The Herbalist

by Boyce, Niamh

  The big window looked out on to a makeshift kitchen extension. Dan did everything himself, according to Carmel. He suited her so well: neither of them would part with a penny if they could help it. The lace curtains were open. The effect was strange. The window-frame and the curtains seemed to open on to a different world altogether, like one of those Pathé documentaries in the picture house. Beyond the frame was a table set with a big brown teapot and two cups and saucers. And beyond the table was another window, through which I could see hawthorns trembling in the wind.

  I stood there for a few seconds, half waiting for something to happen, for something to begin. Then I felt someone watching me. Of course there was no one, but it gave me a shiver. And the Sacred Heart pictures gave me the creeps. Half a dozen pictures in a row, all those upturned brown eyes, raised hands and poor barbed hearts with blood dripping from them. Lord help us, it was too much; it was like a grand general Jesus convention.

  The door that led to the kitchen was so heavily painted it wouldn’t close properly. It seemed Dan got his excitement from painting things. The kitchen was a short and wide affair, a black stove, a small table, a dresser full of willow pattern and books. Beneath the window stood a churn of water; next to it was a cluttered sideboard that was none too clean. Three steps across and I was at the window, and looking out at the biggest pig I’d ever seen in my life.

  So this was it. I had arrived. I had finally witnessed Dan Holohan’s miraculous extension.

  The shop bell reminded me why I was there. A craggy voice called out. I ran out to the front and slipped in behind the counter. It was Lizzie Murphy with her yellowed Woodbine fingers. I gave her my best smile.

  ‘Well, Mrs Murphy, aren’t you looking splendid? And what can I get for you today?’

  ‘Come out from behind there, Emily Madden – before I have you arrested.’

  It didn’t get much better than that. Did every single soul that walked through the shop have to be told exactly why I was there instead of Carmel, or count every penny of their change so thoroughly? Did they think I was an amadán, a thief or a bit of both? While the rest of the town were getting themselves healed by an exotic stranger, I was being treated like an imposter just for helping a woman who was weak as water.

  After an hour of general interrogation and unpleasantness I was in for a change. Who strolled through the door at half past twelve but the very man himself? The herbalist. The hat, the suit and the pure smoky wonder of his skin – it couldn’t be anyone else. He caught the bell to stop it clanging. He was a slim man, not as tall as I’d imagined. I saw his gold eye tooth when he smiled, oh Lord, he had a wonderful smile. He was as dark as a maharajah from the newspaper, and as strange as anything I’d ever seen. He picked a russet from Nash’s apple box, shone it on his sleeve and bit into it with gusto. Then he went and tapped a penny on the counter as if I was busy doing something other than gawking at the wonder of him.

  ‘Is that a sombrero, amigo?’ I said.

  ‘A panama hat.’ He tipped it. ‘Where have they been hiding you?’

  ‘I’m just taking a break from Hollywood. Mr Spencer Tracy writes often. He misses me, the poor thing, he’s a broken man.’

  He waved my nonsense away; maybe he didn’t understand.

  ‘Your name?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Emily.’

  ‘Well, it’s very nice to meet Emily,’ and, with that, he tipped his hat again, smiled and took his leave.

  Dan blustered in then, all hot and bothered. Wanting to know where Carmel was, was she all right, what was I doing with the change? He got quite the surprise when he found out I’d been working there the whole morning. He wasn’t pleased, but I explained the situation and kept a cheerful face on me. I was still thrilled from meeting the herbalist, no matter that it was only for a minute. I wanted Dan to see me all efficient and think it was a good idea to give me a position. Mam would be proud, and I’d be earning.

  Dan checked on madam upstairs, and then got on with doing something in the living room, leaving me behind the counter.

  It wasn’t long before Carmel joined us. I tried to tell her about the herbalist, but she only half listened. She was too busy being Lady Muck: Do this, do that …

  Dan wasn’t too bad, took to a bit of simpering.

  ‘She’s not bad, eh, Carmel?’ he said to his wife in the middle of the afternoon.

  ‘No, she’s good.’

  Carmel didn’t even crack a smile. They both seemed awfully impressed that I could sell a few groceries without making a hames of it. They laughed when I climbed into the window to rearrange it by colour, putting in only the brightest products. The difference it made was remarkable. I knew that because everyone that came into the shop remarked on it.

  Dan said to come in for a few hours on their busy days so Carmel could rest. She didn’t contradict him: she looked mighty teary. When Dan left, she checked my neck for tide marks. I had hopes for more than a casual arrangement but quickly realized that a run-for was all Carmel saw me as. Do this. Do that. Good girl yourself, Emily. She kept looking me up and down. Got it into her head that I needed a dress that was ‘more practical’. She marched me up to Behan Brothers and bought me a dress on tick. Black with a mandarin collar and capped sleeves.

  ‘A tidy brooch would set that off and some clip-on earrings,’ Carmel said.

  I’ve landed on my feet, I thought. When we got back, Carmel totted up my wages and then subtracted them from the cost of the dress. She told me that when I’d worked off two and six, the dress would be paid for and I’d get cash wages.

  ‘Now you’ve something decent to wear next time.’

  I marched home with the brown-paper package wrapped in twine. I couldn’t seem to explain it so Mam would understand. She thought it was my fault all the money was gone on a dress.

  ‘You vain little witch.’ She smacked the table.

  I did a lot of bawling before Mam got it into her head that I wanted to see my earnings as much as anyone. I shoved the dress into the corner of the wardrobe in its wrapping. Never liked that smart dress after, too good for work and not fancy enough for a dance.

  7

  Carmel went upstairs to rest. It was a relief to be away from Emily’s chatter. The girl’s eyes seemed to take everything in. That was a silly strange thing to think, but Carmel didn’t really care. She wanted him back so badly, the boy born sleeping. She could think only of him – the pain in her chest never ceased, and it would never cease, this loss, this cutting of her heart from her. Carmel’s arms ached with the emptiness every second of every day. She wanted him back. Give him back.

  Dan said she’d been hysterical, that she’d clutched the baby for two days, wouldn’t hand the child over. She didn’t remember hysterical, but she remembered Dan tugging him from her and somehow it felt like her husband was on the side of death and of everything that had conspired to take her baby’s breath from his body.

  She called him Samuel.

  ‘It’s not a Catholic name,’ Dan had said.

  ‘It’s fucking biblical, just like Daniel!’

  The foul language had almost knocked him backwards. Her too.

  ‘May God forgive you,’ he kept saying.

  God. How could she believe in Him now? Yet she didn’t dare say that out loud. As if there were anything else left for Him to take from her. Do your worst; your worst is done. Yes, she had adored Christ, his virgin mother and all his saints and angels, but how could she now, how could she now? These were all thoughts, not things she could say to Dan, to anyone. She wrote some of them down, letters to no one, saying over and over, Why, why, why, my perfect little son.

  Liz
zie Murphy said offer it up. Grettie B said he’s an angel in heaven. Then she covered her mouth when she realized her mistake. Carmel’s unbaptized baby wasn’t allowed into heaven, only to limbo. Father Higgins wouldn’t give him a blessing. She’d had to beg Dan even to ask.

  ‘The child is not the Church’s responsibility.’ That’s what the priest had said.

  You’d think the worst was over, but it wasn’t. He couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground. He had to be buried in unholy ground with the lost souls, criminals, suicides, with no rites, no blessings. And Carmel wasn’t permitted to be present.

  She sat at the dressing table and wrote to Finbar. The letter was a rush of anguish that shamed her, and caused her to cry afresh when she reread it. She could never send it. She heard the girl Emily moving downstairs, but didn’t care, let her root around all she wanted; there was nothing Carmel cared about down there. Nothing Carmel cared about left anywhere.

  Doctor B had had to dope her the night Dan left with her child and a shovel. The medicine was to stop her doing harm to herself. To wipe out the feelings, the loss, the absence. It was all about absence – of breath, of life and now even of dignity and holiness.

  She had washed him – she was able to do that, soaped between his toes and fingers – and dried him slowly, patting gently. She had wrapped him in the crocheted blanket. He wore his white christening robe. She could prepare him for it, but she could not part with him, she could not let him out of her arms. She had screamed and called Dan a devil.

  After Dan left to bury the baby, he stayed away from their bed for a few nights. He must’ve slept somewhere else in the house, or maybe in the shed. They passed each other in the shop during daylight hours, frozen solid in their loss. She was told to pray, to get over it, to try to conceive again, to get on with living. Carmel would do none of those things: she had been forced to release Samuel from her arms, but she would not so easily give up her grief – why should she? It was all she had of him, of Samuel. A name Dan would not say.

  And where had he buried their baby? That tormented her till Dan took her to the cemetery one evening at dusk. He showed her a ditch that ran alongside its shadow side. She walked behind him, weeping, accusing.

  ‘You don’t recall where you buried your son.’

  He didn’t answer. He wasn’t for talking by then; he had begun to say whist a lot. ‘Whist, woman, whist your crying.’ Carmel watched the dirt under her feet as she walked, and all sorts of things passed through her mind: that Samuel was cold, that he was crying somewhere, that his soul would never see the face of God, would never join with hers. That he was lost.

  ‘You can’t remember where you put my child.’

  She was sobbing now; the sun was low in the sky, turning the fields a golden yellow. She could smell the yew trees, smell spring and death in the earth, or so she thought, so she felt. Dan had stopped.

  ‘It’s here.’

  ‘It?’

  ‘The grave.’

  ‘There’s no grave – he’s buried in a ditch like an animal and you don’t know where he is.’

  She was sobbing hard. Where did all the tears come from – was there no end to them? Dan took her hand.

  ‘I do know, I marked it. Look.’

  Carmel saw a large smooth stone; it had a hole in its centre where rain gathered.

  ‘And see here. I scored the stone, so we’ll always know.’

  He guided her fingers over the surface as if she were a blind woman. She felt deep, scored letters. She knelt down, and saw the side of the stone where Dan had etched SAMUEL HOLOHAN – R.I.P.

  ‘It must’ve taken you the whole night.’

  She stood to meet his eyes.

  ‘Two nights. It took two.’

  Dan’s face was wet with tears. ‘I’m broken, Carmel, I’m broken too.’

  And so they both cried, standing beside the stone that marked their baby’s burial place, neither able to comfort the other.

  8

  Sarah spent the morning weeding; she had received a letter from James. He had copied part of a poem. ‘My love is like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June. My love is like the melody, that’s sweetly played in tune.’ She recognized it from their old English reader. Why hadn’t he copied the whole poem? He wrote that he was sorry, very sorry. Then he talked about the weather, how good it was. At the end he wrote, ‘I want to see you again.’ It sounded like an order.

  She was trying not to think about James; he confused her. Working the garden was Sarah’s cure for ills, but it didn’t stop nonsense thoughts rattling in her head. Thoughts like the fact that James had kept other boys away from Sarah all through school and afterwards, whether he was even talking to her or not. Now here she was, twenty-three, and he was still playing cat and mouse.

  But did she want her life to be any different than it was? Most of Sarah’s classmates were married. Did she want marriage? She certainly didn’t want three in nappies like her cousin Mary. Though that would be better than ending up like Annie Mangan. One morning, after years of perfect attendance, Annie just didn’t show up. Never came to school again. Her family had her in America, lodging with a second cousin, doing very well for herself. Then they had her as a librarian in New York City. They had her very busy.

  Sarah had forgotten about Annie until recently. In February, just after Sarah’s birthday, James had said he wanted to go steady. A few days later she was standing at the kitchen window, gazing out at the snowdrops on the slope outside, her hand in her pocket secretly holding the birthday brooch he had given her. He had whispered his love to her. Next time the snowdrops pushed up, it might be an engagement ring she held. She was trying to take in what that might mean when out of nowhere Mai asked if she remembered Annie Mangan. Of course she did; they’d been good friends. Mai told her Annie hadn’t been sent to America; she’d been sent to a laundry and was there yet.

  ‘It was all hushed up at the time.’

  ‘How do you know about it, then?’

  ‘I confirmed the girl’s condition.’

  ‘What happened to the child?’

  ‘The nuns that run the laundry took it. They take all the girls’ babies –’

  ‘What girls?’

  ‘There are lots like Annie Mangan.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this – why now, after all these years?’

  ‘Poor Annie didn’t get there by herself. Do you understand me?’

  Sarah recalled Annie’s smooth plaits, how they’d hung right down past the bench. How she’d sat stock-still during class. Annie was an example to them all, the Master used to say, attentive, with a wonderful posture. The back of her brown jumper was coated in fair hairs. Sarah was always dying to reach out and brush them off. She tried to imagine Annie fat with child, but couldn’t.

  ‘Do you understand me, Sarah?’

  ‘I think so.’ Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to. ‘So when’s Annie coming back?’

  ‘Ah, what do you think?’

  Mai looked at Sarah as if she were the biggest eejit ever to walk the planet. Mai flared up sometimes, but it never lasted more than a few seconds. They were opposites like that: Sarah tended to brew. Like now, using weeding as an excuse.

  Sarah plucked a cowslip and lay down – the scent was heaven. A cabbage butterfly flitted past, a blackbird sang, Sarah stretched out her arms. Life was fine here, just fine. The shadows of the long grasses played across her skirt. What if all the secrecy was a ruse by James? Only for that, they could get married and set up home, or go off travelling together. Would she like that? Sarah didn’t know what she wanted – just knew that when she saw James again, it would be him she wante
d.

  Mai called her. Sarah stood and waved. Her aunt crooked her finger, which meant I want a word. What if someone had seen her and James on the road? Mai sat on the bench and waited for Sarah to climb the slope to the backyard. She patted the space beside her. Sarah sat down.

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Now what, Mai?’

  ‘Now we’ve something to talk about.’

  ‘We do?’

  ‘We do indeed.’

  Mai took Sarah’s hand, turned it over as if she were going to read her grass-stained palm and took a deep breath.

  ‘You did very well at school, Sarah; if we’d the money you could’ve gone on further, but we didn’t and that’s that. You don’t realize it when you’re young, but time goes very quickly, one year leads to the next, and before you know it I’ll be passed away and you’ll be nearing middle age, with all opportunity behind you. Don’t think I’m trying to be rid of you –’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t look so worried: it’s good news. Finbar has found you an excellent position in his sister’s shop. You’ll have heard me mention Kelly’s? In my youth it was run by Finbar’s mother – she was a Connelly. Very decent people, the Connellys.’

  ‘What exactly is the position?’

  ‘His sister’s expecting a child. You’ll assist in the house and shop, be a help to the new mother – her name’s Carmel Holohan.’

  ‘Ah, Mai, I’ve no interest in babies or in living in a stranger’s house.’

  ‘It’s not a million miles away – you’ll be home a few times a year, and we’ll write.’