The Interview

Marta arrived at the offices of Brightwave, a software company in Dublin's docklands, forty minutes early. She had read everything she could find about the company, practiced her answers under her breath on the bus and changed her shirt twice before leaving home. She was applying for a job as a data analyst, and four other companies had already rejected her that spring.

The receptionist asked whether she would like a coffee. Marta, whose hands were already shaking, asked if she could have a glass of water instead. At ten o'clock exactly, a tall man with red hair and glasses came out to meet her. "Marta Gil? I'm Conor Walsh, Head of Data. Thanks for coming in." Something about his voice seemed familiar, but she was far too nervous to think about it.

The first questions were the ones she had expected. Could she tell him a little about her current role? What did she think her greatest strength was? Would she mind explaining how she had organized the database project she had mentioned in her application? Marta answered clearly, and slowly she began to relax. Conor took notes and nodded a lot.

Then the questions changed. "Do you mind if I ask where you grew up?" he said. Marta said she was from Zaragoza. "And didn't your family live near a big park? With a river?" Marta blinked. That was true, but it certainly wasn't on her CV. "Yes," she said carefully. "Why do you ask?" "Oh, just curious," he said, and looked down at his notes.

A few minutes later he asked whether she had a brother called Javier. Marta's stomach turned. She began to wonder whether this was some kind of test, or whether the company had been looking through her social media. "I'm sorry," she said, as politely as she could, "but could you tell me what that has to do with the job?" Conor went red. "Absolutely nothing," he admitted. "I apologize. That was unprofessional of me."

He closed his notebook and took a deep breath. "Can I ask you one more question, and then I'll explain? Don't you remember a skinny Irish boy who stayed with your family one summer? He was fifteen, he was terribly homesick, and he didn't say a word for the first week."

Marta stared at him. Then she remembered. It had been the summer she was thirteen. The exchange student from Cork had spent most of his days in the spare room, reading science fiction and refusing to eat anything except bread and ham. Her mother had been worried about him. In the end Marta, who was bored, had lent him her bike and shown him the paths along the river, and she had taught him to order ice cream in Spanish. By the end of the month, he never stopped talking.

"Conor," she said slowly. "You were the one who fell off my bike into the river, weren't you?" He laughed. "I wondered whether you'd remember that part. I certainly do. Your brother pulled me out and then told the whole street." For a moment they were both laughing, and the interview room felt like a completely different place.

Then Conor became serious again. "I recognized your name when I saw your application," he said, "and I should have mentioned it at the start. I'm going to tell HR that we know each other, and I'll ask a colleague to make the final decision. It wouldn't be fair otherwise. Is that all right with you?" Marta said it was, although she wasn't sure whether she felt relieved or disappointed.

The second interview, with a quiet woman called Deirdre who asked very difficult questions about statistics, took place the following week. Marta never found out what Conor had said to her, if anything. But three days later Deirdre phoned to offer her the job, and added, "Oh, and Conor asked me to pass on a message. He wants to know whether you'd teach him to order ice cream again. Apparently he's forgotten how."