Holding

by Graham Norton

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for some medical records in connection with a case and wondered if you could help me.’

  ‘Right. Well I should be able to, but it all depends what sort of years you’re looking for. Some of it’s online, then there is the microfiche over there,’ she indicated two large filing cabinets, ‘and for further back it’s in the basement.’

  ‘Well this would be …’ PJ fumbled for his notebook. ‘Is it all right if I sit down?’

  ‘Of course. Please.’ The woman gestured to a squat chair with wooden arms just to the side of her desk.

  ‘Thank you.’ He sat and leafed through the pages covered with notes, muttering to himself, ‘Twenty-nine when he disappeared. He was born in … 1966.’ He addressed the woman directly. ‘I’m looking for 1966. A woman who lived out in Duneen. A Mrs Burke.’ He turned a few pages of his notebook. ‘Patricia Burke.’

  The lady stood. ‘Well, if we have anything, it’ll be in the basement.’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘It’s not a problem.’ She grabbed a large bunch of keys from the windowsill behind her and leaned into the doorway of the adjoining office. ‘I’m just nipping down to records, Trish. Can you get the phones?’

  ‘Yes!’ replied a disembodied woman’s voice.

  PJ followed her back into the corridor and down two flights of stairs. She moved quickly, her leather heels beating out a rapid staccato on the steps. PJ lumbered behind trying to keep pace.

  The records store was larger than he had expected, all four walls covered by shelves laden with box files. The room was split in two by another set of storage units. Fearing he might not fit between the shelves, he waited by the door. He wished he knew the woman’s name, but it was too late for introductions now. She had gone without hesitation to the far right corner and was running a finger along the boxes. Now she stopped and, holding her large glasses, peered closely at the label in front of her.

  ‘If we have her, she’ll be in here.’

  She slid the box from the shelf and dropped it heavily to the floor. After lifting off the lid, she knelt down and began to flick through the individual files. PJ waited awkwardly, faintly embarrassed that this woman was now on her hands and knees doing his bidding. After a few minutes she produced a file from the box with a flourish.

  ‘Got her!’

  ‘Amazing!’ and PJ really was amazed. This case had become a series of dead ends, so to actually find something was a real novelty.

  ‘I can’t let you take it away, but you can make copies upstairs if you need them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the file from her outstretched hand. As he opened it, the woman busied herself putting the box back on the shelf.

  He didn’t know what he was looking for, so he turned to the last few pages in the file. There were various numbers, which he presumed were blood pressure or weight. The writing was indecipherable. At the bottom of the page was a large stamp in red ink. Copies sent, it read.

  ‘What does this mean?’ he asked, holding out the file.

  ‘Let me see.’ She took it and moved to stand directly under one of the bare light bulbs that hung from the ceiling.

  ‘So this just means that the original file was copied. I wonder why?’ She held up the page to get a better look. ‘She was seeing Dr Murphy here, pregnant, but it looks like she transferred to a doctor up in Cork. A Dr Phelan, I think that says, at the Bons on College Road.’

  PJ took out his pen and started to make a note.

  ‘Dr Phelan from the Bon Secours Hospital?’

  ‘Yes, the maternity department.’

  ‘That’s great. Thank you so much for all your help.’ He went to hold out his hand to shake hers but thought better of it. Unfortunately she had noticed and started to hold out her own. The aborted handshake became a strange waist-height wave.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’d better …’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  PJ opened the door and with a final ‘Thanks again’ closed it behind him.

  Back in the corridor outside A&E he found the Ross sisters waiting for him. Abigail had been moved on to a ward. The doctor thought it was most likely kidney stones, so they were going to keep her in to see if she passed them naturally. Failing that, they would have to operate. The women seemed relieved to know it wasn’t anything worse. They smiled at PJ and teased each other about which of them would have to help out in the garden.

  The three of them walked slowly through the hospital, retracing their steps towards the car park. It reminded PJ of being back in school. They left through a side door that was a short cut to where he had left the Garda car. It was the opposite of the scenic route, as they passed the oil tanks and some sort of rubbish compactor.

  Up ahead, at the edge of the milky pebble-dashed wall, a young couple were kissing. She was clearly a nurse, with long dark hair that had fallen free. The man was pushing her against the wall and running his hands up and down her back. As PJ got closer, he noticed that in fact the man wasn’t that young. His hair was receding and there were lines around his eyes. Neither of the lovers seemed to notice the trio as they passed.

  As he got the keys of the car out of his pocket, PJ turned back to look again at the couple kissing. That man. He looked familiar. Who was he? It would come to him in a minute … and then, all at once, it did. He knew exactly who it was pressing that young nurse into the back wall of the Ballytorne Hospital. It was Anthony Riordan.

  8

  The fete had finished hours ago. The cars and crowds were long gone, the abandoned marquees still visible in the gloom as if the rectory garden had been put under dust sheets. The low grey cloud of the afternoon had given way to a clear night sky that glittered with stars. The moon was nearly full and shone so bright and close it looked like it had been sprinkled with sugar. PJ pointed it out to Evelyn and Florence as he drove them down the hill into Duneen.

  He parked outside O’Driscoll’s, where the sisters had left their car. Once the engine was turned off and the car doors opened, the stillness of the night engulfed them. For a moment nobody moved, then Florence said quietly, ‘Thank you so much, Sergeant Collins. You were a life-saver.’ She gave a small laugh. ‘Actually you really were.’ She got out of the car and shut her door.

  Evelyn was still sitting in the passenger seat next to PJ.

  ‘We really do appreciate everything.’ She touched his arm. ‘Thank you.’

  PJ looked down at her pale hand on the dark sleeve of his uniform. When he raised his eyes, Evelyn’s face was coming towards his. A quick kiss on his cheek. He felt it all. The slight stickiness of her now faded lipstick, the smooth skin of her nose against his cheek, the light touch of her hair to the side of his eye. She pulled back and smiled. ‘Goodnight, PJ.’ Quickly she slipped from the car and followed her sister into the night.

  He sat for a moment, not sure of how to react. Perhaps she was just being friendly, or had he been supposed to grab her and shove his tongue into her mouth like that Riordan guy with the nurse? No. Whatever he should have done, that would have been wrong. She was too delicate, too fine for that sort of behaviour. Maybe he should have reached out and stroked her face, or touched her hair? He sighed heavily. Some other man could have done that. Not him.

  Using the steering wheel as leverage, he manoeuvred his way out of the car and stood up. He needed milk and he couldn’t rely on Mrs Meany any more. She really was losing it. Whatever was wrong with her, he hoped she decided to retire before he had to fire her.

  O’Driscoll’s was bright and empty. He nodded to acknow-ledge the girl – why couldn’t he remember her name? – sitting behind the till, and made his way to the chiller cabinets at the back of the shop. He surveyed the bright orange blocks of cheese and plastic envelopes of pale pink ham. No, just milk. If Mrs Meany hadn’t left any dinner, he knew there were eggs and bread. He wouldn’t starve. A litre of milk in his hand, he heade
d back to … Petra! That was it.

  When he got there, a woman was paying for two packets of biscuits. Too late to take evasive action, he realised it was Brid Riordan. She smiled broadly at him, but he suspected she might have taken cover behind the cleaning products and toilet paper aisle if she had seen him first.

  ‘PJ.’

  ‘Brid.’

  ‘Everything all right? Any progress?’ she asked as she held out her hand for change from Petra.

  All PJ could think about was her husband grinding his hips against that young nurse. Should he say something? Surely she had a right to know. He opened his mouth to speak. ‘No. No.’ He paused. ‘How’s Anthony?’

  The words hung in the air and he knew they had been a mistake. What had he been thinking? She stared at him, clearly taken aback. Why was he asking about her husband?

  ‘He’s … fine.’

  ‘And the kids?’ PJ thought that might have made this awkward exchange a little better, but it hadn’t. Brid snatched up her biscuits and stepped back from the till.

  ‘They’re fine too.’ Had she rolled her eyes?

  PJ put the milk on the counter. ‘That’s good. Good.’

  As Brid turned to leave, she gave him a cold stare.

  ‘You have a bit of lipstick on your face, by the way.’

  Like an overweight chameleon in a Garda uniform, his whole face turned the same shade as the phantom red lips on his cheek.

  Back at the barracks it looked as if no one was home, but when he opened the front door he could see a small glow of light coming from the kitchen. Strange. Mrs Meany must have left something on. Her days really were numbered. He walked down the hall and pushed open the kitchen door.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  A small figure was hunched at the table, the only light coming from the small bulb above the hob of the cooker.

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant. It’s only me.’

  ‘Jesus, Mrs Meany, you gave me a terrible fright.’

  ‘Sorry. I was waiting for you. I need to talk to you.’ Her voice was low and serious.

  ‘Right. Of course.’ PJ pulled one of the wooden chairs back from the table and sat down. Whatever she wanted to talk about, he was certain it wasn’t good news. Cancer maybe? Dementia? ‘What is it?’

  Mrs Meany looked up. Even in the half-light from the cooker he could see that she had been crying. ‘I should have told you this before but I … I just couldn’t.’

  ‘All right.’ PJ put his hands on the table and prepared to listen to whatever she had to say.

  Mrs Meany was ready to tell her story.

  She had been christened Elizabeth, but since she was just a few hours old, everybody had called her Lizzie.

  ‘Look at her. Lizzie, our gift from God.’ The Meanys had believed they were not going to be blessed with a child, and Lizzie was nearly taken back several times when she was an infant. She found it hard to keep food down and was small and sickly. Somehow she survived and grew into a diminutive but healthy girl. She was an only child and lived with her parents in a rented two-bedroomed cottage just to the west of the village. Her father was a well digger and his father had been one before him. Her mother did everything else.

  Making friends didn’t come easily to Lizzie, but by the time she was attending the convent in Ballytorne she had two best friends: Fiona and Angela. Fiona was the prettiest of the trio, Angela the dumpy one and Lizzie the runt. The sort of girl whose nostrils were permanently red and raw from the cold she was just getting or the one she was recovering from.

  The three girls sat next to each other in class, ate lunch side by side on a bench under the shelter of the bicycle sheds and shared all their secrets. They combed each other’s hair and made scrapbooks full of pictures of horses. As puberty nudged them towards womanhood, they compared their burgeoning breasts, showed each other the various bras their mothers had bought them and, when the dreaded periods struck, helped each other with their Kotex pads. They were closer than any sisters and promised to be best true friends for ever and ever.

  But that was not to be. Fiona, of course, got a boyfriend. Angela and Lizzie were appalled. He was a tall, skinny boy from the Christian Brothers who, with his pimpled skin and greasy ginger hair, bore no relation to Paul Newman, the previous love of Fiona’s life. The end of their triumvirate came when Fiona called the other two babies and stormed off to join her beloved ‘Ger’ and the other couples in the short alley that ran along the back of the library. Everyone knew people went up there to ‘shift’ each other. Lizzie sneered at the very mention of it, though in reality she had no idea what it meant.

  The sixties were an odd and unsettling time for teenage girls in Ballytorne: magazines and films showed them a world full of long-haired boys with skinny jeans, and rock ’n’ roll was a special sort of music meant just for them, yet there was no sign of either in their town. Of course there was the Stella Ballroom on the other side of Ballytorne, but that was full of old farmers who came down from the hills on their bikes to listen to country and western bands with names like the Haymakers or the Country Cousins. Angela and Lizzie made do with making more scrapbooks but with the pictures of horses now replaced by ones cut from newspapers and magazines of the Beatles and Cliff Richard. Lizzie really liked the look of Cliff. Sometimes she imagined his smooth, pillowy lips were kissing hers.

  It was Angela who discovered Brian Bello and the Diamond Dust showband. Her older sister, Alison, worked in the bank up in Cork and she had seen them in the Majestic one Saturday night. Afterwards she had bought their LP and brought it home to show Angela, who begged to borrow it so she could show it to Lizzie. One look at the picture of Brian on the album sleeve and they were in love. It was a close-up of his face, framed by his dark curls, with his blue eyes staring straight out at you. ‘I wish I had eyelashes like that!’ they squealed, and then Angela pointed at the small tuft of dark chest hair just visible where the button on his white shirt was undone. They took turns kissing his beautiful mouth, then rolled around Lizzie’s bed shrieking with laughter at the silliness of it all. The music was irrelevant, because they knew that no matter what it sounded like, they would love it.

  It was Lizzie who stumbled upon the heart-stoppingly amazing news that Brian Bello along with his Diamond Dust would be performing in the Stella Ballroom. The sight of Brian’s beautiful face looking out at her from a poster in the window of the hotel in Ballytorne had stopped her in her tracks. She had to read all the information at least twice before she understood fully what was going to happen. Brian Bello, the actual flesh-and-blood Brian Bello, was coming to Ballytorne!

  Lizzie ran as fast as she could back to the convent. She found Angela in the toilets getting changed for camogie.

  ‘No! It’s true. Not this Saturday, but the next one!’

  ‘We have to go. We have to!’ They whooped and hugged each other tightly. They were going to breathe the same air as Brian Bello.

  This was easier said than done. They needed tickets, and for that they needed money, plus they had to get out to the Stella Ballroom so would have to organise a lift, and all of this relied on them getting permission from their parents.

  Lizzie’s mother and father were seeing their little girl in a whole new light. She was so excited and enthusiastic, and desperate to do something with her friend Angela. The Brian Bello chap looked like a right queer one, but it was for the youngsters. The tickets were bought as an early sixteenth birthday present and it was arranged that, because Angela lived nearer to Ballytorne, Lizzie would stay with her and they would get a lift there and back with Angela’s father.

  For two weeks the girls were incapable of talking about anything else. Blouses were looked at and rejected, skirts tried on and set aside. Pictures of hairstyles were considered and they giggled at the idea of make-up. It became harder and harder to get to sleep, until on the Friday it was almost impossible.

  When Saturday afternoon finally came, Lizzie arrived at Angela’s ready to meet her idol. She was wearing
a black skirt and a new short-sleeved lemon blouse, and over her shoulders she had a white mohair cardigan that she had borrowed from another girl in her year. At the last minute her mother had relented and lent her a pair of black patent high heels. When Angela’s mother opened the front door, she smiled at the sight of the little woman before her. Her own daughter was wearing a dress she had bought that afternoon. It was a full-skirted navy affair covered in an abstract pattern of red and white triangles. It had been on sale and Angela loved it. Her mother chose not to reveal her suspicions that the low price had something to do with it looking like a cut-up Union Jack flag. Angela’s mother took pity on Lizzie before she left and let her borrow a little bit of red lipstick and a quick spritz from her bottle of Shalimar. Photographs were taken on the big heavy camera that lived in the bottom of the sideboard, and then off they went.

  There was already quite a crowd outside the Stella when they arrived. Angela’s father turned round to address the two girls in the back seat. Lizzie liked the smell of his hair oil.

  ‘Now, young ladies. Here’s a pound each to get you some soft drinks and crisps or whatever. Mind your change. Don’t be talking to any strangers, there’ll be all sorts in there, and I’ll be waiting for you out here from half ten.’

  ‘Ah Dad …’ Angela pleaded.

  ‘Half past ten. I know it’ll still be going on, but there will be lads with drink taken and I don’t want you staying any later. Understood?’

  The girls nodded their heads.

  ‘What would Mr and Mrs Meany say if they thought I wasn’t looking after their precious daughter?’ He smiled widely. ‘Have fun, girls. You both look smashing!’

  Angela and Lizzie grinned with pride and clambered out of the car. They stood and watched their last link to everything they were familiar with drive off.

  Groups of boys in dark suits were standing around smoking. Occasionally a small scuffle broke out or they started jeering at each other. The girls who were already there looked very grown up. They were smoking too and talking earnestly, though intermittently one of them would sneak a glance over to the boys to see if they were looking back at them. They weren’t. Music could be heard coming from inside.