Authors: Patrick McCabe
Which was a trifle optimistic of Fr Luke, and sadly just about as far from the truth as it was possible to get. For not only was Noreen neither fresh nor well-looking, she was just about
recognizable and no more. At least as ‘Noreen Tiernan’.
Once upon a time – it can hardly be denied – the idea of Noreen
swearing
, never mind hissing viciously, ‘Fork it out, wimp! You pathetic little nothing! Every penny
you’ve got – you hear?’ as she held an open razor to the neck of a terrified businessman would have been laughable, and utterly preposterous.
But not now. Most definitely, not now. If Mrs Tiernan, as the minibus cruised evenly along the road to Dublin City to make its way to the Holyhead ferry, had possessed the slightest inclination
of how her daughter’s life had been proceeding of late, she would, quite simply, have had a heart attack on the spot and that would have put paid there and then to the Barntrosna mission of
mercy. There would have been no alternative but to turn the vehicle around and return once more to Barntrosna, despondent and Noreenless. Indeed, in retrospect, it might have been as well if this
had happened.
It didn’t, however, and now onward sped the cheery coachload of close neighbours and clergyman, their minds intent on one thing and one thing alone – to get to the bottom once and
for all of what they in their own minds now saw as ‘The Noreen Tiernan Mystery’.
Which, of course, was no mystery at all, far from it indeed. Certainly not, at any rate, when she opened the door of the room, finding herself the surprised recipient of a visit from the London
Metropolitan Police. From, in particular, a Detective Inspector Dobbs, who claimed to be acting on information received to the effect that she had been connected with the operation of a protection
racket in the Brick Lane district of London’s East End. There can be no doubting Stephanie’s magnificently theatrical performance on that occasion, a staggeringly seamless blend of
innocence and ignorance, aided and abetted by a fast-learning Noreen, who continually interrupted with poignant cries of: ‘But we’re just nurses! Finishing our first year! How could we
possibly be involved with anything like that?’ Interspersing these pleas, of course, with heartrending bursts of weeping. Had it been another policeman, Noreen’s protests that she was
but another innocent girl from a small town in Ireland who had never been in a big city before would probably have worked. But not with Detective Inspector Dobbs. He had seen too much and been
around too long to be fooled by such rustic female wiles. ‘No, sweetheart,’ he declared, inspecting his spotlessly clean fingernails, ‘your girlfriend here’s guilty as hell
and she knows it. Now you can come along with me quietly or you can make it difficult for yourself. So – which is it going to be?’
In the event, Stephanie cooperated with the police. But not without surreptitiously – expertly – passing a packet to Noreen after a visit to the ‘toilet’ as she was led
away. With trembling hands, Noreen opened it to discover that it contained a white powder, accompanied by a hastily written note which read: ‘
Noreen – call to the station and use
this! You hear? Don’t mess it up! See you soon, chicken. Love you!
’
It goes without saying, of course, that the visit of the Metropolitan Police to the private rooms of Noreen and Stephanie had not gone unnoticed, and when she found herself interviewed by both
Tank and the deputy head nurse the irritation she felt as a result of their persistent, needle-sharp interrogations combined to ignite in her an emotional combustion which led to a verbal response
which truly shocked both Tank and her deputy out of their shoes. As it did Noreen, indeed, for she had never spoken to anyone like that in her life! Not to mention the realization, as it was
happening, that she had enjoyed it! ‘Oh shut up, you heifer,’ she continued, ‘what do you know about Stephanie! What Diggsy does is her own business! She doesn’t have to
answer to anyone else and neither do I! So why don’t you take your stupid job and shove it! Shove it where the monkey shoved the nuts, fat arse!’
If there is a point at which the transformation of Noreen Tiernan can be said to have become complete, then this was it. Her swagger as she flung her duffel bag over her shoulder and strode out
the gates of the hospital was not that of a student nurse devoted to the care of the elderly and infirm but of a young, unconscionable girl who, as she would often say later, would smoke ‘all
the drugs’ and consume as much ‘lifted champagne’ as she liked because she didn’t ‘give a facking toss, mate, and you’d better believe it!’
*
The policeman, as luck would have it, on duty in Paddington Police Station that night was PC Derek Ruddings. Beside him, at his right hand, was a steaming cup of tea. The same
tea, as she fixed the befuddled constable with her sensual gaze, thereby distracting his attention, into which Noreen Tiernan now emptied the snow-white contents of her cellophane packet. ‘Oh
Derek – darling!’ she continued as she stroked his cheek with her long green fingernails, proceeding eagerly with this action until the middle-aged man (he and his wife had of late been
having problems – she accused him of being ‘married to his job’ and ‘swimming in the sewers’ and he suspected her of having an affair with Norman Cousins, a bachelor
gardener who lived next door) was eagerly divesting himself of all his clothing.
*
God, how I loathe men now! thought Noreen Tiernan as the policeman panted lasciviously above her, still thinking it as she perceived his eyelids beginning to droop and stroking
his curly head softly and soothingly until he was helplessly asleep on top of her. Extricating herself from beneath his seal-like, law-enforcing bulk, she was taken aback to find an image, however
fleeting, of Pobs, her ‘former’ boyfriend as she now considered him, coming into her mind. ‘Eurgh! What a pig!’ she exclaimed as she retrieved her black patent court shoe
from beneath the slumbering custodian’s right ear and made her way hurriedly past the filing cabinets out into the wailing cacophony of the night streets.
*
Pobs in the minibus dreaming: of a cottage and a little baby. A little Pobs with Noreen’s eyes. For the first time in so long, he felt a twinge of optimism. As the minibus
soared down the M1, at last a smile slid across his face. ‘It
will
be as we planned it!’ he cried aloud. ‘We
will
have a lovely little cottage and a baby with
Noreen’s face and my face and I can work on the farm and Noreen will come home every evening from Barntrosna General Hospital just like she’d never been away.’
These were the dreams of Pobs McCue, whose heart beat wildly as they sped past Joe’s Service Station – making him want to declaim joyfully to the vast stretch of motorway that
unrolled itself across the built-up countryside: ‘It
has
worked out! I knew it would! I knew my Noreen would never deceive me! Damn and blast all who thought otherwise!’
It was unlike Pobs to swear but on this occasion it could be permitted, considering the fact that for over a year he’d had to endure the sly insinuations of so many of his fellow
Barntrosna townspeople. Some of whom made it clear to him in no uncertain fashion that they had their own views as to what was occupying Noreen Tiernan in London and why no communication of any
kind appeared to be forthcoming from ‘that department’ as they coyly termed it. As Parps Henderson, one night in his cups, had bluntly put it: ‘She’s took up with some fancy
man so you may be stirring your tea with your todger from now on, McCue, for Noreen Tiernan’s one chancy Angel of Mercy you won’t be seeing about the streets of Barntrosna
again!’
*
A signpost for Rugby sped past as Pobs chuckled quietly to himself. His shoulders heaved and his teeth chattered. What a lot of stupid-looking fools there were going to be in
his hometown when he motored down the main street of Barntrosna with Noreen at his side sporting her glittering engagement ring. When that day came – and by the looks of things it
wasn’t too far away – they were going to see a very different side of Pobs McCue. For too long he had phlegmatically endured their patronizing comments. How often had he heard them
remark ‘Ah sure Pobs is grand!’ or ‘Pobs is not the worst.’ Well, when he returned with his bride-to-be at his side they’d soon see what he was made of. Parps
Henderson and all the other pass-remarkable doubting Thomases had better look out then!
Let us not forget too that there was another upon that bus who also harboured his private dreams: Fr Luke Doody, who, if he had ever had the courage to admit it, would have shared with anyone
who cared to listen the dark secret that he sometimes found life in Barntrosna dull. Not that he considered his parishioners bereft in terms of social skills and capacity for engaging with life.
The contrary was true, indeed, for there was not one of them he did not love dearly and would have, like Christ, have died for them if needs be; but the endless round of venial sins, baptisms and
predictable liaisons between the boys and girls of the town could often prove wearying, beginning as they did, once again, the cycle of birth and death as it inevitably proceeded. Often, when he
was seated by the roaring log fire that Mrs Corg (his housekeeper of many years) would have prepared for him, he would find himself wondering what life might be like in the great city of London for
a man like him; to minister in a teeming metropolis where it would be commonplace to have wild-eyed fellows with their insides ravaged by Aids and other similar diseases hammering on your door at
midnight begging for forgiveness; to have prostitutes and devil women ringing you up at God knows what time pleading for guidance; to have people losing their religion right left and centre and
then wanting it back again; people who did not know what they wanted; men marrying men; drug addicts who would stab all before them just to get more drugs – how exciting it would be to do
God’s work in such a whirling, white-light vortex! How he envied young Fr Pep, who visited the presbytery each year on his holidays, mesmerizing him with such tales. ‘You wouldn’t
believe it, Father,’ he said once, ‘only last weekend I had three murderers and an embezzler. I’ll tell you, Father, it’s non-stop action in St John’s Wood.’
The moment he had heard these words uttered, Fr Luke was saddened. He felt deep down inside that his life had become routine, as exciting as a wet dishcloth cast disdainfully onto the tiles of a
presbytery floor on some grey November morning. But knew in his heart and soul that putting in for a transfer now would be a simple waste of time. He could just imagine the Bishop’s face.
‘Would you go away out of that, Fr Luke!’ he heard him say, or ‘What in under God has got into you these days at all!’ pulling out the drawer of his big oaken desk to remove
a bottle of C of the B (Cream of the Barley whiskey), and cheerfully exhorting him to ‘Have a wee dram there and put that old nonsense out of your head like a good man!’
Fr Luke sighed. He could understand the Bishop’s reaction – for that, he knew, and always had, was how everyone perceived him – a true pillar of the Church: solid; unbending
before the fickle winds of change; a bollard hammered into the firmest of earth. As the minibus switched lanes, Fr Luke’s eyes brightened when he thought of Fr Pep breezily arriving at
Barntrosna presbytery, clad from head to toe in his summer ‘duds’ of bright-coloured shirt (palm trees swaying against a background of purple, he recalled), sandals and loose cotton
slacks. He might be old fashioned in his way, the minibus-ferried clergyman now amused himself by thinking, but he had been able to tell by the twinkle in the younger man’s eye that he was up
to mischief. ‘Come on!’ Fr Pep had said. ‘Come on, Fr Lukey! I have a surprise for you!’
On foot of this reminiscence, before he knew it, Fr Luke found himself – transcendent power of the imagination! – sitting in the passenger seat of an open-topped Alfa Romeo sports
car and not in a London-bound minibus at all, heading off down another motorway altogether (LA-bound, perhaps! Or San José even! ‘
Do you by chance know the way
?’ he
laughed to himself as he thought of him calling to some passing Mexican or Puerto Rican driver!), lush gay strings sweeping out from the car radio as Fr Pep shouted over them: ‘What do you
think of this little baby, Fr Lukey? Cool, eh?’ And, with his greying hair flying out behind him in the silky Californian breeze, the older clergyman being able to make one and only one
reply: ‘You got it, Fr Pep!’
This was but the stuff of fantasy, however, for the Volkswagen minibus was no sports car, and their mission had little to do with the attainment of spurious American West Coast baubles such as
choice acting parts but with the location of Noreen Tiernan, that and nothing else, apart from her subsequent safe passage home. Neither would there be time, as he now came to realize, and it had
been foolish of him to consider otherwise, for meeting Aids victims, or lending an ear to the most unmentionable, possibly unpardonable sins the human mind could ever begin to conceive of, of
prostitutes and every other manner of amoral deviant. It saddened Fr Luke. Of course it did. He would have gladly given generously of his time to ladies of the night and the problems of men with
donkeys and gas masks. But that was the way it was and there was nothing could be done about it now. Perhaps, he sighed, there would one day come a time when he would be awakened by the sound of
red-eyed, possibly deranged maniacs battering feverishly on the door of his presbytery, crying: ‘Father! Help me! God, please! Help me, Father! Help me! Help me! Help me!’ – but
not on this trip.
*
Eustace De Vere-Bingham, his eyes glittering as he sat at the leopardskin-covered steering-wheel, had his dreams too. For the truth was that, many years before, he had been
engaged to be married to a young girl who had later left him and who was indeed responsible for his eventual return to the family seat of De Vere-Bingham Hall in Barntrosna. And, side by side with
that, there existed an even deeper truth – the fact that Eustace De Vere-Bingham had
no
interest whatsoever in butterflies, and had to be compelled by his brigadier father to direct
his attention towards the field of lepidoptera – ‘I’ll see you do it! You’ll be proficient at something, you fool you!’ the words echoed. He winced at the
reminiscence. For the plain truth was that it would not, in fact, have bothered him in the slightest if local youths had in the dead of night broken into his mansion and put every accursed one of
the powder-winged nonentities to the torch. Eustace De Vere-Bingham held no brief for them (no more than he did for his own ‘family’, many years previously having publicly denounced his
father – in fact, all of his forebears – as ‘idiots’ and ‘know-nothing Lilliputian would-be tyrants in tweeds’ whilst he set off to ‘discover the
world’ and ‘
live
!’).