The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Screwdriver.’

  Anthony jumped, placed a hand at his throat.

  ‘You’re nervous,’ said Michael Brennan. ‘Would a drop of scotch steady you?’

  ‘No. Thank you. Liam’s a burden, but he hasn’t driven me to drink just yet.’

  The priest produced some paper. ‘I hope you’re ready for this, Anthony. It’s a letter from Liam to me. It must have been delivered since we came in. He says he has been called to Africa. Well, I heard nothing about that. Neither did the bishop, I’m sure.’

  Anthony took a deep breath. ‘Why didn’t I speak up earlier, Michael? Why didn’t I scream and yell until somebody noticed? I’d a brother hearing voices while I did nothing at all. Why didn’t I make someone understand?’

  Michael touched Anthony’s shoulder. ‘Because you would have finished up screaming in a padded cell. You were never a hundred per cent sure, were you? In your heart, you felt sure that Liam had done harm, but there was always a shred of doubt in your mind.’

  ‘A shred of hope,’ said Anthony. He unfolded the single sheet of paper and read aloud. ‘“I have booked a ticket to Southampton and will be leaving soon for Africa.”’ Anthony shook his head. ‘Why Southampton? He could have sailed from Liverpool.’ He continued to read aloud. ‘“The light dawned suddenly at the very moment when my father’s soul departed. God reached out to me in my grief and told me what to do. Please make my apologies to the diocese and to my family. I shall pray for the repose of my father’s soul. Father Liam Bell”.’

  ‘A load of nonsense, of course,’ said Michael. ‘He’s no more in Southampton than I am. Here – open that box. My curiosity is getting the better of me.’

  Anthony removed the screws and unhinged the lid. The interior was lined with green felt. He pulled out some envelopes and a writing pad, threw them onto the chest of drawers. At the bottom of the container lay a few frail cuttings from newspapers. There was the announcement of Val’s death, a piece about the murder and an account of the trial. This last article bore the headline, ‘GUILTY’. ‘An innocent man,’ said Anthony. His voice emerged thick and his hands shook. ‘Here’s one of the best arguments yet against capital punishment.’ He waved the yellowing newsprint. ‘And there’s still not a scrap of proof in here, nothing we can show to the law. After all, Liam was merely collecting the sad tale of how his poor twin’s fiancée was murdered. So clever. So very astute. How can a deranged man be so brilliant?’

  ‘Well now,’ replied Michael Brennan, ‘isn’t that the question and the answer all in the one sentence? There’s but a fine line between brilliance and lunacy. Your brother crossed back and forth so quickly and so often that we never noticed.’

  ‘I noticed,’ said Anthony. ‘And I waited for others to notice, too. But no-one ever did.’

  ‘I did. I thought he was a queer fellow altogether, but he functioned adequately. Don’t blame yourself. With the grace of God, Liam is gone for good.’

  Anthony shook his head wearily. ‘He’ll be back. You mark my words – we have not seen the last of him.’

  Mother Ignatius occupied a small section of a leather armchair in Dr Richard Spencer’s study. The chair was so big that the tiny woman seemed in danger of being swallowed up by the vast expanse of dark-brown hide. However, any lack of stature was compensated for by the expression on her face. Had Diddy Costigan been present, the little woman’s visage might well have been described as ‘fit to scrape your bloody boots on.’

  Mother fixed a gimlet eye on Cathy O’Brien and fought a sigh. The girl was difficult. She might, with good nursing and God’s help, recover from the blood problem, but the stubborn streak was probably here for life. ‘Have you nothing to say to me, child?’

  Cathy hated being called ‘child’. Granda used to scream ‘child’ when he wanted something doing for him. She tapped the toe of a shoe against the rug. Mother Wart-Face was here without Aunt Edith. Aunt Edith had gone out to register the horses for racing or some such thing. And the warty nun had arrived uninvited.

  ‘Speak up,’ said the nun.

  Cathy had nothing to say, because life had become the most desperate mess. Uncle Sam was dead. He’d been a bit on the quiet side, but he had been terribly kind. Uncle Sam had got Noel for Cathy. She glanced round the room, noticed that the dog had curled itself into a corner beneath a shelf of medicine books. The medicine books had rude pictures in them. Cathy blushed, because it didn’t seem right for Hairy-Warty-Face to be in the same room as a girl who had looked at rude pictures.

  ‘Cathy?’

  Naked men and women. ‘Mother?’

  The tiny nun edged forward in her chair so that her feet might dangle a little nearer to the floor. ‘I’ve brought you some books.’

  ‘Thank you, Mother.’ The books would not have medicine type pictures in them.

  ‘You’ll be studying at home.’

  Cathy looked the headmistress straight in the eye, which was an easy thing to do, as both sets of eyes were on the one level. ‘My home is in Scotland Road with Mammy and Shauna.’ It was happening again. Shauna was getting all the love while Cathy got all the work. Only this time, the work had arrived disguised as a dwarf in black with a pile of dusty-looking books. Cathy was partial to reading, but she resented this unbidden intrusion. ‘I’m ill,’ she informed the nun.

  ‘Your blood is tired, that’s all,’ replied Mother Ignatius rather smartly. ‘With good food and fresh air, you’ll be ready to return to school before you know it.’

  Cathy refused to cry for Uncle Sam and for her own misery. She would cry later, on her own. Life was so terrible that she was even forced to plan her crying times. Perhaps she should make a timetable with Crying Time written just below Bedtime. ‘My own school will send some books,’ she said.

  ‘You are advanced for your age. You are ready to work alongside ten- and eleven-year-olds.’

  Cathy didn’t want to be different. She wanted to run about Paddy’s Market with Cozzer and Tildy, wanted to play rounders with lamp-posts as bases. She wanted to sneak down to the city when Mammy was busy. Liverpool was so exciting. Sefton Park was the largest in the world and it had a great huge palm house. Cozzer had been thrown out for messing about with a strange-looking spider on a big plant and—

  ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ asked Mother Ignatius.

  Cathy’s sole ambition was to be a person who could make up her own mind about her own life without nuns and people telling her what to do. She wanted to work at Blackler’s with all those other happy-looking girls. The shop had canopies that went right round a corner and it sold everything. Blackler’s went on trips in the summer, closed its doors so that employees could run races and eat picnics on beaches and in parks.

  ‘This is dumb insolence,’ remarked Mother Ignatius.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ said Cathy sulkily. ‘Uncle Sam is dead and I want to be with Mammy.’ She could cheer Mammy up by taking her to the Edinburgh café and Woolworths. They could walk down Lord Street and look at all the street traders standing with their backs to the traffic and with trays hung round their necks. They sold funny little wind-up toys and matches and tea towels that were no good. Uncle Sam said the cloth was rubbish. But he would never say that again. He’d never let Cathy hold his baccy tin while he made his rollies. And he’d no longer be sitting staring at Mammy with that special little smile on his lips. And she would not cry till bedtime. Tonight, she would cry for Daddy, too.

  ‘You can’t go back to Liverpool,’ said the nun, the crisp edge honed carefully from her voice. ‘You need the air and the fields. Your mother will visit you.’

  ‘I don’t want to be somebody she visits. I should live with her all the time like Shauna does. Why do I have to stay when I don’t want to? I’m the big girl, Mother. Mammy has all to do for Shauna, because Shauna is not thriving.’

  Shauna was thriving, thought the head of Sacred Heart Grammar School for Girls. Shauna had led Edith a merry dance after the death of her stepfather.
In Bridie’s absence, Shauna had sulked and screamed and indulged in magnificent tantrums all over the house. The child had a marked talent for theft, though she was a bit young to be damned just yet. All the same, it was plain for everyone to see that the younger O’Brien girl had been overindulged by her protective mother. ‘Shauna is doing very well,’ added Mother Ignatius. ‘She’s stronger than she looks.’

  Cathy gazed sadly at the ugly, shrivelled-up person who sat before her. ‘Mother, I know my mammy is missing Uncle Sam. She didn’t know him for a great while, but she was happy. So was I. He didn’t shout like Granda. He didn’t frighten me like Granda. I am frightened of being frightened again.’ Why had she said that? What on earth had prompted her to confide in the enemy?

  The nun bowed her head. ‘The fear of fear is as bad as fear itself,’ she said quietly. The head raised itself. ‘Put your trust in God, in Edith and Richard. And in me. I can do so much for you. Please allow me to help you, Cathy.’

  Cathy took the bull by the horns. ‘I’m frightened of you,’ she said bluntly. ‘I’m scared of your school. It’s all uniforms and lisle stockings and silly hats.’

  The nun’s mouth twitched, but she kept her composure. ‘Go on. I’m listening.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I want a lot doing for me. I like being at St Aloysius’s school. We have a good time. There are nuns, but we don’t have a uniform. And all my friends are there. There’s Cozzer and Tildy-Anne, then Mavis Burns who sits next to me – she has crossed eyes when she takes her glasses off.’ Mavis always removed her eye furniture during religious lessons so that everyone would cheer up a bit, but Cathy couldn’t tell that to a holy woman. A lot of people had been chastised for explosive laughter during religious lessons. Nobody would ever laugh in front of this sister or mother or whatever she called herself. ‘And we’ve steam lorries and trams and a man with a barrel organ.’

  Mother Ignatius nodded, waited.

  Cathy began to listen to herself. A very short time ago, she had been terrified of trams and steam lorries. ‘Sometimes,’ she began thoughtfully, ‘things that frighten me start to be interesting.’ She and Cozzer and Tildy-Anne had been thrown out of the Fruit Exchange and the Cotton Exchange on several occasions. After the first few times, the fear and the excitement had evaporated. ‘And sometimes, things that used to frighten me stop being interesting.’

  ‘That’s the way of it,’ pronounced the nun.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Cathy eyed her adversary. ‘What is it that you want to do for me?’ It was no use being afraid, Cathy decided. A lot of bad things had happened, including Uncle Sam’s death, so fear of this forbidding-looking person was a waste of time. Those who had looked after Cathy were fast disappearing, and she had better speak up for herself, stop acting like a scared rabbit.

  ‘I want to educate you.’

  ‘At that school?’

  The nun smiled, causing her wart to wobble. The three stiff hairs separated and quivered with the unexpected movement. Cathy thought the hairs might fall out with the sudden shock of being fastened to a smile, but they didn’t. ‘Not yet,’ answered Mother. ‘For a while, you will have to stay away from other children in case you catch a cold. Anaemia makes colds worse, so you have to stay safe.’

  ‘I feel lonely,’ admitted Cathy.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And there’s no fun at your school. I suppose you want me to go there when I’m better, but there’s no fun.’

  Mother Ignatius sighed deeply and glanced at the clock. Young people seemed to set so much store by what they called fun. Fun often involved destructive or stupid acts like swinging from lamp standards and throwing balls near windows. ‘Achievement is the greatest reward,’ she said finally. ‘And we have netball, tennis and gymnastics. There is always something to do.’

  Cathy picked up the nearest book. It was a French dictionary. ‘French?’ she asked. She was still having trouble with the various kinds of English she had encountered. There was the language spoken in Liverpool, then the totally different tongue used in Lancashire and by Uncle Sam’s mother. On top of all which, Cathy had to contend with the King’s English as spoken by Richard and Edith Spencer. ‘I don’t think I’ll be very good at French.’

  Mother Ignatius smiled again. The wart moved. ‘French is easy. If you’re very lucky, you get to learn Greek in the sixth form.’

  After staring at a few very odd words, Cathy replaced the book on the pile and decided to hang for a sheep. ‘Why are you a nun?’ she asked.

  ‘I was called.’

  ‘Called?’

  ‘By God. He wanted me to devote my life to Him. And teaching was what I did best, so I combined the two and here I am, headmistress of Sacred Heart.’

  ‘I’d never be a nun,’ said Cathy. ‘The clothes are horrible and you don’t have children.’

  Mother Ignatius wagged a bony finger at this bold child. ‘Caitlin, I have six hundred daughters and thousands more who have gone out into the world. So I answered the call of God and I still have my children.’

  Cathy brought to mind a conversation she had overheard between Uncle Richard and Anthony, who had been Mr Bell at school. ‘Father Liam hears voices,’ she announced. ‘He thinks they’re from God, but Anthony says they’re from a sick part of his mind. Uncle Richard says Father Liam’s got . . . skip-so something.’

  Mother Ignatius pricked up her ears. Schizophrenia? She recalled the young priest, the coldness of his eyes, the confidence in his stance. ‘Is he the one who went missing?’

  Cathy nodded vigorously. ‘Africa or somewhere. I heard Aunt Edith telling Uncle Richard that Father Brennan had been sent a letter from Father Liam. But Uncle Richard says he doesn’t think Africa is the truth.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Priests don’t tell lies, do they?’

  ‘Not as a rule.’

  Cathy thought about that. ‘Do they sometimes?’

  ‘We all sin, Caitlin.’

  ‘Do you, Mother?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a part of being human.’

  Cathy put her head on one side and scoured the nun’s features. She had bright blue eyes that were fading towards the edges, as if someone had painted a white-ish line around the irises. The nose was small, not pointed, and the rest of the face was ordinary except for the wart and a lot of lines. The woman was human, then. ‘They think Father Liam has some kind of illness in his head, Mother. But he’s clever all the same. Uncle Richard says he’s gone to ground for the time being.’

  So the priest was in hiding. ‘He didn’t go to the funeral?’

  ‘No. He ran off. I think he was with Uncle Sam when . . .’ The tears threatened. She closed her eyes tightly and thought about timetables. ‘Uncle Sam was nice.’

  Mother Ignatius saw and heard the little girl’s pain. She edged her way towards terra firma and stood on the rug. ‘Just look after yourself, Caitlin O’Brien,’ she said. ‘Because some of us have great plans for you.’

  Cathy waited until the headmistress had left, then she claimed the leather chair. It was still warm from the nun’s body. Cathy hugged herself and let the tears come. Sometimes, timetables didn’t quite work.

  It was something Bridie could not quite put her finger on, an elusive quality that defied description. But she could hardly bear to be in a room with Anthony Bell, yet she wanted him to stay. The feelings of guilt that had been stirred up by her husband’s death seemed to be at war with other emotions, and Anthony was part and parcel of this terrible, silent conflict.

  ‘Bridie,’ he began. ‘Michael – Father Brennan – and I have been to the police again. Richard Spencer has written to the Chief Constable. Richard is fairly sure that Liam is schizophrenic. The force is keeping an eye open for Liam. Try not to be afraid, but, at the same time, keep watch.’

  Bridie sat down in Sam’s chair. She could smell him, could almost taste the tobacco he had used to make his cigarettes. ‘I miss your father,’ she sa
id softly. ‘More than I expected to. Anyway, put your mind at ease, because no-one will get in here again. The locksmith did a very good job. We’ve more keys than doors. Stop worrying. Your worrying will only make me worry, too.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied. ‘I just wanted to make sure of your safety before I go back to Astleigh Fold.’ He could not stay here, not yet. Astleigh Fold was a safe distance away, yet near enough for regular visits.

  Bridie’s internal war broke out again. Her heart leapt about and the palms of her hands were suddenly clammy and cold. He must go. He must get as far as possible away from Scotland Road, from her, from . . . from the love she had for him. Love? How could she think of love when Sam had only just died? Anthony must go now. No, no, she would be truly soothed only if he were here with her.

  ‘Bridie?’

  He had lost his father. She reminded herself yet again of this man’s grief. In the space of a single day, Anthony had rediscovered Sam, only to be deprived of him almost immediately. ‘I’ll be fine, so I will,’ she told him. ‘You just get along to your work and leave us to sort out this end of things.’

  ‘My brother won’t come back, not for a while. He may have more than one personality, but he will always guard himself, no matter who or how he happens to be at the time. I’ve known him for long enough to realize that he’ll remain hidden. And Richard has almost convinced the police that Liam could be dangerous.’

  Bridie swallowed. ‘What about the Costigans? Do they know that Liam is being looked for in connection with Maureen?’

  Anthony cleared his throat and his mind. Bridie looked so beautiful today. Her hair was all over the place, had broken free from its anchorage to settle in frail wisps around her face. Better not to look. He stared at the fireplace. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Richard advised them that Maureen is too injured for any further probings. There is no point stirring up the neighbourhood without proof. If the people round here had a hint of Liam’s suspected involvement, all hell would break loose. But once Liam reappears, he will be detained for questioning.’

  Bridie didn’t know how she was going to be able to look Diddy in the face. She needed Diddy, needed the strength of that big-hearted lady. For Bridie, Diddy was Scotland Road. She embodied the strength of it, the colour and the sheer, dogged determination of an area that refused to be pushed under.