MANCHESTER
Assumpta didn't really want to emerge from the loo. She contemplated the ethics of borrowing a hairbrush, or nicking a dab of toothpaste. Would there be any point in it? Her only words to Peter's sister thus far had referred to the call of nature - Fionn's, first, and then Assumpta's own.
This was not how one made a first impression.
Deciding against the intimacy of a hairbrush but favouring the crime of petty theft, Assumpta swished a mouthful of minty goo until it felt uniformly distributed, then spat and rinsed against the faint chatter from the kitchen below.
"So this is that one," said Kate. "...Broke your heart."
Assumpta frowned at her reflection.
Peter murmured something too weak to catch.
"Mum's letter," Kate went on. "The other day. Everything you told me...now this."
At this, Assumpta winced. The chatter softened again, and she held her breath, straining to hear it. Her eyes moved to the tiny egress window, and for a moment she imagined running away again.
Then she imagined never running away again.
She made out the ring of a phone below, and then Peter calling her name. A cringe pushing her molars together, she pulled the door lever and stepped into the unknown.
BALLYKISSANGEL
Niamh pinched shut the mobile phone which had just absorbed a host of forceful words. She kicked the faculty-lounge sofa in her frustration.
Brendan sipped his tea, hoping to conceal his smirk. "Third phone call you've ended that way in twenty minutes."
"Oh, it's monstrous," she spat. "The solicitor wants me in her office tomorrow, and me without my own Learjet. Some chancer outbid me on my father's house. And now the Dooleys are up and leaving like the mercenaries they are."
Brendan's smirk softened. "I can watch Kieran for a few days."
"Oh, Ambrose can watch Kieran!" Her voice came out cold and hard, like the ice she now coaxed out of the fridge door into her cup. She turned away as she pressed it against the water lever: "Ambrose has plenty of time to make up for."
"Has he decided-" a bell interrupted. Niamh grabbed her purse and made for the main office.
Ambrose had not decided, and he felt new creases forming in his gut with each passing minute, with each needless potato crisp he threw at it in a vain attempt to distract himself.
He looked up from the bar now as Grainne clomped down the stairs with yet another box of possessions, sulking.
He knew what the pay would be, knew it would be handsome enough compared to his wages as a babysitter or a prankster mascot. He knew what financial security would mean to Niamh - if not as a wife, then surely at least as his child's mother. He knew what it would mean to his own mother, perhaps even his father. To Frankie, if not as a friend then surely at least as a colleague.
He also knew he wanted something else to come demand his loyalty first. To spare him the agony of saying "No, sorry, but I can't say why not."
Oonagh emerged from the kitchen now with a bowl of mush for Aisling, whom Ambrose had nearly forgotten was on his lap. "We'll miss this place," she said, spinning the ring on her finger. "Sad to go."
"Seems to be the season for it," said Ambrose. Only now did he notice Michael at the far end of the bar, looking down into his pint.
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," Michael murmured.
MANCHESTER
Kate reached for her second slice of toast, and began to mutilate it. The woman with the chaotic chocolate-cherry hair was still pacing with the phone handset, moving back and forth between the sitting room and the kitchen. It was absurd.
"No no no," she kept saying. "No, I'm honoured you'd think of me...okay, no, of course. Well then I'm honoured she thought of me. Only I..."
Kate had a bite and another, chewing purposefully as she tried to catch the woman's dark eyes, but they kept on their course to meet Peter's.
"There's someone I need to ask first." Only now did she acknowledge Kate, covering the mouthpiece and mouthing a squinty-faced silent apology it wouldn't have caught anyway. Kate was beginning to suspect this woman spent a lot of time mouthing apologies and screwing up her little heart-shaped face.
Break his heart one more time, and I'll give you the last rites myself, thought Kate. She gave a crooked smirk.
She glanced at her brother now, but he was tethered by his own suspense. Now he rose, crossed to meet this woman, forgetting for a moment not to touch the small of her back, and then betraying himself by staring at his errant hand.
Kate turned to the fridge as if for an answer. She looked at the old picture of their mother with Father Randall at Peter's ordination. Even then, the old P.P. had a lackadaisical sort of smile, an easy glibness poorly suited to Peter's short temper and insatiable guilt complex. Mary Margaret had adored working as his parish secretary for a number of years...but then it was a poor substitute for what Mum had always really wanted, wasn't it?
Peter noticed Kate looking. Reminded of the here and now, it seemed, he looked at his watch and his eyes went wide. He touched Assumpta on the shoulder, whispering in her free ear. Panic set in on her face. He looked back at his sister.
"Off to see old Miles?" she intuited.
Peter rolled his eyes at the affected first-name basis.
"You go on," Kate said. "I'll keep her company."
It had worked. The Irishwoman looked as though her attention span was packing up and leaving with him. The voice coming through the phone was repeating her name.
Now she was looking at Kate.
Kate set a cup of tea in front of Assumpta. It seemed to have the desired effect of making her even more nervous.
"You know, Peter's always had a voice on each shoulder about the priesthood."
Assumpta swallowed, blinking.
"Our father thought it was a horrid idea on all fronts. Little hot-headed Romeo, taking up the cloth. As if obedience or chastity ever suited him. As if poverty suits anyone, really, though at least he'd had some experience of that."
Kate watched for the changes in the actress's face, the hints that she'd been drawn out of performance mode and was really listening. Almost there.
Kate made a little extra noise drawing her own chair out again, and a little more still putting her cup on the saucer. "Dad knew what Father Randall always suspected: Peter thought all his bleeding-heart values ought to be enough. Secretly I sometimes think Father Randall agrees."
Assumpta nodded at this. "Yeah, I talked with him a bit yesterday," she managed.
Kate was surprised; she tried not to be charmed. "He and our father both missed what Peter knew. What Mum always knew." She took a slow sip and checked the actress again. "And understand, Assumpta, I tell you all this because I know your story, now; I think it's only fair you know my brother's."
"Okay," Assumpta breathed. Drawn in now. Ready.
"It was our mother who always felt called to be a priest. Not a secretary, not a nun, not a good little housewife, according to His plan. She felt it down in her bones. If you could've met her...she ministered to people in her own quiet way all the time. Strangers on the street came up to confess to her, seemingly out of nowhere. When a child at our school arrived in last year's shabby outgrown uniform, she arranged with the headmaster to hide a bundle of brand-new ones in the child's locker...
"Peter seemed to notice this, and watching him take his vows gave her a peace the Church would never have allowed her to get for herself. And the glimmer of hope that someday, someone on the inside might speak to the calling in her heart."
Assumpta looked emboldened now. "Do you think women should be priests?"
Kate tilted her head. "Women, married men, my lesbian friend Caroline, why not? But I don't care about it that much. It's no life's work for me. I can go to Mass and trust that eventually the Vatican gets around to it, maybe not in my lifetime, but I'm just simply not too fussed. I'm not like my brother. I'm not like my Mum. I don't have that passion within me. I never wanted it for myself, so I can't very well yearn for it."
Assumpta nodded again.
Kate took care to fix her eyes on the other woman's now. "Father Randall isn't terribly passionate himself. He certainly won't put up a fight for my brother. He never did before!
"Whatever happens, Assumpta, I expect you to put up a fight for Peter. Wherever you take him once he makes this decision - and you know he's going to... If you don't fight like mad for him from now on, he'll wonder if he's let everyone down. Made a mistake."
A reverie threatened to swallow Assumpta. "Fight like mad," she echoed.
"Penny for 'em?" Kate tried.
Assumpta broke into a grin. "Only I was thinking of a time when I sent a snowball straight to hell...well, a petition to the clergy."
Kate took a leap of faith: "Who was that on the telephone?"
Assumpta shook her head. "No no no. That only matters if your brother says it does." And she was up, rinsing her teacup and reaching for her purse.
"Bound for St. Luke's?" Kate asked.
"Good guess."
Assumpta clipped the lead to her dog's collar. Kate watched them go. The houseplants along the shelf caught her eye, and she watered them out of pure superstition.