The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  The parish priest lay down his cutlery. ‘Liam, do you have to be so hard on everyone – yourself included? It’s like living with a saint. Saints are all very well in their place, but I imagine that many of them would be slightly less than interesting company. Can’t you let the halo slip just a little?’

  Liam chewed on a bit of cauliflower, took a sip of water. ‘It’s just how I’m made,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry if I cause offence.’

  ‘Well.’ Michael pushed away his plate. He would warm the food later, though it would not taste the same, he thought sadly. His housekeeper was a good cook who enjoyed the pleasure her employer got from the meals she made. Liam Bell had upset her, too. ‘You know, I’m packed to bursting at confession. I don’t know what sort of penances you’ve been giving, but it’s my door they’re all coming to.’ It seemed that no-one liked the young priest. ‘Even your father comes to me.’

  ‘So he should,’ said Liam quickly. ‘I told him to go to you.’

  Father Brennan sighed. This man was so correct, so completely sure of himself. ‘Have you no faults, Liam?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘And to whom do you confess your sins?’

  ‘I go into the city, just as you do. After all, we can’t be living in one another’s pockets, can we?’

  Michael Brennan fought a familiar shiver that made its way like a cold finger all the way along his spine. Occasionally, in a certain light, he caught an expression in Father Bell’s features, a look that seemed akin to madness. It was rather like being in the company of a reptile, some kind of large snake with staring eyes and no ability to blink. He gazed at his assistant, watched the man eating slowly, carefully, as if he counted the numbers of chews before allowing food to enter the sanctum of his stomach. For more than a minute, Michael kept watch. His companion blinked just twice in that time.

  ‘Are you going to leave that?’ asked Liam.

  Father Brennan picked up his knife and fork, attacked the tepid meal. In all his days as a priest, he had never encountered another ordained man as soulless as this one. Liam Bell was strange, even weird.

  ‘Did you see Maureen Costigan?’ asked Liam, his tone rather lighter than normal.

  ‘I did.’ The coldness had returned to Michael’s spine.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Silent.’

  Liam cut a small potato into four pieces. ‘Did she have Holy Communion?’

  ‘No.’ It was like watching a surgeon at work, thought the parish priest.

  ‘I wonder why.’

  Father Michael Brennan dropped his fork. It crashed against his plate and bounced to the floor. He noticed that his companion did not react to the sound, that he simply carried on eating. Liam Bell was in some world of his own, was living in a place where few things touched or worried him. Michael picked up a dessert fork and used it to finish his meal.

  ‘Do you know why she refuses Holy Communion?’ asked Liam.

  ‘No.’ The older man’s appetite suddenly deserted him. ‘I’ve no idea at all,’ he said. ‘Have you?’

  Liam ran his eyes over the face of his senior. ‘Of course not,’ he replied. ‘How should I know what goes on in her head?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Michael Brennan, rising to his feet. ‘If you will excuse me, Father Bell, I feel the need to pray.’

  Diddy Costigan put the last few items into a suitcase loaned by Sam Bell. Edith Spencer would be here shortly. In other circumstances, Diddy might have felt rather uncomfortable at the thought of travelling in the company of Edith, but such minor concerns had been relegated to a rear compartment of her mind. Her sole aim now was to do anything she could for Maureen.

  Nicky passed a blouse to her mother. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll look after the others. It’ll do you good to get away.’

  Diddy paused. Maureen had never been anywhere. None of the Costigan children had travelled further than New Brighton on the ferry for a day trip. ‘Monica, you’re a good girl.’

  Nicky was thinking about their Maureen and she felt a bit guilty. She’d never had much time for their Maureen, because their Maureen had spent years floating about in a cloud of self-admiration. But now, Maureen had given up. She’d given up talking, singing, dancing, hoping and looking in mirrors.

  ‘Don’t forget to make your dad’s carry-outs.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘And stay in when it starts getting dark. Or make sure Graham’s with you.’ Scotland Road had always been such a safe place. The Scotties looked after their own, loved their neighbours in the truest sense. There were some ongoing differences, of course, but people round here would back a hated neighbour if that neighbour had any trouble from ‘outside’. And it had come to this. Gone were the days when a daughter could nip out late on a Friday night for ribs and cabbage. ‘God, this is terrible.’ Diddy sank into a chair. ‘We’ll all be looking over our shoulders.’

  Nicky squatted down next to Mam. ‘It was a one-off. It was a stranger, Mam. I bet he’s moved on now.’

  ‘How do we know that?’ asked Diddy helplessly.

  ‘Because it’s never happened before.’

  Diddy patted the hand of this sensible girl. It had happened before. Val had died, though. And a man had hanged for the murder. She shivered. ‘What’s the world coming to, girl?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mam.’ That was the truth. Nicky and her siblings had invariably felt protected from all harm since infancy. There was a permanence about Scotland Road, a feeling that the place would be here for ever. People pulled together and helped each other out, minded children for sick mothers, made sure a poor family had a bite to eat. One bad person had shaken everyone’s faith in an area where most folk were decent.

  ‘Poor Maureen,’ moaned Diddy for the hundredth time.

  ‘You can’t put it right, Mam,’ said Nicky gently. ‘You can’t stop it happening, because it’s already happened.’

  Nicky was wise. Diddy touched her daughter’s cheek. She was plain, yet still beautiful. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said again.

  The uncomely young woman bared her teeth in as near a grin as she could manage. ‘I’ve got a good mam, that’s why.’

  Diddy drew her daughter close and let the tears flow anew. She didn’t want to be weeping when she arrived at the hospital to pick up their Maureen. She didn’t want to be crying in Edith Spencer’s posh car. Nicky had been Diddy’s backbone during the past few days. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blubbered. ‘You’re too young for all this, Monica.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ replied Nicky truthfully. After what had happened to her sister, Monica felt as old as the blue-misted hills of Wales.

  Maureen Costigan got out of the hard bed and put on the clothes Mam had brought in yesterday. She wasn’t going home. She was going to some sort of a farm outside Bolton to stay with Mam, Mr Bell’s cousin and cousin-in-law, Bridie Bell and the two little girls. Anthony Bell was there, too, living in a cottage.

  Mam had chattered away about Bolton, had used the special voice that emerged only when she was upset and pretending to be all right.

  Maureen stepped into her shoes. It was funny, but she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Anthony Bell. She didn’t seem to have feelings any more, didn’t want to laugh or even cry properly, couldn’t be bothered with any of it.

  At the small mirror, she combed the black hair, saw how bruised her face was, caught sight of a small scar, didn’t bother to study herself closely. Soon, she would be able to talk – if she wanted to. At least she would be away from the Rose Hill mob, the policemen who had gone on and on about how much they wanted to catch the man, about how Maureen was the only one who could help. ‘What if he does it to somebody else?’ they had asked repeatedly. Maureen couldn’t manage to care, not yet.

  She sat on the one chair and waited for Mam and Mrs Spencer. It occurred to her that this room had been home since the attack. She had been secure here, had been able to lie still and allow life to continue without her help or hindrance. Now, she m
ust go out and join the race again. A small finger of fear touched her heart, the first emotion to visit her spiritless core. But it was a mere shadow, and it passed in an instant.

  Limekiln Lane. The recreation ground. A hand across her mouth. Dragged down. Something round her neck. Narrower than a scarf. Wider than rope.

  Her heart maintained its steady rhythm. She would allow in no panic.

  It was over, it had happened, nothing to do now. His full weight on her back, a big man kneeling astride, pulling hard, no breath.

  She studied her fingernails. Her hands were pale.

  A smell, just a smell, thick and sweet, where? No talking yet. A smell, forgotten, hidden away in her head.

  The door opened. ‘Hello, love.’

  It was Mam. Mam was big and strong and she had always been there. But even Mam had cried, so Mam had no answers, either. Because there were no answers. It was no use.

  Maureen stood up while Mam gathered up a spare nightie, a hairbrush, a comb. They walked out of the sanctuary and into the body of the hospital. People moved about the corridor and made noise. Maureen Costigan carried on putting one foot in front of the other, because there was no choice. Time and tide waited for no man. That had been one of Grandma’s sayings. The future was there, so she simply walked towards it while her heart continued its perfect and undisturbed beating.

  Diddy Costigan was seeing the world for the first time, would now be able to tell her friends at the bagwash that she had been to Lowton, Leigh, Atherton and Bolton. Bolton was grander than she had expected. Everyone thought of the mill towns as shabby, dirty and dull, but this, the largest town in England, seemed to be thriving in spite of recession.

  She took in the civic buildings which formed a perfect, crescent-shaped backdrop for the Town Hall and its magnificent clock, decided that there must be money in cotton if these structures had risen out of spinning the stuff. Maureen wasn’t taking in much. ‘Look,’ said Diddy, ‘a Bolton tram. I wonder where it’s going. Have you seen all the chimneys? Thousands of them. This is where they make the quilts we have on our beds.’

  Maureen stared through the window. She had never ridden in a car before. They had driven through some towns, past fields, over and under bridges. Mam and Edith had tried to keep up some sort of conversation, but Maureen hadn’t spoken yet. So she would speak now and get it over and done with. ‘I don’t want any questions,’ she said.

  Diddy, who was sharing the rear seat with her daughter, simply sat and allowed her mouth to hang open.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked the driver.

  ‘No questions,’ repeated Maureen in answer to what was obviously a question. ‘About what happened to me, I mean.’

  Edith understood. This poor young thing was plainly in shock, could take months to get back to somewhere approaching normal. ‘There’ll be no inquisitions from me or from Richard,’ she promised.

  Maureen turned to her mother. ‘Sorry, Mam,’ she said softly.

  ‘What for?’ Diddy asked eventually.

  ‘For getting into trouble. For not talking in the hospital. Only I didn’t know what to tell them. If I’d opened my mouth, they would have gone on about how tall was he, how strong, was I sure I hadn’t caught a glimpse.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘It would’ve been like going through it all over again, Mam. And I don’t want to. Don’t let them make me.’

  ‘I won’t. I’ll keep you safe, love.’

  Maureen closed her eyes and leaned back. Coming away was probably the right thing, because nothing would be expected of her. Perhaps she might even start to feel better or worse or different. Feeling anything at all might be a step in the right direction. If she could just care about how she looked, what she did, where she went. Was worrying about not caring a feeling, she wondered? And was she really worrying, or was she merely thinking?

  She remembered being a tree in a show about ten years earlier. As a new pupil of the dancing school, Maureen had simply stood in her tap shoes and tree costume, her arms outstretched, fingers dropping paper leaves onto the stage. She was a tree again. If the wind blew, she might bend, but exterior forces would have to be in charge. Edith Spencer was wind and weather at the moment. Edith Spencer was dictating pace and direction. Like a three-year-old sapling, Maureen must stand still and let things happen.

  ‘You all right, queen?’ asked Diddy.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Maureen. She wasn’t, but she didn’t want to go into any details.

  Anthony Bell stopped outside the village post office. He had acquired a rather ramshackle bike, and he leaned this untidy object against the wall of the shop. There wasn’t much doing today. An improbably blue sky was dotted with cotton wool clouds kept mobile by an intermittent breeze. A dog barked, the till drawer inside the shop clattered into the closed position, Bridie Bell emerged with her shopping basket.

  She stopped in her tracks. Anthony could tell by her demeanour that she had been rendered uncomfortable by his unexpected presence. ‘Good morning,’ he achieved after a small and rather unwieldy silence, ‘how’s Cathy?’

  ‘Both the girls are fine, thank you.’

  He thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘Damn,’ he muttered, ‘I’ve forgotten my money. I’ll walk back with you.’

  Bridie fiddled in her purse. ‘I can lend you two shillings,’ she offered.

  ‘Forgotten the list as well.’ He indicated the basket attached to the bike’s handlebars. ‘Shopping on wheels from now on.’ She wasn’t looking at him, not fully. She knew. Women were like that, he supposed. They were capable of receiving messages loudly and clearly when not a single word had been uttered. Perhaps they had hidden antennae or a sixth sense.

  Bridie tried to smile, but the effort gave birth to no more than a nervous flicker. ‘Diddy’s coming today,’ she said. ‘We found out just last night that Maureen was attacked. So she’s coming with Diddy to stay at Cherry Hinton.’

  Anthony froze. ‘Attacked?’ The pitch of his voice had risen. ‘When? Where?’

  Bridie sighed. ‘We don’t know the full tale yet, but the poor girl was in hospital for days. Some man came up behind her and tried to strangle her. She was found by a tramp – you know the fellow – he pushes an old cart round, has a one-man band and a puppet show.’

  Flash Flanagan, thought Anthony. Flash had been entertaining the children of Scotland Road for about half a century. ‘Does Maureen know who did this to her?’

  ‘No.’

  Anthony swallowed his instinctive terror. No, no, it could not possibly be Liam, not this time. Maureen was only a child. Light dawned slowly at the front of his mind. Maureen. Maureen Costigan had been making eyes at Anthony. Liam allowed no-one to do that. But Anthony had left the area, was well out of Maureen’s reach. Had Liam felt that his twin had moved away to wait for Maureen to come of age? Was it that blind fury again, the special rage that had driven Liam for years to break bones, to throw his brother in the river, to . . . to kill Val? ‘Jesus,’ he whispered.

  ‘Anthony?’

  His legs refused to move. The upper part of his body was trying to push the bike, yet his feet remained planted firmly on paving stones.

  ‘Anthony?’ she repeated.

  ‘I . . . er . . . I’ll be all right in a minute.’ He sat down on the ground after deciding that sitting would be better than falling. The bike went with him, of course, and he lay that on the flags. Bridie threw aside her basket and crouched next to him. ‘Are you ill?’ It was important that he should not be ill again. Bronchitis could be the very devil to shift, could lead to a permanent weakness in the chest, even to bouts of pneumonia. The idea of him being ill again panicked her beyond reason. ‘Shall I get help?’ she asked.

  ‘No. There is no help.’

  Fear stabbed into her heart. Did he have some degenerative illness that took away the power of movement from time to time? Was he going to lose the ability to walk? ‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ she pleaded.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ />
  He shook his head. ‘Go away from me, Bridie. People who associate with me always meet trouble. Val died, you know. Now, poor Maureen Costigan, who had a little schoolgirl passion for me, has been half-murdered too.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘You must listen to me,’ he persisted. ‘You know I’m fond of you, too fond, perhaps.’ He cursed himself inwardly. Those words should never have been spoken. If such a declaration were to meet the light of day, it should be made in better circumstances. Better circumstances meant not sitting in the street like a fool and not being the son of the loved one’s husband. ‘He’ll find out, Bridie. He always does. He’ll know how I feel about you.’

  She rose and stared down at him. This was Samuel Bell’s son, and she loved being near him, hated being near him, felt warm, excited, terrified, sick. ‘Sam would not hurt you or me,’ she said, mistaking his meaning, ‘and we can’t be carrying on fond of each other anyway.’

  He lifted his head so quickly that a red-hot crick of pain shot up his neck. She cared. Anthony could see it in her expression, could read it in her eyes. ‘I am not talking about my father finding out,’ he said quietly. ‘My brother is the dangerous one. Liam is the murderer.’

  ‘What?’ Bridie backed away and leaned against the post office wall. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard me. I don’t need to repeat it. He killed Val and he tried to kill Maureen. No-one would ever believe that, not without proof. You must say nothing. I don’t need proof. Yes, he is a priest and yes, I may sound crazy, but he and I are identical twins. I’ve known him for almost thirty years. We were born at the same time and we grew up together. The fact that I survived to adulthood is nothing short of miraculous. Liam is ill. The illness makes him evil.’

  Bridie could not lay her tongue across one sensible word. Yet she knew that she believed what this man said. He was kind, clever and good. He was also humorous, but no sign of fun appeared in his face today. The level-headed Anthony Bell was not the sort to make unfounded allegations.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bridie.’

  ‘Pardon?’