CHAPTER
TWELVE
Twice a week, Louis
saddled up the trap and they drove the seven miles into
town. Beulah got all her meat from the butchers; chops,
oyster cut of bacon, rib of beef. Now and then, Louis
talked about killing a pig but she always talked him out of
it.
It was a smart trap, Louis spent hours every Monday
polishing the side brasses. Early Tuesday morning, they
clopped down the main streetand half the town came out to
watch them. Such young newly-weds in their strange black
clothes, their white facesunder their hats and Louis’s thin
beard swaying as he held the reins.
Louis and Beulah looked straight ahead with straight faces.
Like royalty, they’d been used to public attention from an
early age. The twonspeople were colder, more distant, and
they weren’t afraid tosmirk in the presence of Poleites.
Even as children, Beulah and Hester had copies their
parents’ stony faces, but Han often held her wrist too
tight, or Bertie hit his pony too hard.
It was different at Two Mile Cross, where they were known.
They were tolerated, even liked by most people, thanks to
Old Mrs Sheehan, whonever tired of saying how fond she was
of all the Kingstons. ‘Both sidesof them, they’re gentlemen
and ladies to their fingertips. They come and they go and
mind their own business.
‘Bad business,’ Danny Fox suggested. Even as a teenager, he
had a fondness for hanging around where he wasn’t wanted.
‘If only my arms were longer, I’d give you a goodclip
around your ear. Go home to your mother, you young scut!’
It wasn’t just Mrs Sheehan, there were others, the
Kingstons always had champions and friends in the village,
people who appreciated their hard work, their honesty.
People who knew that any one of the Kingstons could be
called upon to give a hand to a neighbour in trouble. The
townspeople were smarter and they didn’t care and they were
smarter, so they made the Poleites stand out even more.
Nearly all the young women had perms, short skirts to just
below their knees, high noisy heels. Some shop girls
laughed at Beulah before she had even left the shop.There
were corner Johnnies with Woodbines between their lips, who
muttered under their caps at Louis when he passed them on
the street. He didn’t like coming to town but Beulah was
dead set on the butcher’s for all her meat. Louis didn’t
know how to force her to make black puddings and sausages
at home. Evne if he knew how to force her, he wouldn’t have
wanted to.
Beulah hated the way shop girls looked at her, the dowdy
feelof the hem of her skirt touching her ankles. But Joe
Costello was in town often, collecting drugs from the
pharmacy to take to his father’s surgery.
When Louis and Beulah had finished their shopping, they
walked back to the trap, Beulah shivering with the lie she
was about to say, ‘Haven’t I forgotten the castor oil?
Wait, here now and I won’t be a minute!’
Afraid that Louis would object, say they had enough castor
oil, or why could she not get it from Mrs Sheehan, Beulah
ran away the minute she said it. She ran so quickly that
she felt the huge roll of hair that she’s fixed at the back
of her neck slip to one side. She pushed it back and slowed
down, but it didn’t feel secure. She wondered if she should
go back to Louis. Hesitating for a moment, she turned back
to see Louis sitting up at the front of the trap, watching
her. He gave a friendlywave and she felt now that she
couldn’t turn back. He might get suspicious. She walked
more slowly, her head held stiffly, Outside the chemist
shop, she fidgeted with the buttons of her coat.
The bell jangled as she entered,. Joe didn’t seem to be
there and she was only half disappointed. She was as much
afraid of meeting himand she was longing to see him. She
had thought far too much about him, put her finger too
often on her styloid process, she wouldn’t be comfortable
or casual about meeting him now. As she gazed around the
shop, her mouth fell open. Mortified, she snapped it shut
so hard she bit her tongue, Dizzy with pain, she sniffed
the smell of lemons, lavender, roses. Such a clean
place.Such beautiful mahogany and glass-fronted cases, The
mysterious bottles and prescriptions behind the counter
that were forbidden to Poleites. As were the cosmetics.
Creams and potions that made the women as beautiful as the
faces on the pictures smiling around the shop. There was a
tiny bottle marked 1s 3dfilled with a clear liquid called
‘Ashes of Roses’. As Beulah leant down to pick the bottle
up, she felt someone touch her hair.
Joe Costello looked half ashamed, but he didn’t step
backwards. He was near enough for Beulah tomake out the
green flecks in his brown eyes. ‘I could see your hair was
about to fall if I didn’t push that hairclip right in.’
Beulah couldn’t answer him. But the woman from behind the
counter spoke up. ‘the whole lot is going to collapse
anyway, if it isn’t fixed up in the next few minutes. Come
in here, behind, to me, and I’’ll get you out of the eye of
the public.’
Mrs Tobin, another doctor’s wife, ran the chemist’s shop.
She made up the prescriptions and tied the cosmetics in
pretty parcels. She was not conventional, but very kind.
Beulah didn’t know this as she followed her in to the back
room. Joe knew she was unconventional. He followed them
both.
‘Mind the step,’ called Mrs Tobin, as she bustled ahead;
she was elegant woman, her grey-blonde hair piled high over
a beautiful plumpface with a silvery blonde fringe.
Mrs Tobin wore a midnight-blue dressand pearls, her
matching blue heels were high. To stop herself staring at
Mrs Tobin and to avoid looking at Joe, who was staring at
her, Beulah scrutinized the back room. A funny place. More
cabinets displaying large blue glass bottles full of
medicinesand smaller glass cupsand jugs lying
around.’Pharmacy is a kind of witchcraft if you like,’ the
Reverend Moylan said. ‘Drugs distilled and created from
plants and the Lord knows what. At least, before, people
had some idea, at least they would know what a name might
mean. They would know that Belladonna was deadly
nightshade, that opium and laudanum came from the poppy.
They might stay clear then, if they had an ounce of sense.
Beulah stared around Mrs Tobin’s inner sanctum. The middle
of one wall was almost completely taken up with a huge
carved mahogany fireplace. The mantelpiece had a clock and
a couple of dusty Dresden figures, the tips of their pink
delicate fingers, their dusky pink dresses barely visible
behind all the letters and papers that piled up in front of
them. Two soft armchairs stood in front of the fire and
along the adjacent wall, there was a long leatherette couch
with buttons embedded into its back.
‘Sit down here, child,’ said Mrs Tobin. ‘And let me get at
your head. You are fierce tall altogether.’
Beukah sat down. Louis sitting up, waiting on the trap was
just a vague figure at the back of her mind.It was not
troubling her too much at the moment. Joe wore brown suede
gaiters. He was a qualified doctor now and he rode his
horse around the countryside making calls.Leaving the car
to his father who was getting old.
All that was needed was a couple of more hairclips to stick
in. She knew that Mrs Tobin had plenty hairclips, she had
seen a stand with dozens of packets of hairclips as well as
hairnets and brushes and bands, standing right at the front
of the shop.
Beulah did not realise that Mrs Tobin was going to take her
hair out of its braid. Maybe Mrs Tobin hadn’t meant to
either. It was such long thick magnificent hair, maybe Mrs
Tobin couldn’t help herself. Maybe that was why Joe had
followed them into the back of the shop. He couldn’t help
himself either. Mrs Tobin’s hands worked gently through
Beulah’s hair, loosening it out, piece by piece. Mrs
Tobin’s touch was delicate. It felt so good, Beulah
couldn’t help herself either. She should have got up and
walked out. But the feel of Mrs Tobin’s fingers was nicer
than sugar. And even if she had the willpower to walk
out,how could she have gone out into the main street of the
town, her knee-length hair flying like a banner?
‘Do you want a hand?’ asked Joe in a strained voice.
‘Well, Joe, are you still here?’ Mrs Tobin’s voice was
dreamy as she worked her way to the bottom of the enormous
braid and spread out the hair. It rippled over Beulah’s
black coat and spilled over at the sides onto the
leatherette sofa.
‘You can make yourself useful, so!’ Mrs Tobin said, looking
at Beulah’s hair with satisfaction.
‘You, I mean, young Dr Costello, go out there to the front
of the shop where the toiletries are and get me a new
hairbrush.’
Beulah blushed when Mrs Tobin said the word
toiletries.
It sounded like a bad word. Bertie had warned her that
infidels used lots of bad words.Naturally he hadn’t told
her what the bad words were, but she was always afraid an
infidel would spring one upon her without her knowing.
Joe stood like a statue and didn’t move.
‘Will you get on and get it now,’ said Mrs Tobin.
‘What if I’m seen?’ asked Joe, his face gone pink and
luminous, even the whites of his eyes were pink around the
edges.
‘Oh for the love of God, let me get out myself,’ said Mrs
Tobin; she had to give herself a bit of a heave to manoevre
her large body out of the seat. She clicked out noisily and
Beulah stared after her because she didn’t want to look at
Joe. She tried to shake her hair behind her by shrugging
her shoulders but it flowed around even more. Like a liquid
drug. Deadly nightshade or maybe even laudanum.
‘Are you well?’Joe asked and she had to look at him now.
‘We’re all very healthy,’ she said. ‘We don’t need
doctorsat all. Louis eats a raw egg every morning,’ she
finished, proudly, even though she hated the way Louis
drank down the raw egg with his Adam’s apple bobbing and
she dreaded the day she would see some stuck to his beard.
‘I know you don’t need doctors,’ Joe said, very sadly.
‘I
would
never interfere with your religious views. I have the
greatest respect for them. I hear that you are married now
to Louis Kingston. I hope that it is all going well for the
two of ye.’
‘It is, it is, very well thank you,’ Beulah sat in the
middle of her hair, as mournful as a siren floating on a
black sea. Joe put his hands in his pockets and began to
whistle lightly, then stopped when he remembered that
Poleites weren’t allowed listen to music. He walked upto
the fireplace and began to tap the toe of his polished
riding boot against the brass firearms. Mrs Tobin came
bustling with a wooden-handled hiarbrush with
lemon-coloured bristles.
‘Ah now, here is one that might do! I had my work cut out
for me, trying to find one strong enough.’
She sat down beside Beulah and brushed her hair gently.
Beulah was surprised that Mrs Tobin didn’t tell Joe to go
away. But Mrs Tobin was as mesemerised as Beulah herself,
she hummed and muttered a little jaunty song to herself.
Let him go, let
him tarry, let him sinkor let him swim
He doesn’t care for me and I don’t care for him
He can go and
find another whom I hope he will enjoy,
For I’m going to marry a far nicer boy.
Han Kingston had
told Beulah that Poleites weren’t strictly against music or
singing, it was gramaphones and radios that were the
problem. Singing wasn’t wrong just that Poleites were wary
of where it might lead to. Not only was it associated with
radios and gramaphones, it was also associated with
drinking, it might even lead to dancing.