Which – unbelievably! – was the response she eventually made, her voice delightedly quivering and her legs turning to jelly as she trembled beneath the taller girl who, vigorously drying her hair, fixed her with her by now familiar piercing gaze and demanded to know: ‘Well! And how are you feeling this morning, you tasty thing, you?’
‘Fine, Diggsy,’ came the weak-willed answer, the only one Noreen felt capable of giving. The older (Stephanie was approaching twenty) nurse’s reply was harsh and immediate. ‘Fine? Fine! Is that all you can say?’
Noreen reddened deeply and looked away. She wished the cheaply carpeted floor of the pungently odorous room would open up and swallow her.
A thin smile undulated across Stephanie Diggs’ lips, accompanied by the tiniest of chortles.
‘So! Going all coy now, are we? So that’s the game, is it, Tiernan! Let’s face it, honey! You loved it! Couldn’t get enough, could you? Ha ha!’
Noreen felt as if her cheeks were about to sprout flame. Then, suddenly, her heart leaped. The older girl was coming towards her! She felt her chin gripped by hard, tobacco-stained fingers (Stephanie thought nothing of going through three packs a day) as she heard the words:
‘You did, didn’t you, chicken? Tell me! I want you to tell me! I want to hear you say it!’
‘I loved it, Stef!’ Noreen was astonished to hear herself cry, her swivelling eyeballs the size of the brass knobs on the bedstead.
‘Damn right!’ leered Diggsy, her hand moving slowly towards the nylon-clad uplands of Noreen’s bottom. ‘Now – get out there and make me my breakfast!’
In that instant, Noreen Tiernan’s mind whirled and a thousand questions went racing through her mind: What had happened? How could she have allowed herself to be drugged? The word breakfast seemed to appear before her in giant Day-Glo letters, followed closely by neonscape video logos that read: ‘Breakfast! Breakfast!’ Why had she left Barntrosna, she asked herself over and over again, Barntrosna where resided Pobs, her beautiful kind and gentle lover? Left it all to find herself trapped in this hellhole with this . . . this . . .
Tears rolled down her cheeks like twin rivers.
*
At the end of the bed Stephanie lit a cigarette. Noreen became aware that she was glaring at her in the most hostile manner. ‘Are you going to sit there all day, huh? Huh, cherry?’ she barked suddenly. ‘Are you? Get up off your country ass and fix that breakfast!’
The cruel words bit deep into Noreen as she dropped her eyes and staggered shamefully to the kitchenette in a half-daze.
*
Of course, in the days that followed, to Noreen’s fellow students everything proceeded as normal, and if you had taken any of them aside and said: ‘Do you realize Noreen Tiernan is embroiled in a perversely impassioned love affair with Stephanie Diggs of B wing?’, they would have had no compunction about telling you you were out of your mind. All except perhaps for sister superior, Tank, who had harboured suspicions all along but had never at any time been in possession of the slightest shred of evidence with which to back them up. After all, what was out of the ordinary about two young girls dressing up and going out on a Friday night to enjoy some well-earned relaxation? Nothing in the slightest except that, of course, in this case, the discotheque in question was called Madame Pork’s and was located in a dimly lit basement in Soho, not to mention almost exclusively patronized by women who were attracted to members of their own sex. Not only that, indeed, but were particularly attracted to the idea of using physical violence on them and bossing them around if they didn’t do what they were told. One wonders what the staff nurses who maternally folded their arms and remarked good-naturedly, ‘There’s the girls – off to enjoy themselves again!’ whenever they saw Noreen and Stephanie leaving by the front gates might have made of that, not to mention such little details as the intricacy of the chain-link harness that Stephanie had of late begun to insist that Noreen wear beneath her clothes – even when she was at work! ‘But I can’t wear those!’ Noreen had initially protested. ‘They stick into me, Stef!’
‘Shut up, Tiernan!’ had been the terse response. ‘You’ll wear it and like it!’
‘At least let me take it off when I’m on the ward!’ Noreen had begged.
But Stephanie Diggs had allowed her no quarter.
‘If you don’t do what I say, I’ll finish with you!’ had been her cold-hearted, uncompromising stricture.
There were times now when Noreen began to feel so despondent that it might in fact be more accurate to say that she was consumed by despair. More than once the taking of her own life had seemed an inviting option. But then, oddly, and for no apparent reason whatsoever, her spirits would lift quite unexpectedly and she would find herself looking forward to Stephanie’s return from the wards – becoming somewhat light-headed and girlish at the prospect, in fact! – as she sat there waiting for the moment when she would be called upon to fall to the floor and remove her room mate’s white shoes, at all times referring to her as ‘Miss’. If she did not comply with this latter instruction (a recent innovation) she received a firm smack, along with a curt denunciation along the lines of: ‘Maybe that might put manners on you, you cheeky little strap, you!’
Who can say what tenebrous arteries one might find winding their way in those mysterious caverns that lurk beneath that cheerfully oblivious main highway that is life? Surely anyone in their right mind would have gone straight to the hospital authorities – if not the police indeed! – and firmly made their case by insisting: ‘This has gone far enough! I refuse to be manhandled and abused in this manner any longer!’
Even have gone so far, perhaps, as to cry aloud: ‘This is harassment!’ and who knows, receive some compensation from the college as a result.
In the labyrinthine core of her being, somewhere, there most definitely was a part of Noreen Tiernan that dearly longed to take this course of action. But it was not to be. And for that – perplexing as it might be for those of us who do not fully comprehend the intricate workings of the human soul in extremis! – there was but one reason and one reason alone – Noreen Tiernan was fabulously, hopelessly, in love. For, for every pert smack and ‘Damn you, Tiernan!’ that she received (not to mention any number of ‘Look at you, you lazy little slut’s), there was forever burning within her the tiny flame of hope that once again would be repeated another of those special, tender moments when Stephanie would take her in her arms – quite out of the blue on some occasions! – stroke her hair and whisper mischievously into her ear: ‘Who’s my favourite little nurse?’ Which would, when it happened, miraculously transform those prickly moments which had become part of their lives into so many heart-lifting soap bubbles blown away for ever by a light and airy breeze.
And so life proceeded. Bedpans and thermometers all week, Madame Pork’s each Friday without fail and a great big breakfast in bed for Stephanie every Saturday morning. To us, odd, without a doubt, but nonetheless it still cannot be denied that the growing relationship between Noreen and Stephanie had already begun to work better than did those of many what we prefer to call ‘normal’ people. Such, in fact, was the bond that had formed between them that Noreen would often buy little presents for her lover and, along with small perfumed flower-bordered notes, leave them where she knew they would be discovered. True, there were still occasional difficulties between them – Noreen was, even yet, prone to sobbing fits, just as Stephanie was to hysterical outbursts of rage, during which she would assault Noreen long and hard with her fists, calling her all sorts of names, including ‘Bog-face!’ and ‘Bucket feet!’, which stung her – unsurprisingly – right to the very core of her being. Incredible as it may seem, the older nurse had on one occasion stooped so low as to rasp, ‘Lappy lugs,’ causing Noreen to erupt once more in floods of tears.
It seems incomprehensible that such a liaison ought to have prospered in the slightest. But prosper it did, albeit in its own idiosyncratic oblique fashion – the bond that, despite everything, they
had managed to fashion between them strengthening with every day that passed.
Many of which had already sped by, at a furious rate of knots indeed, and before she knew it Noreen had been almost thirteen months in St Bartholomew’s General Hospital, Chiswick. Which absolutely amazed her, for never before had she known time to pass with such rapidity, as she remarked to Stephanie on one occasion when they were preparing for a wild night in Madame Pork’s. ‘God, Stef,’ (she employed the affectionate diminutive at all times now), she sighed, adjusting the links of her harness beneath her armpit, ‘I really don’t know where the time has gone! To think that it’s really a whole year and a month since I came to St Barty’s.’
For the unassailable truth was that – bewildering as it might seem – after exactly thirteen months since that day when she had waved goodbye to all her friends at Barntrosna Station, Noreen Tiernan had never been happier. There was even talk, it soon emerged, of her winning the much-coveted Nurse of the Year prize! No doubt how this will come as a great surprise to the average reader. But the explanation for it all really is quite simple. Stephanie Diggs had completely and utterly swept the young girl off her feet – and where, once upon a time, Noreen might have shyly retreated from her advances with mild protests such as ‘Oh no! I don’t want to do that!’ or ‘What? Put that in there? You can’t be serious!’ she now yelped: ‘Yes!’ and ‘Oh but yes!’ and was so exultant as a consequence that the quality of her work on the wards was regarded as second to none.
Events, however, were to take a more puzzling turn when, some months on, it was Stephanie who began to make the mild protests, trying to fabricate an excuse every time that ‘look’ came into Noreen’s eye or she licked her lips lasciviously as she said: ‘Are you by any chance playing hard to get, Steffy Diggs? I hope honeybuns is not playing hard to get now, is she?’
Whereupon the two of them would launch into it once more – ‘hammer and tongs’ – with blouse buttons flying, pinging musically against the rims of mirrors and oval-framed snapshots of Noreen’s home town.
The casual mention of which brings us back to that tranquil corner of the earth, which Noreen Tiernan had for so long called home, prior to her fatal departure for foreign shores and the hospital called St Bartholomew’s.
Now there are some uncharitable folk who, if you were to enquire of them as to their opinion of this particular piece of God’s little acre, might shock you with the cold-blooded, insensitive nature of their replies. Which might possibly be something along the lines of: ‘Barntrosna? Don’t talk to me about that dump! A one-horse town and the horse has croaked it!’ or, ‘Barntrosna? If God put a more godforsaken outdoor lunatic asylum on this earth when He was going about His business making it, then I am afraid nobody has ever bothered to tell me about it!’
A view with which Pobs McCue would no doubt concur, having for the first three months after Noreen’s departure and the gradually discontinued missives managed to put a brave face on it, cheerily quipping, ‘Ah, sure, she’s too busy to be writing. Them auld exams they give them at the nursing – they’re fierce hard!’ and continuing to do so until he could bear it no longer, one night in the Bridge Bar bursting out, wild-eyed: ‘What are youse all looking at me for! Do youse think I care if she wrote no letter to me? I can get any amount of women! Any amount, youse fuckers, youse!’
Some people took a dim view of his behaviour on this occasion and remarked that it might be a good idea if Pobs McCue learned some manners for himself. But there were others present who not only empathized with him but understood his anxieties at a very profound level.
*
One of these was Eustace De Vere-Bingham, a quiet and reserved good-natured man who had devoted his entire life to the study of exotic flora and fauna, whiling away his daily hours in the study of De Vere-Bingham Hall, a magnificently constructed Palladian edifice on the edge of Barntrosna, when he wasn’t cruising merrily up and down the country lanes in his cherry-red bubble car, while all the country folk appeared at the doors of their cottages crying hoarsely: ‘Look! It’s the Protestant in his motor car!’
Eustace had come to know Noreen quite well over the years – she had been something of a ‘little Catholic pet’ in the De Vere-Bingham mansion, his mother often observing: ‘The little face of her! Charming soul!’ when she appeared at the back door in her wellington boots, sucking her fingers – and was troubled and deeply puzzled by the fact that no one had heard anything from her, particularly Pobs, who was a long-standing drinking partner of his. As he sat in the lounge of the Bridge nursing his gin and tonic, the sheer enormity of the situation suddenly seemed to hit him. The skin beneath his signet ring paled as his fingers closed around the glass and the erratic canals along his brow straightened themselves with lightning precision. ‘Something has to be done – must be done! Otherwise Pobs shall go off his head! I’m sure of it!’ were the words he murmured to himself as he fixed his gaze on the yellowing calendar in front of him. He resolved at once to call on Noreen’s mother the following day and, as he unlocked his car door and adjusted his Harris tweed plus-fours, through gritted teeth, continued: ‘And find out, once and for all, just what the hell is going on!’
But, as Eustace was soon to discover, to his deepening consternation, Mrs Tiernan knew almost as little about the situation as himself. Was practically beside herself with worry, in fact.
*
Perhaps one of the most curious and fascinating aspects of village life as it is lived in Ireland is its seemingly uncomplicated ‘code of behaviour’; the inhabitants of any village are, at any time, assumed to live simple, dutiful, perhaps even predictable lives, with clearly defined social and moral parameters. Expectations are generally low, with people going about their business much as their antecedents did hundreds of years before. So established are the rhythmic patterns of behaviour in such places that any radical departures from them are considered to be quite unthinkable. But how close is this to the truth, or is it but a chimera – behind the innocent façade lurking a reality as shocking as any seething mass of serpents uncovered by two arms sunk deep in a barrel of seemingly fragrant, beguiling pot-pourri? In Barntrosna’s case, as later events would soon reveal, this was indeed the sad and challenging actuality.
*
At this stage in our narrative, it is important that we return to Noreen’s mother, who by now was at her wits’ end. Endless communications to her daughter had produced nothing. Fevered night dreams in which Noreen was brutally assaulted, dumped over cliffs and leered at by Bill Sykes-featured assailants had by now become commonplace. For the first time in her life, Mrs Tiernan found herself helpless. She would sit alone in the gloom of the stone-flagged kitchen, biting her nails and thinking over the many tribulations and small crises she had overcome during the course of her life: the death of her dear husband; the time her sister (Ellie) had the sciatica; the eighteen hours she had spent in the labour ward with Noreen; all were as nothing compared to this. Perhaps if Noreen had even been a tad unreliable in her habits, Mrs Tiernan might have understood. But this was not the case. The words of Mrs Donnelly came racing into her mind, those very words she had uttered thirteen months before on being informed that Noreen had been offered a nursing position in London: ‘Don’t let her go, Mrs! If you let her go near it, you’ll regret it until your dying day! Listen to me now for the love of God! Tramps, whoremasters, madmen, the whole lot of them! Every low form of life that God put on this earth is to be found there – waiting for the likes of you and me! Waiting for her – Noreen! Your daughter!’
She wondered now, had Mrs Donnelly been right all along? No! She couldn’t be! There was some other rational explanation! All she had to do was wait a few more days and a reply would most definitely arrive, explaining everything.
But no letter ever came. It was only after meeting Pobs, whom she encountered outside the butcher’s shop in tears, that she decided once and for all it was time to act. ‘What are we going to do?’ cried Pobs as he pulled at her
coat. Mrs Tiernan sighed and her eyes too moistened. She could not bear to look upon him suffering so. ‘There, there,’ she said and handed him a rolled-up Kleenex tissue she had in her handbag. Perhaps if Eustace De Vere-Bingham had not been on his way home from the Bridge Bar at that moment events might never have acquired the momentum that they did. For when he perceived the advanced state of Pobs’s despair, he was truly incensed. ‘Dear God,’ he cried, ‘nobody should have to endure such pain! It is an obscenity!’
‘I’m at my wits’ end, Eustace,’ Mrs Tiernan blurted out, ‘and that’s the truth! In all the time that she’s been away, not so much as a card or a letter or a phone call!’
*
Now, the idea of Mrs Tiernan becoming an ‘investigator’ leading a party of self-styled ‘fact-finders’ to the great city of London in order to ascertain what has happened to a missing daughter is in itself inherently ridiculous. Of course it is! One can’t but be aware of that! For whatever about well-bred, tweed-skirted post-war English ladies becoming world-renowned sleuths, Mrs Tiernan knew she was no Miss Marple! Had never – ever! – at any time in her life entertained such extravagant notions about herself! She knew better, for heaven’s sake. She was a simple, God-fearing woman of humble origins and if she decided to take this burden upon herself, it was for one reason and one reason alone – to locate the daughter she dearly loved. Selfish ambition had nothing to do with it!
No, Mrs Tiernan was not and most definitely did not see herself as an investigator in the Kojak or Columbo mould, or indeed any other representation of the profession as might be encountered daily on the television or in the pages of cheap pulp thrillers.
No, she was just an ordinary woman doing a mother’s duty.
Something, as she often remarked many months later when it was all over, she could never have done – not in a million years – without the help of her friends and fellow villagers. Chief among them being Pobs, Eustace De Vere-Bingham and, of course, Fr Luke.