Peter looked at the clock as he picked up the handset. Ten a.m.?!
"This is Father Clifford," he burbled, marvelling at how long and deep he'd slept.
"Father, it's Bishop Costello. You've been on my mind lately; do you have a moment?"
The National School had offered at least one daily fish or vegetarian course to complement its meat offerings throughout Lent. Thoughtful enough, it didn't make it any easier for Mr. Kearney to ignore the corned beef and ham sandwiches, sausage rolls and lasagnes moving through the canteen in small grubby hands.
Just his luck that Niamh had taken a maternity leave from her services as a volunteer monitor, and this week was his turn to fill in for her. Just his luck that desperation would make this institutional spread start to look so...mouthwatering.
God help me.
He felt limp, woozy even. Anaemia, surely? It was Monday. He'd had a hearty stew only last night at the pub. How on Earth did vegetarians do this?!
Just the week ahead and Holy Week, he thought. Then a good fat pig, a big juicy Easter ham.
The guilty twinge that accompanied this thought caught him off guard. He knew the curate had had about enough of his self-flagellation about coveting streaky bacon. Any minute now, the young priest was bound to snap and impose Levitical dietary prohibitions on the schoolteacher, just as a lesson.
Peter seemed decidedly at the end of some rope or other these days. Brendan could venture a guess at the nature of it, but speculating made him uncomfortable. Every priest in this town - in any town, in all of history - had surely wrestled demons. St. Joseph's tended to lose curates every few years, usually to other assignments. But most priests seemed only to get fed up with Ballykissangel, with its strange propensity to produce the lapsed, the unwed, and a curiously high ratio of socially-awkward only children. Priests of the traditional stripe felt ineffectual at the end of the day, as if for all their shepherding the town was becoming only less Catholic.
Brendan knew his friend Peter hardly gave a damn about full quivers of children, or pairing off the local spinsters and bachelors. His focus ran to the needy, the sick, the victims of circumstance.
Brendan was himself one of those despised bachelors, and he'd been known to enjoy a night in the company of a certain red-haired spinster. Peter hadn't condemned them when Brendan sought guidance on that first morning-after. And three of those awkward only-children Brendan had watched grow up, two of them from his own classroom, and the curate's particular fondness for those three hadn't escaped Brendan.
One of them especially, he thought, impassively snagging a sprinting pupil by the back of his jumper. "Slow down!"
For the last three years it had been the proverbial elephant in the room. Everyone was aware of the friendship between the priest and the publican, but ignoring it was far easier than examining or defining it. How often in the past had the villagers merely shrugged at one "stunning" revelation or another? How often had they greeted these things with relief that it wasn't worse?
Brian Quigley couldn't manage a business without his wife; well, she had always been the brains of the family, at least Niamh took after her.
Father Shannon detested children; well, at least he didn't like them too much.
Maureen Fitzgerald had a wandering eye; well, at least Assumpta had her father's nose.
Brendan absently caught a projectile breadcrust as it sailed past his head.
If Father Clifford dropped a bombshell of his own, the town would absorb the impact as it had always done. Spotty a churchgoer as he was, though, Brendan didn't like the idea of losing this one.
He sipped his Thermos of onion soup.
"New recipe," boasted one of the kitchen staff.
"That right?" Brendan asked. "It's very good."
"The supplier added beef stock," the cook said proudly.
Brendan forced a smile and nodded.
Some battles are over before we even realise it.
"How was the market?" Kevin asked as his father got home.
Padraig made a face. "Eamonn Byrne was behind me in the queue. He smelt of bad cheese."
Kevin didn't look up from his homework. "He's always smelt of bad cheese. He never washes."
Padraig looked thoughtful. "That right?"
Kevin nodded, closing his book to help his father unload the groceries. As he put sausages in the fridge and cans in the pantry, he noticed Benson and Hedges were absent from the order once again. He smiled, connecting now just why his father's sense of smell was back from the dead.
"Da?"
"Um?"
"Proud of you."
His father nodded sheepishly.
Strolling back down the hill with Fionn on Friday morning, Assumpta passed a familiar red car at the side of the road.
She recognised the man working on it, much to her shame, by the rear part of him sticking out of it. Her own lingering sense of exposure tempted her to walk on by, but some other force within her overrode it.
"Battery corrosion again?" she called.
"Already checked that," Peter said, ducking as he backed out from under the bonnet. "Among other things. God only knows what it wants this time."
"You have to be somewhere?" she guessed.
"Carlow," he muttered.
"Peter, that's nearly two hours' drive from here! What business could you have all the way out in...?" Now her face fell. "Carlow. The bishop?"
He nodded.
"You in trouble?"
He gave a nervous look. "I don't know. He rang Monday morning and asked to see me."
"Right, no lookout of mine." She looked down in despair as Fionn relieved himself on the Fiesta's front tyre. Sorry, she mouthed.
He smiled sadly. "I'd say it deserves it."
"Look, what time do you need to be there?"
He checked his watch. "Just under two hours," he said weakly.
"Can I give you a lift? I mean, if it isn't prohibited..."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"It's stupid. Forget it."
"Assumpta -"
"I, um...just wait a moment. I'll see if Niamh can watch the pub."
"Ambrose is on duty; who'll watch the baby?"
Assumpta shrugged. "Her father?"
"At this rate, they'll need a nanny."
"Do you want my help or not?"
The windows of the Renault gathered warmth like a greenhouse, a pleasant respite from the chilly wind that had made Peter's ears ache all morning.
"Niamh watching the pub, then?" he asked as he buckled in.
Assumpta shook her head dismissively. "Just closed it for the morning. She said she'd open us for the midday rush."
"What's on?"
"Tuna sandwiches and crisps, now."
He grimaced. "I'm sorry for the trouble."
She shrugged. "No big deal," she said softly.
"Yes, it is," he replied.
The silence persisted for several torturous miles. Finally she spoke: "Um. If you want radio, go ahead..."
He didn't, really. He wanted to talk about their admissions last Sunday, wanted to tell her just what today might bring. He couldn't, of course. And since they weren't about to fill the acoustic vacuum themselves, so he flicked on the dial. A familiar voice permeated the van.
"Join us Tuesday evening for The Pit, where we'll be speaking with job coach James McGinty. Whether you're asking your boss for a raise, or contemplating a major career change, he can answer-"
Peter jumped quickly to the next preset. Music. Badfinger. He'd take it.
"How long do you suppose you'll be in Costello's office?"
"I don't know." That much was true. Peter looked out the window, his cheeks hot at the sudden memory of a dream set in this very van. "You don't need to wait for me; is there a bus going back?"
"That's ridiculous."
The next twenty minutes were only white noise. Still, for all the embarrassment between them, all the uncertainty in the air, he found himself glad to be there. The warm upholstery and the familiar scent of the van were comforting; the hum of the engine reassured him like a purring cat. Tense as things were between them, he was also grateful Assumpta was at his side, at the wheel. He shut his eyes and tried to listen to her breathing above the other sounds, and soon this and the motion of the van lulled him to sleep.
He awoke a few miles outside Carlow, remembering a dream that put her in his arms, between soft white sheets, naked in a bed he didn't recognise. What had they said?
He wondered if he'd spoken in his sleep. He wondered if there was anything left for speaking to reveal.
He couldn't tell from the look on her face, couldn't think how to ask.
Good practise for the meeting ahead.
With this thought, he embarked on his seventh church visit: the Cathedral herself.
Assumpta dug an eleventh caramel out of the glovebox and stripped it of its foil vestments. Ninety minutes she had waited now, and Peter was still in some musty old cathedral office, talking to a short, dark, balding man who had once watched him almost kiss her.
They had now nearly kissed on three separate occasions, including that disastrous play rehearsal. He knew how she felt, he had said...
Had he confessed to Father Mac? Was he in there getting his marching orders, begging forgiveness, repenting of what he had told her? What his six-day avoidance of the pub couldn't quash on the seventh?
As he slept in the passenger seat, he had said three things, moments apart:
"Love."
"You."
"The priesthood."
Was he making his choice, then? Opting for the priesthood, once for all?
She cursed herself for ever entertaining the notion he might do otherwise. How horribly selfish! Now he was probably discussing another assignment, maybe Wexford Parish, maybe another diocese entirely, maybe out of the country, maybe home to England. She had wanted too much, he knew that plainly - he'd had it in his pocket - and now she would probably lose what little of him she had. The whole village would lose him. They'd blame her.
They'd be right to blame her.
She killed another caramel, wondering if this was how it worked for chain smokers.
If only there were a patch to cure these stupid feelings. She balled up the wrapper and pitched it at the windshield.
The rap on the passenger window nearly gave her a heart attack. She caught her breath before unlocking the door.
"How'd it go?" she managed, not sure she could handle the answer.
"Well as could be expected," he said, looking strangely calm.
"They're not shipping you back to England again?" she tried to sound lighthearted.
"No, no..." he met her eyes. Something was fighting from just behind his lips, but he wouldn't release it. "It's gonna be fine." He looked out the windshield as if to reassure himself of this.
She searched for an appropriate question to follow, a barometer for the status quo. "So, um, the christening. Rehearsal." God, that word "rehearsal"!
"Yes. As planned." He swallowed. "Almost exactly."
She turned the ignition, giving up any hope of clarity.
Fine, she thought spitefully. Thy will be done. Whatever the hell it is.