by Boyce, Niamh
She wanted to get out of there before Sarah came back; there was something distasteful about talking to her in her nightclothes. Come to think of it, she was wandering around outside now in nothing more than a nightdress. Anyone could see her. Sarah must’ve guessed that Dan was out. Maybe she’d heard their conversation earlier? Carmel blushed. Nonsense. She didn’t need to eavesdrop to know that Dan went out almost every evening. She felt a pain unfurl deep in her womb, the familiar wretched kick. It was back again, the curse. She went to the press to fetch her rags.
37
Sarah’s hands were shaking; she got into bed as quickly as she could. There was something wrong with that woman. She wondered how Dan put up with her. She had slapped Sarah, or tried to, and in front of her husband. And what business was it of hers where Sarah went on her time off? Sarah could have done with winning a few bob. There was no guarantee but so far she had been lucky at the card-playing sessions, and a good bluffer. Every penny counted. She would have loved to tell Mrs Holohan she could keep her old job, but she needed the position for just a little longer.
Sarah lit her bedside candle; it wouldn’t do to be wasting electricity, or drawing Carmel’s attention back to the room. She could hear Carmel uncapping a tonic in the living room. She’d be up all night now, wandering around the house. Once or twice Sarah had heard her stop and listen outside her bedroom door. Dan mentioned in confidence that Carmel had been a sleepwalker since that time. That time was the way he’d put it. He meant when she lost the child.
It came into Sarah’s mind that maybe the child was sleepwalking somewhere too, and that maybe some night they would meet each other. She didn’t say that, though, in case it shocked Dan, in case he thought she was a heathen. It wasn’t like Mai’s house here; in Mai’s they used to spend long afternoons discussing dreams and their meanings. Here it was very different: there were no warm conversations. Carmel gossiped with Mrs Birmingham and didn’t include Sarah. They tended to turn their backs to her and blab only about people they knew between them. Sarah said nothing; it was better than most jobs a single girl could get.
She took a piece of chocolate from her side table. Broke a fraction off and put it in her mouth. Rose had given it to her earlier when she’d popped in with her mother; they were collecting Carmel for some picture or other. Mrs Birmingham and Carmel had gabbed in the shop doorway, half in and half out, for almost half an hour.
‘Come on, Mother, we’ll miss the funnies!’ Rose had eventually said.
Taking the usual bar of chocolate from her blouse pocket, she broke off half and passed it to Sarah with a wink as they left. That wink seemed to say ‘I wish you were coming too’, or at least that’s what Sarah thought. Rose was a nice girl, but they never had the opportunity to chat. Mrs Birmingham hung on as tight to her gorgeous daughter as she did to her purse strings. It wouldn’t cost them a penny to ask Sarah to join them. The door had barely closed before they were out on the pavement, buttoning up their coats and laughing. It gave Sarah a roaring headache. A tear had run down her cheek. Lately the slightest thing made her weep. She had turned into an old cry-baby, she who used to be such a tomboy. At least if she’d been home, she could have roamed the field and blubbed in privacy. As it was, she took a deep breath, stood tall and worked on. Some people stood straight through grace; some people were holding themselves up against something – people like Sarah.
She sank down under the covers. She heard Carmel sobbing downstairs – was that part of the reason why Emily had left, this miserable atmosphere? But no – Emily was annoyed to have been let go, wasn’t she? Ah, yes, it was her obsession with the herbalist – her ‘inappropriate behaviour’, as Carmel had called it – that had led to those final marching orders. The poor girl thought she was in love.
Early on, some customers had called her by Emily’s name. It was simpler to answer to it than to explain, so they stayed doing it. She didn’t mind. The townspeople weren’t so bad when you got to know them. Once she got past being nervous, Sarah learnt people liked to be coddled, to be made fun of. A Peggy’s Leg for the children, sympathy for the wives, and a laugh at their jokes for the men. Dan had noticed last Wednesday.
‘Why, Sarah,’ he had said, ‘silver-tongued Sarah.’
‘Yes,’ his wife added, ‘silver-tongued Sarah, sly as a fox.’
That had hurt, though Carmel had laughed when she’d said it. However, it didn’t hurt Sarah now; her expectations had fallen considerably since then. She felt under her mattress for Mai’s letter, opened it out into her lap and popped the last of Rose’s chocolate into her mouth as she read.
Dearest Sarah,
Are they being good to you? I hope so. We are all grand here T. G. Sarah, did you hear? That James Kelly has got engaged to Helen Mahon of the drapery Mahons’. It has only dawned on me what Master Finbar was up to putting you forward as a candidate for his sister’s shop. He wanted you out of the way. He wanted someone better-off for his James. You know there’s no one better than you in my eyes, Sarah, but to a schoolmaster like Finbar, who thinks he’s a cut above, an orphan living with her old aunt wouldn’t be high up enough.
I’m heart-broke. He expected us to fall for it and we did. Or I did. It’s all my fault. I jumped at the chance. Thought it was a golden opportunity for you to better yourself, get a few bob in a respectable position and be able to have nice things, meet nice people. I didn’t think twice. A start for you, that’s all I wanted. Me and my pride, I was hot-headed with it, hot-headed with excitement that you were getting out, doing things. And Big Notions Mai goes and has a do, a send-off, and look what it did to you. Look what it did.
Are you drinking the tea? Is there any sign? Please write soon and let me know, I’m out of my mind.
Bless you always,
Mai
James was engaged to Helen Mahon. Sarah couldn’t recall him ever saying two words to Helen Mahon, or one word even. And poor Mai, blaming herself. The sound of birds started up from the chimney breast again. If another bloody bird flew into the room tonight, she’d strangle it.
38
I woke alone in the herbalist’s bed the morning after the fortune-telling. My head hurt. Everything hurt. I closed my eyes again. Whatever had happened the night before was mixed up with the leavings of a bad dream.
Voices washed over me, some more real than others; those ones had a bite in them. I didn’t want to go to the ball, but they dragged me anyway, dragged me and left me lying in the middle of the floor. Laughter bubbled in the throats of the ugly sisters, Lila and Judy. Fine girl you are! They stepped back to allow someone else to step forward. The bogeyman was invisible and he had a thousand hands. Fat, cold and pinching. Those fingers never let up their pawing. It was a dream, it was a nightmare, and it was real. First, I was safe on his lap. My laudanum whore. Then I was sore and torn beneath the glinting laughter. And then, bam! The door opened and cold and rain and a wild woman all rushed in. Aggie’s voice, and Aggie’s foul tongue. Leave the fucking child alone!
It was daylight. The bells were ringing for Mass. I stung down there. That was the worst of it. I peeked. There were bloody scratches on my thighs. What had happened? Had the herbalist been overcome? He wouldn’t have hurt me like this, not him. He had given me a potion, I remembered that. Someone had tied a scarf around my head; it was too tight. Some of my hair caught in the knot but eventually it broke free.
The door opened. It was the herbalist, rubbing his head and looking rough. The fat baritone peeped in behind him: one eye was swollen and purple. He sneered at me.
‘A right little earner!’
The herbalist
slammed the door in his face. I was well pleased by his abruptness, the way he sent that horrible man packing.
‘What happened to that fella’s eye? Who hit him?’
‘Old Aggie.’
‘Why?’
‘Never you mind.’
I drifted in and out of sleep. After a while the herbalist shook me awake. He was holding out a lovely slippery nightgown. Red satin, could you credit it? Ankle length and all.
‘I’ll look like a starlet.’
‘A skinny starlet.’
There he went again, making me feel great just so he could move me back down to second place. He liked doing that. I wondered where he’d found the gown. I felt cold all over, couldn’t get warm. ‘A chill in your kidneys’ was his diagnosis. I put on the nightdress and slipped around the bed, shivering. The tea he brought was cold and greasy, so he lay on top of the covers and shared his tipple with me.
The herbalist drifted off. I gazed at the smiling face of the hula girl on his shoulder, traced my finger along her sweeping black hair, and thought of the jade snake curled up unseen beneath the covers. I became sleepy, but, afraid of the bad things sleep would bring, I rose and tried to use the chamber pot. No luck, only pain. A shoebox stuck out from under the bed. I helped it on its way. Lifted the lid. Amongst beads of dried lavender lay a photograph. A white woman – tanned, wide-faced and thin-lipped, her hair swept back from a severe middle parting into a bun, making black wings each side of her head. She was wearing an old-style striped blouse and a dark floor-length skirt. Her stoutness and clothes made her seem middle aged, but when I looked closely there wasn’t a line on her face. She held a dark-skinned baby dressed in a sailor suit. The woman looked at whoever held the camera with real fondness and pride. The infant smiled, and his eyes were wide, as if someone outside the picture was making funny faces at him. One of the baby’s feet was a blur. I turned the photograph over to see what names were written on the back. Vikram …
‘Nosy!’ It was snatched from my hand.
Once you had offended him, there was no talking, no use in trying to explain.
‘Get dressed. Get out.’
There were pinpricks of sweat over the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t shaved; his lips were dry. His demons were here again; he didn’t have to tell me this time. As I took off the nightgown and put back on my own things, he laid a bottle, a napkin and a cup on the bedside table. The ceremony soothed him. He began to breathe easier. He smiled when he lied – I’d learnt that much. So when I was fully dressed, I asked him: ‘Did you come into the bed with me last night?’
He knew what I meant.
‘Maybe I did.’ He smiled a peculiar smile that bleached the skin around his mouth.
What a funny way to run your lies, towards sin. But maybe he was telling the truth. I’d been touched, that much I knew. I remembered my dream – thick fingers pulling at me, the sneering face of the fat man. Did he come in here? Into the bedroom with me?
No. The herbalist wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, he never would. Funny how real some dreams can be.
I folded up the red nightgown and wrapped it in a sheet of newspaper. Part of me wanted to put it back on, run over the bridge and swan through the town in it. Let them talk, let them laugh. They did anyway. There was no more talk to be had here; I could tell by his bent back, and the way his shoulders touched his ears, that the demons were climbing on top of the herbalist, one by one. I went over to say goodbye, rubbed his neck.
‘Disappear,’ he hissed, ‘disappear.’
Aggie, why did you pal with the herbalist? Didn’t you know he was bad?
The way I look at it, we’re all a bit bad inside. We just have different ways of dressing it up. But, Lord help me, when I saw what happened to poor Emily, I did get a quare shock. I should’ve stepped in then. It would’ve saved an awful lot of suffering.
I had been outside with one of my paramours, and returned to be greeted by a terrible commotion. Emily was crying from the next room. The Don was stretched bleary-eyed, out of his mind in the kitchen. In I went to the bedroom, and what did I see but only those two witches crowded around the bed, laughing and clapping. I pushed them back to see that big fat bastard moving on top of her. You wouldn’t know to look at me, but I’ve a fist like concrete. You should’ve seen the fat lad reel. I split the skin beneath his eye wide open. That put a stop to their shenanigans. Emily seemed drugged or something, fevered – I couldn’t wake her, so I covered her up with blankets.
Cursing like a demon, the fat man staggered over to the table and collapsed on to a chair. Then he began to fall forward, really slowly, till his face lay among the plates, bottles and glasses. Blood trickled from his cut. That big head of his looked just like an ugly joint of meat. Lila and Judy were nowhere to be seen; they must’ve abandoned him, not that he cared, he was busy snoring. I shook The Don, tried to tell him. ‘Aye,’ was all he said. ‘Aye.’ He waved me away and went back to his drunken sleep. He smiled to himself then, content with wherever he was in his head. The hate set in there and then. But I bided my time and kept close to his side. You catch more flies with honey, and I wanted this fly.
I called round to him soon after, hinted that he should pack up, move on. That people were talking. Did he listen? Not a hope. The Don was too brimful of pride and Jameson’s to take one blind bit of notice.
‘I’m a professional and a successful one; my travelling days are over.’
He fixed another drink. Then he whipped out a small black notebook from the inner pocket of his jacket. Licked an inky finger and flicked through the pages. Put on a high and mighty voice, like I’d never seen him on his hands and knees crying with the horrors for his mammy.
‘This log records patients, illnesses, treatments, all the ups and the downs, comings and goings, and of course what works and what doesn’t. What is efficient in the system of things.’
‘There’s many would pay a pretty penny to read that.’
I reached out to take the notebook, but he snapped it shut and tucked it away again. The big cold smile on his greasy smig annoyed me.
‘I’m just telling what the people are saying,’ I said, ‘and they’re not nice things. You’d want to be careful. Maybe cut your ties with a certain young lady; it’s doing you no favours.’
‘What they say is up to them. What they see is up to them. Not my doing. I’m anything they want me to be, from Lucifer to the guardian angels at the gates of heaven. I was needed here, Aggie, welcomed. I’ve had offers of help from all quarters – wealthy quarters. You would be surprised, I think. Wanting to advise me on the ways of the place and who’s who. As if here were any different to all the other places. The same pinched faces, but who can blame them? It’s a tight corner we’re all in, yet the market is livelier now, is it not? And not just with farmers and their vegetables, eggs and chickens. Are you listening? Are you listening to me?’
‘You’re too full of yourself. People don’t like that.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be? I walked home today with a case bereft of potions and pockets packed with money. Children, three or four, skipped alongside me, across and in front of me, circling in great excitement. “What’s in those bottles, mister?” asked the smallest and boldest.
‘“Magic,” I said. “Pure money-making magic.”
‘“Can you cure leprosy? Can you cure TB? Are you a miracle worker?”
‘“What do you think!” I bent down and took a penny from behind his ear, hoping I didn’t pick up lice.
‘“Are you from Africa?”
‘“Are you from Africa?’
‘“Of course not, mister, I’m from the lane, you know that!”
There was no talking to him. But, I suppose more than anyone, I knew how that lad operated. We were in the same kind of business. The same fake How Great Thou Art. And afterwards the exact same ‘I have your few bob, now feck off’. His ladies liked a comment, a little flattery. They may have huffed it off, but they always came back. Like my lads.
I left the herbalist’s place and got Seamus to stand me a round at the bar. It took a hell of a lot of porter to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. Seamus didn’t mind coughing up; he was mad about me. I was his first love. I was a serious looker in my day. Like Vivien Leigh, but with more meat. You’ll have to take my word for it, child. I’ve no photographs to show you in this place, no evidence. Just memories. Lots of memories, though sometimes I only have one – the sound of a short sharp cry, the red hands of a hysterical nun. What’s done can’t be undone.
39
The river was high; it shimmered like the crystals off a Hollywood chandelier. Aggie was half asleep in her armchair with a squishy velour cushion behind her head and a crocheted white shawl on her lap. I was painting her toenails a colour the spit of Schiaparelli’s new Shocking Pink. Birdie’s magazines kept me up to date on the latest trends. Aggie thought it was mad that colours could have names. We were having a grand old time, lapping up the sun. Aggie’s boat was moored further back behind us, on the stretch of river that ran by the courthouse.