The Herbalist (40 page)

So Sarah had fled, and taken her belongings
with her. Well might she run – if Carmel ever got her hands on her, she would be beyond
conceiving once and for all. Yes, Carmel was tormenting herself, saying aloud again and
again, ‘Another woman is carrying my husband’s child. A mere girl, a
whipper-snapper whore.’ It wasn’t simple jealousy. The colour of
Carmel’s feeling wasn’t green; it was black, it had teeth, and the howl of
something ripped from her belly and torn asunder. Her heart roared like the last wolf.
She pressed her forehead to the mirror, told it everything.

‘I’ll get that Sarah. I’ll
get her and take her kicking and screaming into this abyss. “Hell hath no
fury”? She doesn’t know the half of it. I don’t care what gets
upturned, dashed down or destroyed on the way; she will not have that child.’

The baby Sarah carried, when Carmel paused
long enough to consider it, would be round and beautiful like her son. It would have
that little fold of heaven on the back of its neck, those tiny gripping fists, it would
smell of love. Just like her baby should have. She could almost feel it then, touch its
skin. That rippled through her anger, softening it. Then she heard her mother’s
voice.

Wise up.

That child in your mind’s eye’s no baby. That child gives form to the
adultery committed against you. Stupid woman. Fool. Old fool. And under your own
roof. An old, old story, Carmel. There’s nothing new under the sun.

How long had it been going on? She had shut
the shop and it would stay shut for as long as it took. Let them talk; let them
speculate. About her, about Sarah and Dan. Their coupling. What had he done to them? And
why? She thought about what Emily had said. What that meant.

She approached the herbalist as he was
crossing the market square. She stepped into his path, her purse held up high on her
chest. She mentioned corruption, indecent behaviour, murder … all the things that Emily
had told her.

‘We’re talking hard
labour,’ Carmel said to him, after mouthing ‘Rose’ soundlessly.

He didn’t laugh or wave his hand away.
He just nodded. Maybe this kind of thing had come his way before.

‘So what can I do for you?’

At least he understood that there was
something she wanted, and it was something that she was going to get.

‘Give Sarah Whyte a dose of something,
and make sure she loses that child. If she has it, I’ll make sure you hang for
Rose.’

A stone pestle was grinding seeds. Sarah
couldn’t move: her arms were bound to her sides; a thin brown rope went twice
across her chest, and another tied her ankles. Tears of tiredness ran and she
couldn’t rub them away. Her hair stuck to her face. She began to feel more awake,
more scared. She tried to remember.

The herbalist had finally returned. She
remembered hearing his bike, the way he unlocked the door. Then he backed in with a
cardboard box in his arms. He laid it on the table and turned around to face Sarah. Of
course, he wasn’t surprised to see her. He said he had heard what had happened
with the Holohans, heard Sarah was in trouble. He said he could help her, make things
easier. He poured water into a cup. Sarah didn’t want help, she told him. Told him
she wanted her money.

He paced, started talking about her own
good. Then suddenly he locked her head in his arm and jerked her face upwards. After
that her memory started to get hazy. She knew a wet rag was clamped over her mouth. Then
later – it could’ve been seconds, it could’ve been minutes – someone yanked
open her jaw, dropped hard tablets into her mouth and shoved them down. Water was poured
down her throat – a slow steady trickle so she couldn’t help but swallow. She was
heaving, trying to push the tablets out with her tongue. But she couldn’t do it.
There was the smell of Sweet Afton and the sound of a woman’s voice. After that,
she had no memory.

Sarah flexed her feet: the welts stung every
time the rope bit. The herbalist had his back to her. He was grubby; she’d never
seen him grubby before. He was drinking alcohol from a mug, wiping his forehead with his
sleeve; the room felt like it was sealed. That couldn’t be good. He came over to
the bed, carrying a tonic of some
sort. She smelt aniseed, but there
was something else, something cloying underneath.

‘What’s this? What will it
do?’

‘Put an end to your pain.’

‘But I’m not unwell.’

‘You are, look at you, you were
hysterical. You’ve been screaming, breaking things.’

He pushed her pillow up so she could see the
broken crockery on the floor.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You were out of your mind. Angry,
accusing me.’

‘I came here for my money.’

‘You became hysterical; a danger to
yourself. That’s why …’ He pointed to the ropes.

‘Let me go – this can’t be good
for the baby.’

‘It was all in your head –
there’s no baby.’

‘There is – a woman knows. Who was
here earlier? I heard someone talking.’

‘No one. My abode is my own. At least
for now. It’s nobody’s concern.’

‘But I heard a woman.’

He didn’t care what she had to say.
She saw it in his expression.

‘Untie me.’

‘So you can scratch and
scream?’

‘I wouldn’t hurt you –
you’ve been so nice to me.’

She played like a little cat in her
voice.

‘This is for your own good.’

‘I feel sick – let me up. I feel
sick.’

He put a bowl by her face; it already held a
trace of vomit. She threw up. Her belly ached. How many times had she been sick, how
many times had they had this conversation? Had she said all those things already? Is
that why he looked so weary, so weary of her? He wiped her face with the sheet; it was
filthy.

‘Let me go or I’ll scream the
house down.’

‘Is that a fact.’

What are you going to do to me?
she
thought but didn’t say, for it
might remind him, hasten him. She
thought of the box he kept under the bed.

‘Don’t hurt me,
please.’

‘You are beyond hurting, you who cause
so much trouble for everyone, so much trouble.’

The room was shuttered, hot, dusty; she
smelt the sourness of his body and her own. She must have been there longer than she
knew.

‘I won’t do anything – just let
me lie free of the ropes for a while.’

‘I’ve no choice. It’s Mrs
Holohan. This is her doing.’

‘What can happen? What can she do to
you?’

‘Hard labour. The end of all
this.’ He waved his hand about the room.

‘I don’t understand. I
won’t come here again – let me go.’

‘You can’t go till we are
finished.’

‘Finished with what?’

‘You’ll see.’

She started to shiver.

‘You’ll be punished.’

‘You asked for an examination;
I’ve your signature on a docket. But, as you never told me you were in the family
way, how was I to know there would be consequences?’

There was a taste in her mouth, behind her
teeth.

‘Did Carmel Holohan blackmail you?
That’s a thing I would never do.’

She knew by the way he looked at her that it
was true. He sat on a chair beside her bed and began to untie the rope that bound her
ankles together. Being released hurt – she felt a warm drop of blood run down over her
ankle bone. She looked at her captor; he glanced back at her. Then he just stared at the
wall, and there was silence.

The curtains of the herbalist’s house
were drawn, but I knew there was someone home. I knocked on the front window and kept
knocking; I had no intention of giving up. He opened the door like a flash, the face of
a demon on him.

‘Not now!’ He slammed the door
shut.

I wanted to have it out with him for what
he’d done to Rose, to make him own up, to make him be sorry, to make him pay. I
couldn’t rest till I did something; I had even thought of going to the gardaí
barracks. I couldn’t get my head around any of it: that the herbalist could do
that to the girl, that Mrs B would force Rose to have it done. Mam would never have let
that happen to me. And Carmel was so wrapped up in her own affairs she didn’t know
anything about that side of things, even with Mrs B being her very good friend. You
should’ve seen her eyes when I told her.

I sat on the wall across the road. Saluted
Ned when he passed. That was a mistake, because he came over.

‘Isn’t it terrible sad? Poor
Rose.’

‘It’s awful, it really
is.’

‘This town has gone to the dogs
altogether. Did you hear about his lordship?’ Ned waved a thumb towards the
herbalist’s house.

‘He’s harbouring Miss Whyte, the
adulteress. Seems she was carrying on with her mistress’s husband.’

‘Was she now!’

‘Yes, she’s in there now, hiding
from the wrath of Mrs Holohan.’

‘Terrible,’ I said.

‘Shocking. I wonder what the next
thing will be?’

‘Next thing?’

‘Well, you know what they say: bad
things happen in threes.’

Ned was walking away as he spoke. He
mustn’t have cared for an answer.

So she was in there, hiding. How the mighty
had fallen. I went back across the road and peeked in the window. There wasn’t
anything to see. I listened and everything was very quiet, too quiet. If Sarah was in
there, she must be desperate. What was she going to do with her baby? She could give it
to Carmel, seeing as her own didn’t make it. It was in limbo, bless it, with the
rest of the poor souls. Did Carmel miss her baby? She’d never said. For a mouthy
woman, she never managed to say a word about that baby. But maybe she would like a
child, even if it was Sarah’s.

I crept around the house and looked in the
back window. It was open a couple of inches, and the curtains there were too short, so I
had an inch or so of a gap. That’s when I saw a terrible sight and knew I was
facing something I couldn’t tackle on my own.

Someone at the herbalist’s door
seemed intent on kicking it in. He had no choice but to answer it. Sarah recognized
Aggie’s voice; she was making a terrible racket. ‘Not another one – no more
mopping up after Doctor Death!’ Hearing that frightened Sarah as much as anything
else that had happened.

Someone touched her hand then. It was Emily.
She placed a finger over Sarah’s mouth and took a penknife from her pocket. It
sliced through the ropes around Sarah’s wrists and ankles. Sarah tried to get up
but fell back down again. Emily hooked her arm around Sarah’s waist and half
dragged, half led her towards the back door. At the front door, Aggie roared on and on,
and the herbalist tried to hush her. Emily unbolted the door and, with Sarah leaning on
her shoulder, they stepped out of the house.

The light was blinding for a second. And all
Sarah saw was the river, the sunshine making it look like a band of diamonds across the
horizon. And there was
Biddy
, waiting to take them away. Emily helped Sarah
aboard and eased her on to a bench. They didn’t have to wait long for Aggie to
trundle across the grass. She signalled for Emily to start up the boat. She was holding
the side of her head.