Oonagh reached behind the front desk for the brass key to a single room. "Here you are, Ambrose."
Ambrose thumbed the grooves of it, watched it catch the light. "Can I ask a terribly stupid question?"
Oonagh gave a wry grin. "Suppose there's no harm, now you're no longer the law."
Ambrose grimaced, dropping his arm on the chair beside him. "Why does everyone call your husband 'Paul' now?"
Oonagh's chuckle built steadily, almost to a whoop.
Ambrose frowned. "What?!"
She tried to sober up. "Sorry, only no one's ever asked before. Been something of an emperor's-new-clothes situation."
Ambrose grinned a little at the idea of his own bravery. "So?"
Oonagh leant in. "You're bound to secrecy."
"Course."
"When my husband completed his sentence, he wanted a clean slate. He thought of Saul, from the Bible. Repenting, recanting, changing his name. New starts. Redemption. And I suppose, if we all called him 'Paul,' he might be reminded to keep his course."
Ambrose furrowed his brow. "Why on Earth is that a secret?"
Oonagh checked again for witnesses. "Because to anyone who knows him, my husband's a staunch nonbeliever. Even I pretend not to notice when I catch him praying." A sad smile came over her now. "I suppose if it brings him comfort...well. You marry someone, you marry their secrets."
Ambrose looked away. "Yeah."
Niamh came down the stairs now, met his eyes for an instant, and then shuffled shyly into the bar.
"Must be odd for the pair of you," Oonagh ventured, rising to follow her.
Ambrose tilted his head. Whatever. Then he went upstairs to his own room, to sleep under the same roof as his son.
No evening traffic had passed the little grey coupe and, for want of a clock readout, it was hard to tell how long it had been. Occasionally Fionn would wheedle into the dampened storm noise, or another crack of thunder would break through. Words, however...
It was Peter's stomach that spoke first.
"Have you eaten?" asked Assumpta.
He retraced the day in his mind. "Breakfast. Don't suppose you have any provisions?"
"More to Fionn's taste than yours, I fear." She sucked her teeth. "Bit peckish myself. Where was breakfast?"
"Aboard the ferry from Liverpool."
Assumpta pulled her response as if out of a hat. "I had heard you weren't in town anymore."
"No," he returned, not sure how much more to share. He felt a chill come over him, felt it frost over his voice: "I had heard you weren't at all anymore."
She breathed his name. It formed a short-lived cloud in the cooling air.
"You know, in all my life," he began; hearing his own unsteadiness, he stopped, then restarted. "What on Earth made you think..." Now his blood was moving faster, hotter. He took a breath. Two. "Did it never occur to you..."
Four breaths. Six.
She looked resigned. "You have a right to ask why. Every right."
"No, I've a right to know why. I don't believe you'll tell me the truth."
She had pointed her face toward the side window, staring at the rivulets coursing down it. She was taking short, sharp breaths. Crying? Acting? He wondered if he'd ever be able to tell. Wondering only made it more impossible. It made him want to cry, however genuine it was.
"Are you still a priest?" she asked, not turning back to him.
He felt a weight in his gut. "I am."
She nodded, the threat of tears still in her voice: "Where'd you go?"
"Manchester. Mum left me the house."
"Home."
"Could call it that." He couldn't get the bitterness out of his voice. Nothing was home. Not anymore. "You've gone back into dramatics."
"Yeah."
"Belfast?"
She shrugged. "Far enough away."
"That's Fionn back there?"
"Yeah. Just got him back."
"How does he fit in your new life?" It came out cruel. He knew it.
She put a hand over her eyes. "Forgive me, Father, I don't know! Okay?! I don't know anything that'll happen! I made a mistake! I let you down." She leant forward on the wheel. It worried him.
"You did worse than that, Assumpta."
"No, Peter, I mean I never thought you'd find out."
Even still he was bowled over by her audacity. "Oh, that would've been fine then!"
"It worked! Didn't it?!"
"I loved you. I told you."
"You were going to throw away everything to marry me. Did you not see how well that worked for the one before you?"
He felt the heat return to his skin. "I begged you not to run away, and what did you do?! That very night?! I mourned you! I wanted to die with you!"
"You wanted an easy choice, Peter! I gave it to you the only way I could."
"Oh, would you leave off the martyr business?! I should've known. You never said it back. You didn't love me. You only had to say, 'I don't love you.' Because that's the way a normal person breaks a heart."
"I did love you, you sanctimonious English coward! I knew if I told you, I'd ruin everything! I knew I couldn't pretend I didn't anymore. So yes, I ran away. Are you happy?"
A vehicle passed outside. Assumpta tried to flash the highbeams, but they wouldn't cooperate. She punched the horn, which made a pitiful bleet in response. Peter raised a hand, warning her to stop taking chances. The other car drove on.
Watching the taillights disappear in the rearview, Assumpta swore, then sunk back into her seat, tears flowing again. Peter put an arm around her shoulders; she squirmed from it but he didn't pull it away. They were both weeping. She put her elbows on her knees, her face in her palms.
The thunder was a few seconds after the lightning this time. Fionn began to grumble.
"I'm so sorry," Assumpta whispered.
He didn't know if she meant to himself or the dog. He felt himself weakening. "You always hated the clergy. Why my vocation?"
"You've already said you wouldn't believe me." She rubbed her eyes and sat back again. "And you don't owe it. I lied. I gave up the right to your trust."
"You really thought I could simply move on? Go back to business?" He tried to sound gentle; he was too fatigued for rage.
She was weary, too. "Didn't you? Ultimately?"
"Assumpta..."
"It was meant to be, Peter. Did you not give me last rites? I could hear you. The church first and always. It seemed I'd done the right thing. I thought you'd stay in town, but...well, the parish in Manchester always wanted you."
He thought now of what Father Randall might say. "They still don't want me."
"You were a good priest. Sure you still are." She paused, then turned to the backseat, retrieving her purse. From within it she produced a small flask. "Care for any?"
He frowned. "You always carry that with you?"
"Oh, please. I only thought I won't likely be driving us anywhere." She unscrewed the cap and offered it.
He sniffed. "Vodka?"
"Takes bad smells out of costumes between washings. And the sting out of a tough room."
"I'll pass," he said.
She considered it a moment, then replaced the cap. "Ah well." A sad chuckle escaped now. "You know another thing I do when I can't get into focus? Onstage?"
"What?"
"I imagine you, about eight rows back in the audience. Energy goes right where it ought to be." She shivered. "You don't have to buy that either, 'course."
He noticed the heat had indeed left the car. "Maybe I ought to try that with my next homily. Picture you, midway back in the pews."
"Peter..."
"Funny thing, when you were 'dead,' I always did. I always imagined you looking in, folding your arms, shaking your head." He counted another flash-boom interval outside, and felt his humiliation rising again. "None of it was true, then. Was it? You weren't dead, you weren't watching over me, and you'd've been delighted at the fruits of your labour."
Assumpta looked like she'd taken a sucker-punch. She reopened the flask now, and drank half its contents. She closed it once more, then dropped it grudgingly in the cupholder between them, down like a gauntlet.
Peter picked it up.
Niamh nursed her pint slow as she could, undeterred by the clanging of the bell. She looked down the bar at Father Sheahan, and a current of tacit understanding passed between them. The curate rose from his stool, toting a glass of ice-diluted cola with him. He took the seat beside the parishioner who was never his - with whom he had, in the space of one whispered confession, built the secret that kept this pub alive.
"Still no sign of your date?" she muttered.
"What, Donal? Nah, probably found someone prettier on the way here."
"Sure Dooley was all over bending your ear anyway."
The curate shrugged. "He let me in on the basics."
"My father, my best friend, and my husband. Common denominator: me."
"I know you're too smart to blame yourself, Niamh."
Niamh pointed a dull-eyed pout into her glass.
"You have to get some sleep. You're driving yourself mad."
"You sound like me, talking to Kieran."
"And if, during decent hours, you ever want to talk..."
She looked him in the eye now. "I might, at that." She blinked a few times, trying to remember something. "Did you ever find a place to live?"
A stone-faced Donal appeared in the doorway, much to Paul Dooley's chagrin - and Vincent's relief.
Niamh nodded blankly, and downed the last of her lager. "G'night, Father."