Chapter Seven
Turns out, very hard.
“You barely have a business plan, Katie.”
“But I have spirit,” I protest. “And gumption.”
“And I admire that, but that’s not going to be enough here.”
I pout at Harry as he sits back in one of the low leather armchairs dotting the café.
It’s a chain one in the city center and is still busy with the last of the lunchtime rush.
I usually wouldn’t dare pay so much for a coffee I could make at home, but his office is nearby and, though it took two bus rides to get here, I wanted to meet him in person.
Harry grew up in Ennisbawn, and we dated for a while when we were teenagers, doing all the things young couples do until he moved away for college and, in the space of a few weeks, joined a rowing club, realized he was gay, broke up with me and then met the love of his life.
I don’t think the rowing club had anything to do with the other stuff, but he was very excited about it at the time.
We remained friends, and last year I acted as one of the groomspeople at his wedding, an extremely fancy affair where I had too much champagne and ate nine mini quiches.
Now he sits before me, dressed in a navy suit and light brown shoes, with his dirty blond hair gelled to the side in such a way that I know he spent a long time practicing how to get it just right.
I called him over the weekend but am already regretting my decision to come all this way to see him. He seemed mostly amused on the phone, but now he’s acting like Gemma did, shutting me down at every turn.
“Your bank literally ran a multimillion-euro campaign about backing small businesses,” I tell him, as he takes a sip of his foamy latte. “ I am a small business.”
“You are a woman with an idea.”
“An exciting idea.”
“You need plans,” he says. “You need financial forecasts. You need mini essays about the good of the community and cost analysis.”
“ You need to tell the truth in your television adverts.”
“I’ll pass that along,” he says diplomatically. “Look, it’s not a bad start. You just need to take smaller steps first. Have you applied for an arts grant?”
“It will be too late. I won’t get the money until next year and this needs to happen now. That’s the whole point of it. They’re going to tear down the pub, Harry. Our pub.”
“ Your pub. I haven’t been to Kelly’s in years. I don’t even drink that much anymore. Only on special occasions.”
“You don’t have to drink to visit,” I say, outraged. “We have mocktails now.”
He smirks, but it fades almost immediately, and I know what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth. “If you need a job—”
“I have a job.”
“I can help you with some applications,” he continues as if I haven’t spoken. “We have lots of entry to mid-level positions open. I can think of at least three off the top of my head that you’d be great at.”
“Stop trying to change the subject.”
“I’m not. If the pub closes, then you’ll need work. There’s work in the city. Good work. With benefits and pensions and cake on people’s birthdays.”
“I’m not going to commute for three hours a day.”
“Then move closer.”
“And leave Granny?”
“Move her with you.” He leans forward, clasping his hands together as he looks me in the eye. “You need to be realistic about this.”
“What I need is money to get this thing off the ground. And surely the whole point of knowing someone in a bank is to benefit from a little nepotism. It’s like we don’t even know who we are as a country anymore.”
“You have no experience in running something like this. If you want to put on a show, you need to get someone who knows what they’re doing. Why don’t you hire a project manager? Or an events team?”
“Because I don’t have any money!” I half exclaim, half moan. “That’s why I’m talking to you. You’re supposed to tell me what a brilliant idea this is and give me a big fat check and maybe a free pen.”
“We don’t really do checks anymore,” he says, unaffected by my glare. “I’m sorry, Katie. But I’m telling you now, you’re not going to get anything for something like this. You have to think smaller.”
“We can’t go smaller. No one’s going to pay attention if I just put up some bunting and have a barbecue.”
He gives me a helpless shrug, and I sit back, abandoning my good girl posture for a sad girl slump as my blazer stretches uncomfortably around my shoulders. Anushka let me borrow it for today, saying I needed to look the part. Fat lot of good that did me.
“Okay,” I say. “Second plan. You and me. Bank heist.”
He gives me a look, and we fall into silence, mine decidedly sulkier than his. “How’s Maeve doing?” he asks after a while.
“Fine,” I say, still a little sore he didn’t just hand over a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it. “She had a fall a few weeks ago.”
His brow furrows in concern, but I wave it off. “She’s grand. It wasn’t that bad. She just got extra grouchy afterward because she was embarrassed.”
“I’m glad to hear she’s alright.”
“Yeah. Bad bruise on her hip, though.” I twist a lock of hair around my finger as I remember the ugly purple splotch of it. “Her doctor said it’s probably going to keep happening. She’s not doing her stretches enough because she’s stubborn and infuriating and…”
And even if she did them, it probably wouldn’t help that much.
I don’t finish the sentence, turning my gaze toward the window. It started raining in the last few minutes, a heavy, spitting kind that hits against the glass as though trying to break through. The storm has officially arrived.
“Can you at least ask about the loan?” I ask. “Or enquire or whatever it is you do.”
“Of course. You know I will.”
“But you don’t think I’ll get anything.”
“Not a cent,” he says, as his phone flashes with a silent alarm. He turns it off, his gaze softening as he takes me in. “I’m sorry about the pub, Katie. I really am.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “I know.”
“Give me a call if it doesn’t work out, okay? I know you’re scared to move—”
“I’m not scared .”
“But us city folk aren’t so bad,” he finishes. “And a job’s a job.” He drains the last of his coffee and grabs his coat, looking out the window in dismay. “You get the bus in?”
I nod. “There’s one in thirty minutes. I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“It’ll pass. It’s just a shower.”
He leans down to hug me and then he’s gone, rushing out the door with a newspaper over his head as he tries to escape the deluge.
I wait another ten minutes for the rain to ease before resigning myself to the fact that it won’t and am barely two steps out of the door before I’m drenched through, my rain jacket doing nothing to keep me dry as the wind whips around me.
It only gets worse when I get down the road and see how packed my bus stop is, and I make a snap decision, diving through the door of the nearest restaurant and wishing I had just stayed at the damn café.
The hostess gives me a suspicious look, but I pretend to browse the menu until she’s distracted by an actual customer, when I then try to sneakily locate the toilets so I can hide for a few minutes.
It’s a nice joint. Trendy décor, soft jazz music playing.
The kind of place where the menus are small and the wine bottles have corks and not just screwcaps.
Feeling distinctly out-of-place, I slip behind a waiter carrying an admittedly delicious-looking cheese plate toward the back of the room only to stop in my tracks when I spot a familiar face.
Callum.
He sits alone at a small table, scrolling through his phone. He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t look up, or feel me watching, or know I’m there at all. And I know I should turn around and walk out again, but I don’t move.
Granny loves signs.
There is no such thing as a coincidence in her mind, only fate and omens and que sera, sera s. And while I’ve never really bought into any of it, it’s her I think of now as I squeeze my way between the other diners and drop into the seat opposite him.
He looks up as soon as I do, an expression of relief switching to confusion when he sees who I am. “What are you—”
“Kismet.”
“What?”
I let my bag fall to the floor and wipe my damp face with my equally damp sleeve. “This is kismet,” I tell him.
His mouth opens and closes before settling into a frown. “You look like you swam here.”
“It’s raining.”
But he has a point. I’m dripping all over the floor and quickly shrug off my coat before tying my hair back as best I can.
Callum looks around like he’s the victim of a practical joke, but when no cameramen pop out, he turns back to me. “Did you follow me here?”
“ No . I told you, kismet.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Stop threatening to tear down my pub.”
He just stares at me. “That’s it?” he asks, when I don’t continue. “That’s your big negotiating tactic?”
“Did it work?”
“No. Not that that matters, though, right? Because of your amazing festival?”
“Oh, so you’ve heard of it?”
He gives me a look. “I know you don’t have one.”
“You don’t know anything. But I’m not here to argue with you.”
“Why are you here at all? Don’t say kismet.”
I press my lips together because I was definitely going to say that. “I think if you can just talk to your boss, you could—”
“I can’t do anything,” he interrupts. “Traffic flow is where my power ends, and I’m sorry about the pub. I am. But it’s just a pub. It’s a building with four walls and a sticky floor. There are thousands of them all over this island and yours isn’t that special.”
“It’s special to us,” I say sharply. “And our floor is not sticky.”
“Your whole village has been up in arms ever since we bought the land,” he says, sounding just as annoyed as I am now.
“It’s like you refuse to see a good thing when it’s staring right at you.
Do you know how many jobs are going to be created because of this hotel?
Do you know how much money is going to start coming into the area? ”
“And here we go with the money talk.”
“Half of your main street is abandoned! Half your houses are too.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just destroy the other half.”