There was a knock on the door of the Garda house. Niamh, who had been in a reverie staring out the kitchen window again, turned and went to answer it.
"Only me," said Siobhan, smiling.
"Oh hi, come in," said Niamh, though she didn't really look like she wanted her to.
"We were chasing balloons all afternoon," Siobhan said as they descended the stairs to the kitchen, "and the children fell asleep in the Land Rover, so I thought I'd leave them there until they wake up again."
Not meeting her eye, Niamh nodded. "Best thing to do or they'll be grouchy all evening."
"Did you know your father was up in a balloon?"
"Is he?" said Niamh, not looking as if she'd even heard the question.
Siobhan's smile fell as she asked, "What's up?"
Niamh took a deep breath and turned to look at her. "I think I'm going to leave Ambrose."
Siobhan took a step closer. "You think?"
"I just don't know what to do."
"Well I can't tell you."
"If it was just me…But there's Kieran. And we'd have to leave the village, my dad…everything."
"You can't afford to be stupid, Niamh. Too many people'll get hurt. And most of all, you."
...
The young gard was on his knees at the cliff side, leaning far over it, telling the two trapped tourists where to climb so that they could get away from the fast rising tide. His heart was in his throat.
"Be careful – not that rock! Not there, there's a crack further down, it looks unstable! Try the one on the right, can you reach it?"
Suddenly, Ambrose looked up. He thought he heard something. It came again. "Ambrose!"
Ambrose frowned. "Peter?"
"Ambrose, where are you?"
"Peter! I'm here, Peter, help, there's two people trapped!"
Peter's tall frame appeared on top of the hill. "What?" he asked. This was not what he'd expected to find.
"Can you get my radio? I left it in the car."
"Oh…OK."
"Quickly!"
...
Niamh and Siobhan were sitting at the kitchen table. Normally, Niamh would have made tea, but…well, she had too much on her mind to think of that.
"Have you spoken to Assumpta about this?"
"Yeah, she thinks I should do it."
"She thinks you should do it?"
"Yeah."
"Mother of God." Siobhan stood up abruptly and was through the kitchen door in a flash. She started up the stairs.
"No, Siobhan, no, don't talk to her about it…"
"And why not? She can't be advising you to do things like that!"
"It's my decision, Siobhan - I know that Assumpta's…"
"That she's…"
"That's why I don't want you to talk to her about it because she bit Peter's head off last night when he did. I know that in the scale of advice that I could be given about this, Assumpta's is the most extreme – in fact, in most situations where there's any controversy at all, her advice is bound to be the most extreme."
"So you know that."
"Yes, I know that. And there's no point you talking to her about it anyway because you won't change her mind and she'll only bite your head off."
"Right." Siobhan turned around and came back into the kitchen. "Peter looked like he'd been more than bitten last night – he looked like he'd been burned."
"Yeah…" Niamh looked anxious. "I feel really bad about this, about causing all this trouble for the people who care about me."
"That's OK, that's what we're here for." Siobhan smiled.
There was silence for a moment as Niamh looked at her hands, steeling herself for what she was going to say next. "I think I am going to take Assumpta's advice, though."
...
Walking briskly back up the hill again, Peter frowned at the radio. He couldn't seem to find the "on" switch. He'd tried talking into it before but nothing had happened. There had been no "kchhh" noises or anything. He began to move faster.
Reaching the top of the hill, Peter was horrified to see that Ambrose wasn't where he'd left him. In fact, he couldn't see him at all. "Ambrose!" he yelled.
His heart fluttering madly, Peter waited for a response, but none came. "Ambrose!"
"Yeah?" It came on the breeze from somewhere lower down, closer to the raging sea. Peter ran towards it.
...
A small crowd had gathered on the hill below Knockbeg. The teacher and the two priests were at the front of it, peering at the two balloons which had finally appeared over the next mountain and were now crossing the valley in between. The rainbow-coloured one was in front.
"Aiden, if there isn't a finishing line, how do they cross the finishing line?" asked Brendan.
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
"I'm just asking you a question."
"Look, the finishing post is Knockbeg mountain, and there it is."
"How can you land a balloon on a mountain?"
"Look, Brendan, the finishing post is wherever I, as the official starter, say it is, and I say it's there."
Brendan turned to Father Mac. "Are you gonna allow him to carry on like that?"
"Oh, God give me patience!" groaned Father Mac.
The rainbow-coloured balloon won the race. Brian and Orla nearly drowned, but that's another story.
...
Peter's eyes boggled when he saw where Ambrose was. It could best be described as a small platform, accessed by a kind of narrow ledge covered in small rocks which looked like they weren't attached to anything at all.
"That's right, just one last climb there, then I think you'll be alright!" he was saying.
"Ambrose, what are you doing down there? Be careful!"
Ambrose turned and smiled at Peter. "I think they'll be OK," he said.
"Well that's good, because I can't figure out how to turn your radio on!"
"Oh, it's the knob at the top. Small knob."
Peter looked at the radio again. There was indeed a small knob. He turned it, and the radio crackled into life. "Oh," he said.
"Can you tell them that we need a rescue boat?" said Ambrose, still looking at the tourists.
"You really should get away from there, Ambrose!"
...
The door of the empty pub opened, and Niamh entered, Kieran on her hip.
"Ahhhh!" called the landlady from the kitchen. "At last, a customer!" Appearing in the kitchen doorway, she looked slightly disappointed to see that it was only Niamh.
"Sorry," said Niamh. "But I will buy a beer if it makes you feel better. God knows I need one."
"Where the hell is everybody?"
"Err, Siobhan said something about a balloon race."
"A what?"
...
"Well done, you've done brilliantly! Just stay where you are now, I think you're safe there - my friend here has called for a rescue boat, they'll be along soon! I'm just going to check what's happening with that, OK, and I'll have a look to see if there are any boats in the area that might be able to help."
To Peter's great relief, Ambrose moved away from the cliff edge and stood up. But before he could be safe again, he had to navigate the tiny ledge which led to the platform. The ledge hugged the side of the cliff, and Ambrose had to hold onto that as he moved his feet sideways along it.
Peter waited at the other end, holding his breath. He knelt down and brushed some of the loose rocks away with his hand. When Ambrose got closer to him he held out an arm.
"I'm fine," said Ambrose, still gripping the rock face wherever he could.
"I dunno how you got over there in the first place," said Peter.
"With difficulty."
Finally, Ambrose's body came within reach of Peter's arm, and he settled it across his back, hoping to brace him.
"It's OK, nearly there, I'm fine," Ambrose repeated.
Peter frowned, wrapping his other arm around a boulder on the other side of the cliff face.
Ambrose was mere centimetres from safety when it happened. "OK. All OK," he said, as his left foot reached for the solid land at the end of the ledge. Perhaps he relaxed too soon, perhaps he reached too far, but before either of them knew it Ambrose's foot had slipped and his body had slid down the cliff face, pulling Peter's down with it.
With a yell, Peter fell to his knees, loosing his grip on the boulder. He leaned all his weight backwards and dug whatever parts of his feet that were available into the ground as he struggled to maintain his grip on Ambrose. The fingertips of his right hand were just barely holding Ambrose's armpit, and the best Peter could do with his arm muscles was to press Ambrose into the rock as tightly as he could. He couldn't use his other arm to help because if he didn't continue to hug as much of the boulder as he could, he'd go over the cliff himself.
Ambrose was kicking, desperately trying to find a foothold while his fingers grasped helplessly at the slipping gravel on the ledge. Eventually, he got part of his left foot up onto the cliff beside Peter, moving his body upwards just far enough for Peter to get a better grip on it. At the same time, Peter pushed against his feet and knees to get his left arm back far enough to get his hand around the back of the boulder again. Taking hold of it, he pulled with all his might.