The Herbalist (26 page)

‘We’re good to you, Sarah, are
we not?’ Carmel had asked crossly, as if aware that Sarah was getting weary of a
life full of snipes and challenges she didn’t quite grasp. And of their night-time
arguments – over money, over the shop and sometimes even over her.

‘You think the sun shines out of her
fat arse!’

Dan mumbled some low denial.

Sarah wanted to scream: ‘I’ve
got two ears as well as a fat arse!’

The niceties were over. Their only
concession to her presence was to move to other rooms. But not always.

When she had finished work at the
herbalist’s, she sometimes stayed on for a game of cards. If he didn’t have
a customer, he had a visitor. They played gin rummy, twenty-five and poker. Sarah won
the first hand of poker she ever played. Aggie called her a right shark, said
she’d take the eye straight out of your head. Sarah just smiled; it was a welcome
few bob. When the cards fell by the wayside and there was a sing-song, the herbalist
wasn’t as free with her as with the other women. They said some awful things and,
depending on his mood, sometimes he’d laugh and sometimes he’d wince. But
when he talked to Sarah, he kept to herbs. He often quizzed her about plants, about
Mai’s tonics. Sarah only joined in the cards or the singing a few times. She was
afraid of what would get back to Carmel. She was such a bad-minded woman.

Tuesday was a Matt day. Sarah was trying to
think of a topic of conversation, something that could help them strike up a friendship.
She was writing out a price list for the window display. Carmel looked over her
shoulder.

‘Suppose that’ll do,’ she
muttered.

That irked Sarah. She was doing an excellent
job and knew it. The herbalist was more than happy with her work, said she had a
beautiful copperplate script. Sarah had once won a certificate for handwriting. Master
Finbar presented it to her himself while the children did a drum roll on their
desks.

As Sarah slipped the price list into the
window of the shop, she waved at Birdie, who was sitting on the windowsill of her own
place, as she did every market day. Matt was due in for his paper any minute, and Sarah
still hadn’t thought of anything to say. Then she opened the newspaper and there
it was: a full-page notice for the summer carnival. Everyone was talking about the
carnival. It stayed in town for the whole month. She would say, ‘Are you going to
the carnival? I hear it’s great.’ That would give him a chance to ask her
out.

She made sure to have the paper opened
casually on that page when he came in. He couldn’t miss it. Her nerves were
killing her.

Matt was pleasant but quiet as usual. Sarah
held back his change so she would have his full attention.

‘I see there’s a carnival on –
are you going to it yourself?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Have you ever been?’ This was
hard work.

‘Oh, yes, I went last year; it was
great gas altogether.’ He smiled at the memory.

‘I’ve never been to a
carnival.’

‘Really? You’re missing out. You
should go.’

He said it so encouragingly it nearly broke
her heart. The opportunity would slip through her fingers if she didn’t act
fast.

‘To be honest I don’t know many
people … I can’t think of anyone to go with.’ She held out his change and he
took it.

‘Well, Sarah …’ He had never
said her name before.

She felt an arm slip around her shoulder.
Dan beamed down.

‘You poor thing, why didn’t you
say so before? It would be a pleasure to take you to see the big carnival, girl,
we’d only be delighted.’

‘Good luck now.’ Matt was off,
his paper tucked under his arm.

What was wrong with her at all? She was
raging with Dan, raging. He had spoilt her chances.

‘He was going to ask me out! How am I
ever going to meet anyone? Why did you do that, Dan?’

‘Just protecting your honour,’
he laughed.

‘Do you think it’s funny? Do you
think I want to be serving here till my hair has fallen out?’

He looked startled, as if it had only just
dawned on him that Sarah might have dreams of her own, dreams that didn’t involve
the shop, or him and Carmel.

Of course Dan never did take her to the
carnival; she knew he wouldn’t. Carmel wouldn’t like it. So the opportunity
came and went and was never mentioned again. Sometimes when she served him, Matt’s
fingers touched hers as he took his change. It made her sad.
I wanted you
,
she told him in her mind,
but you wouldn’t even walk me out.
She
couldn’t understand it. He seemed to like the look of her, but he never said
anything.

Carmel said that he was a strange man, a
widower, that he’d known plenty of women, all sorts. Though what they saw in him
was a mystery to Carmel, with him so rough from working the river. River people were odd
anyway.

Sarah stopped being nice to him or making
conversation – it was too painful. She just said ‘Grand day’ or ‘Wet
day’ as suited the occasion and kept her feelings to herself. Pretty soon he
became brusque too, and it seemed to give him more confidence, make him easier with her.
He even made a few throwaway remarks every now and again.

Their dealings became flavoured with
resentment. Sarah felt the lost opportunity – the waste – and came to despise herself,
and him, for their blushing awkwardness. It showed in how curt she became towards him.
He responded by adopting a careless manner, began to call her ‘sourpuss’.
She followed suit, called him an amadán, or a buffoon, and would often tell him to hurry
up, that she hadn’t a whole day to waste while he rooted round for his change. And
soon all hope of him being tender, of saving her with kisses and a ring on her finger,
was locked away and buried for ever.
A girl like you.
He sometimes referred to
her like that. ‘Sure what would you know, a girl like you?’

There’d been a fortune-telling
session by accident, and the herbalist had drunk enough rum to blacken his teeth for
life. A shindig to mark the hanging of the sign over his front door:
HERBAL
SURGERY
.

At around eight o’clock that night I
had knocked, and he had pretended to be awfully surprised to see me, to have had no
choice but to let me join the party.

‘A one-off, Miss Madden,’ he
said with a wink, and let me in.

I was surprised to see Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes
Harvey standing inside the door, clutching a small sherry and looking as if she
didn’t know whether to stay or flee. He must’ve pulled her in off the street
on her way to evening Mass. The house was packed. Aggie’s pals Lila and Judy were
already tipsy and trying to start a sing-song.

‘
Down by the River Saile
…
’
Lila belted out.

She grabbed Frank Taylor’s arms, and
started to wave them up and down in time to the song, like he was a puppet or something.
He plucked them back and readjusted his silly satin bow tie. What was Mr Taylor doing
there? The town hall caretaker hated market people, called them the bane of his life.
Lila and Judy had opened their top buttons to give all and sundry a free sampler. Their
fat cleavages glistened with sweat; it was the ale and the excitement – there
weren’t many places that let them in. They were shameful women, worse than
Aggie.

Nell Daly was by the back door, waving her
handkerchief around her face as if the herbalist’s kitchen was the Sahara Desert.
She was still wearing her widow’s weeds and was surrounded by rapt men – Billy
from the Picture Palace, River Inn Jim and Short Arse Smith – lapping up her every word.
She saw me and raised her voice over the din.

‘I was abducted from the footpath,
Emily,’ she laughed, ‘abducted!’

That’s when I caught a glimpse of
Aggie in the yard outside. She
was stumbling past the kitchen window,
eating the face off Ned, the road sweep, like he was her long-lost sailor love. And it
not yet dark! I should’ve known not to stay. People weren’t in full control
of themselves. I should’ve gone there and then, before it got worse.

Milkie Nash was carrying a plate of goodies
and wore shining silver bracelets. She offered me a slice of fruit cake. I wondered if
her mother knew that she was there. The herbalist handed me a glass of lemonade; I
didn’t realize the thirst I had on me till then and downed it in one. The fruit
cake was delicious, crumbly and moist, with loads of cherries and almonds. It had been a
while since I had eaten anything so good.

Lizzie Murphy, perched on the biggest chair,
began to warm up her old fiddle; she was all elbows and knees, like a brown spider
weaving. John the Jobber was standing beside her, braced for the nod to squeeze a tune
out of his accordion. Between the ladies of the night roaring
a-weile weile
weile
and Lizzie’s fiddle, it was a cats’ chorus in there. I felt
like putting my hands over my ears. Then a fat man walked into the middle of the room
and began to sing.

He was what they’d call a baritone,
and he left all other contenders for centre stage in the ha’penny place. There was
silence around his voice, even in the spaces he left between verses; nobody filled them
with whispers or talk. He had a mighty broad chest, and he sang from somewhere inside it
that must’ve been bottomless. Whatever the opposite of lowering the tone was, he
did it. There was a huge round of applause when he was done, and a polite chatter of
approval from all corners of the room.

The herbalist strutted over and shook the
man’s hand. The fat man was suddenly the guest of honour and offered the best of
everything.

Aggie came back in after the performance.
She set herself up at the kitchen table and started to ply her other trade. She did it
all – palms, tea leaves, cured warts too, or so she claimed. I sat at the end of the
table and listened. Miss Harvey put down her sherry, muttered some excuse and left. The
herbalist ignored me in favour of the fat man. They were deep in conversation, facing
each other, legs akimbo and arms crossed. Milkie said that the fat man
was the herbalist’s new landlord, and that if the herbalist played his cards
right, there was a chance of an even bigger residence somewhere down the line. The fat
man was loaded: he drove a big black motorcar. It was Lizzie told Milkie, and
she’d heard it from the herbalist himself. Milkie was looking very heated and very
pretty. I wished she’d just go home.

‘I sincerely doubt that a word of that
is true,’ I told her.

‘
Miaow
,’ she answered
and flicked her hair.

I watched her tour the room with her baking
and gulped back the rest of Miss Harvey’s sherry. Aggie read fortunes well, with
just the right amount of lies and truth. How excited I’d been the day she told me
love was coming. She may have hit the nail on the head, but she’d hit it by
accident. There was brandy on the table, so I gave myself a refill as Aggie predicted a
windfall for Judy. The liquid burnt my tongue and throat but filled my belly with
warmth. She turned over a Jack of Spades, let out a low
ohhh
and told Judy that
meant false friends and quarrels. Judy scratched her diddy and said she could stand a
quarrel if the few bob came first. She roared laughing and I looked away: the woman
hadn’t a tooth in her mouth, it was as black as a bog hole.

The time flew watching Aggie rake it in. She
must’ve done everyone that wanted to be done, because at some stage she turned to
me.

‘Well, petal?’

I looked around the room – where had
everyone gone? Lila and Judy chatted by the fireplace; the herbalist lay back in his
armchair with his legs stretched out and crossed, his eyes half closed. The singing fat
man was at the other end of the kitchen table. He lit the cigarette in his mouth with a
candle, and winked. He was within arm’s reach of me, yet he seemed very, very far
away, very misty.

‘Why not,’ my voice droned, like
a record played at the wrong speed.

Aggie laid out a card then but kept it
covered. I tried to lift it, but she kept moving it around the table real quick,
grinning and spiteful-looking. Then she lifted it close to her face and made a great
show of letting on she saw something horrible, like old Nick.

‘I can’t tell you, oh, no, I
daren’t!’ she crowed.

Then she pushed it towards my face.

It was a Joker. A horrible laughing one in a
tight red and yellow costume, with golden bells on his toes, knees and elbows. His
tongue stuck out and his big white eyes bulged under a ferocious pair of black
brows.

‘What does it mean?’ I
whispered.

‘A terrible end …’

That drove me into one of my fits. I got up
and stamped my feet. And shame on them, the three women – Aggie, Judy and Lila – copied
me as if it was a dance step I was teaching.

‘Witches! Make them stop! Make them go
away!’ I screamed at the herbalist.

He opened his eyes but he didn’t move
from his chair. The fat man egged them on, beating out a rhythm, faster and faster, on
the table, and then they took on the attitude of fine ladies at a ball, circled me,
raised their fingers into dainty crooks and jigged around. Aggie sang a tune.