She had managed to clear her mind at last, and the improvement in her outlook was due in no small part to her surroundings. Astleigh Fold nestled like a small child in the arms of its mother, a tiny village cradled by the moors. There were so many shades of green on the gentle slopes, too many to count. Maureen remembered Irish relatives who had mused at length about Eire’s lush foliage, but surely nothing could be greener than this place? She was comfortable here, protected and content.
She stood at her window and watched the sun as it began to bathe the fields and woods. Beautiful. With the window thrown open, she thought she could smell the green, could almost taste the dew as it evaporated towards the sky. This was heaven. If only Mam and Dad could live here. A picture of Jimmy and Tildy-Anne haring about the lanes filled her mind. If they lived here, they would be stronger, healthier, browner.
The bedroom door opened. Maureen turned to see Cathy with a finger to her lips. ‘Shush,’ the child said. She was supposed to be in an airy attic with the windows permanently open. She was supposed to avoid close contact with the rest of the household in case she caught germs before her strength returned. ‘I’m lonely,’ she complained.
Maureen nodded. ‘Sit on the bed for a minute,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got to do my hair.’
Cathy sat. ‘Are you still going to be a dancer?’
Maureen shrugged. ‘Don’t know. I’m not bothered.’ Much to her surprise, Maureen had found within herself a liking for housework. Putting things in order, maintaining control over dust and dirt brought an unexpected degree of satisfaction and contentment. Everything that had mattered didn’t seem to count any more. All Maureen wanted was peace and quiet, a job and to be safe. ‘Dr Spencer says he’ll take me to the classes, but I can’t get myself interested.’ It was like being asleep, she thought. She was in a wonderful dream, a lovely fairy tale that had followed swiftly on the heels of a nightmare.
Cathy studied Maureen. She had wonderful black hair, blemish-free porcelain skin and eyes like blue jewels. ‘You’re not proud any more,’ the child announced. ‘But you are very, very beautiful. That scar you had has gone now.’ Maureen had blossomed. She was fuller in the chest and her face had filled out slightly. Maureen no longer bore the marks that come with city poverty. The pallor had gone from her cheeks, and her eyes shone with health.
Maureen put the last grip in her hair. ‘I’ll do, I suppose,’ she said.
‘Wish I looked like you. Wish I didn’t have anaemia. It’s all vitamins and stuff, stupid drinks and hundreds of oranges. And liver, Maureen. They make me eat liver and spinach and porridge that’s all thin and sweet. They keep dragging my eyes wide open to see how pink my eyelids are on the inside. There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she insisted. ‘It’s desperate. I’m always being prodded and looked at.’
Maureen smiled. ‘You’ll be well soon, just see. And when you grow up, you’ll be all blonde and gorgeous. Boys like blonde girls.’
Cathy sniffed. ‘Who said anything about boys? I want to look nice for me, not for a great stupid lump of a lad with scabs on his knees.’
The older girl laughed out loud. She thought about her own childhood . . . had she ever been a child? Since the day she had learned to walk, Maureen Costigan had been coped over and fussed over. Her remarkable beauty had made her noticeable, and she had been encouraged to dance prettily, to sing and recite and carry on like an oversized doll. She had used her assets to get money, had performed for queues at the Rotunda and the cinemas, had earned her keep since infancy. ‘Like a little prostitute,’ she said absently.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Maureen had used her physical self to good advantage. Until that night when some vile piece of humanity had used her body for his own purposes.
‘You all right, Maureen?’
Maureen nodded.
‘You look sad.’
‘I miss Mam and Dad.’
Cathy swallowed. She missed her mammy; she even missed Shauna sometimes, though Shauna was not the sister Cathy might have wished for had she been given a say in the matter. Shauna was a brat. Brat was a word Cathy had acquired from listening to Aunt Edith. Cathy was a great listener, had dedicated herself to the art of eavesdropping just to break the monotony of being anaemic. Being anaemic meant eating the right things, breathing deeply even when the weather was cold and staying away from germs for much of the time. She was good at creeping and excellent at secreting herself behind Cherry Hinton’s many luxurious drapes. Her vocabulary was improving. Shauna was a brat because Aunt Edith said so, and Aunt Edith was a genius.
‘Do you miss your mam?’ asked Maureen.
Cathy nodded sadly. ‘And Uncle Sam. He isn’t even in Liverpool. I won’t ever see him again. Of course, Shauna’s on the pig’s back again, getting all her own way while I’m not there.’
Maureen grinned. ‘Don’t grow up too quick, love,’ she said. ‘I’ve been grown up for years, and it’s not a good idea.’
Cathy plucked at the front of her nightdress. ‘I’d better go in case they blame you for breathing on me.’
‘I’ll stop breathing, then,’ promised Maureen. She held her breath, then exploded into giggles.
The younger girl sighed dramatically. ‘I’m fed up with the attic and the fresh air. If somebody rides up on a horse and tells me to let down my hair, I won’t be able to. Rapunzel’s hair was dead long.’
Maureen laughed at the Scouse ‘dead’.
‘I’ll be stuck up there forever with liver and porridge and Mother Ignatius. She has germs. Why can’t I keep away from her germs? Are her germs holy?’
Maureen carried on laughing.
‘Why did she have to choose me, Maureen? She keeps coming to teach me all about French and algebra. The algebra is really stupid, because it’s all letters instead of numbers. Why did they bother inventing numbers when people like Mother Ignatius use letters for counting? Three times a week, she comes. She says my education’s too important to be worrying about germs. Why can’t she have anaemia instead of me?’ Cathy folded her arms after the long soliloquy.
‘Don’t wish anybody ill, love. It’s cruel.’
Cathy shrugged with pretended nonchalance. ‘As long as I get rid of her and her silly books—’
The door opened. ‘Come along, Cathy.’ There was no anger in Richard Spencer’s tone. ‘Go and wait for your breakfast. I’ll be up to see you later.’ She was recovering at an acceptable pace but he wanted her to have a few more weeks’ rest and exercise.
Cathy walked out grumbling about cold stethoscopes and short hair.
Richard walked across the rug and stood behind Maureen. ‘Are you feeling well?’ he asked.
‘Yes, thank you.’
He sat on the bed. ‘Don’t let Cathy get too close. She’s doing very well, but her blood’s still carrying too little oxygen. We must try not to cough or sneeze near her.’
Maureen sat on the edge of her stool. In the dressing table mirror, she saw herself and Dr Spencer. He was about to say something. He was going to say something she didn’t want to hear. ‘I’d better get to the kitchen,’ Maureen said.
‘No. Stay where you are for now.’
Her eyes pleaded with his reflection. If he would only go away. If he would leave, everything would get back to normal.
‘Maureen?’
She swallowed audibly.
‘Maureen?’
‘Yes?’ It was going to start again. The lovely dream was about to be shattered, then the nightmare could continue.
‘Do you know why I’ve come up to talk to you?’
Maureen nodded mutely.
‘Have you been sick?’
‘No, Dr Spencer.’
‘But your clothes are getting smaller.’
Her clothes were exactly the same size as they had always been. He was telling her kindly that she was growing fat. Mam was fatter than she used to be. Perhaps obesity ran in the family, then.
‘Maureen, you may be carrying a baby.’
She rocked to and fro, her head shaking slowly from side to side. The man had entered her body, had left himself inside her. It was dividing, growing, a living piece of evil that would tear its way into the world in . . . in about five or six months. ‘I don’t want it,’ she said, her voice rising in pitch and quickening towards hysteria. ‘This isn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything, anything. I didn’t, I didn’t, but he did and now I have this thing . . .’
Richard stood up and placed his hands on the girl’s quivering shoulders.
‘Where is God?’ she screamed. ‘Where was God when this happened to me? If there’s a God and all saints and stuff, why is there all this badness?’
He had often wondered about that. Many, many times, he had stood and watched a child edging its way towards death while the drunken sot who had fathered it thrived on beer and whisky. It wasn’t fair. That was the one certainty, the one truth. The doctor watched his little housemaid disintegrating before his eyes. As a medic, he had to protect her and her unborn secret. As a man, he wished that he could tear the burden from her.
‘I want me mam.’
‘We’ll get her,’ he said. ‘Edith will telephone Bridie. My dear, I am so sorry. I wish there was something I could do—’
‘There is!’ Maureen swung round and jumped to her feet. ‘You can kill it.’
Richard felt her hands clawing at his jacket, heard the terror in her words. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘You can, you can. At school, we heard about it. Somebody’s mother had it done. You can get rid of it. You have to get rid of it before I go mad.’ She broke down and fell into his arms.
He held her closely and blinked away his own tears. Edith stood in the doorway. ‘Send for Diddy,’ he said.
Edith Spencer dried her face and went slowly down the stairs into her graceful hallway. Everything was so beautiful in this house, so lovely and empty and meaningless. If a child had scribbled on the wallpaper, if a child had ruined the carpets, then life could have been so much richer.
She picked up the telephone and barked the number. Upstairs, a cluster of cells was multiplying in a womb that didn’t want it. In Edith’s heart, there was a huge hollow place where the damped down pain of disappointment had been carefully tucked away.
With a heavy sigh, Edith gave the message to Charlie Costigan, then replaced the receiver. Instinct told her to run, to get out of the house, to visit the stables, perhaps. In the stable yard, Mr Cross would be celebrating with Robin Smythe. Quicksilver and Sorrel were serving their apprenticeships at local courses, were showing great promise.
But the lady of the house remained where she was, waited for Maureen and Richard to come downstairs. Maureen was pregnant, and there was reason to believe that Edith and Richard would be blood relatives of the unwanted child.
The grandfather clock struck the hour and Edith shivered. That poor girl was carrying the sin of a priest whose malevolence might possibly match the evil of the Borgias. This was no time to be visiting the stables. First, this household must deal with the iniquity of the human race.
Bridie considered Dolly Hanson to be a decent body. Although the keeper of Hanson’s News, Sweets and Tobacco had been Thomas Murphy’s lover for many years, she was not a bad woman. Bridie’s father was the adulterer. He had neglected Mammy and had found for himself a comfortable nest where he could rest his bones while in England. Dolly did not visit the pawnshop very often. She had her own business to run, and she had been without help since the departure of Maureen. But one Thursday in July, Dolly Hanson closed her customers’ door and crossed the road. She had to talk to Mrs Bell.
Charlie Costigan had gone home in a rush for his dinner, leaving Bridie to mind the pawnshop while Billy did the rounds and picked up furniture. Charlie had muttered something about a telephone message for Mam, so Bridie was temporarily in sole charge. She was picking up the business quickly, had become quite adept at handling the strangest pawned items. The Scotland Road folk pledged anything and everything from rugs and brasses to silver-plated crucifixes. As Bridie sorted through a pile of tickets, Dolly entered the shop. ‘Hello there,’ said Bridie, her tone conversational. ‘Have you found another assistant, then?’
Dolly shook her head. She always felt uncomfortable in the presence of her lover’s daughter.
‘What can I do for you?’
Dolly swallowed. ‘It’s him,’ she managed.
‘Who?’
‘Your father.’
‘Ah. Himself, is it? He who must be served first at all times?’ Bridie closed a ledger with a loud snap, noticed Dolly’s startled jump when the noise occurred.
‘The horses.’ Dolly took a handkerchief from her pocket, mopped her head. It was a hot day. Schools were closed, and the road was packed with children. Perhaps the young ones were using up all the oxygen, Dolly mused.
‘Which horses?’ asked Bridie.
‘The ones he . . . the horses he brought over for—’
‘To Sam? As a bribe so that he would marry me and remove me from the threat of what Da calls Protestantism and perdition?’
Dolly nodded quickly.
‘They’re mine now,’ said Bridie softly. ‘Sam gave them to me for myself and my girls.’
Dolly lifted her head. ‘Doing well, so he’s heard.’
‘That’s right.’
The visitor dabbed at her brow with the soggy rag that had begun life as a decent handkerchief. ‘He came over yesterday. He wants his horses back.’
Bridie’s spine stiffened. ‘His horses?’
‘That’s what he said.’
Bridie glanced at one of the more reliable clocks. It belonged to a Mrs Hartley from Dryden Street and its German mechanism was in reasonable condition. ‘Where is he?’
Dolly shrugged. ‘Wherever the horses are.’ She stepped back, peered through the window at her shop. Except for funerals, Hanson’s had never been closed in the middle of the afternoon. ‘I’ve finished with him,’ she muttered sadly. ‘He promised for years that he’d marry me, but there was always some reason why he couldn’t. He’s run out of excuses, so I read out the marching orders.’ She bit her lip for a second. ‘I didn’t know he was married, Bridie. And by the time I did find out, it was too late, because I loved him. Over twenty years I wasted on that man.’
Bridie wondered how on earth any sane person could manage to love the unlovable person who had fathered her, but she said nothing.
‘Anyway, I’ve said what I came to say.’
Bridie smiled. ‘It was never your fault,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about the past, and thank you for warning me.’ Da would not get ‘his’ horses. Da would not get past Bob Cross, because Bob Cross minded his stables too well.
Dolly Hanson was swept aside by Diddy. Diddy and Billy were now full-time employees of Bell’s, though Diddy still left the market or the shop every lunch-time to produce her family’s dinner. ‘What does Edith want?’ she demanded of Bridie. ‘Our Charlie says there’s a message on that thing.’ She waved a hand towards the phone. ‘From Edith, he said.’
Had Bridie not known better, she would have found the sight before her truly terrifying. With her sleeves hauled up above reddened elbows and her feet planted well apart, Diddy Costigan seemed to fill the shop. Her huge bosom heaved with emotion and as a result of running in the heat, while a couple of steel curlers drooped from the front of a very holey hairnet. ‘Well?’ asked Diddy impatiently.
Bridie scratched her ear. ‘I was upstairs with Muth till Charlie left,’ she said. ‘So he must have answered the telephone.’
Without waiting for an invitation, Diddy crossed the room and stood at the bottom of the stairs. The phone was on a small table in this no-man’s land between shop and living quarters. The large woman rifled through Sam Bell’s personal telephone book, found Edith’s number, then barked it into the ear of some innocent operator.
Dolly touched Bridie’s arm. ‘All right, girl? If anything happens to your horses, you’ll know who to b
lame.’
Bridie smiled absently. She waved at the departing Dolly, then tried not to eavesdrop while Diddy shouted all the way to Bolton. Diddy did not believe in the telephone. She used it infrequently and with great reluctance, and she always spoke very clearly and with actions so that the unseen conversationalist would be in no two minds about Diddy’s intentions.
‘You what?’ Diddy threw up her free arm. ‘She’s what? Holy Mother of God.’
Bridie stopped smiling. The older woman was pressing her spine against the door jamb as if seeking support. ‘She can’t be. She’s only a baby herself.’ Diddy’s voice reached its crescendo. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Bridie’ll come with me.’ She turned and used her eyes to plead with her employer.
Bridie nodded her agreement.
‘But she’s only ever been with . . .’ The large woman’s voice cracked. Her little girl was pregnant. The unborn child was the son or daughter of a rapist. ‘God, what shall we do?’
The new owner of Bell’s Pledges staggered backwards and grasped the counter. Rays of the afternoon sun glared at her accusingly, making her close her eyes against the light. But her mind would not be stilled.
‘Bridie?’
She opened her eyes, saw the confusion in Diddy’s face. ‘Oh, Diddy. She’s pregnant, then?’
Elizabeth Costigan wept. A curler slid down her sweat-slicked face and clattered to the floor. ‘Billy’ll go mad,’ she said. ‘He’s done the rounds, and he’s on the stall with our Monica, happy as a pig in muck, in the middle of selling a canteen of cutlery when I left him.’
Bridie held her companion’s hands. She could say nothing, must say nothing. Proof, proof – where was the damned proof? ‘We’ll go together,’ she said. ‘Nicky can move in here. She’ll take good care of Muth and Shauna.’
Diddy mopped her face on her apron. ‘I wanted so much for our Maureen. She’s such a pretty girl. And talented, too. I thought she’d go a long way, but she won’t now, Bridie. He stopped her. That rotten animal ruined my little girl’s life.’
Bridie, who enjoyed a fondness for creatures, did not agree. Few animals would have sunk to Liam Bell’s depths. He was not comparable to an animal, she told herself. Liam was the worst creature in the world, because he was humankind at its basest.
The Bells of Scotland Road Page 40