Still playing beat-the-clock best I can, at least against my own clock. (Mountain Daylight Time, if you wondered.) Shooting for briefer, more-frequent updates as Holy Week continues. I swear there's a point to all these non-P&A scenes! All right, enough blather. Best get this posted before the husband napping beside me asks what I'm up to.

Niamh arrived at the pub Thursday evening with an attractive paper shopping bag on her forearm.

Assumpta blinked. "You're not scheduled."

"I'm not reporting for duty." Niamh pulled a half-dozen bottles of nail polish out of the bag. "Which do you like?"

"I don't know! The dark red? What is this? I thought you were cross with me."

Niamh ignored this. "Do you want to do pedicures?"

"What?! Why...? I have a pub to run."

"Oh, close for an hour! Everyone's at Mass of the Lord's Supper anyway."

Assumpta cast a dubious look. "Not you?"

"With Imelda attending? Are you kidding?" Niamh asked, as if it should be obvious.

"Niamh, this seems oddly specific. Why toenails?"

"Because it's been a long time since I could reach mine, and because I need to get away from Ambrose's mother before I stab her in the eye. Besides, gives us a chance to talk." This she punctuated with another pointed look. "So," she pressed, "dark red, is it?"

Assumpta didn't quite trust this whim, but she was grateful enough that her friend was even speaking to her after the events of Sunday night. "Fine."

Niamh cleared her throat, putting up the "OPENING AGAIN AT" sign with the adjustable clock display. "Shall I latch the door?"

Assumpta glowered. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Imelda Egan felt an annoying squish in the toes of her pumps. What good was the foot-washing if the drying was slapdash? Had she foregone control-top tights for this?

She watched the young, weird, English curate consecrate the oil of the catechumens, and then the chrism that would anoint her grandson's head in just a few short days. How could Kieran's own mother skip Holy Thursday? She of all people should be here!

Lately it seemed all Niamh cared to do was pump an obscene amount of breast milk, dump the canister and the baby in someone else's hands, and rush off to the pub. She didn't know how good she had it, with Ambrose alive and able-bodied to serve as a breadwinner. Imelda could tell her stories about just how old the rat race got when it wasn't a frivolity anymore.

Father What's-his-name blessed the bread and wine, now, sparking a thought:

Gifts!

Perhaps for a christening gift, what Kieran really needed was a mother figure.

That's it! Brilliant!

Inspiration had struck. Imelda glanced at Brian, whose ears immediately moved backward like a spooked cat's.

Assumpta only realised what Niamh was up to as she lowered her feet into the soapy water.

"Oh, you are so sneaky!" she hissed.

"You're one to talk," Niamh said, mock-sweetly. "Now while you're soaking, towel me off." She pulled her own pink feet out of the tub, presenting them. Assumpta rolled her eyes and swaddled Niamh's feet in plush white terry.

"So that's what this was all about? Tricking me into your perverted ritual?"

Niamh sneered and grabbed the bottle of basecoat, inverting it and rolling it between her palms. "Helps me remember not to cast stones."

"Oh, your humility's charming," snorted Assumpta, inwardly glad her friend was speaking to her at all.

Niamh wedged the spatulate foam dividers between her toes and unscrewed the brush cap, reaching forward as she drew her knee to her chest...

...and squealed in agony.

"Little tender?" Assumpta guessed, wincing in compassion.

"Messy, more like," Niamh said, frowning at the new wet spots on her blouse.

"Thought you'd been pumping?"

"I have. I'm a bloody decorative fountain. I'm Eamonn's entire dairy farm."

"Ah." Assumpta now felt unqualified to empathise. "Well, you want to borrow something of mine while it dries?"

Niamh snorted. "Doubt anything would fit."

"Nonsense. Still have all my oversize flannels from a few years back." This earned a death glare, which Assumpta dismissed. "I only mean you're well-endowed. Be right back."

Kathleen departed St. Joseph's in reflective silence, her feet still chilly, the taste of the wine and wafer still strong on her tongue.

What would You have me do? she thought. Wasn't once enough?

How can I bring this up to him?!

She had never been quite sure of the rightness of her motivation back then. The voice on one shoulder said it had to be done for the sake of Father Mac's vocation, and of the parish itself. The voice on the other shoulder seemed petty, almost jealous, and utterly unforgivable the first time she heard it.

Why should he want Eileen, when I'm the one he confides in? When he's always making excuses to drop by the family store and talk to me?!

She had told herself it was the first voice, the more noble one, that ultimately prompted her to alert Frank's - Father MacAnally's superiors of his dalliances. She had told herself it was not her fault when Eileen left town, puffy around the eyes and wearing dumpy clothes over her changing figure. She had told herself that her own foolish attraction was a trick of the light, a thing she only even noticed following one vivid, unfortunate dream.

And all these later, she reassured herself that it had long since faded, that it wasn't the reason she had turned down every other prospect over the years...and that it didn't matter anyway. Everyone knew temptation; she had resisted it. Or would have done, given the choice. Surely.

Surely.

To think she had wrestled the last three years with the notion of confessing it to Father Clifford - that she once came between two people in love. Was she really about to do it again, by sharing her mind with the man whose affair she had thwarted all those years ago?

Would he realise now just what had happened in their youth?

Leaning back on the armrest of the kitchen sofa, Niamh watched her friend gently stroke Sunset Pearl onto her last bare toenail. She gently lifted her feet off Assumpta's lap.

"Looks good, thanks."

"So's the shirt. Keep it if you want," said the publican.

"We'll see if my clothes dry before my feet do. Don't imagine you want me tottering around the place braless when you reopen."

Assumpta grinned. "Not unless we can charge the customers extra."

Niamh snorted. She indicated Assumpta's feet. "Shall we do yours?"

"Is there time?"

Niamh checked the clock. "Not really."

Assumpta smiled wryly. "Just as well. Hadn't planned to show them off anytime soon."

Niamh fixed her with a challenging stare.

"Oh, don't."

"After what I walked in on the other night? You honestly expect me to believe-?"

"Yes! I do expect!" Assumpta interrupted. She rose from the sofa now, checking the progress of the nursing bra that hung above the sink. Half-dry. "Nothing had happened. Niamh, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but..." she knew there was no good argument. She turned over her shoulder, meeting her friend's eyes: "They're sending him away again, aren't they? For real this time?"

Niamh opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by the knock at the pub door.

"Look, forget it." Assumpta went to reopen the bar, leaving Niamh less than presentable, her feet not quite safe to walk. She sat back again in a cloud of nail polish fumes, realising for the first time the depth of what her friend must be going through.

I'm dying to know what you think of my treatment of Kathleen, and whatever else you think! More to follow soon.