Bridget O’Brien stepped off an alarmingly unsteady gangplank and planted grateful feet on firm ground. At last, it was over. Never again would she go willingly within a mile of choppy waters. Even now, the angry waves could be heard among the sounds of a hundred voices, some alien, others as Irish as her own.
For many years, Bridie’s compatriots had left home to settle here. The exodus was supposed to be abating, yet the boat had been crammed with emigrants sailing hopefully into the start of a new decade. Hopeful? she wondered. What on earth would she find here in this grim, dark place? No fields, that was certain. No fresh air, no cold, clear water gathered from a sweet mountain stream. This was 1930, and England’s northern counties continued to embody the glory and the gloom of industrial revolution.
She inhaled through her mouth to settle the queasiness, wrapped the shawl more firmly round the sleeping Shauna, then gripped the hand of her older daughter. ‘We’re there, Cathy. And thanks be to God for that, too.’ The three-year-old in her arms moaned, sneezed, settled again to sleep. Cathy, her eyes rounded in shock and wonder, clung to her mother’s side. This was England. It was dark, smelly and very noisy.
Thomas Murphy was not far behind his daughter and grandchildren. The trip had been a bad one, even for a seasoned traveller like himself. Two or three times a year he made this voyage in the company of well-bred horseflesh. The animals, he thought now, were easier company than his daughter had been. She had begun to moan and vomit long before the coast of Ireland had slipped away behind grey curtains of November sleet. ‘Come, now, Bridie,’ he ordered, pulling her away from the water and across a square of cobbles. ‘Sit yourself down on the case till I find the rest of your belongings.’ He strode away in search of luggage.
Bridget lowered herself onto the case and took in the sights. Dusk had fallen heavily, was weighted down by black clouds that promised to spill their tears at any moment. Groups of travellers huddled together for comfort, the children crying, the women white-faced with exhaustion. Sailors passed by, canvas bags slung across broad shoulders, skins browned and roughened by sun and saline. Across the rough-hewn surface of New Quay, revellers spilled from a dockside public house to watch two men who fought over some imagined slight. Befuddled by drink, this pair of heroes fell into an untidy and comatose embrace while the audience, deprived of a spectacle, drifted back into the pub. ‘This is a terrible town,’ Bridget mumbled to herself. ‘And I can never go home, for I could not bear the journey. As for putting space between myself and boats – well – we’re stuck here, almost on top of the docks.’
Cathy touched her mother’s knee. ‘Liverpool?’ she asked.
Bridget nodded. ‘Aye, ‘tis Liverpool, child. We shall be living right next door to all these boats and ships, though I’d dearly love to put many an acre between us and them. Still. We must make the best we can of life, Caitlin.’
Caitlin, usually Cathy, was too young to understand her mother’s words. The crossing had terrified the child to the point of numbness. Mammy had been too ill to speak, while Granda’s temperament had not been improved by the boat’s lurchings. Granda Murphy was not fond of children. During her seven years on earth, Cathy had learned to be quiet when Granda Murphy was about. ‘Will we stay here, Mammy?’ the little girl managed, the short sentence forced between ice-cold lips. It was a frightening place, the child thought. People were running back and forth, many of them boys of eight or nine, some barefooted, others in heavy, iron-tipped boots. Newspapers, hot potatoes and chestnuts were being advertised by folk whose voices seemed to cut a swathe through the air, so shrill and piercing were the tones. The river was quieter, appearing to concede defeat in the face of humankind’s cacophonies. ‘Will we stay here, Mammy?’ repeated Cathy.
‘Aye, we must,’ sighed Bridget.
‘Why?’
‘Your stepfather lives in Liverpool.’
Cathy crept closer to her mother and resented Shauna yet again. Since the supposedly frail child’s arrival, Cathy had been denied some of the maternal attention she had learned to expect. Her three-year-old sister was not thriving and she needed everything doing for her. Mammy was always saying, ‘Cathy, you have to be the big girl, for I’ve all to do for Shauna.’ Cathy didn’t feel big. Seven was a grand age according to Mammy, yet the little girl knew she needed her one remaining parent more than ever. ‘Why did Daddy die?’
‘Not again,’ replied Bridget. ‘Please don’t be starting all of that, Cathy. Didn’t we explain to you about the accident?’ She shivered all the more, a new ice in her bones owing something to the weather, much to the fact that she had not been allowed time to grieve. Eugene was only six months buried, yet here she was among foreigners and on her way to an English altar.
Cathy bit her lip, felt no pain because of the merciless cold. Daddy was a great man who had gone to stay in another place called heaven. Why hadn’t he come to Liverpool instead of going off with Jesus like that? He would have held her, comforted her. He would have played games like cat’s cradle and guess which hand is the sweetie in. But he’d gone away and he wouldn’t be coming back and Cathy’s stomach was empty.
‘And poor Shauna misses her daddy, too. At least you knew him for a long time, child,’ said Bridget quietly.
‘Poor Shauna’ was warm and as cosy as a newborn against Mammy’s shoulder. Cathy shuddered again, wished that she, too, could be wrapped in a plaid shawl and held close to the body of her mother.
Granda returned, his brow still furrowed by ill-temper. ‘Boy?’ he yelled at a passing urchin.
The lad ground to a halt, drew a wrist across his nose to dislodge a dewdrop. ‘Yes, sir?’
Mollified slightly by the child’s respectful tone, Thomas Murphy drew himself to full height before placing a hand in his pocket. ‘A threepence for you if you find a cart to carry us and our trunks and cases, lad. No fancy vehicles, mind.’ He sniffed and glowered at the boy. ‘If you’re quick, there’ll be a further payment when we reach Scotland Road. Do you know Bell’s?’
The barefoot child nodded eagerly. ‘Bell’s Pledges? We live near there, mister. I can get a lend of a cart for a few pennies if you hang on here a minute. Will there be a name on your things?’
‘’Tis Murphy. Thomas James Murphy. Can you remember that?’
‘I can, sir.’ The boy nodded so vigorously that his rain-damped hair sent forth droplets that landed on Cathy’s face. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It was an accident, girl.’ The ‘girl’ came out as ‘gairl’. ‘See you after, then,’ he added before running off towards the ship.
Cathy watched the lad, saw him wending his way past passengers, sailors, a crate containing live hens. His feet were filthy and bare, yet he ran as easily as the wind across ground that must have proved painful.
‘Come away with you, now, Bridie,’ chided Thomas Murphy. ‘We’ve a wedding in half an hour.’
Bridget O’Brien swallowed a foul-tasting liquid that had settled in her throat. Her stomach groaned cavernously, yet she could not have eaten to save her life. Oh, what was she doing here? She was a grown woman of twenty-seven years, the mother of two daughters. She had organized the running of a sizeable farm since Eugene’s death, had kept books, paid wages, bought and sold stock. Yet here she stood, a lamb prepared for slaughter, a displaced person in a strange land . . .
‘Bridget?’ The two syllables were coated with steel.
‘Yes, Father.’ She rose, lifted the dozing Shauna, dragged Cathy to stand alongside the grandfather who had wrenched them all out of Galway. ‘I still think there was no need for this,’ she mumbled. There was need, an inner voice told her. Da was older and even more cantankerous than he had been during her own childhood. Twice, he had raised his strap to Cathy. Twice, Bridie had intervened, had placed herself between the man and his granddaughter. But she couldn’t be in the house all the time. He might slap Cathy when Bridie was out shopping or seeing to the horses. On the one hand, she was being forced to leave home. But, at the same time, Bridie needed space between her father and her little family. She should have run away, she told herself for the umpteenth time. She should have fled from the county and into wherever. Wherever – Thomas Murphy would have found her.
Thomas Murphy glowered. He was a tall man with thick, iron-grey hair and bushy eyebrows that seemed to bristle with anger above clear blue eyes. Even when he wasn’t annoyed, he looked dangerous, thought Bridie. Now, with his temper rising, he had pulled those eyebrows south until they overhung his features like the edge of an untidy thatched roof. ‘It had to be done,’ he snapped.
‘Eugene’s parents were quite resigned to the—’
‘Nonsense,’ he roared. ‘They bided their time and no more, that’s the truth. Do you think I wanted my grandchildren whisked away to the Church of Ireland as soon as my back was turned? Heaven forbid that such a thing would ever happen.’
Bridie sat on her temper. For how many years had she kept herself damped down? she wondered. Oh, such a lovely girl, she was. She had been a model daughter, a diligent worker on the farm, a loving and sensible spouse, a good mother. At what price, though? Since babyhood, she had feared the man who had frightened her mother. Thomas Murphy had never lashed out in earlier days, had never beaten his wife. The long-ago cruelties had been verbal and, it had seemed, eternal. Philomena Murphy had produced just one live child, and that child had been a sore disappointment. A girl? What use was a girl? ‘You’re not even half a woman,’ Thomas had screamed at his fading spouse.
Bridie stared into her father’s steely eyes. Just once, she had defied him. She had got herself pregnant and had married ‘out’, had taken a non-Catholic husband whose family had cut him off for mating with a Roman. Now, with Eugene dead and the farm newly tenanted, Bridie was left with few choices. She and her daughters could have moved in with Thomas Murphy or with the O’Briens. The only other prospect might have been to take a cottage and trust to luck where money was concerned. Instead of opting for any of those unpalatable possibilities, Bridie had agreed to a fresh start well away from her da and her in-laws. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.
‘Who would that be, now?’
Bridie counted to ten. ‘The bridegroom, of course.’
He arched an eyebrow, curled his lip. ‘He is preparing for your arrival, no doubt. We shall go now. The service cannot begin without you.’ In Thomas Murphy’s book, a priest should not be kept waiting, particularly when the church was being used for a specially arranged evening service. ‘Will you move?’ he bellowed. ‘Or will you get back on that boat and live with me in my house? We can go home when the tide turns. But if you do return, you will keep my grandchildren away from the O’Briens and their God-forsaken excuse for a religion.’
Bridie inclined her head. The ‘you wills’ and the ‘you will nots’ formed a litany that tripped loudly and often from her father’s acerbic tongue. Even the landing stage had become a quieter place during Thomas Murphy’s rantings. People stood and stared at the wild-looking man who raved at his quiet daughter.
Bridget heaved Shauna into a more manageable position and followed her father, noticing that a knot of men simply melted away to make a path for her furious parent. Sailors, dock workers, sellers of hot cocoa and tea backed off when they saw the towering figure.
On the cobbled square, Thomas Murphy stopped and grabbed his daughter’s arm so tightly that she flinched. ‘When I’m dead, who’s to save these two mites from Protestantism and perdition?’ he asked.
‘I am,’ she replied, her face twisted with pain.
‘You? You’re just a woman, a woman who was too weak and stupid to wait and marry a man of her own kind. Oh no, you had to have it all your own way, Bridget. Your mother must have spun in her grave the day you gave yourself before marriage to that heathen. May God have mercy on that good lady’s soul.’
Bridie, who remembered only too well how her mammy had suffered at the whim of Thomas Murphy, merely sighed with relief when her arm was freed. She would be rid of him, at least. No matter what kind of a creature Sam Bell turned out to be, he could not possibly be as wicked as this man she called Father.
There were ponies and traps ready for passengers, but the tall Irishman strode past them. ‘We’ll wait here for the boy,’ he told his daughter. ‘No point in paying out good money for a fancy carriage when there’s a cart we can use.’
Cathy stood on the cobbles, her face lifted upward. ‘Look, Mammy,’ she cried. ‘A train in the sky.’
Bridie glanced at the overhead engine, listened to the noise of it. A tram rattled past, then a ship’s horn blared into the heavy clouds of winter. She had never heard such a racket. The lowing of cattle, the frantic snortings of an unbroken horse, the boom when quarry-men mined the Galway stone – all those things were nothing compared to the hellish din of Liverpool’s docks. Home? Should she go back now? Should she take Shauna and Cathy back to sweet pastures and soft, kindly voices?
‘Move, woman!’ roared Thomas Murphy. ‘See, the boy’s coming just now with the cart. Or is this where you want to stay, in the middle of a busy road, while a priest waits on your whim for the starting of a wedding?’
Bridie put her head on one side and looked quizzically at the man who had fathered her. For a moment or two, she felt a stab of terror, but it passed over as quickly as the overhead carriages. ‘I was thinking just now, Father, of the lovely people in Ballinasloe. I was conjuring up the sound of their voices at mass, remembering how gentle they are.’ She straightened, shook her head. ‘But you roar like a bull. I cannot raise my children near a man who screams all the time.’ A corner of her mouth twitched when she saw his astonishment. ‘I will not come back, Father. We shall stay here and make the best we can, so. If I never see you again, I’m sure I won’t care.’
The tall man closed his mouth with an audible snap. This bold upstart of a daughter was daring to upbraid him in a public place. He opened his mouth again, found no words. The expression on her face reflected no anger, no emotion of any kind. He looked around, wondered if anyone had heard Bridie’s speech. But his daughter’s words had been spoken so softly. It was the softness that made the brief soliloquy all the more meaningful.
Bridie pulled at Cathy’s hand, guided her towards a slow-moving cart on which the boy sat with a grim-faced driver and the luggage. ‘Right, Cathy,’ said Bridie, a determined edge to her tone, ‘let’s go and find out what the future holds, shall we?’
Cathy’s shorter legs worked double time to keep up with her mother’s pace. When her hand slipped out of her mother’s grasp, she howled piteously, panic almost choking her as she imagined being lost in such a noisy town. Children ran about in the gloom, dresses, coats and shawls hanging from slender shoulders, trousers torn, bare feet slapping wet cobblestones. Cathy remembered bare feet, remembered the feel of grass against her toes, the smell of new-cut hay drying in the sun. She breathed deeply, sent forth another howl.
‘That is enough, now,’ said Thomas Murphy. He placed the case on the ground, bent over the child. ‘Look, I’ve had to come back for you. Mammy is tired. See – she’s leaning on the cart over there waiting for you. You must behave yourself, Caitlin O’Brien.’
She sniffed, stared at him. ‘Don’t want to be here,’ she announced.
A few children stopped running, watched the scene with undisguised interest.
‘You will do exactly as I say,’ spat the impatient man. ‘Now, come along while your mother gets married.’
Cathy wasn’t completely sure about what ‘married’ was, but she had a vague idea that it might be connected to somebody called Sam who had a shop in Liverpool. Sam was supposed to be her new daddy. ‘Don’t want to,’ she whimpered. This wasn’t her place. Her place was on a farm on the outskirts of town. Her place was the market and the castle overlooking the river Suck and the quarrymen walking home at night and waving to her. ‘I don’t want to,’ she repeated angrily.
‘She doesn’t want to,’ echoed a girl in a filthy dress. ‘She wants to stop here and play alley-o.’
Thomas, whose dignity was important, ignored the dirt-spattered urchin. ‘Come along,’ he urged his granddaughter. ‘Or you’ll have everybody late.’
No-one spoke, yet Cathy could feel the support of those around her, as if they were reaching out to give her strength. They understood. Without knowing her, these comrades sensed her trouble. ‘I want to go home,’ she told her grandfather.
Thomas glared at the small gathering. ‘This is home.’
‘Don’t want here,’ she answered boldly. ‘Want my garden and Chucky and Bob.’ And she did miss the chicken she had helped to rear from a ball of yellow fluff into a big, brave producer of eggs. ‘Want Bob,’ she declared, her feet planted apart. Bob was a sheepdog who could speak. His language was difficult to decode, but he had a special word for dinner, a guttural howl that announced his hunger. And Bob had always guarded her, had always—The smack sent her reeling into the arms of a girl.
‘You shouldn’t do that, mister,’ advised the nearest young stranger, placing her thin body between the large man and the dumbstruck Cathy. ‘My dad’ll kill you if he sees you hitting her like that.’
Thomas froze, his hand stopping mid-air. ‘And who asked you the time of day, miss? Shouldn’t you be inside the house cleaning the dirt off your face? Isn’t it past your bedtime?’
The streetwise waif gave Thomas Murphy the onceover. She wasn’t afraid of him. He was big and ugly, but her dad was bigger and uglier than anybody the length and breadth of Liverpool’s docks. ‘Me ma shouts me when she’s ready,’ she replied smartly. ‘I’m going back to Scottie now, and I’ll hear me ma shouting.’
‘And what does she shout?’ There was a mocking edge to the Irishman’s words.
‘She shouts me name, and me name’s Tildy Costigan.’
‘Then mind your business, Tildy Costigan.’
Tildy placed a dirt-streaked hand on Cathy’s shoulder. ‘If you ever need me, girl, just send somebody for Tildy Costigan. Everybody knows me, even the Mary Ellens. I’ll be there in a flash,’ she added. ‘With me brothers, me dad and half our street.’ She stuck out her tongue, satisfied that the little girl’s grandfather had seen the full length of it. It was nice and black, too, as the result of two spanishes for a halfpenny from Dolly Hanson’s shop.
After an uncomfortable second, Thomas grabbed the case, then pulled Cathy along behind him. ‘Such foolishness,’ he told his daughter. ‘Did you see the cut of that? The only clean bits were where the child had been rained on. You must be careful, Bridie. Keep Cathy away from these ragamuffins.’
Bridie, who felt that she might as well hang for the full sheep, allowed a few raw words to slip from her tongue. ‘She would have been as well at home in Ballinasloe,’ she informed her father. ‘As I told you before, I could have rented a cottage and found some work.’ She raised her chin. ‘Also, I allow no-one to smack my daughters. They will not be hit. Ever.’
Thomas’s patience was wearing to a state of transparency. ‘We shall not stand here and discuss family business in the open,’ he snarled. ‘And you’re here for a reason, Bridie. There’s not many a man would take on a young widow with two daughters. We were fortunate to find a good Catholic widower to step into the shoes of their Protestant father.’
Bridie heaved the sleeping Shauna into a more comfortable position. ‘Aye,’ she replied, amazed at her own continued audacity, ‘and I’ve never even seen the man. Why didn’t he come to meet us? Could he not have made an effort to pick us up from the boat? What sort of a creature leaves small girls out in wind and weather?’ She bit her tongue, told herself to hush. It was panic that had forced her to speak up. She had a reputation for forbearance, but she was scared out of her wits. This was a strange city in a strange country and she was going to marry a stranger this very evening.
Thomas gritted his teeth, wished that Cathy would stop snivelling. He yanked at the child’s hand, felt the resistance in her fingers. ‘Sam Bell is a busy man,’ he pronounced. ‘He’s a business to run. In this day and age, shop hours are long. He’ll have been up and about since daybreak, at the beck and call of customers. There’s no time for meeting boats, not when there’s a community wants serving.’
‘He could have sent someone in his place,’ breathed the fatigued woman.
‘Huh,’ spat her father. ‘He’s not a man to waste hard-earned money on foolishness. Come away now,’ he insisted. ‘We’re expected at St Aloysius Gonzaga’s. You must be married before you spend the night in Sam’s house. We have not come all this way to start a scandal.’
Bridie bit her lip. Her father was a man beyond reproach, a pillar of the Church and of the community. He was also a disgrace, though few at home in Galway would ever know his secrets. The cold and subtle cruelties of Thomas Murphy had always been discreet, hidden behind the door of his house. ‘As you wish, Father,’ she replied before passing Shauna to the boy on the cart. She turned, helped Cathy to climb aboard. ‘We’ll be on the pig’s back,’ she whispered to the hysterical girl. ‘And, as well you know, there’s plenty of meat on the back of a pig.’ For a split second, Bridie heard her own mother’s voice. ‘We’ll be great, Bridget. We’ll be on the pig’s back when himself sells a couple of horses.’ Bridie glanced at ‘himself’, then gave her attention to Cathy. ‘We shall have a grand house and plenty to eat.’
Cathy placed herself next to the boy. Sobs continued to rack her body, but they slowed when the lad started to talk. ‘That was me sister,’ he announced, jerking a thumb in the direction of Tildy Costigan’s angry face. ‘I’m Cozzer. The whole family gets called the Cozzers, like, only I’m the real Cozzer. Our Charlie’s older than me, so he should be Cozzer, only he’s special – different, like. Clever in his own way, but still different. Me ma’s called Big Diddy. She’s the boss of our street, me ma. She does all the laying-outs and brings babies. Me dad’s a docker.’ The words were spat out like rapid gunfire, no pause for thought or breath.
Cathy sniffed back the last of her tears, tried to make sense of her first encounter with this new language. ‘We’re going to live with Mr Bell,’ she ventured.
Cozzer shook his head. ‘Could be worse,’ he informed her. ‘Me ma says he’s a miserable bugger, but he’s not much of a drinker. He’s tight with his money, like. Still, you’ll be all right,’ he added by way of comfort. ‘Come and meet our ma. She’ll look after yous all.’
The cart stank of mouldy vegetables and fish. Under different circumstances, Bridget O’Brien might have worried about going to church in a smelly, travel-creased dress, but she was beyond such trivial concerns. She listened numbly while the boy pointed out St Nicholas’s ‘Proddy’ church, Exchange Station, shops, public houses. There were more people on Chapel Street than in the whole of her home town.
Bridie held onto her younger child, heard Cathy’s diminishing sobs, tried not to notice Thomas Murphy’s curled lip. Fish scales and vegetable matter would not sit well on da’s best clothes. Still, he should have paid for proper transport, should have insisted on Sam Bell’s attendance at the landing stage.
‘This is Scotland Road,’ the boy announced proudly.
Bridie allowed her eyes to wander past horses and carts until they rested on a larger than average corner shop in the near distance. BELL’S PLEDGES was emblazoned in a curling script above three brass orbs. Lights inside the shop announced that trade continued in spite of the imminent wedding. Resolutely, Bridie attempted to concentrate on the building, but the distractions proved too much for her. ‘What kind of a place is this?’ she muttered to herself.
‘ ’Tis a city,’ replied her father. ‘With all kinds of creatures in it. No place for weaklings.’ His mouth widened into a mocking grin. ‘Still, you’ll make the best you can, so – isn’t that what you said earlier?’
Cathy clung to her mother’s arm. ‘Will it kill us?’ she asked, her eyes glued to a monster that clattered along beside their hired cart.
‘It’s just a tram,’ said Bridie. She watched while children cavorted along in front of the menacing vehicle. ‘Give us a penny,’ shouted a boy after walking on his hands just inches from death. A girl ran out into the road and began to play leapfrog with several more daredevils. Each time a child bent over in the foolish game, the tram got nearer.
‘They’ll be flattened,’ breathed Bridie.
Cozzer Costigan laughed. ‘No, they won’t.’ He pointed to the open upper deck. ‘See them up there? They’re posh men from Seaforth Sands and Waterloo. They’ll throw some money in a minute. Nobody gets hurt, missus.’
A barrel organ groaned, its owner red-faced as he stirred the ageing mechanism to some semblance of life. On his shoulder, a monkey yawned and picked at his master’s thinning hair. Women scuttered along with shopping baskets, babies, older children in their wake. A youth emerged at speed from a side street, the tails of his ragged coat flapping behind him as a gang of ruffians chased him.
Bridie shuddered. Perhaps they should have stayed with Da after all. She didn’t want to be married, least of all to a total stranger. And this place was so wild, so alien. She clenched her teeth, hung on to her resolve. In Ireland, Thomas Murphy would have made their lives a misery. And although Eugene’s parents had paid lip-service, she feared that they might have stepped into the arena at some later date to quarrel with their daughter-in-law on the subject of religion. There were no choices, Bridie told herself. None at all. She was here and she must just get on with it.
A gypsy caravan idled past, its wooden frame painted gaudily in yellow, blue and red, the horse almost comatose between the shafts. Romany infants danced along the pavement, sun-browned hands reaching out to beg for money. Two policemen raced after the gang of lads who had disappeared into a picture house, while some men scuffled and cursed outside a public house called the Throstle’s Nest.
‘I want to go home,’ wailed Cathy.
‘Shush now.’ Bridie’s heart heaved as if trying to escape from her body in order to find a separate and more acceptable way of life. ‘You’ll be used to it in no time at all,’ she told her daughter. Really, Bridie herself needed reassurance. Children, she thought, adapted more easily than adults. Then Shauna began to wail. Dear God, would this filthy English city be a fit place in which to rear a sickly three-year-old?
The shabby vehicle stopped opposite Bell’s Pledges. Cozzer jumped down and began to remove luggage from the cart. Shauna, fully awake now, screamed piteously.
‘Now or never,’ spat Thomas Murphy. ‘Will you stay or come home?’
Bridie listened to her sobbing children, looked into the devilish eyes of her father. ‘We stay,’ she said. Anything, anything at all would surely be better than living in the same country as himself?
‘Right.’ He strode across the road and threw open the door of Sam Bell’s pawnshop.
Bridie stepped onto the cobbles, lifted her children down and took their hands. For better or worse, they were here to stay.
Elizabeth Costigan, commonly known as Big Diddy, stood arms akimbo and with her back to the fire. ‘You look like the dog’s dinner after next door’s cat’s been at it,’ she informed her victim. ‘Stand up straight. It’s supposed to be a wedding, not a bloody wake.’
Sam Bell sighed, shrugged narrow shoulders. The huge woman seemed to fill the room – and not just physically. There was so much energy about her person that it almost shone around her like a colourful aura. ‘It’s not as if this is my first,’ he told her. ‘I have been married before.’
Big Diddy Costigan fixed a gimlet eye on Sam Bell. He was about as much use as a rubber penknife when it came to the niceties of life. The Costigans might be poor, but they knew about dressing up for an occasion, even if all the clothes had to be borrowed or bought on the club card. She’d washed and ironed many frocks and shirts to be returned to the shops as unworn and unsuitable. ‘You could have got a suit with a cheque,’ she informed him. ‘I’d have sponged it to send back.’
‘I don’t buy from clubs,’ he answered.
Big Diddy bristled slightly. He didn’t need cheques. He had enough money salted away to retire and live off the interest for several hundred years. ‘Scrooge,’ she muttered, though there was little malice in her tone. Sam Bell was a mild-mannered fellow who elicited no strong emotion from anyone in the district. He was fair, uncaring and honest. He was also the most boring chap Diddy had ever encountered in all her thirty-eight years. ‘You could have bought a new suit, Sam. And some proper shoes.’
Sam glanced down at his mirror-finished boots. ‘They’re clean,’ he ventured.
‘So’s your shirt. The collar’s frayed, though.’
The man heaved another sigh. ‘I’m too busy for all this panic,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s a lot of customers for your Charlie to see to. I should be round at the shop to give him a hand.’
Did glowered at him. ‘Our Charlie could run Bell’s with both arms in plaster and his legs broke. He’s been with you six years. Every time you go fishing, he takes over. Stand straight while I brush your jacket.’
The man shrugged and gave himself to the untender mercies of Elizabeth Costigan. He didn’t want to get married, didn’t relish the idea of young children poking about all over his shop, getting under his feet, asking for pennies. But a bargain was a bargain, and Thomas Murphy was not a man to be trifled with.
‘Did you shave?’ asked Diddy.
‘Yes.’
‘What with? A bloody butter knife? You look like a flaming hedgehog, Sam. Still, too late to worry now, I suppose.’
Sam Bell glanced round the Costigans’ spanking clean front parlour. This was a fortunate family. Their luck lay in the fact that both parents were energetic workers who refused to lie down in the face of that grim thief called poverty. ‘Is Billy coming?’ he enquired of his hostess.
‘Course he is. I got him ready and shoved him in the Holy House. One pint’s his ration, and one pint’s what he’ll have.’
The pawnbroker jangled some coins in a pocket, pulled out a wedding band. He wasn’t a great drinker, but he wished with all his heart that he could get out of here and anaesthetize himself at the Holy House bar. The ring was dull, so he rubbed it on his sleeve to brighten it up a bit.
Diddy gasped. ‘You’re never getting wed with a secondhand ring?’
Sam stopped polishing. ‘It’s twenty-two carat, only one previous owner. I’ll have you know this was Eileen Heslop’s.’
‘And she’s dead.’
He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I know she’s dead. Tom Heslop sold me the ring after the funeral. How else do you think I got hold of it?’ He waved the yellow band under Diddy’s rather large nose. ‘She only pawned this twice, you know. Once to pay for her mam’s headstone and then when she put the spread on for her daughter’s wedding.’
Diddy scowled. ‘A new one would have been better,’ she insisted. ‘Even a nine carat ring or a cheap silver one like the nuns have.’
‘This one’s got history,’ he announced.
‘And scratches. It’s served its time at the wash-house scrubbing boards, that ring.’ Diddy rammed an unbecoming hat onto her over-tight brown curls, then stabbed a nine-inch hatpin through her felt and hair. Gripping a missal, she stalked off towards the door. ‘Stop here,’ she ordered. ‘Till I send your best man.’
Sam peered through the window and watched Diddy stamping off in the direction of a pub near St Aloysius’s church. The hostelry’s original name was seldom used since its re-baptism as the Holy House. After masses, funerals, benedictions and confessions, the Holy House was a favourite meeting place for many among the church’s congregation.
The shopkeeper glanced at his watch, hoped that Charlie Costigan was doing a good job. The oldest of the Costigan brood was an odd lad, stiffened down one side of his body by birth damage, not much to say for himself, a wizard with numbers. Yes, Charlie would no doubt be coping. Nicky Costigan was at the shop, too. Diddy had briefed her daughter carefully. ‘Make sure there’s plenty of hot water for Mrs O’Brien. You help her with the two little girls.’
Two little girls. Sam paced, stopped in front of the fire, studied a sepia picture of Diddy and Billy on their wedding day. Above the photograph hung the papal blessing and a dried cross from last Palm Sunday. Two little girls. All that noise and running about. They would need clothes, shoes, food, playthings. Still.
Sam examined the wedding ring once more before stuffing it into his pocket to jangle against pennies and sixpences. Oh well, he had made a pact and, as Big Diddy had said earlier, it was a bit late to start worrying now. Bridie, she was called. Bridget, really. She’d been married to some Protestant over in Ireland, a big chap called Eugene. The kiddies were Caitlin and Shauna. He wondered what Muth would make of that lot—
‘Sam?’
‘Oh. Hello, Billy.’
Billy Costigan was a big man, tall, hefty and prematurely bald. His weather-reddened face was almost split in two by a wide grin. ‘Ready for it, are you?’
To his amazement, Sam felt his own cheeks heating up. ‘I’m too old for all this,’ he grumbled. ‘And I hope she’s not counting on a big legacy when I’m gone. I’m leaving a lot to Liam.’
‘And what about your ma? She’ll see us all out, I bet.’ Billy knew better than to enquire about Liam’s twin. Although there had been no overt arguments of late, everyone knew that Liam and Anthony didn’t get on.
Sam thought about Muth, a saint of a woman, who had been bedridden since 1926. The new Mrs Bell would save a few coppers by looking after the ageing Theresa Bell. There’d be no need for minders, no need for folk to carry washing to and fro. ‘She can’t go on for ever,’ he said finally. ‘Come on, Billy. Let’s get it over with.’
Bridie had managed to change during five stolen minutes. She wore a dove-grey coat and skirt with a matching hat, dark blue shoes and some smart gloves of navy kid. The house was terrible. She didn’t want to live here, couldn’t bear the thought of spending her life in such a desperate place. There had been no time to go upstairs. She stood in the luggage-cluttered kitchen-cum-living room and righted her hat in a dirty, pock-marked mirror. ‘Come on, Cathy,’ she said softly. ‘We must go to church now.’
Cathy fixed an eye on Nicky Costigan. Nicky Costigan had scrubbed Cathy’s neck with a rough cloth and smelly red soap. ‘I don’t like you,’ announced the child.
Nicky grinned, displaying gappy teeth and a bright red tongue.
‘Don’t be rude, Cathy,’ chided Bridie absently. Would that slopstone in the tiny scullery ever come clean? Would any number of scrubbings get through to the actual surface of Sam Bell’s kitchen table?
Nicky wagged a finger at Cathy. ‘You’d better behave in St Aloysius’s. Father Bell’s coming down from Blackburn specially. He’ll be your big brother. How do you fancy having a priest in the family?’
The girl’s words cut through Bridie’s rambling thoughts. ‘Is he . . . is he Mr Bell’s son?’
Nicky nodded vigorously. ‘There’s Liam and Anthony. Twins. Anthony’s nice, but Father Liam, well . . .’ She wet a forefinger and drew it across her throat. ‘All hell’s flames and misery, me mam says.’
Bridie swallowed. How old was this Sam Bell? Da had informed her that the bridegroom was ‘slightly older’ than Bridie, but priests? Surely priests went to college for ever and a day? Weren’t they well into their twenties before being qualified? ‘How old are Anthony and Liam?’ she managed finally.
The eldest of Big Diddy’s daughters sucked her teeth for a second. ‘About thirty, I think. Me mam says they were born the year the queen died.’
So Sam Bell, the father of these two, must be at least fifty. She was going to the altar to fasten herself to an old man. No wonder Da had been grinning like a clown these past weeks. Several times, Bridie had caught him smiling secretly to himself. She took a deep breath, tried to wipe from her mind those pictures of home. Mammy’s sewing basket sitting in the hearth, peat glowing beneath a hanging kettle, soft snow clinging to a window-sill. Her mother’s home was Da’s house now. She would not go back, could never go back.
‘Are you ready, then, missus?’
Bridie stared hard at Nicky Costigan, thought she saw something akin to mockery in those pale grey-blue eyes. Could a girl of this age see straight into the soul of a grown woman? Surely not.
‘You’d better go and see Mrs Bell first,’ advised Nicky, pausing for a few seconds when she saw Bridie’s confusion. Had this bride been told about the old woman? ‘She’s Mr Bell’s mam and she lives in the back bedroom.’
Bridie’s left hand climbed of its own accord to her throat.
‘She’s in bed. She’s always in bed. Mr Bell’s had to pay to get her looked after. I suppose you’ll be doing it now.’
Bridget O’Brien swallowed bile and temper. She would not go upstairs. She would not do anything that might persuade her to run back to Galway in the company of Thomas Murphy. ‘Time enough for me to meet Mrs Bell later,’ she told the girl. ‘After all, we must not keep the gentlemen waiting.’
The children followed their mother through the shop. Cathy stared at the strange young man behind the counter. He had a large head, a twisted arm and very strange eyes.
‘That’s our Charlie,’ volunteered Nicky. ‘He’s a cripple, but a clever one. Aren’t you a clever boy, Charlie?’
Bridie shuddered. The mischievous young woman might have been talking to a colourful member of the feathered kingdom. ‘Hello, Charlie,’ said Bridie. ‘I’m pleased to meet you.’
Charlie’s mouth spread itself into a huge grin.
‘He likes you,’ pronounced Nicky. ‘Well, you must be all right, ’cos our Charlie only smiles at nice people.’ She rubbed a hand on her apron and touched Bridie’s shoulder. ‘I hope you’ll be happy, missus,’ she mumbled. ‘And our Charlie hopes so too.’
Bridie strode forth into the din of Scotland Road with a child on each side of her and a lead weight in her heart. Da was outside the shop talking to a man in a black coat. ‘Here she comes,’ shouted Thomas Murphy. ‘Bridie, come away now and meet your stepson.’
The man turned and looked at his father’s bride-to-be. Such a little thing, she was, no more than five feet two, blonde and quite beautiful. His heart leapt about in his chest, because he understood what it was to lose someone who was meant to be a partner for life. This girl had lost a husband, while Anthony had been deprived suddenly, cruelly, of the woman he had loved. And Bridie was so young, so lovely. ‘I’m Anthony,’ he told her. Could he go into that church? Could he? There was fear in her face. Yes, he must attend the wedding. His stepmother-to-be would be needing friends, he felt sure.
She could scarcely meet his gaze. What on earth must he think of her? Here she was, a usurper from another country trying to fill his mother’s shoes. Perhaps this young man thought she was after Sam Bell’s money. ‘I’m Bridget – usually Bridie.’ In, out, said her inner voice. Just breathe slowly, don’t panic, don’t let the fear spill out into the street.
Thomas Murphy cleared his throat. ‘Anthony’s brother will officiate at the wedding.’
Bridie gave her father a brilliant smile. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it great to have a priest in the family?’
An expression of shock and disappointment paid a brief visit to Thomas Murphy’s face. She ought to have been perplexed, should have been unhappy to realize that her husband-to-be had a grown-up family. But she was so cool, as if she had known all along that Sam Bell was middle-aged. ‘Right,’ he mumbled. ‘Off we go, then.’
Bridie took her father’s arm, suppressed a shudder that tried to invade her body. This wedding would be done properly, right down to the last tiny detail. Fiercely, she clung to the words she had read some weeks earlier. Only once had Sam Bell communicated with his intended bride. ‘I will not trouble you much except to have you help in the business . . .’ He had made no mention of a bedridden mother and twin sons of thirty years.
For a split second, she lent the false smile to Anthony. ‘Would you bring the children, please?’ she asked the young man.
Anthony took the hands of Cathy and Shauna. ‘Off we go,’ he told them, ‘into the prettiest church in Liverpool.’