The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘I love you, Bridie,’ Anthony said. There was no taking back the words, no erasing the sentiment behind them.

  ‘I know that,’ she replied. ‘And it’s as well that you’re going away again.’

  ‘Michael Brennan says there are bigger sins.’

  She searched his face as if trying to make a picture of it, something to which she might refer during his absence. ‘You told him, then.’

  ‘He didn’t need telling.’

  ‘It must be very obvious if he can see it.’

  Anthony took a step towards her, thought better of the move and fixed his eyes on a point above her head. ‘Michael’s a romantic soul,’ he said. ‘Had he not been a priest, he would have enjoyed an interesting love-life.’

  Bridie giggled, then wondered immediately how on earth she was able to be here laughing when her husband was dead and her little girl was ill and in a different place. ‘Bigger sins,’ she repeated.

  ‘He would want me to take care of you.’

  ‘You mean Sam, of course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She pushed a thread of hair from her face. ‘Your dad changed my life altogether and for ever. Until the day I die, I shall be grateful to him. Things started off so badly, what with the horses and my father being involved.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Everything Da touches is soiled, including poor Dolly Hanson. In her eyes I see an expression that was often in my mammy’s eyes, too. Confusion and self-distrust. But in spite of my father, Sam and I came through. We would have been fine, you know.’

  Although he kept his eyes on the window-sill behind Bridie’s head, Anthony could still see her. He ached to comfort her, longed to draw his own solace from touching her, holding her and saying those silly things which can only be spoken in whispers. With the length of a hearthrug between them, he could not open up his heart. ‘Come here,’ he said.

  Bridie paused, placed her hands on the arms of her chair, raised herself slowly into a standing position. ‘No good will come of this,’ she murmured as he stepped towards her. She was dreaming, was drugged. Like a piece of base metal, she was drawn to him, because he was her own particular magnet. Shauna was asleep upstairs. Muth, too, had gone up early. Would either of them come down and witness Bridie’s terrible sin?

  ‘I need you,’ he told her. ‘Wherever he is, Dad knows that. And I think you need me.’

  No words would come from Bridie’s lips. She tried to speak, even framed a syllable with her lips, but her senses were filled by his nearness and by the fear that always accompanied his presence in her life. If he touched her, she would die. If he didn’t touch her, she would die. It was all the same, all the one thing. Need and dismay made an uncomfortable cocktail, caused her heart to beat erratically. She stood at the edge of the rug and at the rim of hell, yet paradise was so very close.

  Anthony buried his face in her hair and let his grief go. He cried soundlessly for the father he had scarcely known, wept because the woman he held so closely was precious, special and forbidden. Michael Brennan had talked about bigger sins. The biggest sin of all had run away, was in hiding. ‘Can God make mistakes?’ he whispered at last.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she replied with difficulty. ‘If He could make mistakes, then He wouldn’t be God.’ Breathing was difficult. She needed him to hold her for ever. She needed more than holding, and the desire made her cheeks hot.

  ‘Then did He make Liam deliberately?’

  Bridie kicked her brain into gear. ‘We made him, Anthony,’ she told him. ‘The world makes mistakes. Liam is an example of what we all might become.’ She breathed in and out slowly, tried to take charge of her own mechanism. Even talking about Anthony’s twin did not take the edge from her terrible longing. ‘There’s a bit of the Lucifer in all of us,’ she murmured. ‘But there’s too much of the devil in your brother.’

  Anthony kissed her forehead and her cheeks. ‘Not here,’ he said, pulling away from her. They could not become lovers on a hearthrug while a child and a grandmother slept above their heads.

  She wiped his face with her handkerchief, shivered, was cold without his closeness. ‘Dear God, this is wicked,’ she managed. ‘Sam’s hardly buried, and I lost another good man last year, yet here we are—’

  ‘Being human, Bridie. And we’re hurting no-one.’

  ‘Isn’t this our bit of Lucifer, Anthony?’ She might never have met him. Had she not come to England, this encounter would never have taken place. How strange fate was. Thomas Murphy had brought love into Bridie’s life. He had intended to send his daughter into misery, had wanted to punish her for marrying a Protestant, yet the same man, her da, had been instrumental in bringing true love into Bridie’s life. ‘How many never meet the other one?’ she asked.

  He understood immediately. ‘Someone worked out that there are about six people for each of us. The chances of walking into a certain room on a certain day are very remote. So we usually settle for the seventh or the seventieth. Yet one of those six could be living right next door or across the street—’

  ‘Or he could be your husband’s son.’

  ‘Or your father’s widow.’

  She took his hand and held it tightly. ‘Whether this is right or wrong, it’s here,’ she whispered. ‘What would God have us do?’

  Anthony smiled ruefully. ‘If God’s a Catholic, He’d be a bit put out. But if He’s an ordinary all-round sort of chap with a sense of humour, He’d not damn us.’

  Bridie found herself smiling again. ‘I never had such feelings for anyone before,’ she confessed. ‘I loved Eugene, but that was quieter altogether. And Sam – well – I came to appreciate him. As I said before, we would have been fine, your dad and me. But this is . . . like an illness that won’t go away.’

  He stepped back and sat down in an armchair. ‘The first time I saw you, on the day you arrived, I felt uncomfortable. I couldn’t understand why you were marrying a man so much older than yourself. You know, I think I was jealous of poor old Dad.’

  ‘Bigger sins,’ she muttered.

  ‘That’s right, Bridie. There are bigger sins than the one we are about to commit.’

  The routine was rigorous and boring, yet the sameness of each day was exactly what Martin Waring wanted.

  He rose at six in the morning, as did all lay members of the community. The frères themselves were up at five o’clock praying, lighting fires, making porridge and baking bread, tending the cows, pigs and hens. Martin wanted to be up and about alongside the monks, but he had to keep his head down on the iron-hard pillow. In accordance with the sketchy history of Martin Waring, he was forced to act like a recently released thief. Of course, he had been driven by his parents’ poverty into a life of crime. His parents had died, rather conveniently, during Martin’s brief spell in jail, and Martin had seen the light.

  The frères asked few questions. Often, the men who stayed with them reverted to type after leaving the house, but the brothers carried on regardlessly in pursuit of their founder’s dream. In the copperplate and gilded rules of the order, it was written that the aim was to save just one soul. The parable of the shepherd leaving his flock to search for a single stray lamb was quoted as part of the order’s holy constitution. Martin Waring, né Liam Bell, had done sufficient research to learn that the frères took each lay resident at face value. They had even been known to grant asylum to runaways, though every offender, Catholic or otherwise, was guided subtly towards that healing sacrament called confession. A resident suspected of major crime was always handed over to the police.

  Frère Nicholas listened to the news on the radio each morning. If he recognized a suspected murderer or rapist within his community, he would send for the law. But the architects of major crimes rarely sought refuge within these thick stone walls. The brothers simply strove to guide their mistaken flock towards a healthier and crime-free way of life.

  Martin lay on his bed and waited for the rising bell. There were just five laymen here. The other four were creatures o
f no importance, petty thieves whose inadequacies were immediately apparent. Martin’s ‘job’, the area in which he was expected to specialize after his farm chores were completed, was to teach two of his fellow refugees to read.

  He sniffed. He ought to have been serving mass, conducting benediction, administering the holy oils, handing out the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And he was teaching idiots a for apple and b for box. Nevertheless, he was smiling inwardly. Brother Martin. Frère Martin. He rather liked the sound of that, rather liked the idea of a fresh start. His beard was growing very nicely, though it was still at the prickly stage. Frère Nicholas, who was wary of beards, had asked Martin to give a reason for wishing to alter his appearance.

  ‘I’ll shave it off gladly if you wish, Frère Nicholas,’ Martin had replied. ‘But I am hiding from myself, you see. I look in the glass and see a thief. I am trying to become a new man, a different person altogether. My parents must have been so ashamed of me. Even through the worst years, they endured their poverty without turning to crime.’

  Brother Nicholas had agreed to allow the beard. Martin Waring fitted the description of none of the major criminals who were currently being pursued by the authorities. It did not do to ask too many questions. Many of these sinners had been frightened off by too close scrutiny, and Brother Nicholas realized that his latest lodger was of a liturgical turn. Already, Martin could respond at mass, was begging for baptism and confirmation, seemed sad when the brothers took Communion while he remained in his pew. At the next council meeting, Brother Nicholas intended to raise the subject of Martin Waring’s intention to become a Catholic.

  The intended ‘convert’ took up his missal and allowed it to fall open. The displayed page announced the third Sunday after Easter, and the epistle seemed appropriate. He read aloud, ‘“Carissimi: Obsecro vos tanquam advenas . . .”’ Martin smiled to himself as he translated, ‘“I call upon you to be like strangers and exiles, to resist those natural appetites which besiege the soul.”’ Hadn’t he preached this all along? ‘“. . . let them see from your honourable behaviour what you are . . .”’

  He laid the book down. God was speaking to him again, so he must listen. The passage to which God had directed him had decreed that Martin Waring must remain in exile and wait for a sign. The epistle had even referred to the punishment of criminals and the encouragement of decent men. God had sent him here. Soon, the voice would return, would guide him along the path towards . . . towards the chastisement of sinners.

  He stared through his cell window and watched the dawn glimmering its slow way towards morning. Dad’s widow was a sinner. She had come from Ireland to take Dad’s affection from his one true son. Maureen . . . what was her name? Costigan. He should write that down in order to remind himself. She had been punished. Anthony. As always, he was vague about Anthony, but the light would guide Martin and Anthony along a righteous path.

  A bell sounded. Martin fell to his knees and prayed for the soul of his departed father, for the salvation of Anthony Bell, for divine retribution against the Irish widow.

  The door opened a crack. ‘Martin? Ah, I am sorry. I did not wish to intrude while you were at prayer, but Frère Nicholas asks if you will sing again at benediction this evening.’

  Martin allowed Brother Timothy a tight smile. ‘Of course, Brother. The plain chant is so easy to follow, and I’m sure I’ll master the Latin pronunciation in time.’

  The monk backed his way out of the cell. He stood in the corridor and gazed at a print of St Francis Xavier. But Frère Timothy did not see the saint. In his mind’s eye, he held a picture of Martin Waring, so holy, so correct, so uncaring. There was something amiss with this soon-to-be-bearded lay member of the fraternity. But Nicholas, the senior monk, would hear nothing against his protégé. It was because of the man’s beautiful tenor voice, thought Timothy. The choir had not been blessed with a decent soloist since the untimely death of Frère Anselm. Nicholas was, perhaps, blinded by Martin Waring’s abilities.

  Brother Timothy crossed himself and walked towards his breakfast. As an ordained monk, he should not entertain such un-Christian thoughts. And he hoped that his porridge would still be hot.

  The room was starved of light because of high windows, but the gloom had been deepened considerably by the liberal application of paint in all shades of brown from sepia to chocolate. Below a dado rail, thick gloss in an unattractive mud colour adorned the walls, while the upper sections seemed to be advertising the exhalations of a thousand smokers. Bookshelves framed the doorway, and photographs of grim-faced policemen in domed hats hung from every spare inch of picture rail.

  Inspector Chadwick, a Mancunian who had moved west against his better judgement and in spite of his wife’s protestations, had wedged his corpulence behind a huge square desk with a virgin blotter set into its centre. A handlebar moustache of indeterminate colour was suspended beneath a shiny, pitted nose. Thick, wet lips peered out below the foliage, and several red chins hung over a too tight collar.

  The inspector’s fingertips completed an inverted V created by angled elbows. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ The last word was spat as if it tasted bad.

  Without waiting for a formal invitation, Father Michael Brennan took a seat at the other side of the desk. Manchester’s loss was Liverpool’s loss, too, he mused. ‘I’ve Flash Flanagan outside in the corridor with Anthony Bell.’

  Piggy eyes widened slightly. ‘What the dickens are they doing here?’ He needed Flash Flanagan like he needed a dose of smallpox. The tramp was a source of irritation for every policeman in the Rose Hill district. ‘I’ve a station to run, you know. I can’t be sitting here listening to the ravings of an alcoholic.’

  Michael Brennan sighed, lowered his head and looked at the floor. Even the floor was brown. He wondered, not for the first time, why this singularly uncharitable person had opted for a career which brought him into contact with people. Inspector Chadwick hated Irish Catholics, Jews, people with dark skin, prostitutes, homosexuals and most women. He treated children like vermin and was impatient with those unfortunate men who served under him.

  The priest lifted his chin and looked across the desk. Power. It was all about control, dominance, dominion. Most people who hated as strongly as this man were inadequates who tried to prove their worth by demonstrating the foibles of others. While concentrating on the failures of mankind, Chadwick attempted to justify his own existence and thus to boost his supposed worth in the eyes of others. Or so the inspector hoped. Really, his major achievement so far was the great job he had done of generating hatred for himself. No-one liked him. Rumour had it that his own wife had tried to remain in Manchester when Chadwick had moved to Liverpool. Michael understood the wretched woman only too well.

  ‘I’ve no time for this.’ The huge policeman made an elaborate fuss of matching his watch to the clock on the wall, winding, moving the half-hunter’s fingers, running his beady eyes over an inscription on the gold case. ‘There’s a meeting in half an hour.’

  The priest assumed that the Manchester force had been glad to pay that nine-carat gold price to be rid of the man. ‘I’m visiting you for a reason,’ he snapped. ‘There seems to be proof that Father Liam Bell has committed an offence. Perhaps several offences.’

  The lard on Chadwick’s face quivered for a split second. He was used to papist criminals, but the idea of a crooked priest promised to be immensely amusing – the lads at the lodge would be in pleats of laughter once a Catholic clergyman sat in the bridewell. ‘What did he do?’ he asked, the tone of voice deliberately cool.

  ‘The man’s ill,’ replied the cleric. ‘We think he has some sort of mental disorder and—’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ Bushy eyebrows leapt upward.

  ‘No, but we have consulted a medical practitioner. I understand that Dr Spencer has communicated his concern to your chief constable.’

  ‘I see.’ Fingers as thick as pork sausages were spread wide on the blotter.
‘And the offence?’ he asked again.

  ‘He has probably attacked some women – quite a number of women – over the years.’

  Chadwick nodded sagely. ‘The Costigan girl?’

  ‘Possibly.’ He would not commit himself, would not subject Maureen to a grilling until the time was right.

  ‘And the proof?’

  ‘Flash Flanagan had it.’

  ‘Ah.’ The monarch of Rose Hill and several other small stations leaned back in his chair. Flash Flanagan. The man was about as reliable as the English weather. ‘The last time we had the pleasure of Mr Flanagan’s company – about two months ago – he was wrestling with a snake in his cell. The snake was the rope that held up his trousers. On that occasion, his trousers fell down, because he was busy strangling the rope. He’s a drinker. If he can’t afford whisky or whatever, he mixes methylated spirit with wine. The man’s totally useless.’

  Father Brennan shook his head sadly. ‘Even the worst of us is of some use, Inspector Chadwick. He found Maureen Costigan.’

  ‘We know all about that. He was drunk and disorderly for days afterwards. In fact, we moved him on to prevent a riot. He was stirring up the populace into a state of terror.’

  Michael Brennan sat quietly for a few seconds. ‘There’s a stole missing. Anthony and I went through Father Bell’s vestments in the presbytery. We counted them twice. All the sets but one were complete. But there was just that single piece missing from the ordination vestments. Flash Flanagan found the stole next to Maureen Costigan.’

  The policeman raised thick eyebrows once again. ‘He said nothing when he was questioned.’

  ‘The man’s a Catholic. He was frightened by what he found.’

  Frank Chadwick had little time for Romans. In fact, he had often mused about the word ‘Catholic’, had been known to hold forth about its similarity to ‘alcoholic’. The two words shared several letters, and the inspector often joked about the fact. Also, the ‘one true Apostolic Faith’ begged to be altered to ‘the one true Alcoholic Faith’.