Niamh would never be fully able to explain the sudden sense of urgency that came over her that Sunday morning. Perhaps it was in the lesson from the book of Isaiah:
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
She knew in all logic that this was simply the lectionary prescription for one of the readings today. Every third year, on the fifth Sunday in Lent, the same words would be heard from pulpits around the globe, familiar and reassuring, like clockwork.
Perhaps it was in the break of Father Clifford's voice when he said those words.
She counted back in her head. This was his third spring in the parish; the last time she'd heard this reading, it had been from his predecessor, the brief-serving Father Cahill, the one Father Mac liked to say had only come "for the suit." By the end of that liturgical year, Father Cahill's lack of energy and enthusiasm for his assignment had manifested themselves in numerous ways: first in a parade of painfully dull homilies; then in a series of missed appointments; and finally, in an exceptionally redundant letter announcing his transfer to a post in County Kerry, hastily carbon-copied to everyone on the membership register at St. Joseph's. (Come to think of it, Siobhan had won that bet as well.)
Father Cahill's voice had broken in much the same way as he read those two verses. In hindsight, it seemed all too obvious. This town never could hold them.
It can't be happening again. It better not be happening again! Not with him!
But she couldn't shake the feeling that it might be, and deeper down, she had more than an inkling of why. She would get furious about it later, would serve her punishments cold; she had other priorities now.
She squeezed her husband's knee to let him know a big idea was brewing. His pale blue eyes widened sharply. She nodded down to the sleeping infant in his arms.
"I think we need to hurry," she whispered.
She could tell from his face that he had no idea why, but he trusted her judgment. She sank into the reassurance of his trust like a warm bath.
Assumpta had never really made peace with the institution of Sunday.
In her childhood, it had meant rising early, even if unruly boarders had kept her awake all night. Like clockwork, her parents would argue whose job it was to take her to church, with her mother usually forfeiting the point and her father hanging back to watch the pub.
Mass was a train wreck all its own, with any of a dozen revolving-door priests doing his level best to bore, alienate, or blow sunshine up the arses of the congregation. A few babies would wail against the strain of Kathleen Hendley's organ playing. When Father Shannon delivered a caustic homily chastising the locals for their uncharacteristically small family sizes, the then-14-year-old Assumpta wondered if perhaps the sound of that organ was somehow bad enough to damage listeners' fertility. The resultant giggle fit earned her a severe punishment.
In later years, Sunday came to represent holding down the pub for her mother as her father languished in the bedroom, the cells of his pancreas growing out of control so suddenly and so completely. After his death, Maureen Fitzgerald gradually left off her own commitment to the Church, ultimately freeing her daughter to leave for college.
At college, Sunday ultimately meant something very different, yet remarkably consistent week to week: nursing mild hangovers in the private dorm room of Leo McGarvey. She felt always queasy and parched, waking in his old t-shirt to find him gone; but she felt so loved when he inevitably returned with greasy fast food and a hair of the dog. It was almost enough. She dreamt of staying in the city with him, becoming a stage actress as he broke scandalous news for some prestigious broadsheet.
She dreamt of learning to love him, too.
The bad news from home came the week before graduation, and Sunday once again came to mean running a pub for a dying parent. Indeed, now every day meant this, meant pulling pints for people who had known her as a child, meant following the recipes Maureen had taped to the kitchen cupboard, unspoken concessions to the fact that someday soon she'd be gone. Leo had offered to accompany Assumpta back to Ballykea, but his disdain for the bucolic ran so thickly obvious she couldn't let him...couldn't love him enough to make it worth his while.
After Maureen died, Sundays were the most jarring evidence of a new norm - eerie quiet before church let out, then deafening noise as the brunch crowd flooded in. So it continued the next couple of years. Then the arrival of a new curate changed Sunday again.
Peter's influence on the regulars and the tourists wasn't immediately obvious, but as weeks went on it seemed that good tips and pleasant attitudes went hand-in-hand with talk of an inspiring homily in a funny accent. His own visits after his work was over, well...she took pride in being the place he came to unwind. Putting Peter at ease was more fun than assuaging the flaring tempers of her parents or the recurrent sullenness of Leo. Peter after Mass reminded Assumpta of an athlete after a long football match or a strenuous workout - even if it had gone roughly, he had a radiance about him. His vocation obviously fulfilled him in an irreplaceable way.
What was Sunday now? Sunday was six days' worth of unallowable feelings bottled under pressure, letting off just a little steam each time. Sunday was the only time she saw him anymore, torture and annoyance and a certain forbidden elation every bit as addictive as her experimental college cocktails, but infinitely sweeter.
Sunday was deception and hypocrisy. Sunday as they now knew it could not be sustained. It had to stop. She would stop it today.
Last week had been too rainy for rational behaviour, their near-kiss in the alley an understandable effect of messy environs. Today was much better for self-control: brutally sunny but deceptively chilly, the perfect combination of harsh light and harsh cold. If he came in, fine. If they got alone - if something "almost happened" again - she had to squelch it. For his sake. He was a good priest. He needed the church and the church needed him, it was that simple.
It tore her heart out to think just how simple it was.
"Assumpta," came the familiar Mancunian voice.
"We're going to have to make you wear a bell," she sputtered, crimson-faced at the half-spilt coffee in her grip.
"Sorry!" He was already after cleaning it up.
"You don't have to do that," she muttered.
"Nonsense. I'd make a fine pub hand," he retorted.
She scolded herself for the urge to read into this.
"Father!" Niamh yelled, pulling an apron over her church clothes. "Ambrose and I have a question for you. Tried to catch you after Mass, but you seemed in such a hurry to get here..."
Assumpta felt a flush go up her neck.
Peter looked nervous. "Go ahead?"
"Would it be all right to have Kieran christened on Easter Sunday?"
Ambrose cut in now. "We know it's short notice, but it's always a nice Mass, and my mother will be visiting..." looking down at his son, he didn't notice the sour face Niamh pulled at this.
Panic gone from his face, the curate smiled broadly. "I can't think of a more fitting day to do it. We'll schedule a rehearsal soon as you've confirmed with your godparents."
Until now, Assumpta had been caught in bittersweet admiration of this man's devotion to the very faith she'd given up. Suddenly, this feeling gave way to another: the keen sense that a set of queenly brown eyes were beaming their twisted will onto her.
"Niamh..." she began, putting up a protesting hand.
"Oh, you had to know it'd be you! You were our bridesmaid!"
"That's totally different. Bridesmaids don't have to promise to keep the marriage faithful!"
Peter tried to conceal his amusement with a cough. Assumpta glared at him.
Niamh poured a cocktail of equal measures vodka and amaretto on the rocks. "A godmother for our godmother?" she cajoled.
"A lowball if I ever did see one," Assumpta conceded, downing the drink. The others mockingly cheered her surrender. Niamh kissed her cheek theatrically.
"You'll make a fine witness," Peter said as the fuss subsided. "You always do."
The strange, fond reverence in his eyes and his voice made her only more nervous. In only two weeks, for the first time in years, Sunday would mean church again - and this time, disdain for the priest would hardly be her problem.
"Oh, we'll talk later," she cautioned, her voice building like thunder.
His grin dissolved, quick as it had come on.