Fionn had heard the window noise well enough. Never much of a guard dog, the old boy still wasn't a half-bad watchdog.
Assumpta awoke to the sound of monstrous growling and barking, followed by the sound of a dozen toiletries falling off their ledge into the bathtub. Hazy from sleep, she staggered down the narrow hallway.
First her eyes caught the rear end of a yowling setter. Then they caught another arse, a pair of stubby denim-clad legs kicking behind it like a frantic swimmer.
Little by little her mind made sense of it. An intruder had got in, a dog had defended the territory, and now the unreliable old window had closed on the cowardly pervert as he tried to make his escape. Pitifully enough, Assumpta could hear him wailing for mercy.
"You have to believe me, Maire!" came his muffled yell from the other side of the wall.
"Who are you?!"
"I'm your greatest fan!"
A shudder went through her. "I'm getting the police," she yelled.
"You don't understand! I've seen all the plays! We're meant to be! No one else even knows who you are!"
Assumpta unleashed a great litany of curses and threats on the faceless man. Keeping Fionn at heel, she shut the bathroom door and secured it with a chair. She made a dash for the living room, fumbled for her phone.
The five seconds to connect with 999 felt like another three years.
She looked down at Fionn now. "Good dog," she murmured, heart pounding. "Oh, you good, good dog."
Long after the sirens, and the brisk arrest, and the checking of the flimsy lock on the window, she still would not sleep.
The following morning, she found a notice taped to her door. The bit with the tape remained after she tore the rest free, a pitiful white surrender flag.
Twenty minutes later she sat across a pompously large desk from the leasing agent, an apologetic-looking woman with dark circles under pale eyes.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but rules are rules. We cannot allow pets. He goes, or you both do."
"That dog might have saved my life! He defended your property!"
"And if he'd attacked the intruder on your watch, you'd be a criminal as well. And we both could've been sued for damages!"
Assumpta knew it was hopeless.
The agent attempted a sympathetic look. "You'll need to get rid of the dog. Please don't make us get a court order."
Assumpta shook her head and alighted from her chair. "Keep the deposit. Find a new tenant."
Back at the apartment, she checked every window again for fastness. Once she was satisfied, she began to contemplate her impending homelessness. In Belfast. With, she now knew, a deranged stalker. Without a car. With a dog. With all her meagre theatre earnings already in the coffers of the family who had overtaken her pub.
Without a name, really.
Name, she thought. I gave the police my real name last night.
Fionn curled at her side as her tears turned to hyperventilation, as she began to put all her clean laundry into the suitcase that still held the unclean.
"Where'll we go, boy?" she whispered, tousling his ears.
Fionn's eyes followed an envelope, pushed out of the suitcase by a bulging jumper.
Assumpta gave a bitter chuckle. The advert. She'd all but forgotten.
"What do you say," she whispered, "we look for a clue in here?" Fionn licked her hand.
She tore at the bright envelope and drew from it a perfunctory greeting card - Thinking of You.
Out fell a few loose scraps. The one she picked up immediately was a newspaper clipping - ten days old now, not yellowing yet. Thinking of her stalker, her blood ran cold, but then she noticed it was about football. A vaguely familiar-looking young man scowled in the photo inset.
Edso Foley.
She smiled a little. The impetuous young traveller had apparently hit the big time, and his hair was even longer now.
She looked inside the card. It was a note from Frances, dated a week ago now.
Assumpta,
I hope this message finds you well. I ran an internet search and saw there was a new curate at St. Joseph's, but that the pub still bore your name. If you still keep in touch with Fr. Clifford, please let us know how to reach him...
Her "death" had been invisible.
The note rambled on. Something about Edso's being spotted by chance, signing on with a major club, something about their daughter growing up strong...
And now we realise without your vote of confidence, in the form of a deposit, we'd have never made it...
...finally now, we can show how much we appreciated your help. I've no doubt you saved us.
It was only then that Assumpta saw the cheque at her feet.
Turning it over, she gasped.
MANCHESTER - THREE YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS EARLIER
Mary Margaret Clifford tried to shake her disorientation at the kitchen table. She had had another mild fit. The metastatic tissue was in what the neuro-oncologist called a "hot spot" on her brain; so far, her motor and language skills were not noticeably eroding, but the staring spells were coming more frequently, sometimes with a convulsion. Soon they'd do some damage of their own.
Hallucinations were becoming an occasional worry as well. Sometimes now George was at the foot of her bed when she awoke, smiling. It seemed a bittersweet comfort at first, a glimpse of the spiritual, but now he dissolved in less romantic, ethereal ways. Sometimes he melted into the floor; other times, he broke into a million crystal shards, like safety glass.
The pen and stationery were in her twitching hands. What was...?
Oh, yes.
Ink flowed with surprising ease, once she began; each point she wanted to make was like a candle lighting another.
Peter,
I'm not completely daft quite yet, you know. It's a steady progression, of course, but my moments of lucidity are exceptionally tenacious. I've had one this afternoon, as I read your latest.
Christmastime: Assumpta this. Assumpta that. Assumpta Assumpta Assumpta. Same as the letters that preceded it, ever since you left for Ireland.
This time: not a mention of her, only a list of things that drove you barmy during a retreat I'd no idea you were meant to take.
It can only mean you've finally realised what I've tried my level best not to notice - for politeness' sake - since the first of those letters, Peter. A name doesn't come up that frequently in our words unless it's already carved on our hearts.
Good heavens, if you can't be happy as a celibate priest, there are a hundred other things to be. No one ever did the Church any favour by living a lie.
I hope you'll see this and abandon any notions of waiting till I'm gone to follow your heart. It's nonsense. There will always be someone else whom you believe you cannot possibly let down - a parishioner, a superior, a colleague. No matter. I've read of the things you and your publican manage together for the sake of others. We serve God best when we are true to ourselves.
Of course, you knew that already. Bright boy. I've always taken great pride in you, and always will.
Love always,
Mum
Mary Margaret folded the letter. She saw George again now, in the doorway. He motioned her to draw near, helped her stow the letter safely on the bookshelf, then sublimated into a fog.
She wept. She fell asleep in a chair.
Within an hour she had forgotten all about it.
2001
Peter had more or less melted into the bed, allowing the letter to drop onto his chest. He imagined having seen it when his mother was still alive, imagined the peace it might have brought.
Then he imagined having seen it when Assumpta was still "dead," and the living hell it would have been.
Somehow his eyelids gave way under their own weight, and before he knew it, he was on a stool at Fitzgerald's, and his mother beside him - looking so young, he mistook her at first for Kate.
"Mum?"
"Fine bar," she said, raising a glass of Chardonnay. "Second finest I've seen."
Peter missed the bait entirely. "I miss you."
"I know, love. I haven't much time."
"You always say that."
Assumpta was behind the bar now, pulling a lager, serving it silently. Mary Margaret seemed to smile her approval.
"You're wondering what to do," she murmured to her son.
"Always."
"At least now you know she's here. It was torture how you wouldn't believe me the last three years."
"I never remember the dreams."
"I know. You have to try."
"Any advice?"
"Let it be, let it be." She smirked. Peter pulled a face.
Then she was gone.
HEAVEN
Mary Margaret felt the water swell around her and knew she was back from Peter's dream. She butterfly-stroked her way back to the swim-up bar.
"How'd it go this time?" came a voice she had never known on Earth.
Maureen Mellon Fitzgerald had a Chardonnay ready.
"I caught him, anyway," Mary Margaret replied. It was always difficult to catch the living at the right time to get into their dreams, because time moved so much more quickly on Earth. You had to have your script down to memory, and it was a good idea to put in some unmistakable detail that they'd remember when they awoke - wearing an odd outfit, speaking a different language, bearing a strange gift.
That was the part Mary Margaret had forgotten once again. She gave Maureen a half-toast. The two women lingered in silence at the bar for a moment.
Suddenly, Maureen seemed alarmed. "How long's it been on Earth now since you dropped in, do you think?"
Mary Margaret shrugged. "Half an hour here, a few days there? Maybe a week?"
Maureen pointed to the horizon. "Look."
Thousands of new souls were washing in aboard rafts, looking terribly confused.
Pets alerting to prowlers and parents with metastatic cancer have links to the world I know. I can't vouch for a swim-up bar or dream-manipulation powers in the Hereafter, but hope springs eternal. As for what's next, well, we are dealing with September of 2001, and I am an American after all.
More soon, but first I need to catch up on some of yours!