The Bells of Scotland Road (8 page)

‘Hold the light up. Let’s have a look at you.’ The tone was imperious, and the accent announced a person whose origins were not hereabouts. ‘So you’re the new wife.
Hmmph. Not much flesh on you. Will you be able to lift me? I need turning a few times so I won’t have bedsores. It gets uncomfortable being stuck in bed all the while.’

Bridie couldn’t have cared less about anything – including this rude old woman’s various disorders. ‘Look, can we talk about that later? My daughter is missing.’
She pondered for a second. ‘And there’s another one gone, too, one called Tildy.’

Theresa Bell sucked briefly on her few remaining teeth. ‘Go to Dryden Street after,’ she advised. ‘That’s where they’ll be, in Elizabeth Costigan’s house. But
first, I’ll have my cup of tea, two sugars and no milk.’

Bridie stood her ground. ‘I must find Cathy first,’ she insisted.

‘Then wake Sam,’ snapped the old woman. ‘He’s always got my breakfast up to now, so once more won’t hurt.’ She sniffed. ‘He’s not a lot of use to
me, but he makes a good brew.’

Bridie turned, dragged her younger child back to the landing. There was only one door left. She knew he was behind it, because she had peeped in there a few hours ago when looking for the
girls’ room. ‘Wait here for Mammy,’ she told Shauna. After taking a deep breath, she approached the door.

He was awake and seated on the edge of his double bed. The remaining hair stuck out round his head like a slipped halo. ‘Morning,’ he mumbled. ‘Have you seen to Muth?’ He
sneezed, coughed, fumbled with a handkerchief.

‘Who? Oh, yes – I mean no. I’ve seen her, but I’ve done nothing for her because I’m worried about Cathy.’

Sam, too, was worried about Cathy. Last night, Thomas Murphy had painted a graphic picture of the older girl’s carryings-on at the landing stage. Sam avoided trouble whenever possible. The
feud between his sons was yet to be settled, but Sam had placed himself alongside the righteous. Oh yes, he had invested his faith in Liam, an ordained priest. Anthony would mellow in time, he felt
sure. But Sam didn’t fancy another cartload of mischief from his bride’s offspring. ‘What’s Cathy done?’ he asked.

‘She’s disappeared.’

He yawned. ‘She’ll be getting her breakfast round at the Costigan house. Tildy’s probably with her, so she’ll come to no harm, you can be sure of that.’

Bridie swallowed. No harm? At just gone seven in the morning, Scotland Road was lively. The drumming of feet along the pavement was almost continuous, might have belonged to a battalion of
shabbily drilled soldiers. ‘This is a busy place for a country child,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to find her.’

He shrugged. ‘Children don’t disappear round here. They go off for hours, but they come back. I hope Cathy’s not trying to be difficult. Running this place is hard enough
without—’

‘I shall look after my girls, Mr Bell, just as I always have.’

He dropped his head pensively. ‘You’ll have to call me Sam. And you can sleep in here from now on.’

Bridie’s flesh crawled.

‘There’s no fire in here,’ he added. ‘The only rooms with chimneys are Muth’s and your daughters’.’ He stared at her sleepily. ‘I’m a
reasonable man, Bridie. You help me and I’ll help you. That sounds fair, doesn’t it? At least the nights should be warmer if we share a bed. It is a very cold winter.’ He perked
up slightly. ‘Still, once the weather warms up and you’ve got used to the shop, I’ll be able to go fishing.’

Unable to lay her tongue across a suitable response, Bridie dashed from the room and picked up her younger child. ‘Come on,’ she managed eventually. ‘We’ll go and find
your sister.’

She ran along the pavement, the blanket-wrapped Shauna clutched to her chest. Men bearing small tin lunchboxes and billycans pounded towards her, and she almost collided with a woman who carried
a huge pannier of fruit. Shops were already opening, their doors hanging inwards, customers popping in for the day’s allocation of tobacco, milk and bread. Prams filled with washing rolled
along like a wagon train, while early tramcars filled with human cargo clattered past on iron rails. For Bridie, this place was the ultimate nightmare.

At the corner of Dryden Street, she paused for breath. He wanted her to share a bed with him. He wanted his rights as a husband. Hadn’t he said in the letter that he would not trouble her?
Oh, she would think later, after Cathy was safely home. She marched up the street, nodded at people who seemed vaguely familiar. If she didn’t sleep with him, he might have the marriage
annulled. And would that be an altogether bad thing? she wondered.

All the houses looked the same, and she couldn’t remember which one she had visited the night before. She knocked on a door from behind which the sounds of human occupation could be heard.
Annulment would mean returning to Da. Da would gloat endlessly about such failure.

The door opened. ‘What do you want?’ The speaker was pale and thin. An even paler baby mewled in the woman’s arms.

‘I’m looking for the Costigans,’ said Bridie.

‘Four houses up.’ The door slammed.

Bridie covered the rest of the distance in a few strides.

‘Come in,’ smiled Big Diddy. She led Bridie through the small parlour and into the kitchen. Billy and Charlie were at the table finishing their breakfasts. Maureen preened at the
mirror while Nicky struggled into a coat. ‘It’s cold round at Paddy’s,’ she told Bridie by way of explanation. ‘Is he up?’

Bridie’s eyes were fixed on Cathy. ‘Why did you go without telling me? Don’t you understand that we’re in a strange place and that I would be worrying?’

Cathy ladled golden syrup onto her porridge. She was seated near the fire, was using the box-shaped wire fireguard as a table. ‘Sorry, missus,’ said Tildy. She was at the other side
of the range. ‘It was my fault.’

‘Is he?’ repeated Nicky.

‘I beg your pardon. Were you talking to me?’ asked Bridie.

‘Oh, never mind.’ Nicky flounced out of the room.

Diddy descended on Bridie and prised Shauna out of her grasp. ‘Sit down,’ she begged. ‘Have a cup of tea and a bite to eat.’ She gave the three-year-old a shive of bread
and jam. Shauna sat on the floor and watched Tildy shovelling porridge.

Bridie dropped into a chair. ‘I won’t have her running wild,’ she told her hostess. ‘At home, she never strayed far, and we knew everybody. Here, it’s different.
Cathy will have to learn to take care in these parts.’

Big Diddy nodded sagely. ‘She’ll learn all right. I’ve told you, they grow up quick round here.’ When the tea was poured, Diddy kissed her departing husband, then dragged
Maureen away from the mirror. ‘If you carry on like this, you’ll need laughing gas while we peel you off that bloody dresser. And the job’ll be gone. Remember, no cheek and no
batting the eyelashes. You’re there to serve Dolly Hanson’s customers, not to make eyes at anything in trousers.’

Charlie wiped his mouth on a corner of the tablecloth, belched and stood up.

‘That’s right, love,’ said his mother. ‘You go and help Mr Bell.’

Charlie shuffled out, almost colliding with the door while grinning at Bridie.

‘He likes you,’ announced Diddy. ‘He’s special, our Charlie. There’s a lot more to him than what you see. Deep, he is.’ She pushed a pint pot of tea at her
guest, then ladled out enough porridge to feed a small nation. ‘Put yourself outside of that,’ she ordered. ‘It’ll line your ribs right through Christmas.’

Bridie tasted the porridge, found it delicious and said so. ‘Do all your children work?’ she asked between mouthfuls.

Diddy parted the digits of her right hand, counted off with the left index finger. ‘Charlie’s me eldest – he’s seventeen and he works nearly full time for Sam. Our Monica
– she’s very hard-working. Only fifteen, but she runs a stall on Paddy’s, sells things from junkshops including Bell’s.’

Bridie waited, watched the large woman’s frown.

‘I worry about our Maureen. Thirteen going on thirty, she is. This is her last year at school. She does a couple of hours in a morning for Dolly Hanson, then a couple more hours after
school. She’s getting dancing lessons at Mary Turner’s.’

‘Fairy Mary’s?’ asked Bridie.

Diddy nodded. ‘You’re catching on, girl.’ She sat down opposite Bridie. ‘There’s always a crowd of lads chasing our Maureen, like flies round a jam pot.’ She
shook her head. ‘There’ll be trouble with her sooner or later.’

‘Try not to worry.’

Big Diddy smiled at her newfound friend. ‘Funny. I’m talking to you like I’ve always known you. Must be your face. It’s very open.’ She took a slurp of tea.
‘Tildy-Anne’s ten. She’s another hard worker.’ Diddy beamed at her daughter. ‘Reminds me of meself at her age. Then Jimmy’s the youngest. He’s nine and
everybody knows him as Cozzer. A good lad. But he’s always losing his boots. Takes them off down the landing stage, pretends to be poorer than he really is. Says people feel sorry for him and
give him work. He’s a bloody character.’

Bridie admitted defeat and laid down her spoon. ‘It’s wonderful stuff, Diddy, but my stomach’s full.’ She eyed Tildy and Cathy. ‘Wouldn’t you like to take
another look at Mr Costigan’s pigeons?’

Big Diddy pointed to a carton on the dresser. ‘You can feed them for me.’ She waited until the girls had gone out with Shauna hot on their heels. ‘He’s a lovely feller,
my Billy, but the pigeons get me down. Still, men have to have an interest, like. If they’ve got interests, they don’t get into mischief down the pub.’

Bridie took a sip of tea strong enough to take the breath away. ‘Sam’s interest is fishing, I’m told.’

Diddy stirred a fourth spoonful of sugar into her own measure of the bitter brew. ‘He just sits there,’ she said. ‘With a long pole and a hook and a little bucket full of
maggots. Breeds the buggers in his meatsafe, so watch your food, ’cos they have been known to travel.’ She blew into the blue-and-white striped mug. ‘I don’t know what he
gets out of it, Bridie. Reels them in, measures them, chucks them back most of the time.’

‘You don’t like him,’ said Bridie.

‘I never said that.’

‘No.’

‘He’s not a man you love or hate. He’s just there.’

‘Like maggots are just there?’

Big Diddy shrugged. ‘Not as bad as maggots, not as good as angels. He’s there like a lamp-post is there. Has his uses, but you don’t really look at him.’

Bridie nodded thoughtfully. ‘His mother?’

Diddy almost choked on her tea. ‘Now, that one’s a bloody star turn, all right. Went to bed during the General Strike, hasn’t hardly moved since.’ She giggled, sounded
girlish. ‘Well, let’s put that another way. Theresa Bell thinks we think she’s failing. But she’s up and down them stairs like sh— . . . like sugar off a shiny shovel
when she feels like it. I mean, she’s stood at that bedroom window for hours watching the world go by. It’s as if . . . oh, I don’t know what I mean.’

‘Try to know,’ urged Bridie. ‘I need to understand the household.’

Diddy pulled a cigarette stub from behind an ear, lit the blackened end, inhaled deeply. ‘It’s all about Liam and Anthony, I think. See, old Theresa loves the bones of Anthony, only
Anthony doesn’t visit no more unless his dad’s out. In fact, it was a bloody miracle that he turned up at your wedding. Still, he was minding your girls, I suppose. He loves
children.’

Bridie pondered. ‘And Liam hates Anthony—’

‘And Sam thinks the sun shines out of Liam’s back passage. Now, if you’re talking about not liking, well, I’ll tell you now I can’t stand sight or sound of Father
High-and-Mighty Liam Bell. Old Theresa feels the same. So she’s been sulking for about three and a half years.’

‘Sam loves his mother.’

Diddy ground out the spent cigarette in her porridge bowl. ‘Sam’s a funny bugger. He doesn’t have any strong feelings, never loses his rag, doesn’t often smile,
doesn’t panic. When Maria died – she was his first wife – he never so much as flickered, or so I’ve been told. Theresa brought the twins up, ’cos they were only babies
when their mam passed on, like.’ She dropped her head for a moment. ‘I remember my mam laying Maria out, poor soul. All skin and bone, my mam said.’ Diddy raised her chin.
‘But the root of all the trouble in that house is Liam, I’m sure. Anthony’s dead straight, wouldn’t harm nobody.’

‘A teacher?’

Diddy’s head bobbed up and down. ‘They all love him, even the nuns. He takes the top junior class at Aloysius’s.’

‘And he isn’t married?’

The older woman’s face clouded over. ‘Bridie, that lad’s had one hell of a life. Valerie, her name was. Lived with her mam and dad in Virgil Street – nice family –
and she got engaged to Anthony. It was about five years ago. She . . . died, like.’

Bridie placed her mug on the oilcloth that served as weekday table cover. ‘How?’

Diddy lifted a shoulder. ‘She was found strangled down Sylvester Street at the back of the school. They hanged a man for it.’ She stood up, stared into the near distance. ‘From
Bootle, he was. Right to the end, he said he never did it. But . . .’ Her eyes adjusted themselves and she smiled at the visitor. ‘I suppose they all say that, don’t
they?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

Diddy picked up the dishes and began to stack them. ‘Valerie’s mother says to this day they hanged the wrong man.’

‘Oh?’ Bridie didn’t know what to say in the face of such tragedy.

‘She’d been interfered with. She was in a mess, or so we were told. The man they hanged was found fast asleep and drunk as a lord in a school doorway round the back. He’d been
celebrating ’cos he’d got a job in one of the bonded warehouses, and he’d no memory of where he’d been. People who’d seen him earlier on spoke up for him, but there
were a couple of hours missing. Bridie, he had a wife and two little boys. Gentle as a lamb, according to his neighbours. He wasn’t a drinker. The whole of Bootle told the police he
wasn’t a drinker. Made no difference.’ She sighed deeply. ‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, so they made him pay for it.’

Bridie suppressed a shudder. Oh, what was she doing here? At home, her children had been able to run and play without fear. As far as she knew, no-one in Ballinasloe had been murdered or hanged
. . . ‘So Anthony’s all alone now.’