"By the time I realised it was happening, it was already too late. I think I'm in love with him."
Assumpta looked thoughtfully at her friend, and then turned to gaze over the hills. "Are you sure he isn't just the grass on the other side of the fence?" she asked.
"At first I thought that, but…It's more than that. And it doesn't make any difference to my problems with Ambrose, either – it's not like I'm dissatisfied with Ambrose because I fell in love with Sean - I'm not, I was already dissatisfied with him. Our relationship broke down a long time ago, and he took his time realising that but I think he's figuring it out now."
"I'm so sorry, Niamh. I had no idea."
"Well yeah, how could you, you weren't here, and I wasn't talking about it to anyone."
"You could've rung me."
"I didn't have the time."
"Why?"
"Because I was running a pub and bringing up a child and waiting hand and foot on a husband -"
"Oh shit, it is my fault."
"What?"
"I know how much work that pub is, I shouldn't have left you with -"
"No, no, it wasn't that, it was…I really enjoyed running the pub - finally I was financially independent and I was doing my own thing, and Ambrose never wanted that."
"What do you mean?"
"He didn't want me to do it in the first place! He tried to talk me out of it!"
"Well if you working too much has driven you apart -"
"No, no. No, I wanted to work too much. I think I wanted to get away from him. Have time to myself. And then one day I realised that that's all we did, that we never spent any time with each other and we didn't even talk anymore."
"Do you think you can get that back?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think you can try?"
Niamh swallowed.
"Or do you want to leave Ambrose for Sean?"
"I don't know about Sean. I don't even know how he feels about me."
"Do you know how you feel about him?"
Niamh began to cry. "I don't know. I don't know what to do."
Assumpta hugged her and rubbed her back. "What do you want to do?"
"Well in reality I'm only dreaming, aren't I, I mean, I'm married to Ambrose and we have a son and…There's Kieran, Assumpta! I wish I didn't feel this way, I wish I felt the way I used to feel about Ambrose."
"Maybe you can get that back."
"But we never had that much anyway - I never looked at him the way you look at Peter, he never looked at me the way Peter looks at you…"
"Don't be silly, you had a lot, you had a wonderful relationship."
"Did we?"
"Yes! Don't you remember?"
"Not really."
"All you have to do is try. It's not too late."
"You think it's not?"
"I think it's not."
...
"Hiya, Michael!"
"Peter! I heard you were back! I'm sorry I couldn't make it down last night, I had a medical emergency."
"You know, that happens astoundingly often for you, Michael!" said Brendan.
"Surprisingly, yes!"
"Is everyone involved OK now?" asked Peter.
"Yes, they'll be fine, thankyou."
"Oh, good."
Kieran, sitting on the end of the bar next to Brendan, finished his raspberry lemonade and gave a burp that was surprisingly loud for one so small. "More?" he said, looking sweetly at Peter.
Brendan began shaking his head madly behind Kieran's back, and mouthing the word, "No!"
"Do you like orange juice, Kieran?" asked Michael. "I was just going to have some orange juice, would you like to join me?"
"OK," said Kieran, and Peter served both he and Michael with a glass of juice.
The door opened and in walked two priests.
"Father Mac! Father Aiden! How are you?" said Peter jovially.
"Well thankyou, and how is married life treating you?" Father Mac replied.
"Very well, thankyou Father!" Peter grinned.
Father Aiden looked a little uncomfortable, but nowhere near as uncomfortable as he looked when the door opened again and in walked Assumpta, followed by Niamh.
Assumpta merely glanced at the two priests and quickly pushed past them, heading for the kitchen.
"How are you, Assumpta?" said Father Mac. "How nice to see you."
"I'm good thanks, Father," said Assumpta, disappearing into the kitchen. She didn't even acknowledge Father Aiden.
"I told you, Father," said Father Aiden quietly, keeping one eye on the kitchen like a frightened rabbit. "She hates me."
"Not you, Father. It's got nothing to do with you personally. Why must you be so self-righteous as to think it has something to do with you personally!"
At the other end of the bar, everyone was distracted by the fact that Kieran had just spilled orange juice everywhere. Niamh was apologising profusely to Peter, and to Brendan, whose shirt had suffered a direct hit.
"I'm so sorry, thanks for looking after him, Peter – come on now, Kieran, are you hungry? Auntie Assumpta said she's going to give us some lunch. Come on, hop down from there."
"Unkoo Peter gave me a transformer!" said Kieran.
"Did he? Did you say thankyou? Did you?"
"Yes."
"Thankyou, Peter. Do you want to play with your transformer after lunch, Kieran? You can watch your Transformers video and play with your transformer!"
"Yeah yeah yeah!"
They disappeared into the kitchen.
...
"So what should I do?"
Assumpta looked thoughtfully at her plate of shepherd's pie. "I guess I'm not really the one to ask, I've never been in that situation, but…Surely you just need to have some time to yourselves, why don't you go out to dinner or something? We could look after Kieran. Or you could have dinner at home, that'd be closer to the bedroom…"
"The bedroom?"
"How long has it been?"
Niamh shook her head. "Don't ask."
"Don't worry, it can't possibly be as long as my dry spell was!"
"Well, even if we did do that, there's no guarantee that it'd be any good."
Assumpta's eyebrows rose. "Oh."
"He's a sweet man, Ambrose, but he's just so boring. In every way."
"I could get Peter to have a talk to him."
"Peter?"
"Yeah!"
"About…?"
"Yes!"
Niamh was visibly surprised. "Peter's good?"
Assumpta met her gaze. "Oh yes. Well, I told him what to do, I mean…and he figured other things out. I mean, a man who has been so recently instructed by a woman, could be well placed – or I could talk to Ambrose directly, but I'd rather shoot myself in the head."
Niamh managed a giggle. "Do you think that would help? I mean, if we…"
"Definitely. Definitely."
They continued to eat in silence.
...
"Whiskey please, Niamh," said Brian distractedly as he walked into Fitzgerald's, staring at Donal, who was sitting at the bar reading what looked like a large picture book.
Assumpta, the only person who was standing behind the bar, grunted in surprise.
Brian looked around. "Oh, Assumpta! Sorry, force of habit. You're not Niamh!"
"No, I'm not!"
"Well how are you, then? Do you like what we've done to the place?"
"Err, if you mean the paintwork upstairs, we've had this conversation, Brian. You seemed very keen that I should know who paid for it."
"Yes, and I shall also pay you for a whiskey, should you get me one."
Niamh came out of the kitchen carrying a bowl of soup, which she placed in front of Brendan.
"Ah good, you are here, Niamh!" said Brian. His expression became serious. "How are you?" he asked.
"I'm fine," said Niamh, with a slight hint of a smile.
...
Assumpta was leaning back on the couch, her eyes closed. A manchester ad was blaring out of the television. "Is he really asleep now?" she grunted as Peter came back into the room.
"I think so," he replied, sitting down and putting his arm around her.
"I dunno why I called Orla in tonight, it's not as if we can spend any time together with a screaming child in the house!"
"He's fine, he's just missing his mummy, that's all."
"I hope his mummy is having a good time." Assumpta snuggled into Peter's shoulder, picked up the VCR remote and hit "play". "Did you have a good talk to Ambrose?"
"Well, err…"
She hit "stop" again. "Did you say what I told you to say?"
"Not…in so many words."
"Peter!"
"I tried, honestly, but that's just so awkward, you can't talk to a man like that, especially not one who's been married three years longer than you have!"
"Yes, but Niamh needed you to talk to him!"
"Oh, I'm sure they'll be fine. I told him the other stuff, that she was feeling disconnected from him and lonely and…"
"Well, I hope that helps, or else you're gonna be…in trouble."
"In trouble, eh? That sounds like fun."
"Shut up."
...
Niamh was standing at the kitchen sink, staring blankly out the window. The sink was full of washing up water, but Niamh wasn't touching the dishes.
There was a knock at the door. Ambrose's cheerful voice floated down the stairs. "Good morning, Assumpta, thankyou so much – for everything."
"Good night, then?"
"Really good."
"Daddy, Daddy, Unkoo Peter told me a story about a transformer that was in Ballyk, and it was in the sky and it came down, and it was walking along the street, and it was really big, it was big as the houses!"
"Oh really?" said Ambrose, taking his son onto his hip and going down the stairs, gesturing for Assumpta to follow. "Was it a good transformer?"
"Yeah, but the bad transformer was bigger, it was big as Figeral's!"
"It was as big as Fitzgerald's? Did the good transformer beat the bad transformer?"
"Yes, and you helped! Mummy!" Kieran's volume rose when he saw Niamh, who turned away from the sink. Assumpta's stomach dropped when she saw her face.
"I missed you Mummy! Did you know Daddy helped beat the bad transformer?"
"I missed you too, darling." Niamh swept the little boy into her arms and buried her face in his hair.
"I'm off to work, love," said Ambrose, coming over to kiss her. Her eyes wide, she turned away from him at the last minute so that he had to plant the kiss on her cheek instead of her mouth. "I love you," he whispered, and walked away grinning. "Thanks, Assumpta!" he called as he bounded up the stairs.
They heard the front door open and shut, and Assumpta looked at Niamh. "Not good?"
Niamh shook her head. "No." She took a breath. "Kieran, would you like to go and watch a video, sweetheart? Grandad brought you some new ones yesterday."
"Is there one about transformers?"
"I don't know, let's have a look."
Assumpta quietly made some tea and found some mugs. When Niamh came back in, she was just putting the milk on the table.
Niamh closed the kitchen door and leaned against it. "There was no Transformers. He's got Postman Pat."
"Oh, right. He's at an age where he can like little kid stuff and big kid stuff, is he? Peter spent so long trying to decide on that present. He kept saying, 'I don't want to get something that's too young for him!' but then he was worried that transformers were too violent. I told him to shut up and stop fussing."
"Well, I think he's onto a winner."
"But that's not what we're here to talk about."
Niamh shrugged. "I'm quite happy to talk about that, it's far less depressing."
"So, he was looking rather happy, so I'm guessing, did you…?"
"Yeah," said Niamh glumly.
Assumpta reflected that she'd never seen anyone look less happy about getting laid. "Dammit, so it's Peter's fault, then – I'm sorry, he said he'd talk to him."
Niamh looked confused. "What? Oh, no, no, I…I don't think that would've made any difference."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't love him any more."
