The Herbalist (29 page)

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.

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.

‘I park in the shade,’ she said,
‘so me butter won’t melt nor me milk sour.’

Mad as a hatter but she knew her knots
better than any sailor, and the bloody big strong arms on her! Aggie loved that boat.
I’d seen her kiss it, I swear to God. Some paint had flaked from its name, so it
read iddy, instead of biddy. I kept quiet. If I passed any remark, Aggie would summon
Seamus to fix it, have him slaving away in the heat. He’d do anything for Aggie;
he was the only man in this town that gave her the time of day. It was quite a different
story come the night-time, though. Else we wouldn’t have the Schiaparelli, would
we?

Seamus was a quare man. Shy, yet brazen when
it came to doing Aggie’s bidding. Only last week he’d mended her cabin door
and painted it pillar-box red as a surprise. She wasn’t a bit pleased, roaring
that he was making a fool of her and forcing him to redo it in black before it had even
dried. Wasn’t a bit grateful. She didn’t talk much about Seamus, and when
she did she never used his name. ‘My odd-job man’, that’s what she
called him.

Aggie had taken me under her wing since our
shindig at the herbalist’s had gone so strangely. She was good company, and
she’d been feeding me sugared whiskey to aid my recovery. Announced that I
was in dire need of womanly guidance. Open your ears now, or learn
the hard way, Emily.

‘It’s all in the dreams. The
dreams tell you everything, mark my words,’ Aggie said, all of a sudden.

‘What does
he
dream
of?’

‘Let me see, let me see.’ Aggie
tapped her forehead. ‘He dreams of Indian boys, a ball of sun and dry earth in a
place where everyone looks just like him. He has to make this place up, for he has never
been.’

‘What Indian boys?’

‘I don’t know – why don’t
you go and ask him?’

I had hoped she might see me waltzing
through the herbalist’s dreams in a white fur stole and a lamé dress.

‘What about me, then?’

‘Oh, you’re easy: your dreams
are full of white mice, they run all over your room, skid down the banisters and waltz
in the cupboard.’

‘That’s not true and you know
it, and we don’t have that many mice. What about her, then?’

‘Who?’

‘You know, your one, Lady Muck the
shop assistant.’

‘Oh, Sarah.’ Aggie shut her
eyes, waited a while and smiled. ‘Sarah dreams of a man: he’s a stranger and
he’s rowing her down the river, rowing her to a nicer place than this.’

‘I wish someone would.’

‘Now, now.’

‘What about you?’

‘My dreams are no one’s
concern.’

‘Ah, Aggie …’

‘All right, have it your way. If Aggie
dreams good, she dreams of the farmhouse she was born to, the warm straw, heavy
porridge, being held. If she dreams bad, then she dreams of being sent into service, and
of all the grey roofs she could see from her window.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means nothing.’

Dan Holohan walked by, and let on he
didn’t see either of us.

‘What about his lordship
there?’

‘Oh, Dan, he’s easy: he dreams of
making love to that dark woman we saw in the paper who wasn’t permitted to sing
for Mrs Roosevelt, then he dreams of making love to Mrs Roosevelt. He wakes up woeful
tired.’

‘You’re a terrible
woman!’

‘I know.’

‘There, all done. Now don’t
wiggle those toes! They’ll be dry in no time.’

‘Thank you, madam.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

I screwed the nail varnish closed, lay back
on the grass and talked about the beautiful dresses I could make with silk or satin.
Imagine, satin. The gathers, the drapes, the tucked-in waists. How I would sway into a
concert at the town hall and no one would recognize me. And I would be danced all
night.

Aggie sat up and pointed to a woman pumping
water near by: she was expecting a child and the six around her were barely dressed.

‘See her? Her poor ankles, her baggy
tired body? She hasn’t many years on you. You want dancing, you want glamour, you
want men? Mouths to feed, that’s what men will get you!’

She nudged a wee naggin of whiskey from her
cleavage and took a sip.

‘Ah, Aggie, stop, you were young once
yourself!’

‘Agnes. Agnes Marian. I’ve got a
proper name, just like you.’ She waved her finger.

‘Don’t you like children; did
you never want some for yourself?’

‘Don’t be daft, girl, want
children? I’m well past all that.’

‘But did you ever …’ I let there
be silence. Aggie hated silence.

‘I had a child, a long time
ago.’ She tugged the fringes of her shawl.

‘Where’s it now? Did it pass
on?’

‘Don’t know. End of
story.’

‘Ah, Aggie, please …?’

She rooted her cigarettes from her skirt
pocket, lit one and took a hard pull. Looked at me.

‘I was very young, engaged but not
wed. They said I had to go
into one of those places. I wouldn’t
agree to go. In the end I was carried through the big gates, kicking and screaming and
seven months gone.’

Aggie let out a long breath, and sighed
before she continued.

‘Soon as the cord was cut, a pretty
nun by the name of Sister Angela bent over me and snatched the child from between my
legs. It slipped from her hands, fell back on to the bed. “Oh, sacred heart of
Jesus,” she said. I lifted my head, but couldn’t see past her veil. And then
she was gone. Never knew if it was a boy or if it was a girl. Never saw the baby again
at all. Just heard it cry. When Sister Angela returned an hour later, she was
empty-handed.’

‘Go on, don’t stop.’

‘Next day I was moved to a
women’s prison in Galway, served eight months and was released. That part was
lucky, getting jail time; otherwise I’d still be in there, wouldn’t I?
Locked behind those high gates with all the other unweds.’

‘Why did they send you to prison,
Aggie?’ I whispered.

‘Didn’t I say? I was sent to
prison for breaking Sister Angela’s lovely face.’

I tried to picture all those things
happening to Aggie, but could no more picture her young than I could picture myself
old.

‘Nothing else came out of there
alive.’ She pointed to you-know-where. ‘Bad luck or silver lining, who
knows?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Heed my advice, Emily. Don’t
fuss about dances, wooing or finery. That just leads to yearning, and yearning is
another way of doing nothing. Ask yourself every day – how can I make a few bob? You
have a sewing machine and a good pair of hands; get them busy. Sure you’re all set
up.’

‘Set up to make dresses for other
girls to go to dances in?’

‘Ah, don’t be so sour – a woman
can’t rely on others, she has to be her own boss. Like me, answering to no
one.’

‘You couldn’t keep going without
the men. If they gave you nothing, you’d have nothing.’

‘How dare you! I’m me own sewing
machine!’ She was raging, ran her hands down her front. ‘You
hussy.’

Then she started laughing. If Aggie liked
anything as much as cheap gin, it was being given out to.

‘You’re a holy disgrace,’
I chanced.

‘A terror,’ she said.

‘A blight on the country.’

‘Coming apart at the seams.’

‘A boil on the face of
humanity.’

‘The scourge of the earth.’

She closed her eyes and smiled, her squishy
big cushion like a dirty old halo.

‘A terrible woman,’ she said
softly.

I wondered who Aggie had been engaged to all
those years ago? Who was her young man? And where had he been when she’d needed
him?

There was no sign of the herbalist that
day. Moving on up in the world, Aggie had said, leaving the rest of us well behind.
Moving on up in the world. He might want another girl. Poor Emily and Aggie would be
left in the dark nowhere space. Aggie yawned and stretched her legs; it was as if she
had read my thoughts.

‘When the herbalist leaves,’ she
said, ‘he won’t look back, not once. Kiss me arse, nothing. Remember that
and don’t follow him.’

I covered my ears and hummed.

‘It’s the truth. What do you
want from me, warm milk and fairy-tales?’

Aggie was warning me, always warning me,
about the darker side to things. And I should’ve listened. I didn’t listen,
but I did the next best thing. I made Aggie a dress.

It was smart, just past the knees.
Olive-green and V-necked. It was a lovely shape but not so sleek when cut for a 46"
bust. Aggie said she was terribly pleased, for ever in my debt. But she paid me. Not
much but all it had cost me was my time.

She invited me to her next spiritual night
in the boat. ‘Free of charge! And you can make a skirt for yourself with the
leftover fabric.’

Leftovers. Did the woman not know how broad
she was at all? It fitted her perfectly, and was more sober and neat than most of her
clothes. She wore it so much it became her second skin, shiny in the seat and the
elbows.

‘My dressmaker, Emily, put this
together for me,’ she’d say.

There couldn’t be a worse
advertisement for a dressmaker than to have Aggie strutting around in one of your
creations. I decided that she wasn’t smelly, really; just a bit salty. ‘Salt
of the earth,’ they said, when she was dead.

Carmel took some care getting ready for her
Sunday supper at the Birminghams’. She chose her cream wool cardigan and her
spotted bottle-green dress, splashed a bit of Dan’s cologne on her wrists and
arranged her plait extra carefully about her head. Her hair had darkened since
she’d married. It used to resemble wheat; now it was more of a biscuit colour. She
lay on the bed to hoist on her stockings. Thank God her damn monthlies were over. She
felt such hell when they were due, and such heartbreak at their arrival.
Barren,
barren, barren
, announced the red blood.

Stop! Think nice thoughts.
Chocolate
.
Lilies
.
Madame Bovary. Just look at that dust on the
ceiling!

Now for the face. She dabbed on some powder
and a touch of lipstick. It wouldn’t do to look too done up, too eager. She pulled
the green dress from the hanger and put it on. It was tight around the waist; the
buttons on the chest gaped. When had she become so busty? Well, it would have to do. It
was her best frock and the ones Emily had altered were too plain, too humdrum. She
buttoned up the cardigan. Wore her mother’s marcasite necklace to jazz things up a
bit.

She had taken great pleasure in telling Dan
she wouldn’t be home that evening. He was glad for her, said that she deserved a
bit of fun. He wrapped his arms around her waist and gave her a lovely squeeze. Then he
went and spoilt it all by saying, ‘I wonder what Grettie is after?’

The house was so silent. Sarah was at her
other job, labelling medicines, pickling plants. She should be home soon. Carmel
hadn’t yet said anything to the girl about what had happened. Several times
she’d begun to, but her apology had got caught in her craw, or she had changed her
mind and decided it was Sarah who should be apologizing for casting aspersions on the
niceness or otherwise of
Carmel’s family home. Not that there
was any family in it.
Now, now, don’t get cross again.