The Bells of Scotland Road (3 page)

Bridie, who felt that she might as well hang for the full sheep, allowed a few raw words to slip from her tongue. ‘She would have been as well at home in Ballinasloe,’ she informed
her father. ‘As I told you before, I could have rented a cottage and found some work.’ She raised her chin. ‘Also, I allow no-one to smack my daughters. They will not be hit.
Ever.’

Thomas’s patience was wearing to a state of transparency. ‘We shall not stand here and discuss family business in the open,’ he snarled. ‘And you’re here for a
reason, Bridie. There’s not many a man would take on a young widow with two daughters. We were fortunate to find a good Catholic widower to step into the shoes of their Protestant
father.’

Bridie heaved the sleeping Shauna into a more comfortable position. ‘Aye,’ she replied, amazed at her own continued audacity, ‘and I’ve never even seen the man. Why
didn’t he come to meet us? Could he not have made an effort to pick us up from the boat? What sort of a creature leaves small girls out in wind and weather?’ She bit her tongue, told
herself to hush. It was panic that had forced her to speak up. She had a reputation for forbearance, but she was scared out of her wits. This was a strange city in a strange country and she was
going to marry a stranger this very evening.

Thomas gritted his teeth, wished that Cathy would stop snivelling. He yanked at the child’s hand, felt the resistance in her fingers. ‘Sam Bell is a busy man,’ he pronounced.
‘He’s a business to run. In this day and age, shop hours are long. He’ll have been up and about since daybreak, at the beck and call of customers. There’s no time for
meeting boats, not when there’s a community wants serving.’

‘He could have sent someone in his place,’ breathed the fatigued woman.

‘Huh,’ spat her father. ‘He’s not a man to waste hard-earned money on foolishness. Come away now,’ he insisted. ‘We’re expected at St Aloysius
Gonzaga’s. You must be married before you spend the night in Sam’s house. We have not come all this way to start a scandal.’

Bridie bit her lip. Her father was a man beyond reproach, a pillar of the Church and of the community. He was also a disgrace, though few at home in Galway would ever know his secrets. The cold
and subtle cruelties of Thomas Murphy had always been discreet, hidden behind the door of his house. ‘As you wish, Father,’ she replied before passing Shauna to the boy on the cart. She
turned, helped Cathy to climb aboard. ‘We’ll be on the pig’s back,’ she whispered to the hysterical girl. ‘And, as well you know, there’s plenty of meat on the
back of a pig.’ For a split second, Bridie heard her own mother’s voice. ‘We’ll be great, Bridget. We’ll be on the pig’s back when himself sells a couple of
horses.’ Bridie glanced at ‘himself’, then gave her attention to Cathy. ‘We shall have a grand house and plenty to eat.’

Cathy placed herself next to the boy. Sobs continued to rack her body, but they slowed when the lad started to talk. ‘That was me sister,’ he announced, jerking a thumb in the
direction of Tildy Costigan’s angry face. ‘I’m Cozzer. The whole family gets called the Cozzers, like, only I’m the real Cozzer. Our Charlie’s older than me, so he
should be Cozzer, only he’s special – different, like. Clever in his own way, but still different. Me ma’s called Big Diddy. She’s the boss of our street, me ma. She does
all the laying-outs and brings babies. Me dad’s a docker.’ The words were spat out like rapid gunfire, no pause for thought or breath.

Cathy sniffed back the last of her tears, tried to make sense of her first encounter with this new language. ‘We’re going to live with Mr Bell,’ she ventured.

Cozzer shook his head. ‘Could be worse,’ he informed her. ‘Me ma says he’s a miserable bugger, but he’s not much of a drinker. He’s tight with his money,
like. Still, you’ll be all right,’ he added by way of comfort. ‘Come and meet our ma. She’ll look after yous all.’

The cart stank of mouldy vegetables and fish. Under different circumstances, Bridget O’Brien might have worried about going to church in a smelly, travel-creased dress, but she was beyond
such trivial concerns. She listened numbly while the boy pointed out St Nicholas’s ‘Proddy’ church, Exchange Station, shops, public houses. There were more people on Chapel Street
than in the whole of her home town.

Bridie held onto her younger child, heard Cathy’s diminishing sobs, tried not to notice Thomas Murphy’s curled lip. Fish scales and vegetable matter would not sit well on da’s
best clothes. Still, he should have paid for proper transport, should have insisted on Sam Bell’s attendance at the landing stage.

‘This is Scotland Road,’ the boy announced proudly.

Bridie allowed her eyes to wander past horses and carts until they rested on a larger than average corner shop in the near distance.
BELL’S PLEDGES
was emblazoned
in a curling script above three brass orbs. Lights inside the shop announced that trade continued in spite of the imminent wedding. Resolutely, Bridie attempted to concentrate on the building, but
the distractions proved too much for her. ‘What kind of a place is this?’ she muttered to herself.

‘ ’Tis a city,’ replied her father. ‘With all kinds of creatures in it. No place for weaklings.’ His mouth widened into a mocking grin. ‘Still, you’ll
make the best you can, so – isn’t that what you said earlier?’

Cathy clung to her mother’s arm. ‘Will it kill us?’ she asked, her eyes glued to a monster that clattered along beside their hired cart.

‘It’s just a tram,’ said Bridie. She watched while children cavorted along in front of the menacing vehicle. ‘Give us a penny,’ shouted a boy after walking on his
hands just inches from death. A girl ran out into the road and began to play leapfrog with several more daredevils. Each time a child bent over in the foolish game, the tram got nearer.

‘They’ll be flattened,’ breathed Bridie.

Cozzer Costigan laughed. ‘No, they won’t.’ He pointed to the open upper deck. ‘See them up there? They’re posh men from Seaforth Sands and Waterloo. They’ll
throw some money in a minute. Nobody gets hurt, missus.’

A barrel organ groaned, its owner red-faced as he stirred the ageing mechanism to some semblance of life. On his shoulder, a monkey yawned and picked at his master’s thinning hair. Women
scuttered along with shopping baskets, babies, older children in their wake. A youth emerged at speed from a side street, the tails of his ragged coat flapping behind him as a gang of ruffians
chased him.

Bridie shuddered. Perhaps they should have stayed with Da after all. She didn’t want to be married, least of all to a total stranger. And this place was so wild, so alien. She clenched her
teeth, hung on to her resolve. In Ireland, Thomas Murphy would have made their lives a misery. And although Eugene’s parents had paid lip-service, she feared that they might have stepped into
the arena at some later date to quarrel with their daughter-in-law on the subject of religion. There were no choices, Bridie told herself. None at all. She was here and she must just get on with
it.

A gypsy caravan idled past, its wooden frame painted gaudily in yellow, blue and red, the horse almost comatose between the shafts. Romany infants danced along the pavement, sun-browned hands
reaching out to beg for money. Two policemen raced after the gang of lads who had disappeared into a picture house, while some men scuffled and cursed outside a public house called the
Throstle’s Nest.

‘I want to go home,’ wailed Cathy.

‘Shush now.’ Bridie’s heart heaved as if trying to escape from her body in order to find a separate and more acceptable way of life. ‘You’ll be used to it in no
time at all,’ she told her daughter. Really, Bridie herself needed reassurance. Children, she thought, adapted more easily than adults. Then Shauna began to wail. Dear God, would this filthy
English city be a fit place in which to rear a sickly three-year-old?

The shabby vehicle stopped opposite Bell’s Pledges. Cozzer jumped down and began to remove luggage from the cart. Shauna, fully awake now, screamed piteously.

‘Now or never,’ spat Thomas Murphy. ‘Will you stay or come home?’

Bridie listened to her sobbing children, looked into the devilish eyes of her father. ‘We stay,’ she said. Anything, anything at all would surely be better than living in the same
country as himself?

‘Right.’ He strode across the road and threw open the door of Sam Bell’s pawnshop.

Bridie stepped onto the cobbles, lifted her children down and took their hands. For better or worse, they were here to stay.

Elizabeth Costigan, commonly known as Big Diddy, stood arms akimbo and with her back to the fire. ‘You look like the dog’s dinner after next door’s
cat’s been at it,’ she informed her victim. ‘Stand up straight. It’s supposed to be a wedding, not a bloody wake.’

Sam Bell sighed, shrugged narrow shoulders. The huge woman seemed to fill the room – and not just physically. There was so much energy about her person that it almost shone around her like
a colourful aura. ‘It’s not as if this is my first,’ he told her. ‘I have been married before.’

Big Diddy Costigan fixed a gimlet eye on Sam Bell. He was about as much use as a rubber penknife when it came to the niceties of life. The Costigans might be poor, but they knew about dressing
up for an occasion, even if all the clothes had to be borrowed or bought on the club card. She’d washed and ironed many frocks and shirts to be returned to the shops as unworn and unsuitable.
‘You could have got a suit with a cheque,’ she informed him. ‘I’d have sponged it to send back.’

‘I don’t buy from clubs,’ he answered.

Big Diddy bristled slightly. He didn’t need cheques. He had enough money salted away to retire and live off the interest for several hundred years. ‘Scrooge,’ she muttered,
though there was little malice in her tone. Sam Bell was a mild-mannered fellow who elicited no strong emotion from anyone in the district. He was fair, uncaring and honest. He was also the most
boring chap Diddy had ever encountered in all her thirty-eight years. ‘You could have bought a new suit, Sam. And some proper shoes.’

Sam glanced down at his mirror-finished boots. ‘They’re clean,’ he ventured.

‘So’s your shirt. The collar’s frayed, though.’

The man heaved another sigh. ‘I’m too busy for all this panic,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s a lot of customers for your Charlie to see to. I should be round at the shop
to give him a hand.’

Did glowered at him. ‘Our Charlie could run Bell’s with both arms in plaster and his legs broke. He’s been with you six years. Every time you go fishing, he takes over. Stand
straight while I brush your jacket.’

The man shrugged and gave himself to the untender mercies of Elizabeth Costigan. He didn’t want to get married, didn’t relish the idea of young children poking about all over his
shop, getting under his feet, asking for pennies. But a bargain was a bargain, and Thomas Murphy was not a man to be trifled with.

‘Did you shave?’ asked Diddy.

‘Yes.’

‘What with? A bloody butter knife? You look like a flaming hedgehog, Sam. Still, too late to worry now, I suppose.’

Sam Bell glanced round the Costigans’ spanking clean front parlour. This was a fortunate family. Their luck lay in the fact that both parents were energetic workers who refused to lie down
in the face of that grim thief called poverty. ‘Is Billy coming?’ he enquired of his hostess.

‘Course he is. I got him ready and shoved him in the Holy House. One pint’s his ration, and one pint’s what he’ll have.’

The pawnbroker jangled some coins in a pocket, pulled out a wedding band. He wasn’t a great drinker, but he wished with all his heart that he could get out of here and anaesthetize himself
at the Holy House bar. The ring was dull, so he rubbed it on his sleeve to brighten it up a bit.

Diddy gasped. ‘You’re never getting wed with a secondhand ring?’

Sam stopped polishing. ‘It’s twenty-two carat, only one previous owner. I’ll have you know this was Eileen Heslop’s.’

‘And she’s dead.’

He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I know she’s dead. Tom Heslop sold me the ring after the funeral. How else do you think I got hold of it?’ He waved the yellow band under
Diddy’s rather large nose. ‘She only pawned this twice, you know. Once to pay for her mam’s headstone and then when she put the spread on for her daughter’s
wedding.’

Diddy scowled. ‘A new one would have been better,’ she insisted. ‘Even a nine carat ring or a cheap silver one like the nuns have.’

‘This one’s got history,’ he announced.

‘And scratches. It’s served its time at the wash-house scrubbing boards, that ring.’ Diddy rammed an unbecoming hat onto her over-tight brown curls, then stabbed a nine-inch
hatpin through her felt and hair. Gripping a missal, she stalked off towards the door. ‘Stop here,’ she ordered. ‘Till I send your best man.’

Sam peered through the window and watched Diddy stamping off in the direction of a pub near St Aloysius’s church. The hostelry’s original name was seldom used since its re-baptism as
the Holy House. After masses, funerals, benedictions and confessions, the Holy House was a favourite meeting place for many among the church’s congregation.

The shopkeeper glanced at his watch, hoped that Charlie Costigan was doing a good job. The oldest of the Costigan brood was an odd lad, stiffened down one side of his body by birth damage, not
much to say for himself, a wizard with numbers. Yes, Charlie would no doubt be coping. Nicky Costigan was at the shop, too. Diddy had briefed her daughter carefully. ‘Make sure there’s
plenty of hot water for Mrs O’Brien. You help her with the two little girls.’

Two little girls. Sam paced, stopped in front of the fire, studied a sepia picture of Diddy and Billy on their wedding day. Above the photograph hung the papal blessing and a dried cross from
last Palm Sunday. Two little girls. All that noise and running about. They would need clothes, shoes, food, playthings. Still.

Sam examined the wedding ring once more before stuffing it into his pocket to jangle against pennies and sixpences. Oh well, he had made a pact and, as Big Diddy had said earlier, it was a bit
late to start worrying now. Bridie, she was called. Bridget, really. She’d been married to some Protestant over in Ireland, a big chap called Eugene. The kiddies were Caitlin and Shauna. He
wondered what Muth would make of that lot—