The Herbalist (18 page)

‘My customers look younger and
healthier by the week; by the time I leave they have the health of the wealthy.
Sometimes I can hardly recognize them!’

Fine talk, but it was met with silence – and
that’s when we heard her velvet voice. ‘Do you have a special ointment, your
own soothing skin cream?’

‘Right here, madam.’

‘My friend lent me some and it has
worked wonders for my complexion. Wonders.’

We all turned to look at the girl who had
spoken. She was tall with pearly skin, not one blemish, and healthy pink lips and white
teeth like from a beauty advertisement. Her hair was swept back from her forehead and
waved down her back. She had rings in her ears: not clip-ons – they went right through,
like a gypsy’s. She wore a gold-fringed shawl, like one of those exotics from the
carnival.

One by one the people bought. She started to
talk to the woman beside her, admired her ugly baba. No one doubted her, no one said,
‘Sure she’s a stranger, we don’t listen to strangers. Who are you?
Where do you hail from?’ No one said boo to the beautiful lady; they just took her
cue and started parting with their money. I’d say everyone that heard her speak
bought something that day. That was just a taste of her power.

When weeks later I met her in the shop, and
put two and two together, I thought that she and the Indian herbalist must’ve been
in cahoots all along. Wouldn’t anyone – wouldn’t you? Though credit where
credit is due – I’ve a keen eye, and not many would’ve made the connection.
The country girl behind the counter seemed worlds apart from the lovely woman from the
market. She’d looked so different that day – made up, glamorous and something
else, glowing I suppose, as if she was in love.

I was lying in the long grass, catching a
bit of sun, reading
Woman’s Life
on Sunday afternoon, when who did I see
canoodling along together – only Sarah and my herbalist. She had her hair loose and was
carrying a basket full of weeds. They passed me on the river path as if I didn’t
exist and headed towards the town. Alone! Together! And I only permitted to sneak around
under moonlight. I banned and she allowed. Had I not seen them part that second, I
would’ve parted them myself.

I went to his place that night to express my
grave disappointment. There was no answer. I went around the back, climbed the low wall
and threw gravel at the tin roof. Made a hell of a racket, but the herbalist never came
out. What did I hear then only someone singing near by and coming nearer? I crept back
around to the side of the shed. ‘Tea for two, and two for tea, just me for you,
and you for me …’ Charlie. I ducked down as he turned into the lane. What did he
want? I heard him knock at the herbalist’s door and then him and the herbalist
muttering. After a minute he left, no longer singing, his hobnails striking the ground.
He crossed the square quickly and was swallowed up into the night. I jumped down and
knocked on the herbalist’s door. One, two, three. Open sesame.

The herbalist wouldn’t let me in. My
brother was looking for me, and it upset the herbalist that Charlie had guessed I might
be there.

‘You told on us!’ His fingers
were speckled with black.

‘I never told Charlie
anything.’

‘Then how would he know to come
here?’

‘Someone must’ve seen
me.’

Did he think I was invisible or what? I
would’ve loved a hot cup, but he said I wasn’t allowed, that we’d have
a real break this time, a holiday from each other.

‘Like a siesta?’

‘No, longer than that.’

‘Why is she allowed? Sarah? I saw
her.’

‘It’s just business.’

‘Well, give it up, your business,
whatever it is.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

He shut the door in my face without a
by-your-leave. I called and called him. A voice carried clear as anything through the
dark.

‘Put a sock in it! You’ll wake
the dead!’ Aggie roared.

‘Old bitch!’ I shouted back.

Something cuffed my head. She was right
beside me, oozing gin, filth and sin.

‘Think you’re above me?
You’re right next to me and you don’t even know it.’ She laughed into
my face.

The door opened then, and the herbalist, he
stepped out and yanked me in by the arm. Anything to avoid a scene. I didn’t mind.
I was delighted to be let in.

‘It’s only for a few minutes,
till you see sense,’ he said.

‘Isn’t Aggie an ugly old
toad?’ I said.

‘Maybe if someone kisses her
she’ll turn into a princess?’

‘That one, she changes into nothing –
she barely changes her clothes!’

‘Whist about her.’

He wasn’t outraged enough, as far as I
was concerned. But at least he forgot for a while about keeping me away, about what the
people would say. And I forgot all about Charlie. There was no kissing – it was like the
kissing had never happened – it was all him going on about his new concoctions. Of
course, I was evicted at first light, and scurried away like a thief, my tongue bitter
from all the potions he’d had me test during the night.

Later I dreamt a strong one, heard a crowd
cheering me on. I was in a boxing ring with Sarah. Dancing circles around her. Then I
knocked her on the flat of her back with a punch, and when she fell her skirt flew up
and everyone saw her silly frilly drawers. I ended up with a restless sleep full of
night terrors, and in the last dream, the one that shook me awake, I was falling,
falling past all that was
righteous and good to sit at the right hand
of the devil. Our thrones were side by side, red velvet, gilt gold and high. Then
someone ousted me from my place: she had blue eyes and a deadly glare. She was there.
Then she disappeared. I trusted her absence less than her presence. It filled me with a
cold fear. It tore me from my sleep.

No matter what I said, he wouldn’t let
me back. All I could do was watch the women trooping constantly to and from his door. So
on Monday, I told Mrs Holohan exactly where her fine shop girl was tripping to on her
Sundays off. Carmel just acted annoyed with me, said that I wasn’t in any position
to be so pass remarkable, that Sarah was a respectable woman on a nature excursion and
to take my elbows off her counter.

I waited by the town hall on the next market
day. I was going to make him see sense by acting normal and calm, and showing him that
nobody would complain about us being friends. Why would they?

All the stall-holders had set up, but there
was only a space where he should have been. I waited for an hour and then I got worried
– what if he was sick or in trouble?

When he didn’t answer my knock, I let
myself in. A towel over the window blocked out the light. The place smelt like wet dog,
or worse. The herbalist was on top of the bed-covers, stripped down to his vest,
shivering. A woman was tattooed on his shoulder, and he didn’t even try to hide
her. I cleared my throat. He took his hand from over his eyes, peeked and shooed me
away. I wasn’t going anywhere and he was in no condition to make me.

‘What’s wrong with
you?’

‘I’m tormented, Emily,’ he
said.

‘Can you not cure yourself?’

‘Some things have to be sweated
out.’

He made a sour face and started to ramble,
but at least he let me stay on. I sat on the bed. He didn’t seem to care. His
breath reeked of alcohol. I couldn’t make out what was going on.

He soon told me everything. It turned out
that he was tortured by demons. It was a real battle: he got the sweats and the shakes,
but he
always won in the end. Most times he was as fit as a fiddle,
but when the devils came he had to take a few days off. Just to lie low.

He said the devils got in through the skin,
so a man had to be very careful. He had to wash, wash, wash his hands. The newly born
were closest to clean, but the old were filthy, right next to hell. He tugged my cuff
and began to whisper. I leant in: he called me Cleopatra, said I should be bathed in
milk. He cried, and said other things, mixed-up things that I didn’t understand. I
just studied the hula girl on his shoulder. Her lovely long black hair went right down
her back. She wore nothing but a grass skirt, a garland and a smile. She wasn’t
coloured in, so her skin was his skin – dark like treacle. I placed my palm over her
body. He sat up.

‘Old hula hula’s just for
fun,’ he said; ‘wait till you see this – this is the real
business.’

He opened out his arm, and on the inside
crook was a fat coiled cobra. It was the shape of an
s
and was patterned with
jade-green triangles. I had glimpsed its tail that morning I saw him shave. The fanged
mouth opened wide to let a forked tongue shoot out.

‘I call her Ruby. Go on, touch
her.’

I placed my fingertip on the threads of red
that were her tongue. I put my tongue between my teeth and let out a little hiss. I
didn’t know why I did that.

‘Ruby has the power to make the devils
go away.’

I giggled. I shouldn’t have. He jumped
up from the bed as if he was on fire, leant against the wall, held his snaked arm out
straight and roared towards the darkened window. ‘Off with you!

‘That’s one less devil in the
room.’ He looked at me, as if for a round of applause.

‘Which one was it?’ I asked,
going along with him.

‘Beelzebub – but he’s gone now,
the black-tongued demon!’

He leant back on the bed, rootled under his
pillow and brought out a bottle to uncork with his front teeth.

‘Why did you get tattooed?’ I
asked.

‘To put terror into the heart of the
enemy.’ He smiled, without really smiling.

‘
I thought only
jailbirds and sailors had them.’

‘You’d be surprised. I met a
well-off woman once who had a swallow.’

‘Where?’ I asked. He smiled
properly then, but wouldn’t tell.

Then he wanted for me to go home, but I
explained that I couldn’t, that there were demons in my house too: they lived in
my father’s hands. He was an old man and evil, pure evil. He had medals for
killing. The herbalist told me my father couldn’t be wholly evil because I was his
issue.

‘His blood runs through
you.’

‘I want him out of me!’

I screamed, and screamed. Sick with the
thought. If I could have, I would’ve bled him out of me. It’s funny, but my
being so frightened seemed to calm him. He comforted me, soothed me down. He gave me a
mug of strong tonic. It tasted of liquorice.

Then somehow I was standing in a tub. Warm
water was being poured over my head. There was a beautiful humming. I felt strange – the
room swayed.

‘Emily, for the first time in your
young life you are clean.’

He put me on the bed then and pressed love
and goodness into me. It hurt at first. Afterwards he popped a boiled sweet into my
mouth and called me Cleopatra again. It was a lemon drop, with sherbet in the centre, my
favourite.

Sarah loved opening shop, loved the way the
light lit the silence first thing in the morning. But this morning wasn’t so
peaceful. As soon as Sarah unlocked the door, Mr Gogarty burst through it, brimming with
vim and vitriol. The solicitor was a short stout man who walked as if hurled forward by
his own importance.

‘Where’s the missus?’

‘Not here at the moment.’

Mr Gogarty was one of the ‘come on
through to the living room’ people, those who came often but bought nothing. Those
who were escorted into the back by Carmel with the small smile, secretive air and
fluttering hand movements that she obviously mistook for discretion.

‘Well, give her this from me’ –
he whacked a novel on to the counter – ‘and tell her she can keep her old penny
books, they’re only a waste of time. There’s nothing’ – he jabbed the
novel with his finger – ‘nothing at all in that.’

And off he went. Sarah held the book on her
lap under the counter. The cover was brown with a long and convoluted title:
The
Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders; also, The Fortunate Mistress,
or The Lady Roxana
.