The Bells of Scotland Road (64 page)

Bridie watched her friend drying away the tears. There was nothing she could say, nothing anyone could say these days. Children were dying in their beds; shelters, hospitals, churches and homes
were being battered and burnt nightly. Each person hereabouts could quote names and addresses of many dead friends, acquaintances and relatives. Words were no use.

Bridie touched her companion’s arm, then went out to do her own war work. The telegram made everything more meaningful, because the fight had to carry on for the sake of all those in the
forces. Soldiers, sailors and airmen looked into the face of death every moment of every day. As she picked her way over rubble and across stretches of firehose, Bridie squared her shoulders. The
Germans must not win.

She stopped and watched while the remains of a house were pulled down by firemen, saw children playing in debris, noticed women queuing for food. In spite of all the mess, Scotland Road
continued alive and as well as could be expected.

Maureen sat as still as a stone on the train. Cathy, pink about the face after arguing, slumped next to her friend. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ she said
hopelessly. It was too late now. They had stood for twenty minutes in Trinity Street Station beneath posters saying
CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES
and
IS YOUR
JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY
?, but Maureen had refused to listen to Cathy’s argument. ‘Aunt Edith was screaming at me on the phone,’ Cathy added. ‘She said she was going
to send Anthony after us.’

Maureen sighed. ‘Get off at the next stop. I didn’t ask you to come with me, Cathy.’

‘But I couldn’t let you take off on your own like that. The trains aren’t running properly. You might have got lost.’

‘I won’t get lost.’ Since smelling the incense, Maureen had been strangely content. It was easier now. She knew the identity of her attacker and she was about to see the
police. ‘He wants locking up,’ she muttered.

Cathy leaned back and closed her eyes. ‘How can they lock him up when he’s been missing for ten years?’ Maureen must be mistaken, she thought. Liam was a priest. But why had he
run away so suddenly? Why did Mammy and Anthony talk about him in hushed tones? Cathy felt sure that her mother was afraid of Father Bell. Even so, how could an ordained man do such a thing to
Maureen?

‘He ran because of what he’d done,’ replied Maureen. ‘My dad’ll kill him. That’s if my mam leaves enough of him for my dad to kill.’

‘If they find him.’

‘They’ll find him,’ Maureen’s tone was almost serene. She sat back and wished the train onward, willed it to keep going until it reached Manchester, prayed that a
Liverpool connection would arrive. She had to get home, had to face the past, had to help her family to survive and find a future.

‘My mother will not be pleased to see me,’ said Cathy. ‘She’ll have plenty to say, I’m sure.’

‘Then go back.’

‘No.’

Maureen listened to the train as it clattered about on its tracks. It went slowly, as if expecting to be derailed by some previously unnoticed broken rail. ‘I know what I’m going to
do with my life,’ she announced. ‘I’ve made my mind up.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll have to tell Mam and Dad first. But I decided this morning. You’ll be the third to know.’ She turned her head. ‘You’ve been good to me, Cathy
O’Brien. Sometimes, looking at you was what kept me sane. You see, I had to get away from home, but I needed to be safe. Really, I don’t know how I would have managed without
you.’

Cathy groaned inwardly, thought about her mother. It would be, ‘Oh, now I’ve the two of you to worry over,’ and ‘Why did you not have the sense to stay with Edith and
Richard?’ Mammy was a quietish soul, but she was capable of being quite angry in the face of foolishness. ‘You would have managed,’ Cathy told Maureen. ‘You would have found
somebody to talk to.’

Maureen was not too sure about that. After her attempt at suicide, after the baby had died, Cathy had become her touchstone, her contact with reality. That baby had been Father Bell’s. The
dread of going near a church had been born on a terrible night many years ago, when she had smelt incense on his clothing. ‘All along, I knew some of the truth,’ she said now.
‘And I couldn’t face it.’

Cathy wondered what would happen when Maureen’s truth finally came out. She felt sure that her mother and Anthony were already suspicious of Liam. He was seldom discussed in Cathy’s
presence. Even Aunt Edith and Uncle Richard showed a marked unwillingness to talk about their ordained second cousin.

The Costigans were probably unaware of the identity of Maureen’s attacker. Had Diddy known his name, she would have plastered it all over the county. What would happen when Maureen finally
spoke up? Cathy shivered. It would be like trying to find a ghost, because no-one had heard from Father Bell in ten years or more.

‘He’s sick,’ said Maureen.

‘Father Liam?’

Maureen nodded. ‘He must be sick to do what he did.’

Cathy squirmed. Being related to Liam, albeit by a marriage which had since been annulled, was not a comfortable state of affairs. And Mammy would marry Anthony after Grandmuth’s death, so
Mammy would continue to be a Bell. Cathy shuddered inwardly. ‘Does that mean you forgive Father Liam? After what you went through?’ Maureen’s hospital years had been so thoroughly
miserable.

‘I don’t know.’ That was the truth. Maureen didn’t know what to feel any more. The deep anger had dissipated along with the lingering smell of incense in St
Patrick’s church. There was a peace inside her, a contentment of spirit that she had not expected. ‘It’s really funny,’ she said. ‘Not funny to laugh at, but queer
– you know? As if it all happened to somebody else. Or perhaps it happened to a different me. Yes, I think I’ve changed. But he has to be found, Cathy. He has to be stopped. If he did
that to anybody else, I’d blame myself.’

‘Yes, I understand that.’

They reached Manchester, only to discover that no trains were going on to Liverpool. The derailment of a goods wagon was to blame. Maureen and Cathy sat in the Ladies’ Waiting Room. Cathy
wondered why a request to save empty Brylcreem jars had been placed in an exclusively female area. It was probably because women were in charge of the war, she supposed. Women made bombs and
bullets, drove tractors, built aeroplanes and tanks, saved Brylcreem jars.

It was noon. Cathy’s stomach grumbled like a threatening storm. She read through a leaflet entitled your home as an air-raid shelter, glanced around at all the grim faces of those who
hoped for trains. There was a silence in the room, a kind of quiet acceptance. Women had become professional waiters, Cathy mused. They waited for sons and husbands to come home, stood for hours in
lines outside shops, waited for the sound of an all-clear. During war-time, a woman’s whole life was a waiting room.

‘Go back,’ whispered Maureen. ‘Your journey isn’t really necessary.’

Cathy flicked through a thin copy of
War Illustrated
, scanned a guide for the woman at home and the man in the street.

‘Go home,’ repeated Maureen.

‘I am going home. I’ve as much right as you to visit Scotland Road.’

‘What if something happens?’

Cathy turned the page, found that she was being invited to give an extra penny a week to the Red Cross. Bile Beans were advertised to anyone who wanted radiant health and a good figure, then
Rodine claimed to do away with rats and mice. ‘Something happens every day. Look.’ She showed her companion a picture in the magazine.
WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE
was
printed next to a cartoon of Hitler. ‘Here’s the one who started it. He probably blew up the railway track, which is why we’re sitting at the station.’

A woman in the corner spoke up. ‘We could be here all day,’ she said gloomily. ‘Come dark, we’ll all have to go in a shelter.’ She picked up her shopping basket.
‘I’m off home,’ she announced to no-one in particular.

Maureen touched Cathy’s arm. ‘We’ll have to try for a lift.’

‘No. Let’s give it another hour or so.’

The older girl frowned. A sense of urgency was brewing beneath the calmness. After all these years, it seemed silly to be in a rush, but she simply had to get home. ‘Let’s go for a
cup of tea,’ she suggested.

As the two girls left the waiting room, a bearded man shrank back into the shadows. The station was crowded, buzzing with talk and movement. He watched while Maureen Costigan and the Irish
whore’s daughter entered the refreshment room. Soon, very soon, his time would come.

Liam Bell folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. He was in no hurry, no hurry at all.

Bridie was used to explosions. She sometimes wondered how she had managed to believe that Scotland Road was noisy. When newly arrived from Ireland, she had found the area
almost unbearably busy with all its trams, carthorses, lorries and people. But now, in May 1941, she was beginning to know about real noise.

This latest blast was awesome. There had been talk of a ship in dock carrying explosives and weapons. Rumour had become part and parcel of everyday life, with the result that many exaggerated
statements about defences, fallen planes and bombs went unheeded. On this night, however, all who lived in Liverpool knew about the
Malakind
. She burst wide open, scattering huge sheets of
metal across miles and lighting a very easy path for the Luftwaffe.

The attack from the air was prolonged and merciless. No sooner had the
Malakind
exploded than the bombers intensified their onslaught, wave after wave of them dropping incendiaries and
bombs onto Liverpool, Bootle and Seaforth.

Tildy sat up, poked a finger into her ear, then stretched her arms. She peered at Bridie’s face in the candlelight. ‘What was that? It’s nearly shaken me out of my
cage.’

‘A ship, I think. Probably the
Malakind
– I heard it had arms in its hold.’

Shauna clutched her mother’s arm. ‘Will they get us tonight, Mammy?’

Bridie dropped her chin and said nothing. Shauna should have been away from all this, should have stayed with her older sister in Astleigh Fold. It was probably quiet up there. Bridie had not
spoken to Cathy or to Edith for a day or so, because the telephone had suddenly stopped working.

She felt a trembling in her bones as a bomb rattled window-panes, ordered herself not to chide Shauna about being here. If they died tonight, she did not want her last words to Shauna to be
angry or critical. ‘With God’s help, we’ll survive,’ replied Bridie. She thought about Muth in her bedroom, nearer to the Lord, nearer to the Germans and to death.
‘Lie down,’ Bridie told the girls. ‘The shelter will save us, please God.’

Anthony. While her young companions slept, Bridie allowed her tears to spill. If only he were here with his arms around her. She could almost sense the touch of his hands, was able to recall the
scent of him. Fiercely, she clung to the shadow of the man she loved. He was safe, she told herself. Cathy was safe, too.

Shauna, whose sleep was never as deep as Tildy’s, moaned. Bridie heard the crashing of glass, felt the ground quivering beneath the mattress. How did Germany manage to have so many planes?
A loud cracking sound was followed by the noise of masonry tumbling nearby. It was so close, not much more than a hair’s breadth away. The air in the room thickened as plaster parted company
with the walls. Someone shouted, pounded on a nearby door, shouted again.

A thin scream pierced its way through all other sounds. ‘This is ours,’ mouthed Bridie silently. She stretched herself across the heads of Shauna and Tildy, prayed inwardly for
salvation as the scream grew louder. Miraculously, the bomb landed behind the shop. The Morrison rattled as if preparing to break. Shauna screamed and pushed Bridie away, while Tildy stirred and
muttered a few words about not being able to breathe.

After settling the girls once more, Bridie crawled out of the shelter. The raid had lasted for six hours or more, yet it showed no sign of abating. In spite of falling missiles, she managed to
hear the warden. ‘Anybody with a Morrison stay in the house,’ he called.

She crept past the stairs and into the shop, peeled back the blackout to create a tiny gap. Hell was just outside her front door. Dolly Hanson’s bed was hanging out of the upper storey,
while the little sweetshop itself was untouched except for a total absence of glass. In the centre of the tramlines stood an angry little woman with an umbrella. As incendiaries landed all around
her, she shook her brolly at the enemy. ‘Bastards,’ she screamed. ‘Come down here and I’ll wipe your bloody eyes for you.’ Kicking and screaming, the old lady was
dragged away by the warden.

Bridie bit her lip. There were fires everywhere. Each street that ran off Scotland Road seemed to be blazing. The German pilots, plainly delighted to have such well-lit objectives, carried on
depositing their loads on Liverpool. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help us,’ prayed Bridie. She could see sticks of bombs sliding down on the city centre, could hear every crash. Liverpool
was being put to death, and Bridie could do nothing.

She moved the blackout, picked up some tape and prepared to seal down the dark material. A movement caught her eye. There was someone out there, someone without a helmet. Her heart seemed ready
to burst apart when she realized that the unprotected moving target was Anthony.

He crossed the road, hammered on the door and waited until she opened it. He had to see her, had to make sure that she was alive in the hell-pit. After a day spent travelling in wagons and
carts, Anthony was ready to drop, but he forced himself to remain alert. Bridie must not be alarmed, so he would measure his words carefully.

She threw back the door, dragged him inside and held him close. ‘Oh, Anthony,’ she wept. ‘Why are you here? It’s dangerous. Knowing that you are safe in Astleigh Fold
keeps me alive.’

He kissed her, wiped her tears away. ‘Bridie, are you alone?’ he asked.

She told him about Shauna and Tildy in the Morrison, advised him that Muth, awkward as ever, was up in her room. ‘But why did you come to Liverpool?’ she asked.