The Bells of Scotland Road (52 page)

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.

‘I’ll go and get some things together,’ said Diddy. ‘And I’ll send our Monica round. Charlie’ll see to the shop.’

Bridie sat and waited for Charlie to return. Shauna played with a basket of toys. The child who had been a weakling was thriving among dirt and poverty. Cathy, a robust and cheery soul, was away
being cured of a debilitating disorder. Life was full of strangeness, Bridie thought. Poor young Maureen was carrying an unwanted baby, while Edith had spent years craving for a child. And so the
world went round on its crazy axis.

Muth came in. In spite of the heat, she was wearing a thick shawl and winter boots. Muth was another mystery, because she was old, yet infantile again. Since the death of her son, Mrs Bell
Senior had gone downhill fast. ‘Have you seen me mam?’ she asked now.

Bridie shuddered. Would Nicky Costigan manage an errant infant and an old lady whose mind wandered further from reality with every day?

‘Where’s me mam?’

‘In heaven,’ replied Bridie. This was getting worse. Even yesterday, the bewilderment had been less noticeable.

‘But I’ve not had me tea.’

Bridie sighed. Perhaps a further burden would soon be delivered to Edith’s door. Edith had already offered to care for her confused aunt. So a new baby and an old baby might reside at
Cherry Hinton. The world was truly upside down. No, no, Bridie told her inner self. Old Theresa would not be going to Bolton. Sam would have insisted that his mother should stay here with Bridie.
That had been his final request to his solicitor on the last day of his life.

‘I’m hot,’ declared Muth peevishly. ‘I shouldn’t have boots on in this weather. What were you thinking of?’ she asked her daughter-in-law. ‘Telling me
to wear me boots in the middle of summer.’

Bridie reached out and put her arms round Theresa Bell. ‘God bless you,’ she said.

Muth tutted. ‘Get this shop tidied up,’ she snapped. ‘And leave go of me. I’m too hot for all this carrying on.’

Bridie watched helplessly while Muth tottered into the living room. She had to go with Diddy to Bolton. She wanted to see Cathy, needed to reassure herself that the child was getting better. And
Diddy was going to need support. It was no use – she could not expect young Nicky to cope with everything. Once Charlie returned, Bridie would go out and seek a neighbour’s help. That
was the beauty of Scotland Road, she reminded herself. On Scotland Road, no emergency was too big. When Jesus had said that the greatest virtue was charity, He must have imagined a place like
this.

Maureen sat down at the edge of the small orchard. Little pears were forming above her head, their peculiar shape already apparent in this early stage of growth. She stared up
at the tiny clusters, wondered how much bigger they would grow before the mellow season.

Inside her belly, another small thing was developing. For some time, Maureen had wondered about her body’s altered mechanism, had pushed away the idea that she might be pregnant. But
today, Dr Richard Spencer had made the situation real and undeniable. She was harbouring an embryo and she hated whomever this tiny person was going to become. Bitter resentment filled her mind and
heart, coloured every moment of this day, haunted her thoughts and left her exhausted. It must die. She had to find a way of making it die. Surely God did not want this terrible thing to be
born?

She lay back and placed her hands on her abdomen. It was scarcely rounded, yet Maureen was sure that she could feel something hard, like a fruit stone in the centre of her being. Every morning,
she felt a bit sick, though she was managing, just about, not to vomit. The doctor had noticed her nausea, had diagnosed the unacceptable.

Leaves swayed above her head. She didn’t know how to kill the unwanted presence. She didn’t know where to look, how to find a person who would undertake the murder of this small but
heavy being inside herself.

Dr Spencer could have done it. Well, he probably knew how, but he had not mentioned the possibility. Maureen had heard tales at school about gin and hot baths and knitting needles, but the
specifics had never been made clear. Did the gin go in the bath or in the expectant mother’s stomach? And what would she do with a knitting needle? Oh no, surely not?

The foliage rustled gently. Through green-framed gaps, she caught glimpses of a deep-blue sky. ‘I could have been happy here,’ she said aloud. ‘Except for this.’ She
smashed a fist into her belly. ‘I’ll kill you myself,’ she muttered. ‘And if I ever see you . . . if you ever come out of me . . .’ The very thought made her heave.
That vicious man had done this to her. Not content with ruining her dreams, he had also left his dirt inside her. His filth was spreading like a disease. The thing that grew would be ugly,
deformed, evil. She was poisoned inside.

Hot tears ran down her temples and into her hair. She would get fat soon. The fat would be the outer sign of inner corruption. No amount of baths or washes could possibly eliminate the
contamination. Like the whited sepulchre in the Bible, Maureen would be eternally putrid on the inside.

Through the earth beneath her, she felt the beat of a horse making steady progress towards the trees. Perhaps she would be crushed by pounding hooves. If that happened, the devil’s child
would die. But so would she. Death had become an option during the last few hours. She had thought about sitting with Cathy, poor little Cathy who had to stay upstairs most of the time with all the
windows thrown wide open because she needed air. Maureen remembered Mr Bell, who had died recently. Mam had said for ages that Mr Sam Bell had TB, though no doctor had ever got close enough to put
a name to that hacking cough. How could she manage to catch TB, and would it kill her before this thing got born?

The horse was nearer. It was not going at its fastest speed, but it was cantering. She would leave the decision to God. If God wanted to finish her, He could do it now.

Through a gap between two apple trees, a huge white horse appeared. It was Quicksilver. In spite of his reputation, Silver was a sensible animal. As he neared the branches under which Maureen
rested, he seemed to grind to a jarring halt. The unseated rider shot over the stallion’s head and fell with a loud crack. Silver snorted, eyed Maureen and the crumpled man, then bolted off
in the direction of his stable.

Maureen held her breath, waited for the man to move. A thick, red substance poured from his head, and she noticed that a partly buried stone was acting as a pillow beneath the man’s neck.
But a stone did not provide the properties of a cushion, especially when contact between bone and masonry had been so sudden and so violent.

She recognized him, knew that he was out of context. This was not an Astleigh Fold person. He was . . . he was big and rather old to be riding a mount as uncertain as Silver. Even Robin Smythe
had trouble remaining seated on the grey. The only person who could handle the temperamental Irish–Arab was Bridie, and she had enjoyed a close relationship with the earth on several
occasions.

Robert Cross appeared. He ran to Maureen, made sure that she was not hurt, then bent over the prostrate figure. ‘Who is he?’ Bob asked. ‘Do you know him?’

Maureen nodded.

‘Who?’ asked Bob again.

The young woman rooted about in her memory. ‘I think he’s Bridie’s dad.’ The blood looked black against the grass. ‘Yes, he’s Bridie’s dad.’ She
felt sick again. The man was dead, or nearly dead. If she could organize a similar fall for herself, then her troubles could well be over.

Bob sought a pulse, found a weak flutter in a wrist. ‘He stole the horse,’ he said. ‘We’d saddled Silver for his morning exercise, then this fellow came in and took him
away.’

The jockey arrived, whip in hand, short legs encased in khaki jodhpurs. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Not far off,’ answered Bob. ‘Get down to the house for help. Did the horse come back?’

Robin nodded. ‘He passed me in the meadow. At least we know he’s a homing pigeon.’ He set off in search of Richard.

Thomas Murphy groaned. ‘My horses,’ he muttered, though the words were drowned. He was dying. Dolly had told him to bugger off, so he had come here to claim his property. Strangely,
he felt little pain. The life was ebbing out of him, leaving him cold, diminishing all his senses.

Maureen vomited quietly, wiped her mouth on a handkerchief. Bridie had lost her first husband and her second husband and she was now losing her father. All the people who hadn’t needed to
die were dying, while Maureen contained a life that nobody wanted. She should have been the one. Had the horse killed her, the problem would have been solved. ‘Should have been me,’ she
said.

Bob was kneeling over Thomas Murphy, looked at Maureen. ‘Rubbish,’ he said, ‘you’ve your whole life in front of you, love.’

Maureen wept softly. It was a life she didn’t want.

Anthony led Bridie into his little sitting room. The funeral had been quiet, just himself, Bridie and the Spencers, because Diddy had remained at Cherry Hinton with her
daughter. The possibility of returning Thomas Murphy’s body to Ireland had been discussed, but Bridie had dismissed it after sparse consideration. Thomas Murphy was now interred in Tonge
Cemetery in the Bury Road area of Bolton. He had been given all the trimmings including a full Requiem and a graveside service, though no-one had truly mourned the man’s passing.

‘Cup of tea?’ asked Anthony.

‘No.’ She just wanted to sit and think. ‘I’ve needed you,’ she said, her voice devoid of emotion. The fact that she needed him was nothing to do with love. It was
his strength, his down-to-earthness that she missed. She also missed his humour, though that had been dampened by recent events, she realized. The love was another matter altogether.

He pushed her into a chair and knelt at her feet. ‘Cathy’s getting better,’ he told her. ‘Richard says that she might be able to attend school fairly soon.’

‘And Shauna’s getting worse. She stole fruit the other day.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She’ll grow out of it.’

‘I hope so.’ She could not manage to feel any grief for her father. She was sad, but only because her own life had changed so much in recent months. ‘Signposts along the
way,’ she muttered absently.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Bridie looked into the velvety brown eyes. ‘Life’s like a road,’ she told him. ‘With little pointers at the edge of it. You go to school, start working, follow the way as
best you can. Then things happen. Somebody . . . adds the punctuation. And you don’t know when or where the next full stop will come, because the road winds about a lot. Suddenly,
you’re alone, because some of those signs have the word death printed on them.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Anthony said. He was helpless and useless and head over heels in love.

‘The worst of it is, Anthony, that sometimes we are pilots as well, with young ones clinging to our hands. So I’m not alone, not while Cathy and Shauna depend. I mean, isn’t it
hard enough finding your own way through the mess without having to guide others? I’m so very tired.’

He took her hands. ‘He wasn’t a good father. He never showed you the way, did he?’

Bridie shook her head. ‘Mammy was the guide. Then Eugene, then Sam. Your daddy was not a young man, so he was almost like a father to me. The way he had of never worrying, of never showing
or sharing any troubles he might have had. That was a steady man. And he’s gone, and my Cathy is ill and Shauna’s a terrible, selfish little madam.’ She managed a tight smile.
‘Do you know how dangerous we are together?’

He did. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

‘You have. Oh yes, you have thought. You’re my stepson.’

Anthony understood her only too well. He remembered his first sight of the new bride, realized that feelings as strong as his must have communicated themselves to her almost from the start. And
whatever he had felt for her had been reciprocated and therefore magnified. ‘What shall we do?’ he asked.

‘You sound like Cathy. You are another child, I suppose, the son of my dead husband. Such a cold man he seemed at first.’

‘You warmed him.’

‘Yes, I did. I respected your father.’ She shifted her weight, leaned away from him, but made no effort to free her hands. ‘We were fine together, Sam and I. But I was aware of
you all the same.’

He squeezed her fingers. ‘We’re supposed to be looking for
A Christmas Carol
. Your daughter wants to read it again.’

Bridie closed her eyes and rested her head against the chair’s back. ‘Maureen is expecting your nephew or your niece,’ she said wearily. ‘And there’s no way of
telling what Diddy will do if the truth ever comes out.’ Her eyelids flew open. ‘What if the child is like its father? What if poor Maureen gives birth to another Liam?’

This thought had crossed Anthony’s mind more than once in recent days. ‘We can do and say nothing without proof.’

‘Even with proof, it would be a difficult task.’ She was suddenly more than tired. Would Liam be back? Was Cathy going to make a full recovery, was Muth about to lose her mind
completely, did Shauna steal for devilment, how was Maureen going to manage a baby when she was just a child herself?

He pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘You need a rest.’ He led her up the steep staircase, noticed how tightly she gripped his hand.

Bridie lay on the bed of the man she loved, allowed him to cover her with the quilt. ‘They’ll wonder where we are.’