Oh, boy. It's already Palm Sunday in most time zones, isn't it? Thanks again for all your feedback and follows! Some of you others, I hope you'll chime in just to let us know you're still out there and all is well. (HappyTrottingElf, Mcbenzy, consider this a nudge.)
Brian scowled at the evergreen branch in his hand. Never understood it. We have palm trees in Ireland. He wanted to be golfing underneath one right now. Short of that, the least the Church could offer was a genuine palm frond.
He watched his grandson, drooling on Niamh's shoulder, gawking at the branch with his bulbous, temporarily-blue eyes. Only a week now till the big day.
He looked up at the curate, praying a whole verse of psalm, the congregation responding back. No palms, no cantor...
Father Clifford had better not blow this.
Brian made a mental note to buy Father Mac a drink as soon as possible.
This time after Mass, Peter didn't rush down the hill the first chance he got. He put away his scarlet vestments, and then met the Egans back in the church.
"Thanks for agreeing to run through this a week ahead," he said.
"We knew Holy Week would be a hard time to attempt it," Ambrose acknowledged. "Thanks for helping us."
At five minutes past the appointed rehearsal time, he began to wonder if the godmother-to-be would show up. He excused himself for a moment, and, sure enough, found her pacing frantically in the church yard.
"You can do this," he sang under his breath.
She spun on her heel. "I'm hardly a good Catholic."
Same could be said for me. "But you've been confirmed!"
"Of course."
"You've taken communion!"
She scoffed. "Not recently."
"You believe in God and Jesus, and you renounce evil?"
She shifted her weight. "Don't press your luck."
"Good enough. C'mon, they're waiting."
"You people and your technicalities."
Tell me about it. "The sooner we get this rehearsal over with, the faster we can all go back to the pub for some pease porridge and fig bread."
Assumpta scowled at him. "Niamh told you the menu?"
"I asked."
She flushed as if he'd said he saw her in the nude. "It's not about you."
"I know."
But they both knew it was. She looked at him, begging wordlessly for an explanation of what kept happening.
Soon I can tell you everything, he thought. Please just wait a little longer.
Siobhan took a moment to bask in the more-relaxed Sunday atmosphere of the pub. With the landlady and Niamh both at the christening rehearsal, it was down to the vet and her wingmen to keep an eye on the taps. She tried not to move too quickly through her complimentary pint of Harp.
The air at their end was fresher this week, as Padraig had stuck with his patches more and more faithfully. He and Niamh were getting good results from their sneaky addiction substitutes. Of course, others had fallen truly off the wagon; Michael was back to his daily coffee, and Brendan had dropped the ball on red meat without even meaning to.
She hoped her scheme had taken off a little of the pressure to perform. She hadn't originally dropped gambling with an eye to winning the pool, planning in fact to last straight through the season. Yet, as the days wore on, her friends' irritability had prompted her to take drastic measures. She always knew the emergency valve existed, but never thought she might pull it, let alone so soon.
Two weeks after the victory, another dilemma had her attention. This one was small, furry, and had been ditched on her doorstep in a dirty Kennel Cab the night before, one note attached: "Sorry!"
As with unwanted babies at the curate's house, it wasn't unheard-of for locals to abandon pets at the residence of the town vet. Such had even been the provenance of Master Fionn Fitzgerald some years back. Luckily, the newly-orphaned young publican had reasoned that a dog might provide good security and companionship - important things for a young woman living alone and running a business. So it was that one motherless child took another under her wing.
But a red setter puppy would always be easier to home than an adult black cat. Siobhan didn't like asking people to take on cats; the ones who hated them would always go on for miles about why, and the allergic ones would react as if to a death threat. This cat had the added liability of superstition - an unfortunate thing, because he was in good health, housebroken, and possessed of a mellow, affable temperament.
She would sterilise him on Tuesday, she decided, and begin her search soon as he recovered.
As it stood, he was living in her bathroom, a towel to sleep on, kibble and water to his heart's content, and a litter pan at the opposite corner. She had thought briefly of naming him Lazarus, as he was found on Lazarus Saturday, but it seemed like tempting fate somehow. No. For now, she would call him Joe, for the patron of the local church - the saint whose feast day always fell in Lent, and who thus never got his rightful fanfare.
Assumpta tried to delay setting Peter's pease porridge before him, to diminish the approval this gesture might seem to confer. First she tried to empty Padraig's usual ashtray, but she was astonished to find it pristine and empty. Next she tried to interest Fionn in a walk, only to hear the vet had done this while she was out. Finally, she checked all the barrels to see if any might go empty soon, only to learn Niamh had changed them out the day before.
She begrudgingly placed the dish on the bar. His green eyes were still too grateful.
"Stop it," she hissed.
"Stop what?!"
"Stop...looking like that."
"What? How'm I looking?" Well, now he looked genuinely perplexed.
Assumpta moved for the kitchen door, then reconsidered. He's expecting me to slip out the back so he can walk out the front, and then we can dance on the knife edge for another five excruciating minutes. The hell with that!
Peter dunked his bread slice into his pudding, an experiment. A foolish one, by his reaction. A rush of brisk air and a flood of muted sunlight alerted them to two new arrivals: Brian Quigley and Father MacAnally. Assumpta watched Peter subconsciously move his hand to his neck, checking if his collar was still in place. Siobhan seemed to notice this as well, but she found it worth a smile for some reason.
Assumpta poured top-shelf whiskeys for the two men who called seemingly every shot in town, and warily exchanged them for Brian's money. He flashed a self-satisfied smirk as he carried them back to their table, brutally out of earshot.
Peter's eyes moved from his boss to his porridge and back again.
Siobhan didn't miss this either. "Oh, stick around, Father," she coaxed.
"It's no secret you come here," Padraig added.
"Not helpful," muttered Brendan.
Peter turned nervously back to his bowl. Behind him, Assumpta saw the parish priest and the businessman taking turns glancing his way. She felt a touch on her elbow and turned to see Niamh staring daggers at her father.
"Don't worry," whispered Niamh.
"What's to worry about?" bluffed Assumpta.
Niamh smirked, turning to make sure the curate was listening. "Exactly."
Assumpta locked the till and pocketed the key. "Last orders were half an hour ago."
Peter tapped his empty glass. "And I haven't ordered anything since." He ignored the publican's overwrought gesture of looking about the otherwise-empty pub. It was a hint she didn't mean. He knew it. She knew he knew.
What she didn't know, he knew she ought to, but he was unsure he'd had enough drink to tell her.
"Do you need help cleaning up?"
"What if you stay past midnight? Won't you turn into a pumpkin?"
"If I do, you can make potage of me for tomorrow."
"Then they'd all blame me for taking away their priest," she quipped.
His heart and lungs took a moment to regain their rhythms.
"Sorry," she muttered. "That was..."
"No..."
"Stupid."
"It really wasn't." He cursed himself. Tell her. Tell her what you've done, what's about to happen.
He couldn't.
After allowing herself a few glances, ones she couldn't know were interspersed with his own glances back, Assumpta exhaled softly and loaded a tray with dirty glasses. Peter collected a few coasters and serviettes and followed her into the kitchen.
"You don't have to do that," she called from the sink. "Any minute now, it'll officially be Monday."
He threw the linens in a hamper, stacked the coasters on the table. "Hours till sunrise, though. You know, my people and our technicalities..." his voice lost strength, like a paintbrush running dry in mid-stroke.
"Wouldn't that really mean Sunday's been over since dusk?" she looked over her shoulder at him.
"Correct. I've already fallen from grace." His voice was a weak shadow, but his eyes were too bright. He came up close, tea towel in hand.
She shivered, turning away again. "Well, I won't tell if you don't," she said, aiming for glibness, decidedly missing.
The conversation now yielded to the sound of running water and the occasional clang of a pan or the squeak of a glass. The backdrop of these mundane noises was a comforting buffer, more forgiving than the stone silence of an empty church. Unease left her until she realised she had passed him the last dish to dry. She towelled off her hands and rolled the sleeves of her jumper back down, reaching for the pump dispenser next to the soap.
She had pressed the actuator too enthusiastically. She had a veritable ocean of hand cream in her palm. She tried spreading it to her other hand, tried saturating both, but it was still far too much.
She looked up at the man nervously drying his hands beside her, and nervously proffered her surplus.
He gave a shy chuckle at her predicament, taking her hands between his own. She felt the movement and his own body heat warming the lotion as he massaged it in, an exquisitely slippery caress of fingertips and thumbs and wrists. She wondered if he could feel her pulse quickening as he did this.
Finally, the two sets of hands had managed to drink in their fill of the stuff, but he still didn't let go. His grin faded to a look of solemnity and he brought both her hands up to his face, kissing each one lightly as he could.
She thought right away of what he was permitted to kiss, what he had likely kissed in recent years. Kieran's forehead, the bishop's ring, a crucifix? This surely wasn't quite licit.
Already fallen, she thought, feeling her mouth drop slightly open, as if by instinct. Already...
Suddenly, they were in the middle of it.
The first real, steady contact between their mouths registered in distant parts of her body, making them clamour for his touch as well. She tried to telegraph this urgency, clutching at his shoulders, pulling at his tongue with her lips, aching to receive him in a more consummate way.
Scratching the itch served only to make it return threefold. She arched into him now, felt just how strong his own desire was, stoking her own hunger even more. Noting how expertly his hand navigated her shape, she began an exploration of her own. His gasp broke the kiss.
"I give up," she panted, her lips sweeping his ear. "I'm not going to be the one to stop this."
"Neither will I," he responded.
"I'll do it," came a cool voice from the door, just as they felt the gust of night air that might otherwise have warned them.
Another nod to Margaux Chutney there; I'm sure it was obvious, as you're all no doubt hooked on "The Holiday" just as I am. :)
Holy Week threatens to outpace me, but I won't go down without a fight. I'll do my best to get the next installment up soon.