3 months earlier...
The sun shone brightly as she made her way up the rise towards Peter's house. The brilliant light brought out the redness in her hair and the lush greenness of plant life growing all around, but she only had eyes for the black-clad man stooping under the bonnet of a small red car.
She wilfully ignored the thumping of her heart in her chest as she approached him. She was safely married, she reasoned, and had nothing to hope for or fear.
"Hiya" he said, briefly acknowledging her arrival. He shifted uncomfortably, a tall man working low down, and went back to what he was doing.
"We didn't really get a chance to talk back there." She began. Thinking of Peter's odd reaction to the news of her marriage. His "You couldn't have chosen a better man." rang in her ears. Had he meant it as pointedly as she imagined or was that just wishful thinking?
He didn't respond.
"How was your time away?" She tried again.
"It was OK thanks." Said Peter, without enthusiasm, into the car's engine.
"Good." She said brightly. "Niamh told me about this tournament thing, it's a great idea."
"It's a stupid idea. I don't know why I get involved. If people want to waste their lives squabbling with each other, who am I to spoil their fun?"
"You're a priest! Spoiling fun is your job." she joked, trying to lighten the mood, but he was having none of it, and continued fiddling around with the car.
"Yeah, right." He said flatly.
She tried another tack. "Come on, you're doing it because you care." She felt emboldened to praise him now she had a ring on her finger. "You're doing it because you care. You're good at bringing people together, helping them make sense of their lives. It was thanks to you I finally realised I need to sort out..."
"Please!" he interrupted. There was real distress in his voice and he paused in his work but still he avoided looking round. Being given the credit for bringing about her marriage was apparently too much for him. " No." He said quietly as he shook his head, refusing to hear any more.
Assumpta's ever-ready temper flared at his rudeness. "Peter, would you look at me when I'm talking to you?"
And now he looked around slowly and looked her straight in the eye. "Assumpta" he admonished.
His eyes betrayed the depth of his hurt. They were red-rimmed and tired looking but they were eloquent in ways that his tongue was not. They drew her in and spoke of loss and longing and reproach. They seemed at once to accuse her and be dazzled by her, to extend her a burning line of communication and to withdraw into bewildered vulnerability.
And then he turned away and she didn't know whether to feel aggrieved or relieved as her heart beat wildly and her chest rose and fell. Was he fighting back tears as he sucked in his own ragged breaths? The clarity of the moment fell away as rapidly as his gaze. She found herself wrestling with her own bewilderment and a sudden sense that she may have made a terrible mistake.
She found herself wanting to reach out and comfort him only to find he was further away from her than ever. She clutched at the straws of things she imagined she could offer him.
"I tell you what eh? We'll take all the tournament takings and put it towards the church roof."
"Thanks err, but there's nothing wrong with the church roof."
"Oh right, well err, maybe we could send Father Mac on a pilgrimage. Don't they have any shrines at Alaska?"
Peter's response was no better than a brief outward breath. His fingers were busy again, though they were probably achieving very little.
"Did you think Leo would be interested in being on the quiz team?" He began in a neutral tone as if the intensity of their shared look had never happened.
She was surprised and a little confused by the question. "Why don't you ask him yourself? Aren't you going to stay at our place?"
"Actually no, I've already made other arrangements."
She found herself dismayed to find he wouldn't be staying with them. She had imagined, naively, that by marrying Leo she was in some way complying with Peter's wishes, taking temptation, if indeed there was any on his side, out of his way. As a married woman she could keep his friendship, safeguard it, even, against the dangers of romantic expectation. The three of them would get along nicely and in time she would get over her hopeless love for him. That was the plan. It hadn't stopped her from feeling secretly pleased to hear he'd be staying at Fitzgerald's. She was still as hungry for his company as she'd ever been, more in fact, after the long separation.
And here he was shunning eye contact and giving her the cold shoulder treatment. She didn't believe he had somewhere else to stay for one second.
"Well, you're not going to stay in that thing are ya?" she asked him with a mixture of incredulity, irritation and concern.
"Why not, sacraments on wheels, twenty four hours a day." He countered petulantly. "Christenings, confessions... instant weddings."
And now he stopped even pretending to fix the car and leaned there, breathing hard, apparently trying to regain control over his wayward emotions. The real cause of his bad temper had been made absolutely plain to the woman watching him with wondering eyes.
Assumpta felt a thrill in spite of herself. But her undeniable gratification at finding that he cared was tempered by a mounting conviction that she'd misjudged the situation to a disastrous extent. Exasperation with his continually mixed signals and indignation at his general rudeness to her, added to the cocktail of sensations she felt at that moment.
She'd been on the receiving end of Peter's temper before, but never like this. She'd never felt so unwelcome. She took the hint.
"Right. See yer later."
"Yeah. Bye."
3 months later...
The little red car choked to a sputtering stop somewhere amid the rolling hills of County Wicklow. Ordinarily the stunning view would have been enough to make up for any irritation but on this occasion Peter wasn't in any mind to admire it.
He tried turning the key a few times, knowing each time that it was hopeless, got out of the car lifted the bonnet, and was greeted by a plume of smoke.
"Not good." He thought. He tried to wave it from his eyes but it seemed to be getting thicker. "Really, really not good." He muttered, stepping back and squinting away into the distance. Not a farm, nor a vehicle as far as his eye could see. Only the odd sheep, and not many of them.
The irony of having broken down on his way back from a mission to get parts for someone else's car was not lost on him. But the situation was too serious for him to derive much amusement from it. Those same parts were too heavy to contemplate walking home with. If only he'd kept the mobile phone he'd once had on approval.
If only Timmy hadn't let his beloved Javelin roll off a cliff.
He winced at the thought of its crumpled remains, upside down, never to be retrieved.
He stood leaning, for some time, against the Javelin's inferior replacement, wondering what on earth he should do and watching an ominous cloud creep over the rocky crags above him. If only he'd brought a waterproof.
Abruptly he turned, locked the car's doors and started walking.
Carmel power was becoming extremely frustrated with this town. For starters there really was nothing going on, not even a tea shop where she could at least have whiled away some time. She'd made herself unwelcome in the dingy pub, the Chinese would pester her for a review, the post office was shut in the afternoons. She'd already walked up to the church, it looked unremarkable to her, and the door was locked. There'd been no answer at the curate's house either, unsurprisingly.
The bus had taken her the few miles to Cilldargan, where she'd sought out the Parish Priest, only to be told he was visiting Ballykissangel. She'd wandered aimlessly through the centre of Cilldargan. No stories there either.
And so, when the Ballykissangel bus had drawn up nearby, she'd got on board.
Carmel had seen too much of Irish landscape to be impressed by the view. It was green, it rained mostly, what else was there to notice? Give her big city lights any day.
When the bus eventually arrived at its sleepy destination, Carmel went straight down to the mechanic's. She passed the tethered goat by the roadside and caught sight of Padraig, clad in blue overall's, cheerfully humming a tune as he tinkered under the bonnet of a car that wasn't hers.
"Does this mean my car is done?" Said Carmel without introduction.
Padraig bashed his head as he straightened up too quick.
"Ah Carmel, there y'are. I tried to find yer. Y'see the thing is, they didn't have the parts, not in Wicklow either,..".
Carmel sagged.
"...but I sent for them from Dublin!" continued Padraig, eager to make up for the bad news.
"Fantastic." Said Carmel with no enthusiasm. "And how long's that going to take?"
Padraig squinted at a clock high on a wall in the garage. He frowned slightly.
"Actually, I'd kind of expected him back by now."
