"I loved her. I mean I really, really loved her, and now she's gone..."
"I know."
"And I'd only just got to know her..." the priest trailed off. His confidante nodded, understanding, and poured him a glass of wine. "She was so beautiful."
"Doesn't seem fair or logical, does it?"
"Kind of thing could shake a man's faith. At the very least make him question..."
Now the publican bit her tongue. She'd never lost a beloved car in such a devastating way, mind; more, she felt she was the absolute last person in Ballykea who should counsel this particular curate on a crisis of faith - in jest or otherwise. Too many conflicts of interest, there. So instead, she made her way round the bar, and took the seat beside him. She raised her glass: "To absent friends."
He raised his own with a sad smile. "And to yours."
She acknowledged this with a sigh and a nod. Truthfully, she'd almost forgotten the party she might have had, in light of the company she was keeping.
They sat a quiet moment, nursing their wine. Assumpta found herself possessed of an unwelcome urge to take his hand. She knew what happened when they touched, and she couldn't let it. She had to keep busy.
"Stay your leisure," she told him. "I'd better see to this mess."
"I can help with that. Might do me some good, get the Javelin off my mind."
"Not fool enough to turn you down." She passed him a damp bar towel.
"See, thing is," he said as he went after a gravy spill, "she was a beautiful car, sure, but she was more than that. She was a vote of confidence." Assumpta met his eyes, prompting him to continue. "She represented my earning someone's trust across a big divide; my getting through to someone I never thought I'd have a chance with."
They looked over their shoulders at one another, recognizing the extra potency of what had been said. He needed to add something that would dilute it. She waited.
"Do you think he'd be disappointed? That he's looking down now, shaking his fist?"
So much for a distraction. She collected a few dirty pint glasses. "I think Judge Bradley would see that it happened in the heat of the moment. That a life was saved. And it wasn't your fault, Peter."
His big green eyes had misted over. This was getting too bittersweet; she had to throw some sarcasm at it, fast.
"Besides, what grown man goes by 'Timmy,' anyway?"
Misfire. He was now openly weeping.
Well, what am I supposed to do now? she wondered. The crime scene that was the dishes would have to wait, that much was clear. He was still clutching the bar towel; she pulled it away from him and, somehow emboldened, took his hand in her own.
"Hey, maybe the Javelin's in Heaven with him, now." Stupid, stupid, stupid. "Sorry, that was..."
"No, no, it's fine. No gospel support for the idea, but I like it."
"Don't be silly. I remember the kind of music you played in that car. 'Ride in the chariot to see my Lord,' and all that?"
He smiled, but his eyes stayed downcast.
The silences were getting too long, and she realised they were still holding hands. She let it go, though it was the last thing she wanted to do.
"Look, Peter, I'm...I'm glad you weren't in the car when it happened." Oh, brilliant. Smack dab on the fence between caring too much and crudely insensitive. You should start a greeting card business, she told herself.
He grimaced. "Trust an Irishwoman to cheer you up after a tragedy."
"Hey! Poured you a drink, didn't I?"
"Your people's answer to everything."
"Took to it well enough for an outsider." She indicated the empty wine glass. "Have another? Whole bottle to get through."
"Thought that was left from dinner?"
"Sure our friends would leave any wine over at Christmas dinner?" She refilled his glass. "Opened this one special for you. Priest perk."
"Never saw you offer Father Mac this kind of perk."
"Nor your parking-challenged seminarian. I play favourites; so sue me."
Again the kernel of truth in the middle of the joke was too big, too hard. She hoped it was his turn to make a smart remark and wash it down.
He was not, evidently, quite up to the task. "Favourites, you say?" His voice was hushed.
Oh, the hell with it. She'd keep pouring him wine; he might never remember. "Let's just say you have a way of earning trust across big divides. Getting through to people you thought you'd never..."
She couldn't do it. She refilled her own glass. Drinking at his speed now, was she? God help her.
"Never have a chance with," he finished.
She couldn't meet his eyes. "That's why you're a good priest," she whispered.
"Kathleen, Eamonn, and Father Mac might say otherwise."
"Sure you know better?"
"Not sure."
She looked up at him, willing him to explain.
"They wrap it up in subtle remarks about what a great curate he'll be someday, about how pleasant his accent is to the ear...but what they don't say, well..."
"What, that you reach out beyond the parish faithful? That you challenge people to make up their own minds? Make waves, push the envelope when doctrine doesn't go far enough to right a wrong? If they can't appreciate that, can't...cherish it, Peter, they're complete fools, and the hell with the lot of them." Was it true courage, or just the wine talking? She pressed on. "I've been telling you that from the beginning, have I not?"
"Don't butter me up with the pearls-before-swine argument, Assumpta."
Mixed metaphors - a sure sign he'd had enough to drink. She slammed down her glass.
"Don't flatter yourself thinking I would, Peter. You think I'm the kind to pass out unearned compliments - to clergy, no less? You think I'd blow sunshine up your arse? What would be in it for me?" Disproportionate? Perhaps. She didn't care. "You can't honestly believe you're unfit to hold a candle to some wet-behind-the-ears MacAnally relative who doesn't even understand the basics of a hand brake? Oh, but he knows how to use a rope! He speaks with a brogue! Only the landlady could possibly see any redeeming value in the curate from Manchester, and what on God's green earth would she know?!"
He said nothing. His eyes were tearing up again, but he was grinning.
"Did anyone ever tell you that when you get cross..." he chuckled and looked into his glass.
"What?!" Her dark eyes blazed, daring him to go on.
"...You take on a glow." He ducked the cracker she aimed at his head.
She did her best to look annoyed, but she was secretly pleased that his spirits had lifted. She marched into the kitchen with the tray of dirty pint glasses. To prove she meant it, she marched back to the bar and retrieved her glass and the wine bottle.
Over the running of the sink, she didn't hear his footsteps after her, or the door swinging open again behind her. By the time she looked up from the tea towel in her hand, he was standing right beside her. Close. Watching.
"Should have said thanks."
"Oh, what for?"
"All you said. About appreciation. About...me."
She shook her head. "Think nothing of it."
"We both know I'm not where I belong, don't we?"
Playing dumb was a last-ditch effort, a Hail Mary. She sighed and averted her eyes. "What, Ireland? Ballykea?"
"The priesthood."
She froze. So much for the Hail Mary.
"You've had a long day, Peter. It doesn't have to mean-"
"I mean it. I'm not where I belong." This time he said it slower, quieter, held her gaze in spite of her. "And you've always known; you never tried to break me, but you knew."
She felt the urge to say something, anything at all, to cover the thumping of her heart. Surely they could hear it all over County Wicklow. "I never tried to break you because you were the best I'd seen, Peter. Thought I made that clear a million times."
It was his turn for silence. She threw back another hearty gulp of wine.
"Hell, Peter, you know how I feel about the Church. I can't tell you if you belong in this vocation or not because I'm not sure they deserve you." She drained the sink and took a deep breath. "But if I were anything close to devout, I'd want your kind at the helm. Maybe that's why I drifted from the flock. Maybe I've always wanted what I couldn't have."
He looked at once devastated and elated. She realised the double meanings were going strong. How much truth serum would it take? She felt restless now. She pushed back into the barroom and he followed. They reclaimed the same seats from earlier.
There are some questions a person can only properly ask another when the two are alone together, when a fireplace is crackling nearby, and when both have a drink in hand. Assumpta realised this might be her best chance. "Look, if you don't belong where you are...where do you belong?"
He took a deep breath, searching the room as if he'd forgotten where he was, before finally meeting her gaze. He leaned in close. "Assumpta, I think I belong with-"
A knock at the pub door interrupted him. He deflated instantly.
