Lest it appear as if I'm copycatting Margaux Chutney's stormy-weather moves, note that I'm still staying a chapter ahead of what I post. This Laetare Sunday has a part II forthcoming, after all. That said, if you're not following MC's latest (unlikely as that seems), you really ought to be!
I did a little, um, "method writing" as I scribed Assumpta's letter. Call it "dedication to the craft": I wanted her drunken ramblings to sound, er...authentic. (Special thanks to Harp Lager and Meantime Coffee Porter. This is an unpaid endorsement.) Anyway, I hope it rings true as a result. As always, I appreciate your input!
The weather had evidently missed the memo about Laetare Sunday, continuing the long rainy stretch that only worsened attendance at St. Joseph's. Ambrose hadn't even been able to persuade Niamh out of bed. Given Kieran's recent propensity for colic, perhaps it was just as well only one Egan was present at Mass today.
The gard found himself counting specific blessings that somehow made him feel guilty and shallow - the solace of a pew all to himself, when he should be in church for the community; the peace of a few hours' break from the baby, when he should long for the small weight in his arms. When he spotted Father Clifford in his ridiculous twice-a-year pink (officially "rose") vestments, Ambrose felt more grateful still that the curate had talked him out of taking up the cloth.
Then Ambrose felt guilty about that, too.
His discomfort mounted with each hymn Kathleen struggled through, her lack of rehearsal time all too clear in light of the traditional fourth-Sunday allowance. After all these years, the season still made him dizzy. Fast, don't fast on Sunday but don't overindulge, fish isn't meat somehow, now fast again, don't rejoice, rejoice just a little... His mother had been so meticulous (if not always strictly accurate) in her observance, Father Clifford's approach seemed almost slapdash by comparison. Rather than relaxing Ambrose, it set him on edge.
Ambrose liked order. He liked parts that assembled in a logical fashion. He liked ritual and predictability, and Lent was meant to be ascetic and plain, but by this phase in the cycle it always meant entropy.
Interlocking pieces that didn't fit.
He needed a mess he knew how to clean up, some disorder to put back in its place. Failing that, he needed a pint.
"Father?" he asked on his way out after the recessional. "Care to join me at the pub?"
The priest didn't need to be asked twice.
Assumpta prepared the bar for the brunch rush - taking particular care to set Padraig's favourite ashtray at his usual spot, to brew the coffee a little stronger for Michael - and paused in horror at the sight of the paper tucked into the till. She had to have been more than tipsy to have composed this, she thought, cringing at the lack of inhibition and the nightmarish penmanship. She had forgotten all about it, but now the recollection of her self-assessed "brilliance" flooded back, infinitely harsher in the light of sobriety.
Thank God no one had seen it.
The first wave of customers came through the door. She ripped the letter into a dozen pieces and hastily dumped it into the bin near the reception desk, affecting a mellow cheer for the first round of orders. Her bar-back Niamh arrived late, sleepy-eyed and wearing Kieran in a sling over her chest. Seeing the baby, Padraig put his unlit cigarette back in its box.
"New era in self-discipline, Padraig?" Siobhan teased approvingly.
"Missing them less by the hour," he said. Doc Ryan looked nervously into his yet-untouched coffee.
"How about you, Niamh?" Brendan asked. "Sweets been calling your name of late?"
She only shrugged.
Siobhan looked about to say something when Ambrose and Peter entered together, the priest silently offering to hold the baby as Niamh distracted her husband.
"Ambrose," she said, motioning for him to meet her in the accommodation lounge as she handed Kieran to Peter. Assumpta spotted her chance to hide away the grid in the kitchen.
She hadn't expected Peter to follow her.
"What do you think you're doing?" she hissed, trying not to alarm the infant he held.
"I wanted to look at the bets!" he said innocently.
"Nothing's changed. Besides, you opted out on a conflict of interest anyway!"
Now Fionn circled their feet, apparently restless. The setter let out a muted whimper.
"Oh, don't you manipulate me," Assumpta muttered.
"Russet hair and dark eyes, tough combination to say no to," Peter blurted out.
Assumpta shot him a look - one she hoped served as a warning that he was not currently on good enough terms to flatter her, however clumsily. It was then she realised he had also startled himself. His face fell.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she whispered, looking away.
"I'm sorry," he whispered back. "Should I walk him for you?"
"You're watching the baby."
"And you have a full pub. I'll take Kieran in to Ambrose. It's no trouble."
"It's raining."
"Yeah, that happens where I come from, too. I'll manage."
"Peter..."
"Get out to your customers. I'll handle these two blokes."
She swallowed her pride. "Thanks."
As Assumpta returned to her post by the taps, Peter crossed the room with Kieran on his left arm and Fionn's lead in his right hand. He told himself the hush over the room had nothing to do with his emerging from the kitchen with the landlady, and came upon two stone-faced Egans in the lounge. Their own conversation had likewise ground to a halt.
He proffered Kieran apologetically. "I've volunteered to walk the dog," he began.
Without a word, Niamh rose and grabbed the lead from his hand, pulling on her slicker and coaxing Fionn out the door with her. Ambrose didn't watch her go.
"Anything you'd like to talk about?" Peter asked gently.
"We're both wound a bit tight, is all." Ambrose didn't look up. Peter now noticed his friend was piecing together something on the table. Not a jigsaw.
A piece of hand-shredded paper?
"Where'd you find that?"
Ambrose shrugged. "It was in the rubbish bin by the front desk." He must have spotted the alarm on the priest's face: "I put the text face-down, sure it's not my business."
Peter was charmed by the gard's sense of ethics. "Just wanted to make sense out of something chaotic?"
Ambrose set another piece in place. "I guess so."
Peter noticed a section had blown off the table when Niamh opened the door. He picked it up and turned it over without thinking. It was Assumpta's absolute worst handwriting, and his eyes made out four words immediately:
"way I feel about"
He quickly set it face-down on the table, letting Ambrose determine its place by shape alone.
"Ambrose," he said, checking the steadiness of his voice, "I've told Niamh that I'm available to play nanny anytime the two of you need to get away. Even a couple hours would do you both some good."
"I know. I just need to actually talk to her without any distractions."
"Go catch up to her now. I'll mind Kieran."
Ambrose nodded, quietly set the last piece in place, and left.
Checking through the doorway, Peter saw Assumpta quite busy at the bar. Now or never, he thought.
This is none of your business.
You have to find out.
Turn over one more piece. Top left hand corner, maybe.
The top left hand corner was his undoing.
"Dear Father Clifford"
He pocketed it, turning over its neighbours and racing through them, looking up after each full stop to make sure he wouldn't be caught.
"I'm writing this under the sound advice of the porter I've been swilling all afternoon. Sort of a continuation of my 'no self-denial' theme these last few weeks, perhaps, and yet...oh, how very Catholic of me: I am writing this to confess my own sins, and to absolve you of...well, of whatever.
I know. I am under-qualified to do that. But for the last three years I have told myself you deserve something better than the truth, and I haven't successfully built the proper polite fiction. All I can think of is to be honest about the way I feel about you, and hope that you have the necessary tools to bring me crashing down to reality.
Tell me to get over you. Throw some cold water on me (sorry!) and make me snap out of this. You won't let me down in letting me down, will you? You're so good at telling people exactly what they need to hear.
I have to go. Soon my Chinese food will be here, and I will beg my fortune cookie for some kind of guidance, and it will disappoint me with a silly little proverb or Barnum generality. It WILL let me down, because no bakery ever turned a profit advising stupid publicans on how to manage their unrequited feelings for Catholic priests.
I may be in love with you, but I know you can teach me how to give it up.
Assumpta"
His heart pounded as he scooped the pieces into his pocket with the hand not presently supporting an infant.
Glancing into the bar, he caught Assumpta turning to look back at him, but she was too busy with orders, and he with appeasing a restless Kieran.
Siobhan had waited for the perfect intersection of the gard's absence and the landlady's attention to make her inquiry.
"Would you tell us the standings?"
Assumpta smirked. "Living vicariously, still?" She pulled out the whiteboard. "Ante holds steady at twenty-five. Near everyone favours Father Clifford to cave in."
"Except you and Niamh," Siobhan observed.
"Well, I promised Kevin about his da, and Niamh's rather certain about Kathleen."
Siobhan's pokerface melted into a devilish grin. "Tell the punters to gather round."
Her own smile fading, Assumpta reached for the bell.