CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR – ROCK BOTTOM
"Aidan I'm a manager not an Accountant," Anne said as she poured over the ledger stuffed with papers in every direction.
"If you can just help me log it into this new system I'm terrible with computers."
Anne sighed and took a look through everything putting papers in piles by dates and separating the ledger by months. This went back for several years since Aidan owned the bar, and it appeared he owed everyone money. And to make matters worse he had been running tabs for almost everyone in town, some of them going back years, thank you Mr. Brendan Kearney. She would have to encourage Aidan to have a word with him later.
Anne entered in the last detail and hit save, it was far worse that she thought. She looked out through the kitchen into the pub and past through to the window outside. Aidan had upgraded his Sky service to get all the football matches for the World Cup. That was going to cost another pretty penny he didn't have. The summer would be coming to a close soon, and that meant Anne would have to make a very important decision regarding her residency in Ballyk. Things being as bad as they were she wondered if it would take much convincing for Aidan to join her in Dublin.
Patrick sat quietly in the waiting room outside of Father Mac's office. He counted the floor boards and then the nail in each board. He counted the windows and then the pane of glass in each one. Then he gazed at the clock on the wall and fell disappointed as only a few seconds had passed.
"Father, I want to go on retreat," Patrick begged Father Mac who sat back in his leather arm chair with a strong cup of tea.
"A retreat is usually the answer to a question of faith, are you having a doubt in faith Father?"
"I've sinned."
"I figured."
"This is not time to joke, I've engaged in a mortal sin."
"You slept with the American woman," Father Mac said bluntly.
"How did you?"
"I ran into an old friend a few days ago, he expressed concerns that you may be wavering from the ways of the cloth."
"A friend?"
"To protect them I can't say, but yes they had expressed concerns and I have to say that I agreed with them, so I pose one question to you. Is this love or lust?"
"That's just it Father how am I to know?"
"If you were a real priest Patrick, it wouldn't make a difference."
Patrick sat thinking about that statement and stared down into his own cup of tea and then past to his shoes.
"Father," Father Mac said standing up and walking across the room to gaze out the window, "I can send you on retreat, if that is what you really want, but from my experience if you have done this once you will do it again. I had a priest who came to me years ago with a similar, complaint we will call it, he thought he had fallen in love. I advised him this girl was a dime a dozen, and he was to continue to serve God as he had agreed. He never made peace with his decision, and I do have some reservations that I gave him the right advice."
"I want to go on retreat, I want to try."
"As you wish Father."
Anne and Aidan sat at the bar taking a breather from all the paperwork. Fionn who had grown so much in such a short period of time slept peacefully on a sofa in the waiting area. The Sky service man was still there fixing the new satellite dish to the outside of the building.
"Bit cheeky Avril and Vincent sneaking off without a proper send off," Anne yawned.
"Well they had a long journey ahead of them."
"I was hoping they would have a party."
"A party would have been nice."
"You need the business," she sighed swirling a refreshing gin and tonic round and round her glass.
"Right, so boss how bad are things?"
"Well they aren't good, we would be looking at another six months, maybe a year, and then your overdraft will be exhausted. You have some pretty worrying letters here from the Bank of Ireland."
"Yeah they send those letters to everyone, but no one really reads them."
"Aidan."
"What?"
"Come back to Dublin with me."
"So you're going?"
"I'm seriously considering it, will you think about it?"
"I'm so used to being my own man."
"I know, but just think it through, I need to let my company know in the next couple of weeks. Just think it over," she said putting her hand tightly around his and giving it a little squeeze.