The New Breadmakers (13 page)

‘Ye’re a right wee stoater,’ Mrs McGurk had assured Catriona afterwards. ‘Ma runs stopped. Nae bother.’

Mrs McDougal had brought her wee boy to be treated for eczema. ‘While I’m here, hen, could you give me something for my cough?’
Bryonia
and
drosera
did the trick for her.

Then a lady from the West End had called. She also suffered from an upset digestive system but she had added, to Catriona’s surprise, ‘I’ll pay you, of course. Just tell me what your fee is.’

Catriona was taken aback but not so much that she needed to confess that she had never charged anyone before.

‘We’ll leave that until your next visit, shall we?’ she said. ‘I think I’d better see you again to check if the medicine I give you has had the desired effect. If it doesn’t, we can try something else.’

Afterwards, she thought with gathering excitement, ‘Why not?’ She decided on a consultation fee, plus whatever it cost for the medicine. The medicine she would prescribe could be either herbal or homeopathic, although she’d come to prefer homeopathic. These were the medicines she was having most success with. Already she had a small stock of herbs, creams and ointments in the house, as well as homeopathic powders and tablets. She lost no time in stocking up with more of everything. For the first time in a long time, she felt happy. Excited too. For the first time, she actually felt glad to be living in such a large house. What was to stop her using one of the downstairs rooms as a kind of surgery? Maybe one of the rooms at the back that they never used? How about putting a bench in the passageway and using it as a waiting area?

Hallelujah! The back door would be of real use at last. She and the family always used the imposing front entrance. Customers – or should they be called patients? – could go along the back lane and enter by the back door. That way they could be completely private and separate from the rest of the house. In her excitement and enthusiasm, she could hardly wait to tell Melvin.

‘What?’ His voice shot up an octave with incredulity. ‘Have strangers traipsing in and out of my house? Have you gone mad or something?’

She quickly switched to what might appeal to him more. ‘Think of the money, Melvin.’ She had been babbling on about how she could help people. ‘I could make –
we
could make …,’ she hastily corrected herself, ‘… we could make a fortune at that. And no one would be traipsing through the house. Anyone coming would go along the lane and just knock at the back door. I’d take them in and keep them in that back room until I showed them out that way again. You’d never see anybody, Melvin. You’d never know and we’d make a fortune.’

‘How could we make a fortune? Don’t be daft.’

‘Well, there would be no extra overheads, for a start. I wouldn’t need shop premises and the medicines are so cheap. You wouldn’t believe how cheap – especially if we bought in bulk. You’d have nothing to worry about, Melvin. As I’ve said, you wouldn’t even see anybody. You could just forget about it and leave it to me.’

She adopted a wheedling tone. ‘I know you always want to do your best for me, Melvin, and make me happy, and I’d be so grateful if you’d let me do this – even just as a wee hobby.’

‘That’s all it would be – a wee hobby.’ He laughed uproariously. ‘Make a fortune – you? What a joke! OK, have your wee hobby if that’s what’ll keep you happy.’

She rushed at him to hug and kiss him. ‘Oh, Melvin, thank you.’

He puffed up with pleasure. ‘Aye, well, don’t you ever say I’m not good to you.’

‘No, Melvin. You
are
good to me. I know you are.’

She knew nothing of the kind. But she did feel a surge of happiness. It gave the previous intensity of her emotions a different focus. She’d always suffered from intense emotions – usually guilt and regret, fear and hatred of Melvin and, more recently, shame at the intensity of her sexual feelings for just about everybody else. The sheer intensity of her emotions would exhaust her and they’d fizzle out and be replaced by lack of confidence in herself. Suddenly she felt that again. What on earth was she thinking about? A fortune? For goodness’ sake, wasn’t that just like her? A few of her mother’s friends had come to ask for a bit of advice. Only one woman had offered to pay. Melvin had been right to laugh. One woman and she had immediately gone over the top and imagined herself making a fortune. She felt depressed then.

Fortunately that didn’t last for too long. She began to think – well, surely it’s worth a try? Even if she didn’t make a fortune, maybe she would find satisfaction in being somebody in her own right, doing something she wanted to do, just for herself. All her life, she had never been allowed to be herself. Or get to know herself.

All her life, she had been forced, first of all, to do what her mother told her and to accept her mother’s view of what she was or should be, and what she had to do. Then it had been Melvin’s turn.

All right, even if it did prove to be no more than a hobby, at least she would be doing something she enjoyed and perhaps she could actually help a few people at the same time. Then it occurred to her that it would be a good idea to advertise. After all, if people didn’t know about the service she provided, how could they come? Word of mouth was all right, but postcards in a few shop windows wouldn’t do any harm. She spent some time concentrating on writing the postcards or, rather, printing them for the sake of clarity.

‘Herbal or Homeopathic Treatment can help when all else fails. Homeopathic treatment especially is a gentle, natural way with no side effects. Phone this number for an appointment.’

She put the postcards in various windows in the Great Western Road shops. Then she gave a few to Madge to put in some of the shops in the Balornock and Springburn area. Madge thought it was a great laugh. But somehow her laughter was not hurtful or demeaning like Melvin’s. ‘Good luck to you, hen.’ She gave Catriona a slap on the back that nearly knocked her off her feet. ‘You’ll probably make a bloody fortune with the kind of luck you have. I wish I’d thought of something like that. See me? I’ll still be a slave to these weans and that big useless article I’m married to when I’m ninety – if I last that long.’

When Catriona had asked her to help distribute the postcards, Madge hadn’t hesitated. ‘Sure, hen. Give me as many as you like.’

She was a good friend. Catriona did feel lucky in that respect. She nearly gave some to Julie as well, knowing that she too would not hesitate to help all she could. But then she thought, what if too many patients turned up, too many for her to cope with? It wasn’t something that was very likely to happen, but still …

She worried about the treatment – herbal or homeopathic? Again she thought that although herbal treatment could be marvellously successful, it could be a bit unpleasant to take. Some mixtures could have quite a vile taste. But that wasn’t as important as the actual mixing of it. People could cope with the taste if it helped them but could she cope with the dispensing of it? The more she thought of it, the more she wished she’d left the word ‘herbal’ out of the postcards.

She could use the big unused walk-in larder opposite the treatment room as a dispensary but another problem was that herbs could be strong-smelling and powerful odours could spoil homeopathic medicines. The latter had to be stored safely away from anything like eucalyptus, menthol or peppermint. Indeed, she would have to warn anyone taking homeopathic treatments not to use any rubs, creams or ointments or take any pastilles, cough mixtures or indigestion tablets containing these pungent ingredients. Otherwise the homeopathic treatments just wouldn’t work. She’d have to tell people too not to touch the homeopathic tablets or powders. Powders had to be tipped straight from their special paper wrappers into the mouth. Tablets had to be tipped from their bottles or phials on to the lid and, from the lid, straight into the mouth. That way the medicine was kept sterile.

It would be awkward storing all the medicines separately. It would mean having the homeopathic medicines on shelves and in cupboards in the consulting room. There weren’t any shelves or cupboards there and she didn’t think the housekeeping money would stretch to paying a joiner to do the necessary work.

No use asking Melvin. He would only start cataloguing all the money he’d spent on her, especially in recent years. The television was one of his favourite examples, although it was he who watched it most of the time and it was always programmes that he liked, never the ones she’d prefer. She never watched it at all, except when he was there and she had to sit with him. He never liked doing anything on his own. He was a family man through and through, he always said.

‘You like them as well,’ he’d say. It was one of his most infuriating habits. He had never even given a moment’s thought to her point of view. He always took it for granted or insisted that her taste was exactly the same as his.

The new refrigerator would be dragged up and the washing machine, of course. Not to mention the various gadgets he’d bought for her. He liked gadgets.

No, safer not to mention anything about the ‘wee hobby’ or the room in which it was to be conducted. He’d never mentioned it again. No doubt he’d completely forgotten about it. It was fortunate that he was working less and less at night – hardly at all now. Like his father before him, as he got older, the night shift became too much for him. He could only cope with the day shift. In fact, more and more, he wasn’t even doing his usual work baking the bread. Instead, he was selling it behind the counter in the front shop.

‘There’s enough bakers on the job and Baldy knows to keep things going the way I like them. I’m more needed to keep my eye on the shop these days.’

He would never admit that he was no longer fit enough for the hard work of baking. Catriona began to realise that life was starting to go her way. She had several hours a day completely free of Melvin. She didn’t need to tiptoe about and try to ensure silence while he slept during the day. She no longer needed to be at his beck and call and suffer the brunt of his bad temper when he couldn’t sleep. Nowadays, she didn’t even need to go down and help in the shop. Between Melvin and the three girls in the shop, it was ticking over very nicely. Often, after his studies or at the weekends, Andrew helped out if one or more of the girls was off sick or on holiday. He made a bit of extra pocket money doing that.

Catriona had to admit that Melvin wasn’t mean with the boys. Although he did grumble to her about still having to keep Fergus ‘in the lap of luxury’ while he ‘loafed about playing a guitar and enjoying himself, prolonging his time at the Aberdeen College of Music and Drama by doing yet another course.

She found herself in the situation now of having to constantly defend Fergus. Changed days. It used to be that she had to defend both herself and especially Andrew from Fergus.

Melvin, however, seldom criticised Fergus to his face. He just nagged at her about him. Fergus was still his favourite because Melvin could never forget that Fergus was the son of his perfect first wife. Not that he spoke about the poor woman any more. Gone were the days – thank God – when he spoke about nothing else. Catriona had long since come to the conclusion that in fact his first marriage had been far from perfect and his first wife, far from adoring him, had felt much the same way as his second – or worse. Maybe he talked the way he did because he felt guilty. Or he just wasn’t able to face the truth.

‘Fergus doesn’t loaf about. He works hard.’

‘Work?’ Melvin sneered. ‘What kind of work’s that?’

He’d say the same thing if she brought up the subject of her ‘wee hobby’ as a therapist. No, better to forget the joinery work needed. Better to wait until she had made enough money to pay for it herself. Meantime, she’d just keep her homeopathic medicines in a box and a suitcase in the consulting room.

Then it occurred to her that she could start a bank account in her own name.

Now there was a thought!

Christmas cards were sent all round. It was the season of good will after all. Big Aggie, however, felt insulted by the card received from the O’Donnels on which there was a picture of the Virgin Mary. Chrissie couldn’t understand why. As she said to Ailish, ‘Christmas is supposed to be about Jesus and she’s his mother. Beats me what Mammy sees wrong in that.’

‘My mammy felt the same about your mammy’s card.’

‘What one did she get again?’

‘The one with a snowman with a carrot for a nose.’

‘Oh, yes.’ They both giggled, remembering it.

‘Awful, aren’t they?’

‘I know.’

Suddenly, Chrissie remembered something else. Serious again, she rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Next thing it’ll be the Old Firm game. I hate that.’

‘Me too.’

‘It’ll even spoil us going to the pictures – especially when it’s in the town. Wouldn’t be so bad if it was on in the Princes.’ They planned to go and see Marlon Brando. They adored Marlon Brando.

‘Och, I don’t suppose it would make much difference.’

‘But the stupid drunks’ll be fighting and carrying on all over the place. Nowhere’s safe.’

‘It’s terrible, so it is. I’m hoping Dermot’ll be on duty at the pub and not in the middle of all the carry-on at the match.’

‘I can’t understand what they all see in football. It’s stupid getting so worked up about kicking a wee ball around.’

‘Even Sean’s daft about football.’

‘And bringing religion into it.’

‘Sean doesn’t but so many of them do, right enough.’

Chrissie groaned. ‘I know.’ Then more cheerfully, ‘I like what you’ve done to your hair.’

‘It took me ages brushing it and plastering it down with Sean’s Brylcreem before I could tie it back. I was determined, Shirley Temple curls or not, that I was going to have a pony tail. As I keep telling you, you’re lucky with your straight hair, You’ve never any bother getting a great pony tail. You even get a fringe no bother. Every time I try a fringe, it keeps curling up.’

‘You look great. Honestly.’

‘Thanks.’ Ailish hugged Chrissie’s arm closer and they walked along in silence for a few minutes as if joined at the hip. Then Ailish said, ‘Still liking the Mitchell as much, then?’