At any moment Rebecca expected to hear a shout, and footsteps, and a constable. But p’raps the noise had not been so great; it only seemed so in the quietness of the night. And what of it, in any case? She was the pharmacist’s wife.

  There were no lights anywhere, it was the deepest part of night, perhaps three o’clock. Rebecca was used enough to the darkness to feel her way across the floor and open one of the drawers. She had seen Lionel stop a match girl a few weeks ago, perhaps there were some matches still. She used her fingers to feel about … a few coins, some string … And yes, one match, the last one, and a piece of rough paper curled around it, to strike against.

  She went over to the gas lamp. Her hands were still trembling. But the match was good, dipped in enough gunpowder to make a large flame, and the lamp took, at first dimly, then flaring into brighter life.

  ‘Where is the medicine?’ asked Eva. ‘All the bottles have the same liquids in this light.’

  ‘P’raps it is amongst those jars.’ But there seemed an impossible number of them. Rebecca went up and down the shelves as she had so often seen Lionel do, reading the labels that were not obscured by dirt: Oil Eucalypt, Eau do Cologne, Acid Sulphur…

  ‘It won’t be in the jars,’ said Eva irritably. ‘Do not waste time. It is always in the smallest glass bottle. I bet Alexander keeps it upstairs in the laboratory. Where are the candles?’

  ‘In that drawer there.’

  Eva pulled it open and pushed things about. ‘Only candle-ends in here,’ she said. ‘Are there no new?’

  ‘No new, Alexander will not run to it.’

  ‘Never mind!’ Eva took up a stub and held it to the gas, and swore, and snatched her hand back, but the flame wavered into a brief life. ‘There now, I have it. Are you coming?’

  But as they went up the stairs, with the stuttering flame and the rattling window and the shadows that loomed and died over the benches, Rebecca was gripped with the certainty that she should not be there. All around her lay evidence of feverish labour: large glass jars were connected by rubber tubes to small glass jars, the residue still spattered around the inside. Pestles lay inside their mortars, glass funnels were stacked together on the bench, up on the table a stack of notebooks, whose pages were covered in equations, crossed over and scribbled upon. And there, in two rows running down the middle of it, were the small square-sided black bottles, all with stoppers in them. They were without labels but Eva recognized them at the same time as Rebecca; she gasped and snatched one up.

  No blue bottles, with her salts in them, anywhere.

  Eva stopped trembling and brought the bottle to her mouth and kissed it. ‘Let us go downstairs, there is more light!’ She was already turning away and clattering down the staircase. From her reticule she brought out her leather case, as before, and opened it. She moved quickly towards the light bracket and leaned against the wall underneath, one foot propped up on its toe. She pulled up her tartan skirts and her petticoats and leaned on it to keep it from falling. She rolled her stocking down, as before. The upper part of her thigh was spotted with scabs.

  Rebecca could not help the thought that sprung into her head: Eva looked like a three-penny upright, for any man to have up against the wall.

  But it was not a man that Eva wanted. She filled up the barrel of her syringe with the liquid as dark as venal blood, shook it up and squinted at it against the light. A small bubble rose to the needle end; Eva pushed on the barrel until a fine plume of liquid squirted through it.

  She set her teeth and plunged the needle into a part of her thigh that was still unbroken. This time, it seemed to go in easier, or p’raps she was more used to it.

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Now, now it will come.’

  Rebecca turned away. She did not want to see her friend gasp and slump down, her eyes rolling back in her head. Not when a thirst for her salts had been awakened.

  From the first moment of suggesting it on South Bridge, Rebecca’s cells had realigned themselves so that every part of them was pointing towards relief. To be denied, once she had expected then, was
terrible. Her joints grew irritable and her skin puckered up in painful shivers. Somebody pointed the tip of a feather up and down her spine.

  And then, Eva, who had seemed so cold and desperate and strung with anxiety, sunk down on the floor with a great sigh. Her head fell forward on her chest and her lip sagged.

  Rebecca opened all the drawers on top of the counter. Nothing – only papers, pencils, an India rubber. She got up on the ladder and moved things around on the shelves. It was maddening: there was opium in tins, in twists of paper, and dissolved in bottles of laudanum for the relief of every beggar and actor who might come in, but no salts, none at all.

  Well then, she would have to have drops. She began to pull the cork from a bottle of laudanum, but she was trembling so hard that it fell from her grasp and bounced – but did not break – on the wooden counter top.

  Eva raised her head and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘Have you not found your salts yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Rebecca, ‘I have not. And I can’t endure searching for them any longer. I have found drops, that is all, and opium. I will take them.’

  ‘You cannot have drops, not after salts! They will do nothing for you, not unless you drink three bottles at once. And the taste of that would be terrible, and make you sick, and then you would most likely not get any benefit at all. No, no, you must do it my way.’

  Rebecca had thought of a twist of opium, she could find a match somewhere, and then … light it, and smoke it. But how, with what – did she not need a pipe? She had not seen it done.

  Drops then, no matter if she got sick. But p’raps Eva was right, the drops were so weak, she might be left in just the same way as she was now, and she had nothing to flavour the water. She said: ‘Your way, is it better than the salts? Does it quite take away pain?’

  ‘It is better than love. And it will take away the pain of love too, good or bad, no matter.’ Eva held out the syringe, it still had a tiny drop of blood on the end.

  ‘I do not know …’

  ‘You hunger, I can see it. And this will take away the hunger!’ Eva’s eyes were glassy. ‘You will feel well – better than well. Better than you have felt in your life.’

  A bee sting. Rebecca had been stung by bees. P’raps it was bearable, then, especially when the other side of it would be so pleasurable. She was sweating into her bodice and her head was pounding. But all her problems would be wiped away, with just one sting of a bee.

  ‘If you help me with it, then I shall try it. It does not hurt too much, you say?’

  ‘Not too much. You will be glad you did.’

  Eva opened up her leather case again and looked for the syringe.

  ‘It is there, in your hand,’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Eva’s stocking pooled round her ankle. Her calf was even thinner when it was bare, and lined with fair hairs over her shins.

  Rebecca’s heart thumped at the sight of the needle, poised to enter her. But first Eva plunged the tip of it into the bottle and drew up the liquid. ‘There must be no air in it, for that is very dangerous. That is what Mr Badcock says.’ She pushed the plunger down as she had done before.

  ‘Look away if it troubles you. Then you will not flinch so, and I will be able to stab.’

  ‘Stab?’

  ‘I mean, it is a poke, merely, a scratch from a thorn, nothing worse.’

  ‘Let me – wait! Wait a moment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Till I catch my breath.’

  Eva blew upwards, but her fringe was too matted with sweat to fly up.

  ‘I will have this one, then. I have made it weak for you, so it will hardly affect me. I think I have need of a little more, in any case.’

  ‘Are you sure you ought? The men are so particular with doses, and to do two at once—’

  ‘I need it twice as much after this evening. And I think after one dose the other will not hurt so much going in.’

  ‘It might knock you unconscious.’ She paused and added: ‘Then you will not be able to help me.’

  ‘Nonsense. If I sleep, then rouse me, as you always do. There is only the littlest bit in here.’ Slowly, slowly, as if she were in a dream, Eva was already passing her hand over her thigh again, with a peaceful expression. She hardly looked at where the needle was going in. She did not grimace, instead her face was blank, perfectly blank. Only by the movement of her thumb did Rebecca know that she had stuck the needle in and was pushing down the plunger. It was very quiet in the pharmacy. A mouse came out, sat on its haunches and cleaned its whiskers.

  ‘You know,’ said Eva, her voice already far away, ‘the men have made a trap for me, and even knowing it, I cannot escape.’

  ‘The heroin?’

  ‘It was part of the plan they had for me, and for you, all along! I don’t know when it started quite, but … I have seen some papers.’

  ‘What, what papers?’

  ‘Mr Badcock brought them, by mistake. Your husband’s handwriting. When he saw that I saw he snapped his bag shut. Never looked more like a turkey with all its red chins … I will try to show you, though that would be hard – I must tell you rather. But promise me …’ Her voice faded.

  ‘Eva! Do not sleep! Tell me now.’

  But when Eva started speaking again she said slowly, ‘We are all trapped, us women. We are none of us free. But at least we know it, you and I, and we might do something about it, mighten we, together?’

  Eva had white flecks at the corner of her mouth. Her breath smelled of stale wine and something else, more sour, from the depths of her. ‘I have some money saved up, and you, you could take what you could carry from the house … we could, could we not, just go, far from here. To England, perhaps, where we are not known. And then the men would not be able to find us. We could start a concern of our own, selling men’s undergarments.’

  ‘Undergarments?’ Rebecca looked at her friend to see if she was in jest, but Eva’s head sagged forward again. ‘Eva! England, what now?’

  ‘Yes, this minute.’

  ‘We cannot go tonight. ’ Rebecca looked at the sky. The darkness was leaching away, the tops of the houses had begun to pick themselves out against it. ‘Why, it is nearly morning. We will not have the time! This kind of plan needs time.’

  Eva sighed slowly. ‘You are right. I was a fool to think … only … ahh, here it comes now, what dark wings!’

  ‘I only mean, we must think on it more. We cannot run away dressed like this. The men would have us in the madhouse, wherever we got to! And what about our medicine, how would we have it?’

  The mouse put its front paws down, they were more like tiny little hands, and ran towards the door.

  ‘Say, in a week. I think in a week. I ought to be able to survive that long. Eva!’

  Eva had slumped forward again, her head almost touching her knees, her hair hanging over her face.

  ‘Eva, wake up!’ Rebecca shook her. Rebecca had been right, she had been knocked unconscious! She shook her harder. ‘Eva!’

  Very slowly, as if she was acting, Eva fell over on her side towards her.

  ‘Eva, come now! I said you ought not to have done it again.’ Fear gripped at Rebecca’s heart. Eva was very heavy. Spittle ran from the corner of her mouth. And – her eyes were open! Could they be open if she were unconscious?

  ‘Eva!’ she shouted, scrambling up. ‘Wake up! Wake up!’

  But now that Rebecca was not there to support her, Eva crashed to the floor, her head slamming on the tiles.

  ‘Oh! Eva, you have hurt your head! Evangeline! Eva!’ Rebecca tried to find her pulse – was that the place? P’raps it was not, for there was nothing there. Nothing in the other place she tried, or the next.

  She put her cheek in front of Eva’s mouth to feel her breath. Nothing.

  ‘Do not die! Not now!’ Rebecca shook her again at the shoulder as she lay on the floor.

  This was not happening. This was not real. She was dreaming – still dreaming.

&nbs
p; But now she touched Eva’s lips, which had a bluish tinge, and her eyes, now that she was close to her, were like no living thing. They were like the eyes of her old great-aunty, that she had seen when she was a child, before her mother had shut them with coins.

  Rebecca snatched her hand away. ‘No!’ She would not do it; she could not close her eyes, for it would mean that Eva was really dead. But she could not stay to see it, those blue eyes as unseeing as stones.

  Rebecca got to her feet, hardly knowing how she did it, still staring down. Although her heart was slamming in her chest her feet were clumsy. She knocked into the counter with her hip as she turned away and made for the door. She could not remember which way it opened and she stood there, pulling and pushing and telling herself she was in a dream. She turned to look at Eva, willing her friend to have got up. ‘Eva!’ she shouted again, to wake her. But from here Eva looked worse: she had fallen at an awkward angle with her arm beneath her and her head twisted up.

  Rebecca turned back to the door and with a wrench got it open finally and went out into the night.

  CHAPTER 20

  But when she got out she found it was not night after all. The clouds were streaked with pink and the houses loomed over her as grey as gravestones. Men were setting out their stalls and turned to stare at her, and leer. One of them stood in front and pushed his face so close that Rebecca could see the corner of his chipped tooth, and asked her price. She must have given him a terrible look, for he shrunk back.

  She had not given a thought to Alexander. If she saw him, what should she say? But as soon as she got in the hall she could feel at once that there was nobody home; and she saw with relief that his coat and hat were not on the stand. Only a letter there, addressed to her, in childish handwriting.

  Still at the bawdy house then, or somewhere else?

  And what wife in a thousand would be glad to know that, except her?

  She was tired and longed for her bed. She climbed the stairs, tearing open the letter as she went.

  Dear Madam,

  It started, for there was no date and no address. I thought you would be glad to know I am back at home in the croft, and I thought I would write and tell you it, as I have learned now to write – all thanks to you!