The Bells of Scotland Road (68 page)

Michael Brennan joined Dr Richard Spencer at the door to Liam’s room. ‘Will he never get right?’ asked the priest.

‘No.’

‘So he’ll not be coming out of here?’

The doctor shrugged. ‘He’ll be moved from the prison infirmary to an asylum, I suppose. But he’ll be restricted for the rest of his life.’

Michael Brennan sighed, turned round and faced the rest of the gathering. ‘Bridie,’ he began, ‘the firemen managed to save a few pieces from your house and shop. One of them
was a box containing a green stole. It was Liam’s. It was given to me at the presbytery this morning. I recognized it right away as a part of the set made for Liam’s ordination.
It’s been used as a weapon, so the proof we have lacked is with the police.’ Sam had left a note in the tin. Surely the police would sit up and take notice now, because Liam’s
father had, on the day of his own death, taken the trouble to condemn one of his children.

Diddy began to cry. The proof existed. ‘My poor Maureen,’ she sobbed. ‘My poor little girl. She had a big future, you know. She was going to be a singer, or a dancer, or both.
And a priest did this to her. You’re supposed to be able to trust priests, aren’t you?’ She carried on, but the rest of her words were drowned.

Brother Nicholas walked down the line and placed a hand on Diddy’s head. ‘Mrs Costigan, Father Bell’s, or Brother Martin’s illness is beyond all understanding. You see,
he carried on quite nicely for much of the time. In fact, we have not had a better solo vocalist or a more talented carver of wood in many years. Sadly, genius and madness are separated by a hair
so fine that only the Almighty can see it.’

‘Then why doesn’t the so-called Almighty do something about it?’ snapped Diddy. ‘If He can see it, He can stop it. Can’t He?’

Nicholas inclined his head. ‘God saw the plague and He sees the war. Mankind makes its own way towards the hereafter. God is not there to make our path easy.’

‘Maureen’s lesson was on the sharp side,’ said Billy. ‘What good will come of rape? Did you know he left her pregnant, Brother Nicholas? She tried to kill herself. She
went out of her mind and had to be put away. Is that what God planned for her?’

‘She’ll get her reward,’ replied the monk.

Diddy jumped to her feet. ‘Her reward would be his head on a plate with an apple stuck in the gob. Her reward would be him swinging at the end of a rope. He finished my Maureen off as if
he’d taken a gun to her. She’s never been right since. An eye for an eye. Isn’t that in the Bible somewhere?’

‘It is,’ replied the brother.

‘Then I want to see him. I want to talk to him.’ Diddy wiped her face and stood with her feet wide apart, as if steadying herself. ‘I’m not leaving this hospital till
I’ve seen him,’ she declared.

Michael Brennan glanced through the glass panel. ‘He’s still asleep. And if we carry on making all this noise, we’ll be thrown out.’

Dr Spencer drew Father Brennan aside and began a whispered conference. Diddy, whose hackles were truly up, tackled the two men. ‘What are you hiding and whispering about?’

Richard said nothing. He turned on his heel and walked off down the corridor.

Diddy chose Anthony as her next target. ‘You must have known,’ she accused. ‘You can’t have gone through life not realizing that your brother was mad.’

Anthony nodded, made no reply.

‘Then why didn’t you tell us?’

Michael Brennan stepped into the arena. ‘Don’t blame Anthony, Diddy. Don’t you dare get on your high horse to him. He screamed blue murder at the police fifteen years ago, just
after Val was murdered. Anthony was treated like a fool, and the law, which really is a total fool, hanged another man for the crime.’

Diddy dropped back into the chair, fixed her gimlet eye on Anthony. ‘Val? He killed Val?’

‘Yes.’ Anthony chose not to elaborate.

‘Is there anything else?’ asked Big Diddy Costigan.

‘Lots,’ said Anthony wearily.

‘What do you mean by lots?’ Diddy persisted. ‘Lots of what?’

‘Lots of stuff the police should have looked into years ago,’ answered Father Brennan. ‘Now, we can’t stay here all day. We’ve all been interviewed by police and
doctors, so we’ve done what we came to do.’

Diddy was not prepared to budge. ‘I’ll go when I’ve seen him,’ she said. ‘And not before.’ She folded her arms as a gesture of defiance.

Richard Spencer returned with a man in a white coat. ‘Diddy, this is Dr Moss. He’ll take us into Liam’s room for a couple of minutes. Any nonsense and you’ll be out of
there quick smart.’

Diddy took Billy’s arm and dragged him across the corridor.

Dr Moss, a small man with bad skin and spectacles, looked uncertainly at Richard.

‘It will be all right,’ said Richard Spencer.

Dr Moss led the party into Liam Bell’s room. Anthony and Bridie hovered in the doorway, while Richard, Dr Moss, Diddy and Billy approached the bed. Diddy stopped in her tracks.
‘He’s strapped in,’ she said.

Lengths of leather with buckle fastenings kept the patient from leaving his bed. The upper half of his face was almost as white as the pillow, while the chin remained hidden behind a beard whose
glossy black was streaked with grey. ‘He’s tied up,’ she said.

Dr Moss nodded, then pushed the glasses along the bridge of his short nose. ‘He came in raving, Mrs . . . er . . .’

‘Costigan,’ whispered Diddy. She had not expected this, had not believed that she would find Liam so silent and vulnerable. His forehead, which had always been brown, was pale, waxy,
almost unreal, the only colour provided by the bruising. She searched inside herself for a spark of the anger she had nursed since the attack on Maureen, found nothing at all. There was no temper,
no hysteria, no forgiveness. Like Maureen, Diddy felt nothing.

Anthony left Bridie, walked into the room and stared down at his brother. When Liam’s eyes opened, Anthony forced himself to remain where he was.

‘Liam’s brother,’ said the man in the bed.

Anthony was riveted to the spot. Had he tried to move, he would have failed. The man was looking at him, was even trying to smile, though that coldness was still in his face. ‘Hello,
Liam,’ Anthony managed with great difficulty.

‘I am . . .’ The drugs slowed Martin’s words. ‘I am Brother Martin,’ he finally managed. ‘Of
Frères . . . de la . . . Croix de St
Pierre
.’

In the doorway, Bridie turned and grabbed Father Brennan’s hand. Father Brennan was weeping softly, his lips moving in prayer. ‘Pray for him, Father,’ begged Bridie. ‘And
for Anthony, too.’ With the priest’s warm hand in hers, she felt stronger.

Anthony continued to stand by the bed. ‘Martin?’ he asked.

‘Yes?’ The eyes rolled in an effort to remain open.

‘Where is Liam?’

There was a short pause. ‘Scotland Road. The stole. Punishing the Irishwoman. Stop him.’

Anthony took a deep breath. ‘Will he come back to you?’

‘I don’t know. Can . . . can never tell what . . . Liam might do.’

Diddy stumbled to the door, grabbed Bridie and Father Brennan, her large fingers digging into their arms. ‘I want to go home,’ she said. ‘You were right, he is crackers. It
would be like belting a sick dog.’

‘A pound of flesh is not always the answer, Diddy,’ said Michael Brennan. ‘Revenge is often less than sweet.’

‘There is no revenge,’ answered Diddy. ‘It would be like putting a bullet through a ghost.’

Bridie walked along Scotland Road for what she thought might be the last time for some months, at least. She was to be married for a second time in the Church of St Aloysius
Gonzaga, would be joined to Anthony in just a few short days. Deliberately alone for now, she gazed upon the place she had come to love over the years, a place that seemed to be diminishing by the
day.

Striding over a fireman’s hose, Bridie studied what was left of the Rotunda, the famous theatre known locally as Old Roundy. Here, she had sat with her daughters to watch pantomimes and
variety shows, had joined in with the singing, had seen Shauna and Cathy bright-eyed with pleasure at the exploits of some deliberately inept magician. It was dead now.

Hitler knew where to kick, all right. The Port of Liverpool had taken a hammering for almost six months, though May had been the worst. With Liverpool and London disabled, the Germans thought
they would be walking through England within weeks. ‘But they won’t,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Never in a million years.’

‘Hello, Mrs Bell,’ called Flash Flanagan. ‘I see you’ve come to wave the old place goodbye.’ He parked his cart and pointed to the ruins. ‘We’ve had
some fun in there.’

‘I know.’

Flash sniffed back a tear. ‘Me and little Maureen Costigan used to entertain the queues. She had a lovely voice.’ He coughed. ‘They found the stole, then.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In the mental hospital near St Helens.’

Flash nodded, lit a cigarette. ‘He finished Maureen off, that bad bugger. She’s not the same, is she? I hear she’s back with her mam and dad, though. If I shut my eyes, I can
see her now with her little dance frock and tap shoes. Everybody loved her. I think they got as much pleasure out of her as they got inside the Rotunda.’ He spat out a flake of tobacco.
‘They’ll not bother rebuilding,’ he said sadly. ‘Like everything else, it’ll just get left. Diddy Costigan’s right, you know. It’ll all look like this in
twenty years.’

Bridie agreed with him, though she made no reply. The area was devastated. There had been a mass burial at Anfield Cemetery just days earlier, some 500 people whose injuries had rendered them
unrecognizable. Regardless of creed, the remains had been placed in one huge grave over which representatives of many faiths had prayed. Sometimes, it seemed hopeless.

‘You all right, queen?’ asked the old tramp.

‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t. She was about to abandon the old neighbourhood to set up home with Anthony and the girls in Astleigh Fold. She felt like a traitor.

Flash said goodbye, then trundled onward with his old cart. As Bridie watched him, she felt that he somehow embodied a way of life that was doomed to extinction. In a tidier Britain, there would
be little room for eccentricities like his.

As she surveyed the road, Bridie found herself smiling in spite of her sadness. Razor Sharpe’s shop was still standing, though the window had been boarded up. He had pinned a notice to the
timber, ‘
NO LECKY, NO GAS, NO WINDOWS. IF YOU WANT A HAIRCUT, BRING YOUR OWN CANDLE. IF YOU WANT A SHAVE, BRING BANDAGES. IODINE PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE
’. Dolly
Hanson was still in business, though the upper storey no longer existed. A butcher displayed a poster of Hitler bending down. On the Fuhrer’s backside sat the words ‘
BEST RUMP ON ORDER, DELIVERY PENDING
’. No matter what was thrown at them, the Scottie Roaders remained unbowed.

Bridie looked up at the barrage balloons pulling fruitlessly at their steel anchorage. They resembled huge, legless insects. In the side streets, some houses stood, others had been removed like
bad teeth. There were craters and fire-hoses everywhere, and the air smelled dirty, tasted terrible.

She reached the undertaker’s, saw a coffin lid propped casually next to the door. This piece bore the legend
ADOLF HITLER
crudely painted in runny whitewash. How on
earth would the Germans have coped with people like these? They were un-put-downable, cheeky, resilient and very powerful.

Lord Haw-Haw was doing his best, of course. He had been on the wireless again talking about Mary Blunn, a very famous little woman who sold fruit outside the cinemas. The ‘Gairmany
calling’ messages were a source of great amusement to the locals. ‘Mary Ellens?’ they would say. ‘He’s the biggest bloody Mary of all, a right little mammy’s
boy. Wait till we get hold of him. We’ll set Mary Blunn and all her mates on him – they’ll soon wipe the haw-haw out of him.’

Bridie leaned against Razor Sharpe’s boarded-up window. Razor himself put in an appearance. ‘Want a tidy up, love?’ he asked, scissors waving in the air.

Bridie grinned at him. Good old Razor carried on with his job in the shop, only to spend his nights running round with buckets of sand and water. Rumour had it that he kept a specially sharpened
open razor in his back pocket, an item religiously honed to perfection in case he caught a Jerry. ‘I’ll peel his onions for him, all right,’ Razor was heard to boast when in his
cups.

‘Bloody mess, eh?’ he asked.

‘It is,’ agreed Bridie.

He stepped onto the pavement. ‘Listen, love. You get yourself gone out of here. It’s soft stopping here when there’s no need. Think of your girls. Think what you can do for all
the children who’ve been shunted out of their homes.’

Bridie turned to him and threw her arms around his neck. ‘I’ll miss you all, Razor,’ she told him. ‘Flash and the Mary Ellens and the market. It got hit again, I’m
told. And there they all are again with their bits of wood and corrugated iron.’

Razor blushed. He wasn’t used to holding a woman in broad daylight, especially a woman as pretty as this one. ‘They’ll not do us down, Bridie. They’re only a load of
bloody foreigners.’

She smiled at him, planted a kiss on his cheek, then carried on walking. He was right – she had to go. Shauna was already living in Anthony’s cottage. Edith was seeking a bigger
house for Bridie so that all four of them could live together. Fortunately, Bridie could withstand the loss of her business, because the Cathshaw Stables provided the bulk of her not inconsiderable
income.

At last, she reached her ‘new’ shop. It had taken a bit of a blast, but it was steady enough. Diddy and Billy Costigan had refused to accept charity. The business would continue to
be Bell’s, and the Costigans intended to take their weekly pay, no more than that. There were few antiques, as most had perished with Muth, but Billy had scraped together some bits and pieces
for the window.

Maureen emerged. ‘It’ll be mostly chandlery,’ she informed her boss. ‘And I’m helping on Paddy’s, too. Our Nicky’s busy down at Littlewood’s, so
the stall will be my responsibility.’