MARTHA WATCHED PROUDLY as Alice and Becky hopped, light-footed as two fairies, to the music of the lilting reel, Alice’s long fair hair bouncing on her shoulders. The crowd of eight-, nine- and ten-year-old girls weaving in and out, learning the complicated steps of the traditional dance, were giggling and laughing, bumping into each other as they swirled around the room.
It was her turn to collect the girls from Flannery’s Irish dance class, which was held in the old Lutheran school hall on Tuesdays. Thanking Mrs Flannery, she gathered up their bags and shoes. She dropped Becky off and had a few quick words with Evie before returning home.
She could scarcely believe the apparition that greeted her when she turned into Mill Street, for there were at least twenty cars parked in close proximity to their driveway. At first she wondered if one of her neighbours was throwing a party or having some kind of meeting, but seeing no sign of any such occasion she realized that the occupants sitting inside the silver and grey and blue vehicles were all waiting for her. Car doors slammed and three or four people began to approach her as soon as they recognized her.
Martha grabbed Alice by the hand, as she quickly pulled her key out of her purse and let herself into the house. Patrick was sitting at the kitchen counter and she was surprised by the look of relief in his face.
‘Where the hell were you, Mom?’
‘It’s all right, Patrick, I’m here now,’ she comforted him, wrapping her arms loosely around his broad shoulders. It was unlike her fifteen-year-old son to make any enquiry as to her whereabouts and she guessed that he’d been anxiously waiting for her return.
‘I just picked the girls up from dance class, Patrick, that’s all! Why, what’s been going on here?’
He jerked his head in the direction of the window.
‘They’ve been sitting there all afternoon, Mom, just waiting for you to get back. A few of them came and rang on the doorbell and I told them I didn’t know when you’d get home but I guess they didn’t believe me. One or two even phoned. They wouldn’t go away, no matter what I said. Those fucking freaks have just been waiting in their cars for you!’
‘Patrick!’ she scolded. Her son might be inches taller than her already, and like most of his generation tried to act like a cool dude, but inside he was still only a kid. Scared by the crowd outside – and who could blame him? Blast that stupid journalist and her piece in the paper. Evie had said she thought the local radio channel had also mentioned it. What right had that journalist to go stirring things and giving people false hopes?
Mike was right: she should have said nothing instead of trying to be honest and helpful and giving her time. Now, here she had a load of strangers believing that she could help them. The doorbell rang almost immediately and it wasn’t fair to ask Patrick to fend them off any longer.
‘I’ll get it, pet, don’t you worry.
‘I’m sorry but I can’t help you,’ she apologized politely to the crowd outside the door.
Martha tried to put them right and tell them the truth, but the waiting people had no interest in listening to her protestations and denials. All every single one of them wanted was a minute of her time.
‘Ma’am, a minute!’
‘Just one minute so’s you can hear me out!’ argued the sixty-four-year-old retired surveyor who lived over in Dedham, crippled with arthritis in his spine, begging for a relief from pain that pills and prescription drugs could no longer contain.
Unembarrassed, he’d pulled up his check shirt on her front step, begging Martha to lay her hands on his back. Too shocked to refuse, Martha had done what he requested, feeling immediately the heat and energy run from her fingers into the almost honeycomb sensation of the man’s vertebrae. A shy young girl with severe acne had followed on. Faced with the despair and depression caused by the raised pustules on her pretty face, Martha had asked her to come inside and ended up, after almost a half-hour conversation, sending her healing both inside and out. Then there was a businessman with failing hearing who had a fear of being deaf like his father. Martha felt the burning heat scorch from her hands into the auditory canal, removing anything that blocked the vibration of sound and its interpretation.
‘Pppleeasse, Mmrs McGgill, pppleease!’
The nineteen-year-old Boston College student’s severe stammer was exacerbated by his nervousness at meeting her. Martha, reading the plea for help in his eyes, sensed that her laying on of hands was not going to do much to ease the tension and self-doubt that overwhelmed his young life. He needed to learn to accept himself as he was if he was to have any hope of getting over his problem. Most of all he needed someone to talk to and when she laid her hands on his lips and throat Martha found herself agreeing to see him again. Her cousin Dermot had been plagued with a bad stammer for most of his life but Martha could honestly say that it had not stopped him achieving all that he had set out to do. He had always wanted to be an oceanographer and had got through college and exams, and now lived in Australia, where at the last count himself and his wife Neeley had five kids. They still kept in touch by phone and email.
‘Look, Matthew, I’ll see you again,’ she promised.
Rheumatism, chronic fatigue, dizzy spells, back problems, nerve trouble . . . Martha breathed a sigh of relief when eventually the last person went and she had the small study at the front of the house back to herself. Why in heaven’s name had she ever agreed to let one of them across her doorstep, let alone tried to help? If she didn’t believe that she could help she should have just got rid of them by threatening to call the traffic police and having them towed away instead of wasting her time and giving some credence to their belief.
Mike was already home and he and the kids were sitting having dinner when she finally got to join them.
‘I’m sorry for the delay, gang.’
‘We got some chicken and wedges from the freezer,’ Mary Rose said. ‘There’s some for you left in the oven.’
Patrick was busy eating but she knew from the way he avoided her eyes that he had given his version of events already to his father. Mike was hopeless at disguising anger or bad humour and the kids had picked it up and were eating as quickly as they could.
‘Mom, were they all sick people who came to our house?’ enquired Alice.
‘Yes, they were, honey. They hoped that Mommy could make them feel a bit better.’
‘And did you?’
‘I’m not sure, Alice, maybe.’
She could see Mike’s jawline tense and she knew he was having a real hard time believing or accepting anything to do with her ability to heal people. Patrick finished first and refused dessert saying he had to work on an assignment for school. Mary Rose darted her a sympathetic look as she placed some plates in the dishwasher. Only Alice held out for a bowl of raspberry and vanilla ice-cream as Martha ate her own meal.
Afterwards, sitting at the table, Martha braced herself for the expected tirade from her husband, knowing full well that his annoyance could no longer be hidden.
‘What the hell, Martha! What the fuck? I come home from one hell of a day, and I mean one hell of a day with Bob and that new guy Roland breathing down my neck, and find a load of wackos in my home! Patrick was scared out of his wits this afternoon, and as for the girls I don’t know what they must think about their mother getting involved with these kind of people!’
‘Mike, I know it’s scary. I didn’t ask or invite any of them. You know that!’
‘I know it’s not your fault, Martha, but well, you’d better do something about it. It’s not fair on the kids or the neighbours.’
Martha said nothing.
So much for Mike’s telling her that this would all blow over and be forgotten about in a few days. Listening to those people today and laying her hands on them had in a strange way convinced her that somehow her work as a healer had only begun.