*
It was only a matter of time, of course – such had been the level of murmurings and disquieted exchanges amongst his parishioners – before Fr Luke determined that something was indeed seriously amiss in the locality and why, when he met Pobs on the road some days later, he had this to say to him: ‘Well, Pobs – are you going to let me in on the little secret? Just what is going on around here, eh? It’s something to do with Noreen, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ replied Pobs, lowering his head for a brief moment as the toe of his hobnailed boot described a variety of random shapes on the gravel beneath it, then raising it once more to say: ‘We think she may have been kidnapped.’
‘Kidnapped, you say?’ exclaimed the clergyman as a blue tit on the sycamore directly behind him suddenly took wing, as if in fright.
Pobs nodded gravely.
*
When the full story was revealed to him, Fr Luke was adamant. ‘No! I refuse to stand idly by, Pobs! She is my parishioner, after all!’
Pobs placed the nicotine-stained nail of one thumb under the other and flicked for a moment. ‘Do you understand, Pobs?’ his parish priest demanded, squeezing his shoulder with an enormous weather-beaten hand.
‘Yes,’ Pobs replied softly.
‘Right so! Leave it with me, then, Pobs!’ he heard then and looked up to see Fr Luke already making his way up the hill to the presbytery with his shiny-patched soutane flapping excitedly, expectantly behind him like the wings of a giant bat.
*
Eustace De Vere-Bingham loved butterflies. There wasn’t a butterfly in the world he hadn’t caught at some point. There was nothing surprising about the sight of the only De Vere-Bingham left in the Big House (De Vere-Bingham Hall) chasing across the fields with a butterfly net, in pursuit of some powder-winged beauty wantonly disporting itself about the firmament, with a dazzlingly teasing display of so many figure-eights. Some people disliked Eustace. ‘Him and that fucking bubble car of his,’ they would mumble, ‘he’d sicken your effing arse!’ To see him roaring into the village in the cherry-red conveyance, seemingly under the impression that he was some sort of world-class rally driver, insensitively calling out to garage mechanics and grocery assistants alike, ‘Fill her up like a good fellow!’ and ‘Have you my goodies ready, fine chap?’ had the effect of affronting them as he spurted off in a cloud of foul-smelling smoke to entertain yet another group of ‘friends’ with a salacious selection of his so-called ‘nudie-cuties’. (His latest acquisition being Back Street Jane – The Ben Hur of Big Titty Movies!) ‘Effing bollocks,’ it was often said of him, ‘a good kick in the hole would take care of him and his dirty films!’
But that is not to say that Eustace De Vere-Bingham was entirely without friends. Fr Luke, for one, was his champion, and would not hear a word said against him. ‘What of it, if he collects butterflies? Is that to be considered a crime? Not in the eyes of God, my friends – and you would do well to remember that! Let him who is without sin cast the first stone!’
For, after all, the priest would continue, Eustace was an example, in many ways. To begin with, he was honest. Law-abiding too. When was the last time you heard of him breaking into the Bridge Bar to avail himself of crates of ale and any number of cigarettes? Or threatening to break every window in Barntrosna, and suchlike? Not for him nonsensical late-night political debates outside the Burger Hut, when over some farcical detail an innocent citizen could find him- or herself kicked up and down the length of the main street and every member of their family – despite total lack of involvement – remorselessly insulted.
Which was why, at precisely eight o’clock on the night after Fr Luke had taken his leave of Pobs, a knock came to the once-magnificent oaken door of De Vere-Bingham Hall.
*
‘London, you say?’ repeated Eustace De Vere as he cradled his cut-glass tumbler of French brandy and stared grimly through the south-facing window that looked out upon the row of silver birches his great-grandfather had planted years before. ‘Noreen – whom we adored all the years she spent coming to visit us here in this house!’
‘Yes,’ replied the priest, sipping his tea from a hand-painted china cup, discreetly averting his eyes from the podgy white limbs of the interlocking oriental figures who cavorted beneath its rim with abandon.
Eustace De Vere-Bingham turned to face his visitor. It was clear that he could have been startlingly handsome but for two alarmingly prominent teeth and a recalcitrant corkscrew-shaped wave of sandy-coloured hair. He stood six foot two in his Norfolk jacket and brown shoes.
‘I would not have come to you unless I considered it to be a matter of utmost importance,’ said Fr Luke.
‘I realize that,’ replied Eustace, emptying the contents of his glass with one swift gulp and almost immediately replenishing it.
There was a long pause. Outside a man went running by, pausing only to wave.
‘I see Turbie has escaped from Our Lady of Lourdes Mental Hospital again,’ said Fr Luke, not without a tinge of regret.
Eustace did not reply. He was deep in thought. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked like a gigantic watch, each second passing like a solid blow to the solar plexus. The priest stared at the remainder of his tea. It made the shape of a small brown dog, with a tail and three little legs.
‘Well, Eustace,’ he said then, the sudden movement of his hand demolishing the tiny liquid canine as that of a malign deity might some degenerate city, ‘can I count you in?’
The smile began at the corner of the Protestant landowner’s mouth and, within seconds, was stretched right across the lower half of his face. He raised his right arm and pointed with his index finger, indicating the large flower bed in the southeastern corner of the garden.
‘Do you see those gladioli?’ he said.
The priest nodded.
‘It was Noreen’s father planted them,’ said Eustace, grimly but steadfastly.
‘I can count you in, then?’ cried the clergyman eagerly.
Eustace nodded, uttering only one word as he placed his fastidiously manicured hand on the smiling priest’s shoulder.
That word was: ‘Yes.’
*
The big day came, and Mrs Tiernan’s tummy was a-flutter, principally because she hadn’t been to London since that one and only time with her dear departed husband Oweny James thirty years before. What would it be like, she wondered. Just then, her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden cry of: ‘Don’t think you’ll tell me what to do, De Vere! You’ve been doing that for long enough! You and all belonging to you!’ Instinctively, Noreen’s mother climbed out of the minibus and pleaded with the two men – Eustace De Vere-Bingham and Pobs – who despite never having, up until now, ever so much as exchanged a cross word – they were long-standing drinking partners, for Heaven’s sake! – were already grappling vigorously with one another, a state of affairs perhaps occasioned by the heightened state of nervous tension and anticipation which their imminent journey to the English metropolis engendered within them. Mrs Tiernan had never actually come between two grown men before but she knew that if she did not unequivocally display strength and firmness of purpose her credibility would immediately be undermined and the entire expedition might well be doomed before it had begun. Consequently she drew on all the emotional reserves at her disposal, gritting her teeth and closing her fists as she curtly snapped: ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Pobs! It’s not your bus! And I’m sure that Eustace will be only too delighted to let you drive at some stage of the journey!’
‘I want no favours from the likes of him!’ growled Pobs, righting his hat, which had slipped slightly from his head in the course of the struggle. ‘He’s always had his eyes on Noreen! Pervert!’
‘Rest assured you will receive none,’ retorted Eustace, acidly.
‘Well, all I can say is this is a terrific performance! You two should be proud of yourselves! My daughter over in London – God knows what’s happened to her and all you can think of is having r
idiculous rows about nothing! Really, Pobs! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
If there was a point at which Mrs Tiernan could be said to have made her first mistake, then this was it. For in favouring Eustace in her judgement of the dispute, Mrs Tiernan planted a seed of dissent and resentment which was eventually to grow into an almost impenetrable thicket of raging rebellion and destined to jeopardize the entire operation, not to mention the once-flourishing and mutually cherished relationship between the two men. Sadly, however, she was under the impression that she had dealt admirably with the crisis and was clapping her hands smartly and calling, ‘Everybody hurry up now!’ as Fr Luke reappeared in the doorway of Spud-U-Like, licking his lips. ‘There youse are!’ exclaimed the priest good-humouredly as he climbed aboard the minibus. Within minutes they were all set to go, and as they turned out of the village, Fr Luke summed up everybody’s feelings as he stuck his upraised thumb out the window and cried: ‘Farewell, Barntrosna! Till we see you again – with Noreen Tiernan aboard, looking every bit as fresh and well as the day she left us!’
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 Tier
nan 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.’