High Potential

by Ber Carroll

  Katie laughed. ‘Mum, what’s wrong with you today? I’m only going away for four months!’

  ‘Ireland is a funny place,’ said Rose, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Don’t be surprised if it casts a spell on you.’

  Chapter 13

  ‘We’re having a real heatwave, luv,’ said the taxi driver as he pulled away from Dublin airport. His freckled elbow jutted out the open window and gusts of wind blew back towards Katie as he picked up speed.

  ‘Really?’ she asked dubiously. She had been waiting at the taxi rank for twenty minutes, enough time to guess the air temperature to be twenty degrees or so. Hardly a heatwave.

  ‘Yep,’ he looked over his shoulder at her to make his point, ‘I told the missus I’d head home early to bring the kids to the beach. Jaysus, they love the sea more than they love Christmas!’

  His enthusiasm was contagious and Katie asked, ‘Is the coast far from here?’

  ‘Only fifteen minutes from here to Portmarnock. That’s where I bring them – Malahide is too busy.’

  ‘My parents are from Portmarnock,’ she said warily. She knew there was no way that Rose could hear, but she nevertheless felt her mother’s disapproval as if she was sitting right next to her in the back seat of the taxi.

  ‘I knew you looked as if you had the Irish genes in you,’ he said, darting another look around. ‘Only thing is that you don’t sound it – where’s that twang from?’

  ‘Sydney, Australia.’

  ‘Even an eejit like me knows that Sydney is in Australia,’ was his dry response.

  Judging by the traffic on the road, it seemed that the whole city had decided to take an early mark from work. The taxi edged its way along streets lined with redbrick terraces, their brightly painted doors gleaming in the sunshine. Katie wound down her window and the cacophony of car radios and revving engines became louder. The cars were an assortment of old and new models, and some of the young male drivers were bare-chested. As she sat in the taxi, Katie felt the vibe of Dublin city take hold of her.

  I’m finally here, she thought excitedly. And just fifteen minutes away is Portmarnock, the answer to all my questions.

  The taxi eventually pulled up outside her accommodation, a modern apartment block on the quays of the River Liffey. The driver got her bags from the boot and pointed out some basic directions.

  ‘If you keep walking along the river, you’ll pass Temple Bar on the right. Keep on straight and you’ll reach O’Connell Bridge. Turn left if you want to go to O’Connell Street or Henry Street. Turn right to go up towards Grafton Street and the Green. Back this way, you have the Guinness Brewery. Now, have you got all that?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She tipped him well, guessing that with the traffic so heavy it was unlikely he would be home in time to take his kids to the beach.

  The one-bedroom apartment was sparkling new, not unlike the one she had left behind in Sydney. She set her bags down inside the door and, cigarette packet in hand, walked over to the large window. The double-glazed glass was heavy to lift and when the bottom panel was pushed as high as it could go, she stuck her head out into the hazy summer’s evening. Down below, the murky-green river looked flat and lifeless. Further along, an old-fashioned footbridge arched high over the still water and beyond that was the smooth grey stone of what she now knew to be O’Connell Bridge. The stale odour from the river and the malt from the brewery combined to create a distinctive musty smell. Katie smoked the cigarette slowly. By the time she stubbed it out, the cramped streets, quaint bridges and funny smell felt strangely familiar.

  Katie didn’t intend to sleep away most of her first day in Ireland. She had grand plans to have a leisurely walk around the city, a modest night’s sleep and then an early rise to catch the bus to Portmarnock. However, in the middle of unpacking, she started to feel extraordinarily tired and decided to put her head down for a few minutes.

  She woke, alert yet disoriented, and was completely horrified when she realised that it was mid-morning, the next day. It seemed wise to reinstate the dratted alarm clock on the windowsill and to put Portmarnock on the backburner until next weekend.

  The city centre was a ten-minute walk from the apartment and was exactly how Jim had described: paperboys with reverberating voices, buskers with fiddles under their chins, irreverent pedestrians dodging out in front of cars. Katie spent hours meandering through the chaos. She stopped to listen to the lively street music, played by children and whiskered old men. She walked along the laneways of Temple Bar and imagined Rose and Frankie walking over the same uneven cobblestones many years before. And inside one of the century-old pubs, while listening to a group of traditional Irish musicians, she had her first glass of Guinness.

  The next day Katie discovered that MFJ’s Dublin office was a much smaller operation than Sydney, with four partners and a mere twenty-eight staff. Her new boss was a portly man by the name of Ted Guerin, and she liked him from the first moment they met. There was something very warming about his round face with its crisscross of laughter lines and shiny bald top.

  ‘Welcome to Ireland, Katie,’ he said with a handshake so vigorous that it hurt.

  He introduced her around the office and everybody else was just as welcoming. Her office, as small as the one back in Sydney, had lots of character, with its high ornate ceiling and large battened window. Her eyes focused on the manila files on the desk.

  ‘Some letters of advice,’ he said, almost apologetically, ‘but no rush.’

  He left her to her own devices and she began to read one of the files. About ten minutes later she had her first visitor.

  ‘Mags Kiely,’ said the short, skinny girl with spiky blonde hair. Then she added, as an afterthought, ‘I’m the pro bono lawyer – the conscience of the place.’

  She didn’t look like any other lawyer that Katie knew. In fact, with her cheeky freckles and girlish dimples, she looked more like a schoolgirl than anything.

  Katie shook the bony outstretched hand, saying, ‘Katie Horgan. I’m the assignee from Australia.’

  Mags nodded impatiently, as if she was well aware of who Katie was. ‘I missed you when they showed you around – I was late this morning. Or rather, Seamus, my boyfriend, was late, and he made me late – he was in Australia last year – went all around the country – had a great time – didn’t want to come home at all. We met the week he came back – he couldn’t stop talking about the place – I eventually had to ask him to shut up – we got on great after that – you’re about the same age as me, aren’t you?’

  Katie had never heard anyone talk so fast and didn’t realise at first that she’d been asked a question.

  ‘Your age?’ Mags prompted.

  ‘Thirty-one.’

  ‘Aha!’ Mags looked triumphant. ‘I’m a year younger – but I still live at home – saving for a mortgage – property is so bloody expensive here now – but, you never know, if things work out with Seamus . . .’

  ‘Look, those people there are leaving,’ said Mags and quickly darted off.

  Katie followed her to what seemed to be the only available patch of grass in the whole of Stephen’s Green. All around flesh was brazenly bared with seemingly little worry about sunburn. The atmosphere was so intensely summery that even she was beginning to believe that this was indeed a heatwave.

  ‘You must be used to this kind of weather,’ said Mags as she stretched out on the grass.

  ‘I don’t usually sit out in it,’ Katie admitted. ‘I burn – it’s my Irish complexion.’

  ‘You’d sit out in it if you only got a few days like this the whole year around,’ Mags declared. ‘That’s why we all go mad when we see the sun. I suppose you take it for granted in Australia –’

  Katie closed her eyes as Mags chattered on at a hundred miles an hour. She felt as though she had been in Ireland for much longer than a week. Work-wise, it had been pretty unremarkable – plenty of straightforward letters of advice to keep her busy but nothing that provi
ded any kind of challenge. Ireland’s legislation, trade unions and dispute-resolution mechanisms were going to take time to learn, and in the meantime anything more complex than the simplest query was out of her league.

  Work aside, everything was wonderful: Mags, Ted and the city that she already loved.

  The sun hot on her face, she slowly tuned back into Mags’s chatter.

  ‘I’m meeting Seamus down at Café en Seine at six. His work crowd will be there too. They’ll be all over you when they hear you’re from Australia – even better when they realise you’ll be going back in a few months – scared shitless of any kind of commitment, the lot of them –’

  After listening carefully, Katie concluded that Mags was expecting that she join her friends for drinks after work. It sounded as though there would be a big crowd of them.

  ‘Okay. I’m on for a night on the town.’ She lifted her sunglasses to give Mags an unfiltered stare. ‘And I can’t wait to meet Seamus. He must be a saint to put up with you.’

  ‘The cheek!’ Mags gave her a shove and she fell back on the grass.

  Suddenly the two of them were in fits of giggles. None of the amused onlookers would have ever guessed that they were lawyers.

  It had occurred to Katie that Seamus would have to be Mags’s opposite, and he was. Seamus Sheehan was tall, conservatively dressed and listened more than he talked. But he had a droll sense of humour and something about Mags appealed to it because his lips twitched into a smile every time he looked her way.

  ‘Katie’s fitted straight in,’ Mags told him. ‘Everyone in the office has said so – you’d hardly even know she’s Aussie – I suppose it’s because her parents are Irish – on some subconscious level she must understand our funny ways –’

  ‘You give me too much credit,’ Katie cut in, with a serious look on her face. ‘I just nod and make the right noises. Truth is, I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s being said half of the time.’

  Seamus’s belly rumbled with an alarming sound. It took Katie a moment to realise it was a laugh. ‘Mmm, that could get you into trouble, Katie from Australia. I can see it now. “Katie, would you like some black pudding?” ’ He stopped to nod furiously. ‘ “Katie, would you buy me and my ten friends a round?” ’ He bobbed his head for the second time.

  One of the ten friends got in on the joke. ‘Katie, would you like a shag?’

  Katie turned to him. ‘Ha, ha. I’d understand that particular question in any accent. And the answer is no.’

  It was hard to remember the names of all Seamus’s colleagues. One was John, another Joe, someone else Mick. Actually, there were two Micks. Within minutes she found herself at the centre of an intense interrogation, and it didn’t seem to matter at all that she couldn’t match the faces to the names.

  ‘How long are you here for?’

  ‘Is this your first time in Ireland?’

  ‘What do you think of Dublin?’

  ‘Do you miss Sydney?’

  ‘Do you live near the beach?’

  ‘Can you surf?’

  ‘Rugby is huge over there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Did you see the Lions when they toured?’

  She answered the questions as best she could. Even the personal ones.

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  She told them that she’d recently finished a long-term relationship. A big mistake, because of course they wanted to know all the gory details.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘How long were you with him?’

  ‘Do you see him now?’

  ‘What you need is an Irishman – and you’re very lucky that I’m free at the moment.’

  ‘Don’t mind him, Katie, my darling. I’d show you a much better time.’

  ‘Don’t mind those two culchie yobbos. You need a sophisticated city man like myself –’

  Luckily Mags rescued her from the onslaught.

  ‘You’re a disgrace, the lot of you!’ she said sternly as she pulled Katie in the direction of the ladies. ‘You’ve no idea how to treat a visitor.’

  Katie groaned when she saw her reflection in the mirror. ‘Look at my red face – I can’t believe I got sunburnt in Ireland.’

  Mags squinted her already tiny eyes. ‘It looks kind of cute – as if you’re blushing – but that’s no excuse for Seamus’s friends to mob you.’

  ‘Are you sure they’re accountants and not journalists?’ asked Katie as she rummaged through her shoulder bag for her face powder.

  ‘We’re a very nosy race of people, us Irish,’ said Mags. ‘We all have a budding journalist somewhere in our personality make-up.’

  ‘You’re telling me!’

  ‘You’re just a novelty to them, that’s all. Every week it’s the same old crowd so it’s understandable that they would go a bit mad when an exotic creature from the southern hemisphere comes along.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Katie dabbed the powder over her glowing face, ‘at least you saved me from them.’

  ‘I’ll need to do a better job the next time,’ was Mags’s reply, ‘or Jim will be on my case.’

  ‘What?’ Katie started, the powder sponge midair.

  ‘You know – Jim.’ Mags threw her a funny little glance. ‘He asked me to take good care of you during your stay in our fair city.’

  Chapter 14

  Katie slid the fare under the plastic window and the bus driver checked it before issuing her ticket. All the seats were taken and she had to stand along with many of the other commuters. She sighed. If there was ever a day she needed a seat, it was today.

  Last night she’d stayed in Café en Seine until the early hours. When the bar closed, the singing started. She had an awful feeling that she’d been coerced into singing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ but she wasn’t entirely sure.

  The bus driver, possibly a hobbyist rally driver, swung mercilessly around a corner.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Katie as she fell on top of one of the seated passengers.

  ‘Yer all right,’ the old man assured her.

  The clanging in her head worsened as she straightened up. She was very hung-over and being jostled around in the stifling heat of the No. 32 bus was about the last thing she needed.

  ‘Are yer visiting for long?’ the old man asked. Evidently he had been able to tell that she was a foreigner just from the few words of apology she had uttered.

  ‘Four months,’ she answered. ‘I’m on assignment with one of the law firms in the city – MFJ, they’re called. I’m just visiting Portmarnock for the day – my parents came from around here – they moved to Australia about forty years ago –’

  God, she thought as she heard herself chattering nineteen to the dozen, talking to strangers is like a hobby in this country.

  ‘Jaysus!’ he exclaimed. ‘That was a long time ago. Portmarnock was nothing but countryside back then. What are the names of yer old folk?’

  His shaggy eyebrows frowned in concentration as he waited for her answer.

  ‘Horgan – my dad is Frankie Horgan.’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘Don’t know him . . . Would ya press that bell there for me, girl? This is me stop coming up.’

  She did as he asked and a bell rang out to alert the driver.

  The old man gripped the pole, his knuckles white as he pulled himself to his feet. He tutted, ‘Jaysus, me ol’ knees are knackered.’

  Katie nodded as if in perfect agreement. The old man made his way unsteadily down the aisle as the bus came to a stop.

  The back doors had opened when Katie called after him, ‘How about the Careys? Would you know them?’

  He paused. Slowly his head turned around. Was that a flicker of recognition she saw in his eyes?

  ‘Are ya right back there?’ called the bus driver impatiently.

  The old man yielded under pressure and, with Katie’s question unanswered, he descended the steps as fast as his knackered old knees would allow.

  Katie walked up and down the main street of Portmar
nock village a number of times. She stopped to read the mass times at the church, the menu at the Golf Links Inn and the notices outside the primary school. But she was really studying the people, looking for someone like the old man, someone who had lived in the area for a lifetime. However, it was mostly children and teenagers that she saw. She eventually wandered into one of the shops. The boy behind the counter looked to be in his mid-teens.

  Maybe it would be more productive if I came back here on a school day, she thought as she looked through the postcards on display. That must be when all the retirees come out of the woodwork.

  She picked out some postcards and handed the cash to the young assistant.

  ‘Are you a local?’

  ‘Naw,’ he replied, a nail-bitten finger pressing the buttons on the till, ‘I come from Baldoyle.’

  Down on the beach Katie slipped off her sandals and walked through the sun-warmed sand until she reached the tidemark. From there, it was a long soggy stretch down to the water’s edge. Children zoomed past on either side of her, their short skinny legs racing towards the sea. Water splashed high as their bare feet charged through the shallow puddles.

  ‘Come on, last is a loser!’ she heard their young voices carry on the wind.

  Katie sat down where the sand was soft and admired the magnificence of the beach as it swept around the bay. To her left there was an old tower, rather like a very large child’s sandcastle, and out on the horizon there were two craggy islands. And yachts, lots of them, as many as you would see in Sydney Harbour on a fine day.

  Katie took her postcards from her bag. Her pen poised, the right words were very slow to come.

  Dear Mum and Dad,

  This is a beautiful place. I’m sitting on the beach as I write and I’m thinking of how lucky you were to grow up here. I’m told it has changed a lot in forty years but I imagine that the beach and the tower are timeless.

  Wish you were here,

  Love, Katie

  It didn’t take much to fill the compact space on the back of the postcard. It was probably for the best that there was no room to say all the things that were running through her head.