Mondo Desperado

by Patrick McCabe

  By the time she was finished, it was all Pobs could do not to remove his large bunched fist from the inside of his pocket and put her through the plate-glass window. Astute as he was, and possessing a deep, instinctive knowledge of the vagaries of his parishioners, Fr Luke laid a steadying hand on his shoulder, followed by a cautionary, firm knitting of the brow and the soft whisper: ‘Easy now, Pobs.’

  ‘This is an outrage! An outrage and nothing less!’ snapped Eustace De Vere-Bingham suddenly as Mrs Tiernan, close now to tears, summoned all the reserves of courage and dignity she had at her disposal and, chokingly, replied: ‘One day you’ll pay for what you’ve said to me here, Nurse. One day you will pay for those bitter uncompromising words! My Noreen might not be a saint but it’s a disturbed and twisted woman who would make up lies the like of that! Maybe we’re not swanky nurses or fancy doctors or government ministers! Maybe we are from stupid old Barntrosna. But we’re still human beings! And I know that when my Noreen left our house she was as happy as the day is long and nothing – nothing! – would have pleased her more than to help old people or read stories to children whose situations are hopeless! And now here you are telling me that’s not true? Where is my Noreen? What have you done with her?’ The tears were pouring from Mrs Tiernan’s eyes now and her voice had shrunk to the size of a marrowfat pea. But this ought not to be taken as an indication that her fury had in any way diminished – for it most certainly had not!

  If you had informed anyone back in Barntrosna of what transpired next, employing perhaps the words: ‘Can you believe it – Mrs Tiernan hitting the sister superior a box?’ you simply wouldn’t have been given any credence. As indeed, why ought you, for up until this moment Mrs Tiernan had never hurt anyone in her life, never mind sisters superior and people in authority. Indeed, nobody was more surprised than the fifty-year-old woman herself when she slowly raised her small, weather-beaten fist and planted it fair and square in the middle of the hirsute nurse’s jaw. The nurse who now, whitefaced, fell back onto a pile of gravel directly behind her with her skirt billowing up around her waist in the manner of a landed parachutist. A trembling Mrs Dolores Tiernan stood over her, tentatively rubbing her bruised knuckles. Pobs McCue leaped forward, his eyes on fire. ‘It’s what you deserve, you heartless thug!’ he tremulously cried, placing a protective arm around the shoulders of his courageous long-time neighbour.

  Eustace De Vere-Bingham, intoxicated by the vehemence of Mrs Tiernan’s response, was then astonished to find himself leaping forward and standing over the perplexed hospital employee, crying: ‘Ha, ha! Die! Yeah – you heard me! You got that, whore? Ha ha! Hee hee! Ha ha!’

  As he often reflected – fearfully, indeed – for many years after, while hypnotized by the beguiling light of the cathode-ray tube, it was the mercy of God that he did not, at that moment, have a machete or screwdriver or ordinary garden tool at his disposal. (The hurt Alicia – and, by extension, the entire race of females – had caused him was still a vibrant, living thing.)

  Even Fr Luke found it difficult to restrain himself. But, undoubtedly, the greatest effect was that which it had on Pobs, who now raced forward and hit the stumbling nurse an almighty kick in the flank, crying belligerently, ‘That’s for Noreen!’ as he retreated, stunned, as though some powerful unnamed drug had, out of nowhere, somehow managed to shoot itself directly into his bloodstream.

  *

  If perhaps they had experienced any success whatsoever in locating Noreen in the early stages of their campaign the psychological adhesive which bound the earnest investigative team together might never have begun to soften and ultimately melt away as it did. They did not, however. And in the to them alien city of London, this was ultimately to prove fatal. For, adrift from the emotional moorings which had inextricably bound them to the beloved town and hinterland of Barntrosna, it was not long before a deep uncertainty began to manifest itself within each individual. And which, as it inevitably must, led to the fractious, confrontational behaviour which became such a feature of the investigative party in the latter days. Perhaps if Fr Luke had not – quite by chance – been approached by an emaciated youth who clutched feverishly at his arm and begged him to hear his confession, the cracks might not have begun to appear – at least with such alacrity – and they could have continued to function for somewhat longer as a happy unit. But appear they did and when Fr Luke, after admittedly quite a tortuous wrestling match with his conscience, announced one night whilst they were all consuming cans of Pepsi around a tar-smelling bonfire that he now considered his duties lay elsewhere, the die was cast. As Pobs realized, his can suspended before his chalk-coloured face, it was truly the beginning of the end.

  The old priest looked sadly at the pale farmer, and lowering his head as if it was an unbearable weight, softly, to the question, ‘Does this mean what I think it means?’ provided the answer: ‘I’m afraid it does, Pobs.’

  Now Pobs McCue had never sworn at a priest before in his life but this was clearly more than he could bear. ‘You mean to tell me,’ he began chokingly, ‘that we have come all this way to look for Noreen and now you’re just going to race off with some fly-by-night drug addicts you met on the street?’

  This choice of words incensed the priest. ‘They are not drug addicts!’ he snapped indignantly.

  ‘Well, go on, then!’ retorted Pobs. ‘Go on! For if that’s the way you feel about it we don’t need your help anyway!’

  Perhaps if they had called him back as he wound his way into the black, smoky London night, he might indeed have returned. Who knows? And who can say that it was not meant to be that way and that after a lifetime of venial sins and hopelessly innocent escapades that could hardly be called sins at all he now had tales told to him in confession about murders and robberies and rapes and what have you, subjects of which heretofore he could only longingly dream.

  One thing was certain – as far as the minibus shuttle of nocturnal investigations was concerned, irreparable damage had been done. Now Mrs Tiernan, overwrought by emotion, was prone to bursting without warning into tears – something which would have been utterly unthinkable before. No matter where they went in London, they began to perceive people laughing at them. ‘What? See her? In a city of ten million people? You’ve just got to be out of your mind, mate! Bladdy ’ell! Takes all kinds, don’t it? Farking missing nurses!’

  Such seemed – indeed were – the responses of myriad petrol-pump attendants and saloon bar keepers.

  *

  Poor Pobs was heartbroken. He had begun to fear now that he would never see his loved one again. As he declared hoarsely one night, having consumed enormous quantities of ale, ‘She could be dead! Murdered! Dumped in a godforsaken bin somewhere!’

  Which, of course, she wasn’t, because right at that very moment she was climbing into a brand-new pair of leather trousers (stolen, of course!), and preparing herself for yet another profitable night on the town, as her soul mate and partner in crime adjusted a brass nose ring and winked at her from the triptych mirror, smiling as she said: ‘You all right, then, Noreen Pussycat?’

  Yes, Noreen Tiernan was all right. No doubt about it! Would that the same could have been said for her mother, who was as far now from a discerning, capable investigator as it was possible to get, perilously close indeed to what might be described as a crushed and broken remnant of an Irish country housewife. After the others had taken their leave of her and vanished somewhere into the bowels of the pulsing city, she would remain alone in the minibus, thinking back on fields full of buttercups through which Noreen would come running towards her in a lovely little print dress, ecstatically crying: ‘Mammy! Mammy! Mammy!’ Her body would shudder then as she sat there thinking of how stupid she had been to come over near this cold and heartless place! How could she ever have believed she would find her daughter in this vertiginous landscape of kaleidoscopic madness? How could she – a poor, simple, round-shaped, unassuming woman – ever have hoped to triumph in an alien culture? People di
d not listen to small curly-haired women in plain, unassuming clothes and furry boots, most of all, consider them – how could they? – detectives. No doubt, had she been a burly, uncompromising man with a half-eaten hamburger or a polystyrene cup things would have been different, had she hurled files and snapped into handsets, threatening to go ‘right up to City Hall!’ if nothing was done. But Mrs Tiernan couldn’t do that. She didn’t even know where City Hall was. No, she now knew (and the realization stung her – she would never make a detective. She would never be anything more than a poor stupid worthless – and now daughter-less – lump of a housewife stuck in the cab of a minibus in a nightscape of no names and broken dreams.

  Or so she thought. And indeed might have been absolutely right and gone on being just that if Pobs McCue, in the Piccadilly area of the city, had not found his way into a certain late-night dancing club (Madame Pork’s!) – a truly extraordinary achievement considering the amount of Tuborg he had consumed over the course of the day – and there encountered one Augustus ‘Gus’ Halpin, celebrated manager of the Barntrosna branch of the First National Bank, emerging from a velvet-draped cubicle, not in his customary sober grey suit, but in a bias-cut burgundy gown that reached right down to his knees! Not only that, but clutching a tortoiseshell cigarette-holder!

  ‘Gus!’ gasped Pobs in astonishment as he fell back against the wall.

  *

  What exactly was happening inside the body of Pobs McCue as he slow-danced now beneath the rotating mirrorball, placing his large freckled hand on the shoulder of the transformed bank manager who was now smiling wryly – and not a little hungrily!? Something which he, for certain, had never before experienced. It was as if every red corpuscle in his bloodstream had received a klaxonlike command to make at once for the immediate vicinity of his cheeks, followed by reinforcements whose responsibility it was to serve the area in the upper back and neck region. With the result that when the smiling, lip-glossed and seriously heavily made-up employee of the Barntrosna branch of the First National Bank turned to flicker her eyelids and coo ‘sweet nothings’, what met her gaze was not a handsome, copper-haired youth but a livid, scarlet-complexioned man in his late twenties who appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown and a heart attack at the same time. And, perhaps in a small way, it did indeed disappoint her. For he was no Tom Cruise, that is for certain, and what girl, politically committed feminist or otherwise, does not harbour a secret desire to be spirited away to the murky fastness of some dark Prince Charming, there to be seriously tackled until the dawn breaks? But there are too other important things in life – things such as love, for example. For how long can such unbridled physical ravaging continue before beginning to pale? Which was why Augusta pushed back the tumbling copper curls, and throwing caution to the winds, flung her arms around his neck and sank her tongue deep into the unsuspecting Pobs McCue’s mouth.

  *

  The concept of ‘clubbing’ was one quite unknown to Pobs McCue, and when Augusta gripped him by the arm and cried excitedly, ‘I know what we’ll do, Pobs, darling! We’ll go to the Ring of Feathers Club! What do you say?’ he simply hadn’t the faintest idea how to respond. And compliantly followed her lead as she cooed: ‘Ooh! What a good idea!’ chuckling tipsily as they fell out into the night, the bank manager hoisting her skirts as she inserted two fingers in between her pink lips and whistled shrilly for a cab.

  What fun they had on the way over! Augusta just could not get over the sheer coincidence of meeting – in London, a city of ten million people, for heaven’s sake! ‘Oh now!’ Pobs repeated – a little nervous still, it has to be admitted, as the bank manager kept squeezing his leg and fluttering her eyelashes at him, ‘sure you wouldn’t think it would happen in a million years!’

  Any more than you would think what happened next would be within the remotest bounds of possibility. Somehow, between the cab and the Ring of Feathers (which was only a matter of twenty yards away), they managed to become separated and just at the point when Augusta was about to call, ‘Wait for me!’ she found herself roughly grabbed from behind and the cold steel of an open razor glinting from the shadows pressed coldly to her neck. ‘Take that!’ cried Stephanie Diggs as she laid the flat of her hand on Augusta’s cheek. ‘See how you like that, honey!’

  The former nurse stood back as the bank manager’s blonde wig fell into the gutter.

  ‘Help me! Help me, Pobs!’ squealed Augusta, cradling his heavily made up face in his hands.

  ‘Oh no! Oh my God! Noreen!’ cried Pobs as the blood began to drain from his cheeks, the woman he loved so much standing staring at him for the first time in what had seemed to him a century!

  ‘Who’s this? Huh?’ demanded Stephanie Diggs as she manhandled him disdainfully. ‘You hear me? Who is this? What’s your name? You deaf?’

  There are some things you simply cannot explain. Actions of men for which no rationale can ever be found. What followed next is such an action. That Pobs’s countenance should pale to the shade of the whitest of flours is to be expected. That he should tremble and stand aghast, also. But that he would suddenly bellow, ‘Don’t fucking push me! Don’t you fucking push me, Hatchet-Face! I’m Pobs! Pobs McCue! And I’m not going to take it any more!’ square his fist and hit Stephanie so forcefully on the chin that she collapsed in a dead faint on the street beside him simply could not have been foreseen.

  Or indeed what transpired next: Noreen bursting into tears, casting the razor from her as if somehow in that instant she had suddenly been awakened from some black induced hypnosis to cry out, ‘Pobs! Oh Pobs!’ peppering his red, meaty face with innumerable kisses, as she wept: ‘Oh, Pobs! How I’ve missed you! Darling, how I’ve missed you!’ her eyes lighting up once more as Pobs and Augusta gave her a little wave of solidarity and she found herself crying: ‘It’s you! Pobs! You’re all here! All my old friends! The old Barntrosna friends I should never have left!’

  *

  Can you even begin to imagine the exultation which swept through Noreen’s mother’s being when she looked up and through bruised and red-rimmed eyes perceived the sight that was before her? ‘It’s happened,’ she repeated wearily, ‘I’ve finally lost my mind!’ It was as if she had indeed done so and been magically spirited away to some glorious Elysian fields where everything would now be as her heart desired it. Except perhaps, without Eustace De Vere-Bingham, who, having spent the entire night in the video shops and basement striptease parlours, had, it would appear, indeed crossed a ‘line’ of some kind, bringing him as far from the Elysian fields as could possibly be imagined. For now he writhed, trouserless, in the back of the minibus, tweaking his private parts and repeating foolishly: ‘So you thought I was gonna give you a ride to Sausalito, did you baby? Seems to me like you went and made a big mistake then, honey! A big mistake, Alicia baby! Ha ha! Ha ha! Hee!’ with tears of hopeless laughter rolling down his face.

  Mrs Tiernan could not contain herself as she flung open the door of the minibus and went racing towards her firstborn.

  ‘Mammy!’ cried Noreen as the two women embraced. Continuing, indeed, until they eventually fell over and landed by the side of the road, just narrowly missing a pile of old fruit abandoned by a wheelie bin that would surely have destroyed their clothes.

  ‘Look at us!’ exclaimed Mrs Tiernan. ‘What’s anyone going to think of us, Noreen!’

  ‘Oh now Mammy!’ giggled her daughter as Pobs began to clap while Augusta cried excitedly: ‘Three cheers for the Tiernans! For no one deserves it more! Hip hip hooray!’

  *

  On the day that Pobs and Noreen were wed, everyone attended and it turned out to be one of the nicest weddings the town had seen in many a long day. Fr Cyril (the new priest) made a great speech. ‘Not too long,’ as everyone agreed, ‘and not too short.’ There was great fun too when the streamer-draped car drove through the streets of Barntrosna with cans tied on and shaving foam jokes written all over the bonnet and the boot. ‘Here is the weather forecast –
warm and close now – a little son later – ha ha!’ read one of them – and did Pobs’s face go red when he saw that!

  But that didn’t matter any more. For, as far as Pobs was concerned, it could go as red as it liked. It could flush away to beat the band, for now he once more possessed the woman he loved. The woman who, for so long, had been lost to him. As he, indeed, had been lost to her.

  And now as the Morris Minor, in its fluttering array of pink and blue, left the main street of the village Noreen Tiernan wondered how she could ever have done what she did. How could she have left the man she had loved, his heart broken in who knew how many places? Left him there to pine for her in dreary, dismal solitude. All of a sudden, she felt dreadful. ‘You’re a hallion, Noreen Tiernan!’ she chided herself silently behind the lace curtain of her veil. ‘A hallion and a haverel to go and do the like of that! How could you do it?’

  But to those questions she had no answers. The only answer came in the form of an ethereal image that drifted almost imperceptibly past the frontiers of her consciousness. That of a leather-clad, nose-ringed she-devil who – even yet! – persisted – from a penumbral abyss within her – with her seductive exhortations! Exhortations to ‘Leave him! Leave the stupid fool! Noreen! Come back to Stef!’

  ‘No!’ shrieked Noreen suddenly, startling Pobs as he spun the wheel and cried: ‘Jesus Mary and Joseph, Noreen, don’t do that! You nearly gave me a heart attack there!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized softly and touched him gently on the freckled forearm. A moistness began to sparkle in his eyes as Noreen moved closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.