The Bells of Scotland Road

by Ruth Hamilton

  He felt no anger. The control he had over Liam was total. When the lovers pulled away from the embrace, Martin realized that their relationship had advanced well beyond this single lingering kiss. These people knew one another in the biblical sense. He must keep the information to himself. Liam was going to find out eventually, of course, but Martin felt no need to wake the dormant ghost just yet.

  They left the orchard, the woman turning towards the field where her horses grazed, the man striding off in the direction of his cottage. It was half past one.

  When a few minutes had passed, the intruder stepped out from his hide, diving back quickly when he heard someone else approaching. He flattened himself against the ground, tried to breath quietly and evenly. Weeds and grasses swished as the person came near. A couple of dry twigs snapped, then all movement ceased. ‘No!’ cried a female voice. ‘I won’t have it, I won’t.’

  A heavier person arrived. Martin could hear the laboured breathing, had guessed the identity of the woman before she spoke.

  ‘Go away, Mam,’ yelled Maureen Costigan.

  ‘You’re making yourself ill,’ wheezed the girl’s mother.

  Martin’s fingers closed around some foliage. He listened intently while mother and daughter argued. The subject under discussion was the younger female’s pregnancy. ‘Look,’ said Diddy, ‘there’s nothing we can do except wait. You can’t get rid of a baby, Maureen. It would be murder.’

  ‘I won’t have it. I’ll kill myself, I will, I’ll—’

  The sound of a none too gentle slap reached the eavesdropper’s ears. So. The girl was going to have a child. Anthony’s? he wondered. Or could it be Liam’s? Hadn’t Liam . . . ? No, priests didn’t have babies.

  The Costigans walked away, each sobbing and wailing and stumbling towards the house.

  When all was quiet, the lay brother sat up and dusted his jacket. Moss and bits of dried grass clung to the fabric, and there were greenish stains on a lapel. He brushed and scraped, rubbed at the discoloration with a handkerchief. Anthony was with Bridie Bell. They were probably sleeping together, the stepmother and her stepson. And Maureen Costigan was trying to get rid of an unborn child. Liam would have to be told eventually, but it was best not to dwell on such matters just yet. Baptism, confirmation and ordination were more important than these stupid people.

  Pleased with all he had gleaned, he walked out of the orchard and towards the lane. The newly acquired knowledge would be useful one day, he told himself. For Liam, it would be vital. With his pulse as steady as a rock, Martin Waring gathered his thoughts and checked the money in his small leather wallet. He was going to buy the unbleached cotton sheets that were a part of the brothers’ constant penance. Liam’s news would keep.

  Bridie Bell and her stepson lay on the rug. They did not touch one another, yet their intimacy would have been apparent to any witness. There was a languor about them, a total at homeness that spoke volumes about the depth of their relationship. Within a very short space of time, each had found a soulmate.

  ‘She’ll kill herself,’ said Bridie.

  ‘No, I think she’s too strong for that.’ He stroked a blonde tress which had fallen across his chest.

  ‘Maureen thinks she’s carrying the child of a devil,’ continued Bridie. She could tell this man anything and everything. He would never judge her as stupid or hysterical. ‘While she cannot blame the poor little creature, she will never welcome a baby who was made by rape.’

  ‘God help her if and when she finds out the identity of her attacker.’ Anthony sighed heavily. ‘What an unholy mess. You and I know his name, as does Father Brennan, as does Richard Spencer. We can prove nothing at all, so we keep quiet. The police are doing precious little to find him. They think we’re all mad.’ Occasionally, Anthony hung on to a thread of hope, an insane desire for Liam to be innocent. It was a hopeless hope, he told himself yet again. Liam was ill; Liam was dangerous.

  Bridie closed her eyes and wished away a threatening headache. Sometimes, she felt Liam Bell’s presence, had even looked over her shoulder a few times as if expecting to find those dark, expressionless eyes staring at her and right through her. ‘Diddy’s beside herself. She told me last night that she was praying for a miscarriage. She’s been down to St Patrick’s in Bolton to ask forgiveness because she’s willing her own grandchild to die.

  ‘Everything’s such a mess,’ she groaned. ‘Maureen wants an abortion, but she can’t have one.’ She looked at him. ‘I want you and I can’t have you. It’s all so wrong.’

  ‘You and I are in the wrong, I suppose. I have to agree with you on that score,’ he admitted. ‘But I won’t let you go free, not ever. In fact, I’m thinking of having you fitted with a ball and chain.’

  ‘But we’re hurting no-one,’ cried Bridie.

  ‘Your daughters may be damaged by our love,’ he whispered. ‘Not yet, but eventually.’

  It was different, Bridie told herself. Her sin was born of love, not hatred. Anthony’s sin, too, had been committed for love. Yet he was right about Cathy and Shauna. ‘How am I going to tell my daughters that their stepbrother is my lover?’

  ‘That’s a big question, and it’s not our concern yet,’ Anthony said. Their main aim must be to steer clear of Liam. ‘You know, I can feel him today, as if he’s just around the corner. Weren’t you cold in the orchard before you went to see the horses?’

  ‘No,’ Bridie lied.

  He had felt chilled. He had shivered as if he had just been pulled out of the Mersey’s grey depths. ‘We’ve both lost our fathers,’ he said. ‘And you’ve lost two husbands. There’s enough grief hanging in the air without looking over our shoulders for Liam, yet we must. God, I wish somebody would find him.’

  Bridie thought about that. ‘He’ll find you, Anthony. When he’s ready, he’ll . . .’ She didn’t want to think about it.

  ‘And Maureen’s carrying his child.’ There was a hollow quality in Anthony’s words. ‘Have you looked at her face lately?’

  Bridie nodded, then placed her head on his chest. She could hear his heart beating its steady rhythm against her cheek. ‘Maureen’s desperate,’ she said. ‘And old. Diddy’s at her wit’s end, trying to get some sense into the girl, but she’s getting nowhere.’

  ‘I could kill him,’ declared Anthony. He looked up into the clear blue eyes and smiled ruefully. Reaching for her face, he used his finger to trace its outline. She would be returning to Liverpool very soon, and he wanted to hold this moment until their next meeting. They had made love only once, because he could not allow her to carry any more guilt. Restraint was difficult, but he was managing, just about. ‘I’ll get a job in Liverpool,’ he told her. ‘Then we can live together. After all, I’m your stepson, so—’

  ‘No.’ Bridie shook her head until his face was hidden beneath her tumbled hair. ‘You must not live with us. It would be far too stressful.’ She inhaled deeply, pulled the long tresses away from his face. ‘It would be better if you stayed here.’

  She was right and he knew it. He imagined how confused the girls would become if they ever found him with their mother. He imagined the tongues wagging outside and inside the church of St Aloysius Gonzaga, the jibes Bridie would be forced to tolerate.

  She sat up, began to pin her hair. ‘Your grandmother is descending quickly towards senility, Anthony. I have to get back and care for her. Sam asked me to do that, and I do love the old girl. But . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘But what?’

  She smiled at him, wished that she could iron the lines of worry from his forehead. ‘Silver will win the Derby next year.’ She spoke with great conviction. ‘And I shall be a wealthy woman. Perhaps I’ll buy a cottage in Astleigh Fold, a place for holidays and for . . . for us.’ A pang of guilt cut into her chest again, but she breathed it away determinedly. He needed her and she needed him. Their union could never be blessed by the Church, but Sam was blessing it. ‘When the girls are grown and gone, we shall be outrageous. We shall l
ive in sin and get ourselves excommunicated. Have you ever wondered how it will feel to wear sackcloth and ashes?’

  Anthony shook his head. ‘The nearest I came to that was when I fell in our midden twenty years ago. But won’t the idea of excommunication bother you?’

  ‘No,’ she replied with certainty, ‘it will not.’ She was Catholic to the core, yet she loved this man too much to worry about something as unimportant as her own salvation.

  Diddy Costigan placed the last of Bridie’s clothes in the suitcase. Diddy felt guilty about not going back to help Monica on the stall, but she could not leave Maureen, not yet. ‘I’m sorry, queen,’ she said for the umpteenth time.

  ‘It’s no matter,’ answered Bridie. Diddy was worried to the point of distraction. Maureen was refusing food, was staying in bed, was weeping softly and silently into her pillow for hours on end. ‘I understand why you must stay here. Nicky can take care of things – she’s a capable girl. And Billy’s there to help with any heavy work.’

  Diddy sniffed away her sadness. ‘To be honest, I don’t know how Maureen’ll get through this, Bridie. I mean, to have all that pain for a baby you don’t want – it’s bad enough when the baby’s coming into a happy family. I’ve cursed Billy through every one of my labours.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘Our Maureen won’t know who to scream at, will she?’

  Bridie swallowed, turned away to hide her face. Liam’s child. Well, it probably was Liam’s. ‘Stay in Astleigh Fold as long as you need to.’ She picked up her hairbrush and threw it into the case. ‘Keep in touch, though.’

  ‘I will.’

  A loud crash caused them both to stiffen. Diddy put a hand to her throat. ‘What the bloody hell was that?’

  Bridie was the first to recover. She crossed the room, threw open the door and ran onto the landing. Maureen Costigan lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the staircase. A small pool of blood had seeped from her head, was spreading its scarlet rivulets across the marble floor and into the fringe of a Persian rug. ‘Jesus,’ breathed Bridie, ‘let her be alive.’

  The front door opened and Richard Spencer stepped into the hall. He threw down his bag and rushed to the prone figure. ‘Edith!’ he yelled. ‘Ambulance – quickly!’

  Cathy, who had now recovered sufficiently to move out of her attic and into the land of bacteria, emerged from her airy bedroom and ran to her mother. ‘Mammy? Did Maureen fall?’

  No, no, replied Bridie silently. She has killed herself. Aloud, she told her daughter to return to the bedroom. No sooner had she rid herself of Cathy than Diddy was upon her. ‘Stay where you are,’ ordered the younger woman. ‘Richard’s with her.’

  Diddy let forth a primeval howl and pushed Bridie aside as if flicking away an annoying fly. She tore down the stairs with Bridie at her heels. ‘Maureen!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t die, you mustn’t die, girl. We’ll get rid of it, we will, we will. We’ll find somebody, won’t we?’ she asked Richard.

  The doctor knelt beside Maureen and found a pulse. ‘Edith is getting the ambulance,’ he said. ‘This poor girl’s too badly hurt to go in the car.’ He pulled back one of the unconscious Maureen’s eyelids, watched the pupil as it shrank against light. She was not comatose, not yet. ‘We must get her there as quickly as possible.’

  Diddy frowned. ‘Where? Where are you taking her?’

  ‘Into hospital, of course.’

  ‘I’m going with her,’ pronounced Diddy. ‘And I’m staying with her till she’s right.’

  Richard counted the beats of Maureen’s heart, pushed the half-hunter back into his waistcoat pocket. ‘We must not move her until we have a stretcher and some help.’ He watched Diddy as she crawled on hands and knees around the motionless body of her daughter.

  ‘Will the baby die now?’ asked the large woman.

  Richard glanced at Bridie. ‘Embryos are tough,’ he said.

  Diddy lifted her head. ‘If somebody doesn’t do something, our Maureen’s going to die. She might not die this time, but if she comes round still pregnant, she’ll jump again and again until she manages to finish herself off. All she needs is to get rid of that rotten bugger’s baby.’

  Richard cleared his throat. He blinked away some moisture from his eyes, wished with all his heart that he could pick up this child, carry her to his office and perform a miracle. But miracles often went wrong. He had watched several patients die after the execution of a miracle in some seedy kitchen.

  ‘The blood’s stopped coming from her head,’ ventured Bridie. ‘Can’t we pick her up and make her comfortable?’

  Richard bent down again, made sure that the bleeding had not stopped due to heart failure. But Maureen was very much alive, though one of her legs seemed to be broken. ‘Leave her where she is,’ he advised again. ‘We can do a lot more harm than good if we move her.’

  Diddy struggled to her feet with Bridie’s help. Her eyes seemed to burn as she spoke. ‘Will she be all right, Bridie? Will she die today?’

  Bridie dragged her friend to the stairs and forced her to sit on the second step. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied truthfully. Why was all this happening? Was God reaching down to punish Bridie and Anthony because of their unholy alliance? Was He watching Bridie’s new found ecstasy, was He annoyed because she was finding pleasure through the joining of her flesh to Anthony’s? Surely not? God wasn’t like a soldier in the front lines. God knew where to send His darts – He did not hit the wrong man or the wrong woman.

  ‘What have we done to deserve this bloody lot?’ asked Diddy.

  Diddy had done nothing, thought Bridie. She had married, had raised her children, had borne the pain of watching her eldest son struggling against physical handicap. Diddy had worked like a dog, had remained cheerful and strong through adversity, had loved and fed and clothed her family. She was well-respected in the community where she continued to serve as unqualified midwife and nurse, where she laid out the dead and comforted the bereaved. Diddy had even taken up arms against local and national governments, because she believed that the Scotland Road people were going to be ousted, separated and sent to live miles away from their roots. She was a fighter on the verge of conceding defeat because her daughter was in tremendous mental and physical distress.

  ‘Bridie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She moved her arm.’

  ‘Good. Isn’t that great? They’ll be here for her in a minute.’ Bridie watched Richard as he ran his hands over Maureen’s limbs in search of fractures.

  Edith came into the hall with a tray of tea. She heaped sugar into Diddy’s cup, then forced it into her hands. ‘Drink it,’ she ordered. ‘It will help you to help Maureen.’

  Obediently, Diddy sipped at the hot fluid. Bridie shook her head against the offer of sustenance, then left the scene. Upstairs, she had a daughter of her own with tired blood and a terrible thirst for knowledge. She pushed open the door, found Cathy weeping on the edge of her bed. ‘Come on, child,’ she murmured. ‘Maureen’s going to hospital to be cared for. Everything will work out fine, you’ll see.’

  The child clutched at her mother. ‘It’s that baby,’ she said. ‘Maureen doesn’t want it. Why does she have to have it, Mammy? Mother Ignatius won’t talk to me about it. Maureen won’t talk to me at all—’

  ‘Maureen isn’t talking to anyone, Cathy.’ Bridie sat down next to her daughter.

  ‘What happened to her?’

  Bridie sighed and held onto the trembling girl. ‘There are things you don’t need to know about just yet,’ she said. ‘Grown-up things. I remember when I was about your age, I used to think what a wonderful time grownups had. They decided what to do and where to go, then they decided what I had to do. It seemed so unfair. When I grew up, I found out that things weren’t quite so easy. You see, Cathy, being an adult is as difficult as being a child. In fact, we never really grow up fully, you know. We’re never sure that we are doing the right thing.’

  Cathy rubbed her face with the heel of her hand. ‘What happened to
Maureen, Mammy?’

  It was no use. Bridie realized, not for the first time, that this almost eight-year-old was really going on forty. Life had been hard for Cathy. She had lost her daddy, had feared her granda, had lost a stepfather, had been weakened by anaemia. Richard had said that the disease was in a mild form, but this poor little girl was lonely and bored due to enforced rest. Cathy was a great collector of information. Like a sponge, she soaked up everything without discrimination. She had been discovered by Richard reading medical books in the middle of the night. She read geography and history books, was using the published word to fill the empty and schoolless days.

  ‘Mammy?’

  Bridie took a deep breath. ‘Someone hurt her. The baby is part of the hurt. Babies are made by a man and a woman who love each other. The father of Maureen’s baby did not love her.’ Liam loved no-one, was incapable of love. ‘And that is all you need to know, young madam.’

  ‘Did Maureen jump, Mammy?’

  Bridie nodded.

  ‘Did she want to die?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ That was the truth. Had the girl leapt from the landing to promote a miscarriage, or had she wanted to end her life? ‘It’s possible that even Maureen has no answer to that question, Cathy.’

  The child hung on to her mother. ‘I want to come home with you,’ she said. ‘To help with Grandmuth and to stop Shauna stealing. I know all about stealing, ’cos Tildy and Cozzer do it to feed the Nolans. Mammy?’

  ‘Yes, Cathy?’

  ‘Don’t things get sad and desperate all at once?’

  ‘They do,’ agreed Bridie. ‘But it’s our duty to pray and to stay cheerful for the sake of others.’ Inwardly, Bridie groaned. She sounded like one of the nuns giving the Monday morning homily to a group of children who couldn’t have cared less. But Cathy cared. That was the difference between Cathy and Shauna. Although Shauna was younger, she displayed none of Cathy’s traits. Even at three, this older girl had been sensitive. ‘I took advantage of you,’ confessed Bridie. ‘When Shauna came along, you were given too much responsibility altogether.’