Annie’s abrupt stop just past the doors leading from baggage claim into the arrivals hall at Cork Airport forced the other travelers to swerve around her. She had just enough time to shove a stick of peppermint gum into her stale mouth and wrap her hair in a chignon before James MacKenna, phone at his ear, noticed her in the crowd and waved her over. She pulled on the handle of her wheeled luggage and forced her stiff legs forward.
She recognized Eire-Evergreen’s director of operations from the company’s prospectus, running quickly through the few details she’d absorbed. The son of Redmond MacKenna, owner of Eire-Evergreen’s parent company, MacKenna Mining, Ltd, James MacKenna been appointed to this role only recently, though he’d worked for his father’s company since completing an MBA at the University of Melbourne a dozen years before. No one had warned her he’d be at the airport. She’d planned on an evening alone to prepare for the barrage of faces and voices that would surely hit her tomorrow.
“Annie! I was just calling you.”
His familiar use of her first name took her by surprise, but she let it pass as she extended a hand to greet him. “Mr. MacKenna. You drove all the way from Dublin to meet my flight?”
A bespoke black suit, light-blue shirt, and dove-gray tie complemented his gray eyes and black hair woven with silver. Annie caught a whiff of cedar-and-ambergris aftershave.
“James, please. I thought it would be a good idea if I took you to Beara to make introductions and give you the lay of the land and the politics, as it were. Here, let me.” James took the handle of her suitcase and groaned at the weight. Her carry-on, with its laptop and camera gear, was strapped on top, but he flashed a smile to show he was joking. His accent, a blend of Irish warmth, round Aussie vowels, and clipped British consonants, reminded her of something from her recent past, a thread picked up by the streaming wind of her shaky memory. It was a puzzle to be reconciled, but Annie was too weary to sort through it now.
“This is so kind of you. I’d booked a rental, but honestly I wasn’t eager to navigate the roads and drive on the opposite side quite yet.” She tried to sound sincere, but having to make conversation and impress her client this soon, before she’d had time to rest? Dread piled upon weariness. Annie felt thin and dry, like a hollow reed. She excused herself to the restroom, where she scrubbed at her teeth with the travel toothbrush and paste she’d stashed in her purse, washed her face, and pinched some color into her wan cheeks.
James drove a late-model Mercedes, and despite the long hours sitting in a cramped metal tube, Annie sank into the smooth seat with a grateful sigh. Exhausted—she’d never managed the art of sleeping on planes—she watched the scenery unfold as the industrial end of Cork faded into pasture and rolling hills. They drove deeper into the country, where the land was boisterously green. They continued southwest along smaller byways, the powerful vehicle quietly dominating the road.
What do people do here? she wondered.
“Many of them make the drive to Cork, believe it or not,” answered James, startling her; Annie hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “They buy a patch of paradise in some village, send their kids to day school, and drive more than a hundred kilometers round-trip to a city job to pay for it all.”
“How about you? Country mouse or city mouse?”
“I rent a flat in Dublin and walk to the office. I’ve been in Ireland only since the new year, but I’ve just purchased a house outside Ballycaróg. I researched my family’s records and found property the MacKennas had lived on as tenant farmers in the nineteenth century. Nothing felt quite as good as the day I reclaimed that property and put the MacKenna name on the title.”
“Does that make you a local?”
James laughed. “Depends who you ask. I’m Australian, educated in the UK; most of my career has been in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. I spent a few school holidays in Ireland, but I’ve never considered it home. Those for the mine consider me the prodigal son, returned home to share his good fortune. For those against the mine, I’m an interloper.”
“The fact that your history is linked to Beara is important,” she said. “We’ll emphasize your deep connections, your homecoming.” One of his hands hung loosely from the bottom of the steering wheel; the other rested lightly on the gearshift. No wedding band. “Do you have any family here? Children?”
His glance was quick, but she caught the twitch of a smile at the corners of his mouth, the slight narrowing of his eyes. “On-again, off-again girlfriend in Riyadh, where I’ve spent the past two years working on the buyout of a Saudi mining company. She’s French. Not remotely interested in living in wet, wild, southwest Ireland. So I suppose we’re more off than on at the moment.”
Annie held her face still. The implied closeness in a moment of personal disclosure. But her chest grew tight. Client flirtations were nothing new; a warm, open mien came naturally to her, but she’d learned to keep a careful distance. Never have drinks alone, never hold a gaze, return a smile with her mouth but never with her eyes if she felt the client had hazy boundaries. Then her own boundaries had grown hazy. The out-of-town meetings and conferences that led to dinners and drinks in dimly lit restaurants, stumbling tipsy and laughing back to the same hotel. Waking up in unfamiliar beds, head thick and pounding, stomach on fire, heart throbbing in shame.
James braked to a smooth stop. A moment later, two sheep stepped into the road, followed by a handful more. Then there were dozens—bleating, shoving, and bundling across the road, each sheep with a large splash of blue dye across its hindquarters.
A streak of black and white vaulted from the hillside. The sheepdog inserted himself between the car and the flock and crouched low, head tucked between his forelegs, rear end high in the air, tail wagging. He stood his ground before the car and barked in short blasts, jerking his head from the sheep passing by to the ones yet to come. A whistle sounded, sharp and shrill, and Annie heard the man’s shout before she saw him. The dog bounded on, his head low, his taut body whipping with energy and joy. The flock curved as one, the wave of white and blue wool breaking on the other side of the road. The ewes crested the steep hillside with ease, but their lambs scrambled on spindly legs to keep up. A short, deep-chested man dressed in a ragged wool sweater, muddy jeans, and knee-high rubber boots crossed the road in front of the car. He waved his thanks and trudged on, over the hill, bringing up the end like a caboose.
James accelerated slowly and picked up the conversation. “My father financed the exploration off the Ballycaróg coast for years, certain there were copper veins waiting for the right mix of technology and tenacity. When his bet paid off last year, he plunged ahead and secured the prospecting rights. But he forgot about the locals. Or maybe he just assumed that since he was of Irish descent, they’d take him in as one of their own and be grateful for the jobs the mine will provide. You and I are here to show the community we’ve got their best interests in mind. And we start tonight.”
He went on to explain he’d organized a dinner with the director of economic development and tourism from the Cork County Council, two councillors from the Bantry Electoral Area, and someone from some government planning commission—their names were a blur of rolled letters with too many r’s and d’s and g’s to make sense of. “It’s a gathering of decision makers, people who can really effect change in this community.”
Annie swallowed back a groan. Once upon a time, she would have relished the opportunity to sort the jigsaw puzzle of issues, arguments, and opponents into strategy. Now the thought of spending her first evening in the spotlight, listening to and volleying back a lexicon of professional clichés, filled her with a soul-weariness that went far deeper than jet lag. Her first client dinner since rehab. Her first in too many years to count without cocktails or wine to ease the—
“Too much?” James’s eyes lit on her, a furrow of doubt between his eyes. Had she said something? Had the groan escaped her?
“Not at all,” she said, her mind whirring with the betrayal of her body. “It’s a good opportunity to establish our talking points.”
The Mercedes sliced sharply into a curve. Annie’s legs stiffened, and she pressed her feet against the floor in a reflexive attempt to brake. Her shoulder brushed James’s, and she shifted abruptly away. If he noticed her discomfort at his speed, he didn’t let on. Nor did he slow. The gearshift glided underneath his loose grip, and his foot pulsed the clutch.
“My great-great-grandfather, Orin MacKenna, was twenty years old when the last of the copper mines still in operation on Beara closed outside Ballycaróg in 1882. Orin left Ireland the following year, like so many Irish during and after the Great Famine. He became a copper miner in Australia, as did my great-grandfather and grandfather. The MacKenna family didn’t return to Ireland until my father purchased Leinster Metals in 1985. He’d already founded MacKenna Mining in Perth in ’74. Mining is not just a part of my family’s heritage; it’s part of Ireland’s economic future.”
He slowed at a crossroads and looked at her, his expression unreadable. “How’s that for talking points?”
Another Annie, a more affable version, perhaps loosened by gin, would have responded with approval that verged on flirtation, a stroke of the client’s ego. This Annie was desperate to get out of the car, which seemed to shrink as their conversation intensified.
She’d tracked the signs directing them toward Ardgroom and Eyeries. They were close. Her legs ached and her head pounded. At last, James slowed and turned into a narrow gravel drive that descended toward the sea. The drive stopped just shy of the front door of a stone bungalow.
“Is this your house?” she asked.
“No, mine is on the other side of Ballycaróg. This is yours.” James turned off the engine. “I’ll bring in your bags and make certain everything’s in working order. And then I’ll leave you to get some rest.”
The sensation of being watched whispered over Annie just as she reached into the trunk for her carry-on. Turning, she saw a man dressed in the same browns and greens of the hills behind him; the noonday light brought his features out of camouflage. The air suddenly seemed heavy and palpable, and the whisper that had made Annie look in his direction became a low moan. The man broke his stillness with one step toward her. Then abruptly he pulled back and strode away.