The Healer

by Thompson, Sharon

  ‘I told you, when I’m rich, it will be better. I’m going to be like St Brigid, or…’

  He chuckles and doesn’t help me. There aren’t many women I can name that are known for being great women.

  ‘I’m not going back to school. I’ll make money instead.’

  ‘There’s no-one about here that will come to us for the healin’. Our luck is bad at the minute.’

  ‘We could move?’

  ‘Be gypsies?’ he states like it is something awful. ‘There’s a roof over us here. There’ll be no leaving these four walls.’

  ‘I’m going to see the doctor, his wife and our Jude and you’re going to take me.’

  ‘No.’

  We eat the spuds. I layer on the butter and salt cause he isn’t caring. The meat sticks in my teeth and tastes like the pencil I tried to eat once. There’s no more talk of school or the doctor’s house. He doesn’t make me eat the meat I leave half chewed on the plate. I wash the delph in silence and leave the pot to steep in water, like Mammy used to. I miss her when I copy the things she did. I ask the shadows to remind me that she was a good housewife.

  Daddy always takes off to the pub at the crossroads when he thinks I’m sleeping, so I snore a bit to get him to leave earlier. I’ve hidden something in the turf shed that I need to check on and he’s mad for the porter.

  The little bundle is wrapped up, still weak and waiting on me. I hid it in a wooden box in the farthest, driest corner. It might be hungry and I take it out my half-chewed up meat. The black fur of it is warmer now and its little nose is wet. Its eyes open when I lift it and there are whimpers when I breathe into his little floppy ears. His paws are still limp and so I rub them and pray. My humming makes him snuggle into Daddy’s old overcoat and we stay that way. I try to think of a name for my puppy.

  The healing starts to work on the pup when I have time to take at it. The tiny tongue licks at the cold, hard meat and laps up the water I fill into an egg cup.

  He was in the river with a bag full of his drowned brothers and sisters. The bag stank a bit but I poked about in the mess, knowing there was a living soul in there in need of me. It hadn’t liked going back into the cold water for a wash and the shivering it did made me remember my own times of shaking.

  ‘I’ll be your Mammy,’ I told it this morning and the shadows told me to take him home and say nothing about it all. The bag floated off on the current and we watched it leave us.

  ‘I was sent to find you,’ I whisper to the pup. ‘We’re meant to help each other. I’ve no teets for the milk, which is a curse, but let’s hope me being your Mammy is enough.’

  The little mite sniffs down into the scarf of Mammy’s and I hum to the lump of fur and heal away at the air around the creature.

  ‘You’ll be my hound,’ I tell the woollen lump in my hands. ‘Like the Fianna had hounds. I’ll need one too.’

  The size of it now isn’t big enough for wars or battles, but hadn’t all the legends started with people being small and meek? There was a time when Grainne Mhaol the pirate queen was a mere girl and not let go to sea. Brigid, too, had been a young girl once.

  ‘Let's call you Cuhullin after the warrior long ago. That's a long name. Let’s call you Hull for short. Daddy might not let you stay, but I’ll think of a way of persuading him.’

  Keeping Hull is important to me, and there’s no smell of death on him now. I’ll probably have to tell Daddy soon, and I know deep down what I might have to do to be allowed to keep Hull.

  8

  I must do something about telling Daddy about Hull, but as always I’m not sure of what words to use.

  ‘If you don’t go to school then I’ll have the doctor’s wife here again complaining,’ Daddy says while puffing on his pipe. He realises then that I might like seeing her again. ‘I won’t have her here telling me what’s what. We can’t have them all saying that I’m letting you run wild all over the countryside. Be careful of that river too. I don’t want you to drown!’

  I might drown like the puppies. The shadows say that me dying would cure some of Daddy’s problems, and they warn me to be careful. I must be quiet now for a time, but the heart stings inside me.

  Hull’s growing louder but hasn’t made it out of the tall wooden box. I also bring in the turf so there’s no need for Daddy to be near the shed. Hull’s gnawing now with sharp little teeth and he’s playful. It’s hard to leave him, but he still snoozes in the woollen scarf, and while in the fields by the river, I tire him out for the early, dark evenings. Someone will mention to Daddy about me and a pup, but for now all is quiet. I fill Hull’s belly full of spuds and milk and say a prayer over him to keep him sleeping soundly until Daddy takes off to the pub.

  ‘The nights are colder if that’s possible. You must be frozen in that back bedroom. We could move you down beside the fire in the evenings, back to the settle-bed?’

  His bed is beside the chimney breast upstairs but the back bedroom is like an ice box. If I’m down here, I would be cosier. The settle-bed he talks of is like a big, wooden, curtained box with a thin mattress on it. I loved my settle-bed, which is why Mammy got rid of it. I nod my head, but know that I’m walking into something that isn’t as pretty as it seems.

  ‘I’ll pull in that bed, then, that Nancy made me put out into the turf shed. It’s still intact and we’ll make it up nice next to the hearth over there. Between the chimney breast and other wall? What ya think?’ He points to the spot where it was. ‘Old-fashioned and a wreck’ for Nancy but where it was indeed my warm cosy bed. Daddy also fell into it when he came home full of whiskey and porter. When he didn’t want to ‘waken the beast in Mammy’ and needed me to cuddle him instead.

  ‘There’ll be no room in it for you. I’m bigger now,’ I tell him, standing as tall and as broad as I can. There’s a smirk in the corners of his unshaven mouth. He has tried my blocked-with-a-brush door upstairs. He’s rattled it just the once, since Mammy left.

  ‘There’s never much hurry on Michael McCarthy,’ Aunt Bredagh says, so I’m surprised when he rises from his comfortable seat and suggests that I help him with moving it then and there.

  ‘Wait until the daylight,’ I tell him, as he sits again.

  ‘You’re right. Vincent’s coming home for a wedding, he’ll give me a hand with it.’

  My boots, although tight as anything on my toes these days, let me sink my heart into them. I can see the swagger of that Vincent. He has far too much money in his breeches. He’s over and back to Dublin looking for labouring men for his ‘businesses’ and women to ‘whore for him’, whatever that is. Mammy wasn’t right about much, but she called Vincent a ‘no-good-son-of-a-bitch’.

  ‘When’s he here?’ I ask. From then, my days and nights will be filled with the fear of Vincent coming for me in the twilight.

  ‘He’ll be home for a good few weeks this time. He says he’s brought some big trunks of fancy clobber home and we’ll all look nice for the Easter fetes and the summer shows.’

  I smile like I’m supposed to. I know from listening to the adults that Vincent and his pals have money and are vicious.

  ‘I don’t want to have to go near his mickey again.’ I say it into the nice warm glow of the fire. That stays between us, and Daddy sucks on his pipe and doesn’t say anything. ‘I don’t want his presents.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told. Vincent’s a powerful man now. Made good in Dublin and he’s good to remember us and to let us share in his good fortune.’

  I pull at the thread from the sleeve of my dress. My knees are warming as I sit in front of the fire, but under me feels damp.

  ‘You need to get out of that dress for one thing and those boots of yours are far too small. Vincent has clothes for ya. If you need to be grateful, you’ll be grateful and be pleased about it as well.’

  A tear drips from my cheek. I know he sees it.

  ‘Nothing in this world is for free,’ he puffs.

  It isn’t possible for me to be around Vi
ncent for weeks on end. The thoughts of it will bring me out in hives.

  ‘I’ll bring death to him, if he touches me again,’ I say.

  I know the shadows have warned me to be quiet, but it’s out now. Daddy chuckles and swings on the chair’s legs. He’s uncomfortable. The shadows tell me that Daddy doesn’t like this. The shhhing is loud in my ears. But, I know that I’m powerful too, possibly more powerful than Vincent could ever imagine.

  ‘I’m just putting my cards on the table.’ I’m all high and mighty.

  ‘Putting your cards on the table, are you now?’ Daddy smirks on.

  It was a saying that I heard Aunt Bredagh use about whether she would come to live with us or not. She wanted all sorts of things and Daddy had made it plain that her choices were few. Her husband had run off with some very young ‘flousy’ and left Aunt Bredagh high and dry with huge debts, a gaggle of geese and four boys to rear. ‘The embarrassment at not keeping my husband was bigger than the pain of losing him,’ she said, ‘but I need a roof for my boys and if that means putting up with you, lazy Michael McCarthy, so be it.’

  There’d been rumblings that she’d not been a proper wife to Uncle Matt for years. I could see how living with her and the noise from those big boys would drive anyone to up and leave! But I hadn’t wanted her or her cards on our table. Daddy had mentioned ‘the lack of space’ and that he’d still go for a pint of an evening, and the boys would have to pull their weight and help about the place.

  With me moving to the settle-bed, it seems likely that all Aunt Bredagh’s demands have been thrashed out without me knowing.

  ‘There’ll be no chance of Vincent hurting me if Aunt Bredagh is here,’ I tell the fire. I know Daddy’s listening. His feet shuffle back and he leans in to tilt my eyes to meet his.

  ‘You know so much,’ he sighs. ‘Did Vincent hurt you?’

  I want to scrape out those stupid eyes of his. Does he not know that he’s hurt me too? I can’t answer the bad blindness in him.

  ‘There’ll be none of that ever again,’ he says.

  ‘We all know you’re a bad liar, Michael McCarthy.’ I sound like Aunt Bredagh when she says it.

  The thump he gives me catches me on the side of the head. My teeth shake. My hand and side crash down on the flags right in front of the fire. The heat seers at me telling me to get up and away. I scuttle low and fast across the earthen floor and hide under the table. Through the legs of the chairs I pull in after me, I see his legs stretch back out in front of the fire. My rocking to and fro starts, and I hum to the pain in my head as the floor goes blurry.

  ‘Nancy wasn’t far wrong about you,’ he says, not moving to see if I’m alive or dead. ‘My cards are on the table now too, Molly. Bredagh and her boys are coming here and Vincent will be visiting. You will behave. Healing or no healing, we won’t put up with you.’

  The shadows must be lying to me too, because there’s nothing good coming for me at all.

  9

  There is no feet-smell of Daddy in the house when I waken up under the table. It’s late evening, so he’s gone to sup his fill. My right eye is closed and won’t open. My jaw feels huge with my teeth a bit wobbly like the tooth fairy’s coming. The taste of blood soon stops when I start my prayers. I hold my elbow, as I talk to St Brigid. The chairs aren’t heavy but it takes me a time to move them with one eye not working and the other side of me aching. My boot has split open in the toe. I can feel the sole is slopping underneath when I try to walk. Bending to loosen the laces makes my temples pound like a drum. Instead, I drag that foot and wince when the other one makes contact with the ground. The fire is only embers, the room is as dark as the night around me. My friends gather my soul and tell me to be strong as I can be.

  The sobs are loud from me and I scare Hull in the turf shed. He peeks but won’t come out from the stacks of turf. I’d been slapping him to keep him from leaving the shed and now he doesn’t know what to do. I’m outside as the rain starts to spit on me, clicking my tongue to urge Hull to follow me as I simply can’t bear to lean down again. It feels like my whole brain might come out my eyes. My elbow doesn’t hurt as bad when I hold it tightly. The turf shed starts to move in front of me. This shouldn’t happen. I turn slowly to make my way up the lane. The creatures in the darkness help me to put one sorry foot in front of the other. I just want to fall into the ditch and die.

  The neighbours’ lights are out and the need for me to move in the other direction is huge, despite the agony I’m in. I’m almost at the crossroads that are the main road. To the right is Collooney village, left is to Ballisodare, and on straight is for the train station. When I’m deciding which way to go, the fur of a warm Hull rubs up against my calf. There’s whimpering and I can’t look down much, but he’s there. I get the will to move the extra yards to the sign on the road. When I reach it, all I can manage to do is lean my aching back to the stone wall next to the post.

  The headlights of a car make me close my eyes. If I stood out into the road, maybe it might run me over and put me out of my misery? But, I don’t want Hull to die and he’s behind me. I wait for the car to pass on, but instead it slows to a stop. Daddy doesn’t drive, so it isn’t him. Whoever it is will more than likely tell him. I hear the car doors open and close again. Why did I walk into the night on my own when I had nowhere to go?

  ‘Molly?’ the voice asks me. ‘Are you hurt, child?’

  Father Sorely is not what I would call a kind man, but his voice sounds worried.

  ‘She’s been battered – again!’ It is Dr Brady’s voice. My good eye cries into the half-lit face of the handsome man and my lips tremble. Hull does a low growl but stays hidden behind my legs. ‘You’ve been battered again, Molly?’ he asks me, knowing the answer. ‘There’s no denying those marks, Father.’

  Of course, the priest isn’t sure if they should take me and Hull into the car. ‘Her father couldn’t have done this?’ Sorely says as Dr Brady shushes him while lifting me into the back seat. I can hear the doctor is annoyed as he says, ‘Being a parent takes more than a priest would know.’ It shocks Father Sorely into a silence of sorts. Instead of talking to either of us he mutters prayers that I don’t know, until Dr Brady leaves him off at his big house.

  Through my one good eye, I can see the doctor is looking in a mirror. I’m used to a bus, but not a car. The movement is making my belly feel weak too. The leather is cool like face cream. Hull’s nose rests on my knee and I hope he won’t be sick in the car either. Sometimes Hull hoops up, even when there’s no car jiggling. But, I just want to die or be far away by the ocean.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ the kind voice says from the front. ‘Jude will be glad to see you, Molly.’

  Dr Brady has said both our names together. I thank my shadows for leading me up the lane. I thank them from the bottom of my stomach, but as I do so, I lurch all out of my belly. It spews down my front, over the seat and it plops onto the floor of the car.

  ‘Not to worry, I won’t stop now, Molly, we’re on a bad bend. That’s car sickness, I hope, and not the bash to your head. Stay awake now pet.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Just keep talking to me or hold those lovely eyes open just a little longer.’

  I hum a tune to keep him happy that I’m alive.

  ‘Who did this to you, Molly?’

  He knows who did it, but he asks me again and then again, as I hum on. The healing is slow on myself. I’m so weak. ‘Sorry,’ I mutter again, listening and trying to see if my friends are near to tell me what I should do.

  ‘Jude is doing well, Molly,’ he says, and of course this helps my healing. ‘He’s getting stronger every day. We’re delighted he’s with us.’

  ‘The angels led me to you,’ I whisper as loudly as I can over the noise of the car. ‘They told me to walk. I’d like to see Jude.’

  He swerves the car to the right. I slide all the way over onto my side with the sway of the car. It stops and the noise of the engine goes off. I lie lo
oking up at the doctor who’s turned around in his seat, with Hull licking at my ear.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you, child. We need to check you over.’

  All around him, the air is fine. It’s then that I notice his dark beard and I start to cry.

  10

  I smell the perfume of the fur-collared lady in the long hallway as the doctor carries me in his strong arms. ‘Hull?’ I call.

  ‘If you mean that smelly runt of a pup, he’s under my heels,’ Dr Brady says over me, as he kicks the door closed behind him.

  ‘I’ll walk,’ I say, but he doesn’t let me down until we are in a place that smells clean. The bench is metal and cold. He shines a small light in my eyes and holds my wrists. Then he pokes at my jaw and tuts over and over. He loosens my boots and I’m so grateful. I haven’t taken them off for days, as getting them back on is more painful than leaving them be.

  The smell of me must be bad enough. He wrinkles his nose a few times. I can’t help but try to smile at him.

  ‘You poor creature,’ he touches my hair.

  I lean into his hand with a sigh. Without thinking, I reach out for his middle and touch below his belt. I know Daddy likes my hands to go there when he cradles my head like that. Dr Brady jumps back from me and holds his groin and glares at me.

  Tears fall and I wish they would stop. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left Daddy. He’ll be cross.’

  Dr Brady doesn’t move but stands there staring at me. My head hurts when I look at him. I close my eyes and hold my head instead. ‘Please don’t leave me,’ I urge the angels. ‘Tell me what to do.’ Everything is strange now and I know that he’s very angry with me, despite me trying to please him.

  ‘Darling girl,’ he says from a safe distance. ‘What has happened to you?’