The Herbalist (21 page)

‘Ah,’ he said,
‘they’re just jealous.’

I smiled. That was my saying, the one I used
to account for my unpopularity with the ladies of the town.

‘That well may be.’

The Don didn’t recall much except that
an ugly mouth came close to his face and snarled. Couldn’t recount what happened
next. He passed out, woke with a cut in his head. He told me that there had been a few
of them, that he’d fought tooth and nail.

I wasn’t going to tell him that
I’d seen everything, that there’d been only one, a boy less than half his
age. I had a soft spot for young Charlie, as well you know – all us ladies did. Whatever
‘it’ was, Charlie Madden had it in spades. Got it from his father. Brian
Madden was a vision in his day.

I ran my nail down the back of his bloodied
white shirt.

‘It has the look of a map, red, white
and dust. What country would that be?’

‘What country? It would be mine,’
he said.

Ha! I should’ve known. All about the
love of himself.

The herbalist took off his shirt, wrapped it
in a sheet of newspaper and went out to the backyard. Burnt it in the bin. Watched it
blacken till it was ashes.

‘Well, aren’t you a strange
man?’

‘What would you have me do with
it?’ he asked. ‘It could never be worn again.’

‘You’d have a duster out of it
at worst.’

‘Allow my own blood to be rubbed in
grime! I should think not.’

He had to bring his fresh split head to old
Doctor Birmingham. That near killed him. Pride was a big thing for him. He told me later
that Doctor B didn’t ask how he’d got the wound, but he didn’t go easy
on The Don.

‘Are you,’ the doctor asked,
‘are you intoxicated?’

‘No,’ The Don told him, smart as
anything, ‘I was set upon by some of your fellow Irishmen.’

‘And what did you do to upset
them?’

‘Nothing.’

Doctor B poured something foul and burning
on the wound, let it drip over his forehead and then began to stitch it in the hall of
the house, without any ceremony.

‘I’m surprised …’ Doctor B
said.

‘Surprised at what?’

‘That such a great and wonderful
doctor as yourself couldn’t do the sewing on your own head.’

‘I’ve many things in many
places,’ The Don told him, ‘but I don’t have eyes there.’

At that, there had been movement on the
stairs. And out of sight of Doctor B, wasn’t there pale hair trailing over the
banister, as his wife listened to every word?

‘All done,’ said Doctor B.
‘Three and six. I’ll send you the bill.’

‘Night night, Grettie!’ The Don
waved towards the staircase and legged it out of there. That was probably the most
civilized meeting him and the good doctor ever had. I wondered at The Don being on
first-name terms with the doctor’s wife; I bet the doctor did
too. I’d say the conversation they had when he left was far from civilized,
wouldn’t you?

The Don wasn’t floored for long. One
day he was on the ground stinking of piss and blood, and the next standing at his
doorway, chipped tooth and all, waving to the women with open arms. ‘Ladies,
ladies, come on in!’ His white shirt opened at the chest, a necklace with a blue
stone pendant shining from across the street. Could you be up to him?

Could you be up to anyone in this town? You
know, I thought Charlie was protecting his sister’s virtue when I saw him leap on
the herbalist. Wasn’t I a terrible innocent? It wasn’t Emily he was fighting
for at all, was it? No, it wasn’t her.

Is that a smile I see?

The Adventures of Robin Hood
had
returned to the Picture Palace due to popular demand. It was Charlie’s day off and
I really wanted him to take me. I asked him at breakfast while he was still fuzzy.

‘They say Errol Flynn wears no
underpants,’ I said, joining him at the table.

‘Will you shut up saying that? Anyway,
I’m busy today. You can come the next time I’m going with a gang.’

Gang my bum, Charlie never went with a gang;
Charlie always had a girl. He had started late and was making up for it. No wonder he
ate like a horse.

‘Are you not going to bring
Rita?’

‘No, not this time. Pass the
marmalade.’

‘Will you ask Rose perhaps?’ I
said. ‘You can bring Mrs B too; cuddle up to her fox-fur. Have an old
nuzzle-nuzzle.’

‘Stop it. You’d need to grow
up.’ He let on to smack my shoulder; it didn’t hurt – Charlie couldn’t
hurt me if he tried.

‘I am grown up,’ I said.
‘I’ve got a beau.’

‘Ah, will you stop. Don’t talk
nonsense.’

‘I do, he’s John Gilbert and
Clark Gable all rolled into one. Before Gable grew that fat moustache, I mean. I really
don’t like that moustache, I hope he trims it …’

‘That herbalist is a pauper who thinks
he’s a prince. And if he doesn’t stay away from you, I’ll make
him.’ Charlie touched my arm. ‘Everyone is laughing at you,
Emily.’

He said the last bit softly. I didn’t
like Charlie saying that so gentle, making it sound almost true.

‘I’ll keep to my love life; you
keep to yours.’

He sighed, and chewed away on his bread.

‘How is poor Rita?’

‘She’s fine, busy enough
nowadays. We’re just pals.’

‘I’d say that suits you. So, who
are you seeing on the sly?’

‘No one.’ He knocked back the
rest of his tea.

‘You’d like to, though,
wouldn’t you? Go to the flicks with Rose? Pity, he’d have your guts for
garters.’

‘Who’s
he
when
he’s at home?’

‘Her father of course, the eminent
Doctor B.’

‘That man’s a brute,’ he
said, shoving his plate away and standing up. ‘Cows. I’m off.’

There was no picture house for anyone that
afternoon. There was me at home drawing water from the well, carrying bucket after
bucket into the kitchen to fill the kettle to put on the fire, because our lad Charlie
had decided to wash the windows of the parlour and needed hot water. Then more turf had
to be brought in to keep the fire going to heat the water to clean the tiles.

And for what? He said he just wanted it
ship-shape.

Well, I wanted to feed the hens and bring in
the eggs and clean them. But I had to take out the ashes that had built up from keeping
the water boiling hot for Charlie, the new lover of sparkling windows.

I’d have much rather been holding my
breath in the picture house, watching the ever so dashing Errol Flynn robbing rich folk.
I loved it there. The sticky Highland Toffee, the wait for the picture to begin, the
music, the suspense. Oh, there was nothing like it. I even loved the smell of tobacco
and brilliantine. The stink of piddle from the flea pit. It was so good to be there in
the dark, in a packed smoky picture house, with the stars on the big screen. Watching a
man stretch his arm around his girl’s shoulder and trying to look casual about it.
It was pity to come out again, out of the dark into the bright shining daylight of the
same plain town you were born into.

Charlie had the windows wide open to help
the tiles dry; he’d even wiped down the walls. He was fierce busy tidying a
parlour that no one ever went into, the room Mam kept for good use. The one we’d
laid her out in. Poor woman. I didn’t like to think about that, of her keeping the
room clean for visitors when no visitors did she get, not a one. Not till she had passed
on.

It was the coldest room in the house; never
got any sun, never would. I stored the butter box in there. Not that anyone noticed or
cared. My father was in the pub or visiting, hardly ever came home. Visiting, mind. Who
would bother with him at all? I could never fathom it. Some old biddy must’ve been
feeding him. He almost never showed for dinner but, as far as I could tell, he
hadn’t starved to death yet. Who’d think that he’d be the one widowed
when he married Mam all those years ago, she twenty and he thirty-five? And there he
was, a vagabond thriving on a regime of drink and tobacco. ‘Never marry
muscle.’ That’s what Mam used to say, amongst other things.

I tiptoed across the tiles and sat on the
windowsill, watching Charlie sweep a damp rag across the floor and wring it out in the
basin. If Father had been here, he’d have been telling him off for doing
women’s work. His pals in the foundry would have been laughing their heads
off.

‘Charlie,’ I asked, ‘why
are you cleaning up in here?’

‘Might have a friend coming, just for
a short time.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I can’t tell you. But this
person needs somewhere safe.’

‘A sanctuary?’ I loved
secrets.

‘Exactly,’ he said.
‘You’re not to tell anybody, Emily. Not even your man from the
market.’

‘He has a name.’

‘Promise?’

‘Who’s this friend,
Charlie?’

‘I can’t say, Emily, I really
can’t. Someone who desperately needs help.’

‘Oh, how exciting. I’ll help.
I’ll cook extra and bring it to him. Does he like eggs?’

‘Doesn’t everyone like eggs?
You’re a good one, Emily.’

‘Ah, feck off,’ I told him.

Charlie looked like he was going to say
something else, but he didn’t. He just wrung out the cloth and brought the basin
back into the kitchen. I stayed on the window-ledge, imagining Charlie’s desperate
friend. How grateful he’d be for the kindness of Charlie’s
sister. I’d crimp my hair and swan around in a gauzy gown with fur cuffs. Sit
with my elbows on the table and say things like, ‘Now wait a minute, fella. You
have to eat, you have to keep your strength up.’ I was a terrible eejit, really,
when you think of it. I should’ve guessed when Charlie came waltzing in with a
vase full of poppies and set it on the sideboard that this desperate friend of his
didn’t wear trousers.

‘It says here, it says here that this
wine restores normal vitality when reserves of strength have been depleted. A glassful
taken three times a day will key up the appetite, bring refreshing sleep and build up
energy and bodily strength with gratifying rapidity.’

Dan didn’t answer; he just growled and
stretched his legs. Carmel loved to read in the evening, relished the combination of
tonic wine, a thick novel and a dying fire. And when she could no longer fix her eyes on
the page, she’d resort to reading the label on her tonic wine for
convalescents.

‘And it also says that it contains
medicinal ingredients
not
to be found in any other tonic wine. What do you
think of that?’

‘It would want to, at six shillings a
bottle,’ Dan said.

‘It’s made by monks, I’ll
have you know.’

She liked to read and read – she was mad for
it. That night it was
Madame Bovary
. Dan went in search of something that
needed painting, or fixing, or both. He was back in a breath.

‘Look what our shop girl’s been
gobbling up –
The Fortunate Mistress
!
How did she get her hands on that? I
found it beside the ledger – anyone could’ve seen it.’

‘It’s not hers. It’s
ours.’ Wine made Carmel brave. ‘You know Finbar does great work on behalf of
the
Catholic Truth people. Well, I was giving him a hand, checking a
few suspect novels that might have to be reported to the censorship board. You
can’t be vigilant enough nowadays, can you, Dan?’

She hoped Dan wouldn’t spot the
lie.

‘Underlining dirty bits in foreign
books?’

‘Most of them are Irish, I’ll
have you know. And he’d no choice the way things are, the way the government is
coming down on all of us. Do you think he could have said no? Well? Said no to the
Catholic Truth people and he the master of a Catholic national school? An overseer of
the innocent?’

‘But
you
could’ve said
no! And what kind of man would give his sister questionable books to read?’

She hadn’t an answer for that.

Carmel watched her husband fume as he
flicked through
Moll Flanders
. Such a big man – his thighs were as hard now as
they’d been on the day they married. He was so righteous, sturdy and stern. Dan
had a real soft spot for the sacrament of confession, for those fleeting seconds when
his soul was officially declared sin-free and pure.
Go in peace to love and serve
the Lord
.