The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Aye, and so do I. That stallion’d kill you soon as look at you. Shows the whites of his eyes a lot. But there again, yon’s the spirit as wins races. Shall I walk you down?’

  ‘If you wish.’ Bridie knew better than to wander about on Bob Cross’s sacred soil without his company. He adored horses, tolerated people. She kept up with him, just about, because his stride was long. As they turned into the stable yard, she came upon a sight that almost took her breath away. Her opinion of Bob Cross changed in an instant. He did love people after all. ‘How long have you been doing this?’

  He scraped a dirty hand across his ill-shaven chin. ‘A while,’ he answered.

  Little ponies trotted meekly round the yard, each one accompanied by an adult. On these mounts sat children, some of them so disabled that they required holding in position by their guides. A blind boy grinned widely, his sightless eyes rolling at the sky. A tiny girl with callipers lay belly down across a blanket, her hands stroking her pony’s flank. ‘It’s a good man you are, Bob Cross,’ said Bridie quietly. ‘Though I’ll tell no-one your secret.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Childer has what you might call an affinity with animals,’ he said gravely. ‘And these particular kiddies need to touch things, to learn, like. Ten minutes twice a week does them the world of good.’ He nodded at a lady who supported a thin, wasted infant. ‘Ponies is from the pits,’ he added. ‘Used to toil, they are. Getting them used to light were another matter, I can tell thee. Near blind, they were. Good as gold, and all, never a minute’s trouble out of any of them.’

  Bridie bit down on her lower lip. She would cry in a minute, she really would. That a bachelor should understand so well the needs of these special children . . .

  ‘Animals and childer is same thing,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘All they need is good grub, a warm bed and a kind word. So they belong together.’

  ‘That’s the truth,’ she told him. ‘And God bless you for what you do here.’ She was learning all the time, she reminded herself. She was staying in a grand house whose owners refused to be grand. She had met a bachelor with a love for animals and for children.

  He looked her up and down. ‘How much longer have I to stand here holding this saddle of yourn?’ he asked. ‘I’ve better things to do with my time. Just get yourself off to number four – Sorrel’s in there. And I’ll talk to you again about jockeys and suchlike. We shall make a bob or two out of your Irish–Arabs.’ He dumped Bridie’s saddle on the floor and went to help with the ponies.

  Bridie walked to stable four and smiled to herself. Today, she had met a rather remarkable man. Down the road a little way, there was another remarkable man in a stone cottage with a pocket handkerchief of a garden at the front. He had looked at her as if she had been the only woman in the world.

  In the stable, Bridie greeted her friend. There was no time to think about Anthony Bell’s eyes. She had better get on with the business in hand. After all, she had responsibilities here. And Sorrel was so pleased to see her.

  Bob Cross lit a Craven A and leaned against the stile. ‘I watched her mounting,’ he told his companion. ‘And she has a goodly shape to her, right proportions for a jockey. Still, she’s not a bloke, so she can’t enter races, more’s the pity.’

  Anthony stood next to the stable-keeper. What Anthony knew about horses could have been written on the back of a twopenny stamp with plenty of room to spare. He’d come across a few beasts in the McKinnells’ stables on Newsham Street – had even been on sugar lump terms with the coalman’s nag, but leaner and glossier creatures with good breeding and mile-long pedigrees were hardly his forte. ‘Is she safe perched up there?’ he asked. She was so far from the ground. What if she fell off? What if she fell off and rolled under those thundering hooves?

  ‘Her’s a natural,’ pronounced Bob, admiration in his tone. ‘If she’d been born on a desert island with no horses within a thousand miles, she’d still have ridden straight off as soon as she’d got back to civilization and clapped eyes on a horse. She’d not have needed no help from humankind to teach her horsemanship. See, with her, it’s hard to tell where the animal finishes and she starts. If I were one of them with a fanciful turn, I’d say I were watching a piece of poetry in motion. She’s a gradely rider, is yon Mrs Bell.’

  Anthony could see where she ended and where the horse began. She was so tiny, so compact. The beast beneath her was huge, with rippling muscles and limbs that stretched on forever. Yet he could see a little of what Bob meant, because Bridie was plainly unaware of anything beyond herself, her mount and the direction in which both were cantering. ‘She’s very good at it,’ he admitted.

  ‘Good?’ Bob puffed on his cigarette. ‘See how she changes her seat when she wants a different pace?’

  ‘No,’ confessed Anthony. ‘But I can tell that she knows what she’s about.’

  Bob Cross watched woman and horse greedily, almost like a cat lapping up cream. She was certain of her balance, was plainly commanding each slight change of gait. She was relaxed, completely at home. Sorrel, too, was happy, because she obviously felt no tension, no pressure at all. ‘Her hands are working perfect,’ the sage announced. ‘There’ll be no bit-bruising in that filly’s mouth. That’s a magic touch, tha knows. Eeh, I wish she were a man.’

  Anthony was very glad about Bridie being female, though he made no comment. After a few more minutes, he began to understand more fully the comments made by Bob Cross. Bridie’s spine was as straight as a die, and she seemed not to bounce around even when dictating a change of gait and speed. It was clear that she noticed little beyond the direction in which she travelled. Her riding was natural, instinctive. When Sorrel galloped, her rider flattened herself in order to make a streamlined shape which cut through the air easily. ‘Now, she’s one with the horse,’ said Anthony.

  ‘A shorter stirrup and she’d be halfway to Manchester.’ Bob Cross had come across many riders in his time, a few of whom had achieved a level of competence sufficient to keep themselves in the saddle for a decent length of time. Clients had entered little shows, had taken the odd rosette. Bob Cross had been content with that, as his mission in life had been to introduce people to horses and vice versa with a view to enjoyment for all concerned.

  This, however, was another matter altogether. Was he qualified to deal with animals of such value? He had not felt as excited as this for many a year. The chestnut mare looked every inch a winner. And Quicksilver, that devil without disguise, was probably the fastest thing on four legs – with the possible exception of a cheetah. A combination of fear and elation touched Bob’s spine. He was sixty-five, had been mulling over Dr Spencer’s offer of a little cottage over towards Doffcocker, had been looking forward to a few years of relative idleness before shuffling off skyward. Not now, though.

  Anthony suddenly felt like an intruder. It was as if he stood about idly watching someone doing something very personal, undressing for a bath, perhaps. Bridie was more than human at this moment. She was travelling not just round a field, but also into a dimension understood by very few people. Like Mozart and Constable, Bridie was exploring a God-sent gift. Anthony said goodbye to Bob, then wandered off towards his lonely home.

  Mother Ignatius, undisputed monarch of all she surveyed, was a grim-faced Irishwoman of about four feet and nine inches in height. She had a figure as puny as a sapling and, for a woman of sixty, she moved remarkably quickly, allowing for no dawdling and few human errors on the part of other, less fortunate beings. She believed in God, the value of discipline and the fundamental unwholesomeness of most young people.

  Cathy moved from foot to foot, tried to take her eyes off a hideous painting of Jesus on the Cross with blood all over His face and a hole in His side and—

  ‘Caitlin?’

  Cathy blinked. The nun was staring at her over the tops of a pair of glasses which looked as if they had been cut in half, because they had bottoms and no upper halves. ‘Yes, Mother Ignatius?’ In a minute, she wou
ld get out of here. She would run like the wind all the way down Blackthorne Road and she would never, ever return. In the flesh, that three-haired mole was worse than ever.

  ‘Nine nines?’

  ‘Eighty-one.’

  ‘Do you know your catechism?’

  Cathy nodded.

  ‘Did the cat eat your tongue?’

  ‘I have no cat, Mother. Just a dog called Noel. Uncle Richard says Noel has all the charm of an exploded straw pallet.’

  The nun’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. Sometimes, too rarely, she came across a child who did not fear her. The Bolton children had all heard of Sacred Heart Grammar School for Girls, had lived since infant school under a cloud whose constituents were an improbable combination of hope and terror. They wanted to get into the school, yet they dreaded the day, because Mother Ignatius’s reputation was widespread. But Caitlin O’Brien had heard none of the stories.

  Cathy noticed the twitch. ‘He eats slippers,’ she continued. ‘But never in pairs. Mammy says the most annoying thing is losing half of a pair. Like gloves. Mammy says it would be better to lose the two, because you’d know somebody had the use of them.’

  Mother nodded. ‘There’s some sense in that.’ There was sense in the teller as well as in the tale. ‘What do you want to be, Caitlin?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet, Mother. I suppose I’d have to be older to know that.’

  ‘Yes.’ At least this one hadn’t come out with a lot of old rope about wanting to be a nun or a missionary in darkest Africa. ‘Have you a wish to come here, child?’

  Cathy hesitated. It would be very difficult to tell lies while in the presence of Jesus Christ, who was bleeding heavily all over the wall behind the headmistress’s head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to come here.’

  Mother Ignatius was unused to such veracity. She wriggled in the high chair, set the small of her back in a more comfortable position. Comfort was not easy to achieve when one’s feet dangled inches from the parquet. ‘Why not, Caitlin?’

  ‘Well.’ Cathy searched for words, pretended to cough in order to create a bit of thinking time. ‘I was happy in Ballinasloe, then Daddy died and the landlord threw us off the farm and we lived with Granda.’ She paused, inhaled. ‘Granda is not a nice man. He hit me sometimes. No-one likes him, even Mammy, and she’s his little girl. So we came to Liverpool and I got in trouble falling asleep in the street while Cozzer – that’s Jimmy – stole the turkey for the Nolans. The policeman said I hadn’t gone to sleep, really. He said I’d fainted, but it was very like going to sleep. There are twelve Nolans and the daddy drinks.’

  The mother of the convent was fascinated. This Caitlin child had few inhibitions and much to say for herself. Also, she was Irish. It was nice to hear a young Irish voice again. Some of the immigrant parents retained their accents, but the school was populated by Boltonians. ‘Go on,’ she urged.

  ‘Well, Mammy went mad, Mother.’

  ‘Did she?’

  Cathy nodded gravely. ‘She said I was going to turn out wild.’

  ‘And will you?’

  Cathy shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’m not old enough to know what I’ll be. But the Nolans are starving. Anyway, I don’t play with Tildy and Cozzer any more when they’re looking for things for the Nolans. So I don’t need to be sent away from Scotland Road, do I?’

  Mother Ignatius, head of the convent and Superior to all her sisters in Christ, wanted this girl. Caitlin O’Brien, given the right grounding, might become almost wholesome. She had a positive attitude to life, no fear of speaking up, and the qualities that constituted a good teacher or a writer or a member of some decent profession requiring brains. ‘Will you not think about coming to Sacred Heart?’

  Cathy thought about thinking about it. It did no harm to think, she supposed. ‘I will think, Mother.’

  Edith Spencer wanted the girl, too. Edith Spencer had been lavishing praise via the telephone for several days. ‘Would you go outside now, Caitlin?’ asked the nun. ‘And ask Mrs Spencer and your mother to step in.’

  Out in the corridor, Cathy sat on a polished bench that looked very like a church pew. Yards away, two nuns in sacking aprons scrubbed the marble floor. The pictures along this wide passageway were a lot more cheerful than the one in the headmistress’s office. Our Lady was the favourite on one side. She was the Immaculate Conception standing on a cloud, then Mater Perpetui Succurus with the Baby Jesus. Further down, she was in black and white with Respice Stellam Voca Maria. St Bernard’s name was written underneath, so he must have said those Latin words.

  Behind Cathy, St Theresa of Lisieux kept company with St Francis of Assisi, who had no shoes on in spite of the fact that he had once been a wealthy man. Everybody loved him, especially nuns and priests, because he had stopped being rich and had given away his shoes on purpose.

  Cathy wriggled and fidgeted. Why were they here? Mr Bell had been expected to come with them, but he had a bandage on his right hand, something to do with a quarrel with a wall and the wall coming best out of it. They were strange creatures, grown-ups. Always talking in riddles, seldom making sense. Whoever heard of a wall winning a fight?

  Mammy was a long time in there. Cathy rose and walked casually to the headmistress’s door with a view to eavesdropping, but she quickly rid her soul of that intended sin when one of the scrubbing nuns clanged the handle of her bucket by way of warning. The little girl wandered off, poked her head into a library, then a classroom with V1 B over it. ‘That’s the lower sixth,’ whispered a tiny voice.

  Cathy swung round and faced one of the scrubbing nuns. ‘Oh,’ she said, wondering what was expected of her. She added, ‘Sister,’ to punctuate the pause.

  ‘Will you be starting here soon?’ asked the nun.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah well, God go with you.’ The woman picked up her skirt and walked up a flight of stairs with brass edges. When she reached the summit, she knelt and began to clean the brass.

  Cathy returned to her seat. There was something going on behind that door, and it was all connected with her. No-one seemed to care about what she wanted or where she preferred to live. Aunt Edith and Mammy had been weeks in there. Was Cathy going to be thrown aside into this place? Would Mammy allow a dwarf nun with an ugly face to take away her daughter?

  She counted the stars round Our Lady’s head, counted the number of tiles that made up one of the mosaics on the floor. There were four pieces of red glass, eighteen white, four yellow and four green in the window at the end of the corridor. The Sacred Heart on a plinth held out His hands, and a night light in a red glass container flickered below his bleeding feet. The whole place stank of disinfectant and wax polish.

  The door opened and Mother Ignatius stepped into the corridor. Mammy and Aunt Edith were behind her. They shook the tiny woman’s hand, then led Cathy out through a door marked staff only.

  Cathy had nothing to say, so she honoured the promise she had made to herself by running helter-skelter down Blackthorne Road until she reached a tram stop. Had a tram arrived with THE NORTH POLE announced as its next port of call, Cathy would have jumped aboard gladly.

  Ten

  Billy Costigan stood outside the hospital’s main door and cried like a baby. He was glad that Diddy wasn’t with him. If Diddy had been here, the whole hospital would have been blasted to kingdom come by her pain and temper. Fortunately, Billy had been alone when the doctor had finally told the full and very grim tale. Rape. The sound of that word even tasted bad. How could a sound have a taste? he asked himself. Maureen, poor little Maureen.

  A hand gripped his arm, and Billy flinched. ‘How is she?’ asked a familiar voice.

  Billy gazed through saline into the frigid eyes of Father Liam Bell. Diddy detested the arrogant young priest. If he were to be thoroughly honest with himself, Billy might have admitted his own strong dislike for this new addition to the parish. ‘Hurt,’ he replied eventually.

  ‘Did she say anything?’

&
nbsp; ‘What?’ Billy shook himself inwardly, as if trying to waken his brain after a too long sleep. He could scarcely remember sleep. Nights had been spent comforting Diddy; days continued the same – lift the sacks, move the crates, knock off at dinner-time for a pie and a pint or to eat the carry-outs prepared by wives.

  ‘Maureen,’ said the priest, an edge to his determinedly patient tone, ‘has she said anything about what happened?’

  Maureen hadn’t said anything about anything since being brought into hospital. The doctor blamed shock for her inability or unwillingness to communicate. ‘No,’ replied Billy, ‘she’s still too weak to talk.’

  Father Bell tightened his hold on Billy’s arm. ‘Do they have any idea of who did it?’

  Billy shook his head, wiped the moisture from his cheeks with the cuff of a sleeve. ‘No, they’ve mentioned nothing. But I can tell you this much, Father Bell. The man who did this to our Maureen isn’t right, he’s not normal. He should be hanged, because he’s killed her childhood. She’s like . . .’ He couldn’t carry on, didn’t want to tell this miserable-faced cleric that Maureen was looking so old for her years.

  Maureen Costigan had never been a child, Liam told himself silently. She had flaunted herself for as long as he could remember, gallivanting up and down Scotland Road in her dancing frocks, singing for anyone who would throw her a penny. Lately, he had heard talk of her kissing boys in the jiggers, too.

  ‘If I catch him, I’ll strangle him,’ continued Billy.

  Liam inclined his head. ‘Perhaps I’ll visit her.’

  Billy considered this for a fraction of a second. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Father Brennan’s been going in and trying to talk her round.’ Father Brennan was a damned sight more cheerful than this holy Joe. ‘She needs the rest.’

  Liam’s stole was missing. He had a replacement, of course. He was grateful that the vestment had been a green one, because he had several in the more commonly used green. Had it been purple, he would have been in a spot of trouble, because he owned just one stole in that shade, and its absence would have been noticed, especially during Lent. ‘The newspaper said someone tried to strangle Maureen.’