The confessional seemed too small a space for the two curates, somehow, and the sanctuary too wide-open. Vincent cut himself off midway through reflexively telling Peter where the sacristy was. Peter appreciated it.
"Funny, isn't it?" Vincent asked, seeming to catch Peter looking about. "We spend all our time talking upward to a P.P. or a bishop, or down to anyone else, but we never get much chance to talk straight across."
Peter smirked on one side, shrugged on the other. "Plenty of other rank-and-file back in the city," he said.
"Right, but do you ever really talk honestly with each other?"
"Fair point." Peter relaxed a bit. "For that matter, if Father Mac knew we were here..."
Vincent grinned. "Probably his worst nightmare, from what little I've heard about you."
Peter chuckled. "And what have you heard?"
Assumpta unlocked her pub room door and ushered an exhausted Fionn through it. He curled on the afghan she'd folded on the floor - a creation of her mother's, in a dingy 1970s palette of pea green and burnt orange. It had been one of just a few things Assumpta begged Michael to pack for her when she left town, and now here it was, back in its rightful place: under a dog, inside a pub.
Assumpta remembered now that she was only booked through tomorrow. How was she to get Fionn back to Belfast if the car hire people didn't cooperate?
What was she to do when she did reach Belfast? Hide him from the landlord, hope he didn't bark when she was away?
She flung herself onto the bed, thinking Fionn had the right idea about a late afternoon kip. No sooner had she shut her eyes than a knock at the door pried them open again.
She opened it to the cold stare of Oonagh Dooley, who pressed a stack of post into Assumpta's hands.
"Believe these are yours," Oonagh said, turning away. "And Doc Ryan's downstairs to see you," she added without looking back.
Seeing Assumpta descend the stairs into the lounge, Michael stowed away his journal article on tropical diseases.
"Sorry to hear about your car," he muttered, gesturing to the sofa seat beside him.
Assumpta took the one across. "Wasn't mine. Just hope I'm not on the hook for it."
"How could you be?" he said. "Force majeure."
"Hope you're right."
"First time for everything." He cupped his hands in his lap, wondering if she'd ever actually look at him. "Assumpta, I'm sorry I forced your hand. I never felt quite right about any of this."
"You didn't force my hand." She made a bittersweet face. "Ambrose did; sure what else is new? Fionn did, maybe. And I forced yours."
"I've wondered every day why you changed your mind at that last minute," he said. "You seemed so sure that afternoon. As if something good had finally happened." He looked at the table lamp beside him. "And the lights. How'd you ever plan such a thing?"
Assumpta leant back into her chair. "Think it'll take a few drinks before I can tell you that story."
Michael eyed her carefully. "In your own time."
"Yeah." She turned her head away.
He had the silver bullet, and he knew it. "Has Father Clifford caught up with you?"
Assumpta glared at him. He gave an innocent look in return.
She rose and marched into the bar. He followed.
"Pint of stout, sir," she called, hoping indeed the male half of the couple would emerge from the kitchen.
He did.
"Same for me," Michael added, stopping Assumpta as she reached for her money, "and one for yourself." He reached for his own.
Dooley shrugged and began pulling pints.
"You know, if you wanted to out me and guilt-trip me, you might've done it sooner," hissed Assumpta.
"You assume I didn't try."
She paused mid-sip.
"Assumpta, I felt wrong about it from the beginning. I tried to sabotage you. Failing that I hoped to keep Peter close until your conscience got the better of you."
"My conscience!" she hollered, startling herself, Dooley, and the mountainy man seated near the door. She went on in whisper: "My conscience is what prompted me to do it."
"And you're at all stunned that he was so badly hurt?"
"Hurt then or hurt now?"
"You abandoned him. We betrayed him."
A customer appeared at the door. Paul escorted her to a far table.
Assumpta drained her glass. "I did what I had to do. I'm not proud-" she stopped herself, realising.
Michael eyed the empty glass with concern. "Would you not feel the same if someone had done that to you?"
"It's moot, Michael."
He took a slow breath and prepared to be as cruel as he ever had.
"What about your parents?"
Now she sat, still and silent.
"Well?" Michael prompted.
Assumpta swallowed. "They didn't."
Michael blinked. "You're sure?"
"I watched him die. I saw her body."
"You know well as anyone these things can be staged."
She shook her head. "No. No. They couldn't have."
He could only bear to watch her hyperventilate for a moment.
"Assumpta-"
"Michael, be straight with me," she pleaded.
He nodded. "No, they didn't fake it," he admitted.
Assumpta caught her breath, then hoisted her glass. Noticing it was still empty, she slammed it down.
She looked at Michael. "That wasn't funny."
"Wasn't meant to be."
"Didactic, then. Cautionary!"
"Did its office, I'd say."
Rage brewed in her eyes. "How dare you-"
"How dare we, Assumpta? How'd you feel just now, faced with the notion they might've abandoned you?"
Her face softened, darkened. Out of respect, Michael finished his glass and left her to her tears.
By now, the two curates had stretched out their long legs on the sacristy floor, propping their backs against the cabinet under the piscina.
"What're you going to do?" the Australian asked through a yawn.
The Englishman yawned back. "What, you can't answer that for me?"
"Very funny." Vincent looked at his feet, wiggled them as if to check that they were still in his control. "You're asking a man who lost his church-owned housing, moved in with a divorced spunk who also happens to be a fellow alcoholic, and keeps getting lectures from his superiors about playing fast and loose with the teachings of the Church."
Peter grinned. "Has Father Mac given you the litany about why there's never been a Jesuit pope -?"
"-And why there never will be? Yeah. And here I thought I was special."
"He'll tell you not to think that."
"Yeah, that'd be right." A lull went through the room now, and both men thought how odd it was for the room to reach a noise level that could precede a lull. Vincent turned and looked at his colleague: "You want to know what to do, hell if I can tell you. If it were me, I'd ask myself…"
Peter blinked, waiting for him to go on.
"Y'ever imagine you've had a wish come true, only years too late?" Vincent asked, tentatively. His counterpart looked confused, so he continued. "When I was young, all I wanted was to live with a sexy, know-it-all brunette someday, one who knew the lure of a good drink…"
"I don't know if I follow," Peter said, his eyes beginning to glaze.
"Well, the night you gave Miss Fitzgerald her last rites, what did you wish, most in the world? If you could go back to 1998 and tell Peter Clifford he'd see her alive again, wouldn't you do it in a heartbeat? Wouldn't that young priest gladly trade the pain he knew for the one you know now?"
"Yes." It was a brittle whisper. Peter's eyes were watering.
Vincent looked away to spare him the embarrassment. "If your vocation's been anything like mine, you've promised absolution for worse. You need to listen to her. And if she won't talk, you need to listen harder."
Making up for a lapse (doing penance?) with a chapter that's half Peter and half Assumpta, if not at all Peter-and-Assumpta. Has anyone else been thinking that Pope Francis would've sent Father Mac into a catatonic fugue?
It's a holiday here in the States, so I've had a semi-respite from the office, school, church, and pouring vodka into character shoes. More to follow, when those things permit!