‘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.’
‘He is. Don’t talk about this to Sam, not yet. Get yourself settled in first. He won’t be drawn, anyway. He’s a quiet sort, not much to say for himself. But he’s no time for their Anthony. In fact, like I said before, we were all gobsmacked when Anthony turned up at the wedding. That must be the first time they’ve all been together in the one place since . . . I don’t know when.’
Bridie thanked Diddy, collected her daughters and said goodbye. On her way to the shop, she noticed ice on the ground, had to place her feet carefully. In less than a month, it would be Christmas. What sort of a festive season would Cathy and Shauna have? Would that awful priest arrive? Would his kinder brother be all alone in Dryden Street? She shook her head in reply to her own unspoken question. Big Diddy Costigan would allow no-one to be isolated at Christmas.
Sam looked up when she entered the shop. ‘You found her, then?’
Bridie offered no answer, as Cathy’s presence precluded the silly enquiry.
‘Take her to school,’ advised Sam. ‘Nine o’clock, St Aloysius Gonzaga. It’s behind the church.’
Charlie grinned. ‘School,’ he managed. ‘It’s a nice school. You’ll like it, Cathy.’ The words sounded as if they were battling their way through a barrier.
Bridie picked her way past mangles and prams, took her children into the kitchen. With the gas turned up high, it was not a bad room, she pondered. It certainly didn’t seem as terrible as she had thought just before the wedding. The sofa on which she had tried to sleep was matched by three armchairs. There was a dresser, a long and very messy table with six dining chairs and, in the alcoves that flanked the range, glass doors allowed some very decent pieces of dusty china to be seen. Everything was covered in bits of dirt and rubbish, but she would sort it out in time.
She placed Shauna in a chair. ‘Cathy, we must get you ready for school.’
Cathy stood with her back to the fire. ‘I don’t want to go. I’m not going. You can’t make me go.’
Bridie considered these statements. ‘First of all, we must all do things we don’t want to do. Secondly, you are going. Thirdly, you are definitely going and yes, I can make you go. I’m older than you, bigger and stronger. If necessary, I shall carry you in like a big baby.’
Cathy started to snivel.
Shauna decided to come out in sympathy.
‘Want Bob,’ sobbed the older child.
‘Want Bob,’ cried the younger echo.
‘Who’s Bob?’ Sam surveyed the scene from the doorway.
‘He’s my dog,’ screamed Cathy. ‘I don’t like you and I don’t like your dirty house and I want my dog.’
Bridie turned to apologize, saw that Sam was nodding his head. ‘I’ll get you a dog,’ he said.
‘Do you think that’s altogether a good idea?’ Bridie asked. ‘Giving in to her like that?’
Sam wanted a quiet life. The shop was trouble enough without a pair of screaming infants in the living quarters. ‘I was going to get a guard dog anyway,’ he told Bridie.
Cathy cheered up immediately. ‘Can he sleep inside?’ she asked.
Bridie drew the line. ‘If you must have an animal, he can live in a kennel.’ She turned to the man who was supposed to be her husband. ‘Get a grown dog,’ she advised. ‘One that’s good with children.’
He inclined his head, then returned to the shop.
‘Cathy, you are not going to have your own way all the time. Where are you going?’
Cathy stopped at the bottom of the stairs. ‘To find a clean dress for school.’ She smiled sweetly at her mother before dashing off upstairs.
Bridie sat at the table and shook her head. She was not taken in by Cathy’s sudden change of heart. That girl was going to be a handful – of that, at least, Bridie felt certain.
By the time Cathy and Bridie arrived at the school, daylight was finally managing to filter through cloud and smoke. A cold drizzle clung to everything, soaked through clothing within moments. Even the rain was different, Bridie thought. It felt gritty and sticky, as if it had fought its way down through layers of grime and grease. She glanced towards the docks, remembered that her father would be sailing back to Ireland on this very day. Where was he? she wondered briefly. Where had he slept last night?
The school was an imposing sight, bigger by far than the tiny village school back home. St Aloysius Gonzaga Infant, Junior and Senior School was a Victorian building with two floors, tall windows and four gables on the front. There was a railing-edged playground, a large double-doored entrance and a view of the arch-windowed rear of St Aloysius Gonzaga’s church.
‘It’s
big,’ remarked Cathy, her tone dwarfed by the awesome sight and by the sounds of children at play.
‘You’ll be all right.’ The confidence in Bridie’s tone belied her own misgivings. At twenty-seven years of age, she was terrified by the idea of going inside. She must go in, but she could come out. Poor Cathy had to stay here for years . . . ‘You’re my big, brave girl,’ she told her daughter. ‘There’s nothing you can’t do, for you have a fine brain.’
Cathy swallowed a lump of terror. She was Mammy’s big, brave girl, and she must continue stalwart because Mammy had all to do for Shauna, who was not thriving. Shauna was having a great time with Charlie, the strange-looking but kind son of Mr and Mrs Costigan. Shauna was sucking on a barley sugar stick and playing house with some grand, real pots and pans in a corner of a very interesting shop. ‘Mammy?’ breathed Cathy.
‘What?’
‘There are so many children, hundreds and hundreds.’
‘You’ll be marvellous.’ Bridie squatted down and straightened her daughter’s collar. ‘Seven sevens?’ she asked.
‘Forty-nine.’
‘Subtract twelve?’
‘Thirty-seven.’
Bridie smiled. ‘Can you read?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did Daddy always say about school and learning?’
The little girl swallowed again, this time tasting the grief that had arrived with the passing of her father. She took a deep breath. ‘Daddy said to plough the field one furrow at a time. He said the job looked big, but to just get on and do a little bit, then a little bit more.’ She paused. ‘He taught me to read.’
Bridie nodded. ‘He taught me, too, Cathy. And he showed me how to keep the account books and how to write without blots. We won’t forget him. We haven’t come here to forget about Daddy.’
‘Then why?’ asked Cathy. ‘Why are we here?’
Bridie bit back the tears. ‘We must make the best we can of a world without Daddy in it.’ They were here because Thomas Murphy had bribed a widower to take them on. ‘We’ll be fed and clothed and comfortable.’ They were here because Thomas Murphy was a bigot who could see only one route to God. ‘You must call Mr Bell Uncle Sam. He will care for us.’ They were here to escape from Da and from the O’Briens whose antipathy to papism had made them turn their backs on their son. ‘Be good,’ advised Bridie.
‘I don’t want to go in, Mammy, I—’
‘Come on.’ Bridie rose to her feet and marched Cathy across the playground and into the school. An inner door bore the message, PHILIP MAHONEY, head teacher. Bridie paused, drew breath, knocked.
‘Come,’ bade a voice from within.
They entered. ‘Oh,’ said Bridie. ‘You’re not Mr Mahoney.’
The man behind the desk put his head on one side, rose to his feet and stood before a small fireplace in which coals glowed and flickered. He looked in the mirror above the mantel. ‘You’re right,’ he pronounced after a few seconds, ‘I’m not Mr Mahoney.’ He looked at Cathy. There was a humorous twinkle in his eye, and a corner of his mouth twitched in response to threatening laughter. ‘I am definitely not Mr Mahoney. This is a different face altogether.’ He looked over his shoulder as if expecting to discover an eavesdropper. ‘I am so much better looking than Mr Mahoney,’ he added.
Cathy giggled. ‘Did you not know who you were when you got up this morning?’ she asked.
The teacher scratched his head. ‘I thought I did,’ he answered slowly. ‘It seems I was wrong.’
‘Yes, you were.’ Cathy was delighted with the performance.
‘You must say “sir”,’ chided her mother.
‘Sir,’ echoed Cathy.
Anthony Bell turned his attention to Bridie. ‘In school, I’ll have to be a sir, I suppose.’ He left a space for an answer, got none. ‘Are you settled?’
‘Not yet,’ answered Bridie. ‘We’re barely unpacked.’
Anthony glanced at the clock. ‘I’ll have to go in a minute to take morning prayers. The real headmaster is in hospital, I’m afraid, so I’ll have to do for now.’
He would do very nicely, thought Bridie as she made her way out of the school. On the other side of the railings, she stood with a group of mothers, some laden with shopping baskets, some with prams containing babies, others with prams housing the seemingly ubiquitous packages of dirty washing.
‘You’re new,’ announced the nearest.
‘Yes,’ agreed Bridie, who felt new and old at the same time.
‘Just over from Ireland?’ asked the thin, weary-looking woman.
‘That’s right.’
‘Ah well, you’ll get used to it. We all do, I suppose.’ She walked away with the shabby pram whose occupant’s thin cries sounded too frail for survival.
Anthony Bell blew a whistle and all the children froze. A second blast sent them scurrying into lines, then a short, fat nun appeared in the doorway to shepherd in her charges. She had a round face whose sunny expression was at odds with such vile weather.
Satisfied that her older child was in good hands, Bridie turned towards Scotland Road, stopping in her tracks when she heard the unmistakable neighing of a horse. For a split second, she was back on the farm. Eugene was ploughing while she sat on the gate and watched the proud carthorses plodding along, tails twitching, large heads bobbing like sages who laboured over books and maps. Horses are wise animals, she thought.
When the moment of reverie had passed, Bridie followed her instinct across the street. Opposite the school stood a cobbled yard surrounded by stables. Above a pair of battered gates hung the legend MCKINNELL STABLES. A gaudy caravan was parked in the centre of the yard, while the door of a shabby dwelling hung inward. Dark-haired children ran in and out of house and caravan, while a woman screamed at the top of her voice, ‘Get gone into that school. You’re late.’
Half a dozen youngsters sped past Bridie, across the street and through the school gates.
The gypsy woman stood on the cobbles shaking a fist. ‘Get right inside the classrooms. I’ve told yous before, if yous come out early, your dad’ll rattle the bones of your heads.’ She pursed her lips and blew out a puff of exasperation before giving her attention to Bridie. ‘Did you want something, missus? Oh – you were here last night, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’ Bridie hesitated for a split second. Yes, of course she knew why she was here. ‘Have you a grey stallion and a chestnut mare?’
‘Thomas Murphy’s horses?’ asked the woman.
‘Sam Bell’s now, I believe.’
The gypsy woman nodded vigorously. ‘Aye, they’ll be his now, all right. Did you ever hear the likes? He knows nothing about horses, Sam Bell. We’re trying to sell them.’
‘Could I see them?’ asked Bridie.
‘Help yourself,’ advised the gypsy woman. She waved a dark brown hand towards a pair of stables at the furthest point from the house. ‘If you need me, I’ll be inside having my breakfast.’ She shook her already tousled head. ‘Getting that lot to school is worse than threading a pony through the eye of a needle.’
While the woman strode off, Bridie almost managed a smile. Shouldn’t the odd quotation involve a camel rather than a horse? The smell of equine life filled her nostrils, made her feel at home again. She had been bareback riding since she could walk, had been born with a love for horses. With the wind in her hair and a mane in her grip, she had coaxed many an animal halfway across County Galway.
She entered the first stall. ‘Sorrel,’ she whispered. ‘Hello, my girl.’
Sorrel, whose name had been born because of her light colour, almost grinned at the well-remembered friend. She nuzzled Bridie as if begging to be taken out for a run.
‘There’s nowhere for you,’ said Bridie. ‘But I swear there will be.’ She sniffed, wondered what had driven her to make such a rash promise. ‘I’ll do my best to get you out of here. And the gypsies exercise you, don’t they?’
Sorrel nodded friskily.
‘All right,’ said Bridie.
‘You win.’
She dragged a mounting block into the stable and jumped onto Sorrel’s back. As soon as she gripped the animal’s mane, she was elsewhere. Round and round the caravan she rode, eyes closed, cold drizzle wetting her face. No-one would take Sorrel away from her. There must be a way, there had to be a way. If she could only keep this mare, a degree of joy and freedom would always be available.
With Sorrel returned to her rightful place, Bridie entered Silver’s stall. Quicksilver was a different kettle altogether. With his flaring nostrils and huge eyes, he displayed the intelligence and quickness so typical of Arab stock. Although he knew Bridie, he still reacted to humankind in the age-old way, ears pricked, eyes rolling slightly as he prepared for flight.
Bridie leaned on the half-door and spoke to him. ‘Silver, Silver, Silver,’ she intoned.
He steadied, but continued to eye her warily.
‘Grand fellow,’ she told him. Apart from her children, horses were her greatest passion. Reading had opened up so much for her. She had learned about the physical construction of the horse, his needs, his weaknesses, his abilities, his pride.
‘You’ve ploughed for us and died in battle with us,’ she told him. ‘You’ve jousted and hunted and pulled our heaviest loads. I saw in a book that the word chivalry comes from your kind. Chivalry means honour, and you are the most honourable of beasts.’
Silver quietened, listened to her. ‘Did you know about Wellington’s horse? Copenhagen was his name. Did you hear about him ever? He was buried with full military honours, so he was. Did you know there are paintings and statues of horses? You are so beautiful, so good . . .’ She reached out and touched the quivering neck. ‘Just to please us, you all work so hard. Will you hold me, Silver? Will you do that?’
He showed her his teeth, as if trying to answer her.
‘Good boy. I see the baby teeth are gone. Is this you ready to begin racing? Would you run like the wind for a cup and a ribbon? Would you?’
The horse whinnied.
Bridie approached him, made sure that he could see her properly. She had no wish to take punishment from such powerful rear limbs. She placed her face next to his, could feel his breath on her neck. ‘I shall own you,’ she informed him. ‘I don’t know how – perhaps I must steal to make sure. But you and Sorrel will be my horses.’
The Bells of Scotland Road Page 7
