High Potential

by Ber Carroll

  Outside the sky was an angry grey, and Katie fleetingly considered if she should turn back to get an umbrella.

  Oh, what the hell if I get wet, she thought defiantly and walked briskly towards the city.

  On her left, the Liffey was sunk down low, a line of green slime showing the level it had reached at high tide.

  I’m not sure if I want Jim to come here, she admitted to herself after a while.

  Why? asked a voice in her head.

  Because something will happen between us. I know it.

  Isn’t that what you want?

  Yes . . . no . . . I like him . . . But I don’t know anything about him . . . I still don’t know for sure that he’s single. The last thing I need is to make another big mistake.

  The voice had no answers. Surely that meant there was merit in her doubts?

  Katie crossed the river at the Ha’penny Bridge and kept walking until she reached the Moore Street markets. The atmosphere drew her there most weekends: the broad accents of the traders, the old-fashioned prams laden with fruit, and the feeling that this market could be the one part of Dublin that hadn’t changed much in forty years.

  Katie bought some fruit and other knick-knacks and wasted an hour or so bargaining with the stallholders over a few euros. The sun made a tentative appearance as she headed home. Her feet ached when she got back to her apartment but the walk had cleared her head. She was ready to answer Jim.

  It was nice to talk to you too, Jim, she typed. I hadn’t forgotten about the drink and I rather like the idea of having it soon. Let me know when you make a decision so I can tell Mags to organise the welcome-back party.

  Katie read the message out loud. It was friendly and warm, just like his. She sent it on its way to Auckland.

  Trying not to watch the clock, she started to make dinner. She cubed the vegetables and meat while her ears stayed on alert for an incoming-message beep from her laptop. Her nerves were so on edge that she nearly chopped her fingers off when the phone shrilled through the silent apartment.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi!’ It was only Mags. ‘Fancy going out tonight?’

  Katie hesitated. She could hardly tell Mags that she was waiting for an email from Jim.

  ‘I’m all settled down for a lazy night in front of the TV,’ she said instead.

  ‘Oh,’ replied Mags in a subdued voice.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Had a fight with Seamus, that’s all.’

  Mags would normally give chapter and verse. Just by her silence it was clear that this was no run-of-the-mill argument.

  ‘Why don’t you come over here?’ Katie offered. ‘I have dinner half ready.’

  ‘All right. I’ll bring some vino.’

  ‘Where do you keep your wineglasses?’ asked Mags, looking around the compact kitchen.

  ‘Top left,’ Katie replied as she added some cashew nuts to the stir-fry.

  Mags poured the dark red shiraz into two large bulbous glasses.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘Thanks for letting me gatecrash.’

  ‘No worries,’ Katie replied lightly. ‘Are you okay with sitting at the kitchen bar?’

  Mags nodded in a way that said she couldn’t care less where they sat. Her eyes were dull and her pale face was even more wan than usual.

  The conversation through dinner was sparse. Mags didn’t open up until she had topped up her glass for the second time.

  ‘Ever had your heart broken, Katie?’ she asked.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  ‘Maybe that’s true,’ her tone was dark, ‘and at the grand old age of thirty, I’m obviously a latecomer.’

  Katie shot her a wry smile. ‘Well, then, I must have been a latecomer too – I was the same age when I broke up with my fiancé.’

  Mags swirled the wine around in her glass. ‘Tell me about him.’

  Her broken engagement was the last thing that Katie wanted to discuss. Particularly not on this night when she was hoping that something new would start with Jim. She sidestepped the question and said, ‘Time for me to indulge my nicotine habit.’

  Her ashtray and cigarettes sat over on the windowsill. As she came closer, she noticed raindrops glistening on the glass pane.

  ‘Oh, it’s raining!’

  ‘Why do you sound so surprised?’ Mags was sardonic.

  ‘The sun was trying so hard to break through the clouds all day,’ she said, flicking the lighter. ‘But it seems that the rain won out in the end.’

  Mags cast a derisive look her way. ‘Christ, it’s just the weather. You sound like you’ve done nothing but think about it all day – you must be spending too much time on your own.’

  Katie laughed as she pushed up the window and puffed a mouthful of smoke into the darkness. Down below, the city lights reflected fuzzily on the river, and traffic clogged the quays. The footpaths were unusually deserted; nobody wanted to walk in the rain.

  After a few minutes she asked, ‘What happened with Seamus?’

  From the reflection in the window, she saw her friend’s shoulders droop. ‘He got arrested last night,’ her voice was uneven, ‘for drunken driving.’

  Katie tried to think back to the previous night. She had left the pub early for the conference call. She could recall Seamus with a beer in his hand when she said goodbye, and she remembered buying him one earlier on in the night as well.

  ‘He wasn’t much over the limit,’ said Mags, ‘but that doesn’t matter. He was still stupid enough to get behind the wheel. Now he’s lost his licence and he has to go to court. I’m so mortified. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for this.’

  Katie stubbed out her unfinished cigarette and closed the window. She sat down on the coffee table so that she and Mags were eye to eye.

  ‘You have to forgive him, Mags. Because if you don’t, then who else can he turn to?’

  The soft rain still lingered on the next morning. Katie threw back the covers and shivered when her warm body encountered the damp cold. She wrapped a towelling robe over her light pyjamas and went to make a warming cup of coffee.

  The kitchen was not a pretty sight, piled with unwashed dishes and empty bottles. Mags had gone home in the early hours of the morning. Katie had no idea if she would forgive Seamus or not. In the cold light of day, she wasn’t at all sure that she’d given her the right advice. Because when Rose had told her to forgive Geoff after he lost the house, to give him a second chance, it had turned out to be very bad advice. Geoff didn’t change. Couldn’t change. Forgiving him had made it much harder for him, and for her, when she’d finally drawn the line.

  With her coffee in hand, she sat down in front of the laptop. She re-established the connection to the MFJ network and refreshed her inbox. It took only a few seconds in all, during which she felt sweet anticipation at the thought of a message from Jim. The anticipation wasn’t long deflating. There was nothing in her inbox, no new message from Jim, or anyone else for that matter.

  Is this thing between me and Jim totally in my head? Am I making too much of this drink? Maybe he just wants to be friends and a date is the last thing on his mind.

  She abruptly shut down the empty inbox and opened up the internet. It was time for another wild-goose chase, which was exactly what the search for her family had become.

  Desperate for some progress, illogically angry with Jim, she hit the keys with unnecessary force as she typed in a search for births deaths marriages Ireland.

  She scrolled down the first page of results. Towards the end she found a website for the General Register Office and she double-clicked on the link.

  She sighed loudly when she read we do not engage in genealogical family history research in the very first paragraph. However, with nowhere else to look, she stayed on the website in the hope that she would get some ideas from it.

  It turned out that she did get an idea. Further down on the home page she read, Roman Catholic parish registers are normally still held by the par
ish priest.

  Now that she stopped to think, it was very obvious. Why bother with the phone directory when the local priest should be able to tell her what she needed to know?

  ‘I’m taking Friday off,’ said Mags when they were having lunch the next day. In the harsh light of the Temple Bar café, she still looked dreadfully wan.

  ‘Going somewhere for the weekend?’ asked Katie.

  ‘To Galway. Seamus and I have some talking to do. Obviously, I’ll be doing the driving.’

  A young waitress, who sounded Eastern European, delivered their food and asked if they needed anything else.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Katie.

  She started to eat. Halfway through her sandwich, she said, ‘Do you think Ted would mind if I took Friday off too?’

  It was high time for a second visit to Portmarnock and a week day would be so much more suitable than a busy weekend.

  ‘Ted won’t mind if we close shop for one day,’ Mags replied confidently. ‘It’s not as if we’re rushed off our feet.’

  As if to prove her wrong, the afternoon was extraordinarily busy.

  ‘It’s a pity we can’t squeeze another table in here and run parallel consultations,’ said Katie as she packed up for the night.

  ‘We’d still have a problem with confidentiality,’ Mags replied. ‘What we really need is another room. But that’s not in the budget so we have to make do with what we have. Anyway, this afternoon was probably an anomaly.’

  Mags had just turned the key in the lock when Katie’s mobile started to ring.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘You had no right to give Claudine unlimited time off!’

  Katie flinched at the sound of Neil’s snarling voice.

  ‘Neil, this isn’t a good time.’

  Not only was she too tired, she didn’t want to have a conversation like this standing in the hallway with Mags looking on. She needed her full wits about her.

  ‘I’ll give you an hour,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll expect your call.’

  Katie put her phone back in her bag. She and Mags said goodbye out on the street and went their separate ways. Katie was so preoccupied that she hardly noticed the huddled body in the doorway of the building next door. She hurried past, unaware that it rose from its slouch and watched her every step until she was out of sight.

  An hour later, she paced her apartment as she spoke to Neil.

  ‘I didn’t give her unlimited time. I said she didn’t have to return until Ethan was well.’

  ‘It’s the same thing,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘No, it’s quite different.’

  ‘Well, regardless of your empty promises, she’s not going to get a dollar out of us. She’s a foolish woman for even thinking that she can take on MFJ and win.’

  Katie had to bite down hard on her lip. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the extent of her dislike for Neil. She didn’t care any more how much he had done for her career: he was totally insufferable. But it was imperative that she tread very carefully; he could not know where her loyalties lay.

  ‘Look, Neil, why don’t you consider her request?’ she said in her most reasonable tone. ‘It’s only a few grand – if you pay her now, you may save yourself a lot of time and bother down the line.’

  Her suggestion did not go down well. Neil ranted and raved for the next five minutes. By the time she hung up, Katie had the sinking feeling that she had made things worse for Claudine than they already were.

  Chapter 18

  Katie heard a lone voice sing out as she approached the modern church. The voice was answered by a reverent murmur. Friday-morning mass sounded to be well underway at St Anne’s church. She stood and listened to the rhythm of the voices for a few moments before she went inside.

  The congregation was mostly gathered at the front of the church. Their heads bent, they appeared to be praying fervently. She slid as inconspicuously as possible into the last pew as a young red-haired priest, with a deep baritone voice and flowing green robes, began to read from the Gospel.

  Katie couldn’t remember the last time she had been in a church. Even as a child, Sunday mass had never been a constant like it was for other families. Given the hundreds and thousands of questions she had asked her parents over the years, she was somewhat surprised to realise that she had never asked them about religion. Now, looking at a congregation that was largely the same age as Rose and Frankie, she understood just how lapsed her parents were. Had it always been so, or was it something that had come about when they moved to Australia?

  The service was over in less than half an hour. In a flurry of genuflections, the congregation started to leave. Katie met their curious stares one by one. Soon she was alone.

  What now?

  As if to answer her question, a white-robed attendant came back out to the altar. Katie got up from her seat.

  ‘Excuse me, I was wondering if it’s possible to see the priest,’ she said.

  ‘He’s back in the sacristy,’ he replied.

  When Katie looked blank, he added, ‘Through that doorway – first room on the right. Make sure you knock.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She followed his directions. The door to the room was closed and she gave a gentle knock on the varnished wood.

  ‘Come in!’

  The green robes had been removed and the young priest wore a black clergy shirt with a tab of white around the collar.

  ‘Katie Horgan,’ she said, extending her hand.

  ‘Dermot Flanagan,’ he offered in return. ‘Have a seat, Katie. I apologise, but I have only a few minutes to spare this morning. One of my parishioners is going downhill and I promised the family I would go there straight after mass. Well, how can I help you?’

  ‘I’m searching for my extended family,’ she explained, very conscious of the ill parishioner who had a much more legitimate claim to the priest’s time. ‘My mother, Rose Carey, and my father, Frankie Horgan, emigrated to Australia in the sixties. Their parents are dead now, it’s their siblings I’m trying to find.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘Horgan is a popular enough name around here, there are a few of them in the parish. Now, Carey would be less common and I can’t say I know of any.’

  ‘I’ll write down the full names for you if I may, Father,’ she suggested. ‘Perhaps you could ask around?’

  ‘That’s a sound idea. Here,’ he handed her a notepad and pen from the desk, ‘jot your phone number down as well, would you?’

  Katie left shortly afterwards. She felt pleased with her morning’s efforts. The parish priest would know somebody who knew the family, she was sure of it.

  It wasn’t yet 11 am and she still had the best part of the day at her disposal. She was drawn back to the beach. She had since discovered that it was called the Velvet Strand, a most appropriate name for the luxuriously fine sand under her bare feet. She looked out to the horizon to see if the yachts were out in their droves again. But other than a few triangles of white, it seemed to be a lot quieter than the last time.

  Closer, two racehorses trotted along the water’s edge, pedigree evident in the sheen of their coats and the length of their legs. The jockeys rode with straight backs, every bit as elegant as the animals. Katie watched their progress to the very end of the beach where they were nothing more than two indecipherable dots.

  Some time later, she left the beach and headed towards the Country Club Hotel. On the way she caught sight of an overgrown cemetery and, before she knew it, she was in amongst the ancient tombstones. Trees, bushes and wild grass grew in the untended graves. A gabled wall of a ruined church presided over the souls buried in its sacred grounds. Brambles scratched Katie’s bare legs as she checked the etchings on the mottled grey tombstones: Murphy, Kennedy, Lowry, O’Neill, 1854, 1890, 1924, 1792. It seemed that nobody had been buried in the cemetery in recent years. Her grandparents’ graves were somewhere else.

  She was coming back on the bus when her mobile rang. Neil was the first person who came to
mind, but the number wasn’t his.

  ‘Katie, it’s Jim.’

  ‘Jim?’

  ‘Jim Donnelly.’

  ‘Jim Donnelly . . .’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’ He sounded amused. ‘I was wondering what you’re doing tonight?’

  ‘Tonight? Why?’

  ‘Because I’m in Dublin, and I thought it was high time I bought you that drink.’

  ‘You’re in Dublin?’ It was a good thing he couldn’t see the colour flooding to her face.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Dublin. The same place as you.’

  The rest of the journey to the city was a blur. Jim was in Dublin. She had agreed to meet him. Not tonight or tomorrow but right away.

  We have a date. He’s going to meet me off the bus.

  There was no chance to prepare, look her best. Yet she didn’t care that she was wearing old cut-off jeans and no make-up. She just wanted to see him. It was that simple.

  It took an age to reach the city centre, the Friday-afternoon traffic dense. Finally she got off the bus and there he was: tall, smiling, black polo shirt and tanned muscular arms that hugged her to him with a force that took her breath away.

  ‘You look great.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Dublin suits you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He took her hand in his and led her through the commuters who were gathered at the bus stop. ‘Come on, let’s go somewhere.’

  ‘Somewhere’ was the Gresham Hotel. Despite the hotel’s old stone façade, the bar was surprisingly modern. They sat on two of the high-backed barstools.

  ‘What would you like?’ Jim asked, with one elbow resting on the bar.

  ‘A Guinness, please.’

  He ordered two. The barman half filled the pint glasses from the tap and took another order while he waited for them to settle.

  ‘Well, Katie Horgan,’ Jim turned his gaze to her, ‘how have you been?’

  ‘Great.’

  He laughed. ‘I come all the way from the other side of the world to see you and that’s all you have to say for yourself?’