The medieval capital took him by surprise, with its wide streets lined with palm trees and flower baskets, and the narrow alleys with picturesque pavement restaurants and stylish boutiques. He could have been in a different country.
As he strolled down the Paseo Maritimo, Liam found himself stopping to look in the estate agents’ windows. He was surprised how cheap the houses were compared to Cork, and even more surprised to discover that the banks were offering 80, sometimes even 90 per cent mortgages.
He considered entering one of the estate agents’ offices, as he had a hundred questions he wanted answering, but as he couldn’t speak a word of Spanish, he satisfied himself with looking in the windows and admiring the large colour photographs of properties described as deseable, asequible, sensational. He was thinking of returning to Magaluf when he spotted a familiar green, white and orange flag flapping in the wind outside a shopfront with a sign which announced, ‘Patrick O’Donovan, International Real Estate Co.’
Liam pushed open the front door without bothering to look in the window. As he stepped into the office, a smartly dressed woman looked up, and an older man, unshaven and wearing soiled jeans and a T-shirt, swung his feet off a desk and smiled.
‘I was just wondering—’ began Liam.
‘A fellow Irishman!’ exclaimed the man, leaping up. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Patrick O’Donovan.’
‘Liam Casey,’ said Liam, shaking him by the hand.
‘Is it to be business or pleasure, Liam?’ asked O’Donovan.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ Liam replied, ‘but as I’m here on holiday—’
‘Then it’s pleasure,’ said O’Donovan. ‘So let’s begin our relationship as any self-respecting Irishmen should. Maria, if anyone calls, my friend and I can be found at the Flanagan Arms.’
Without another word, O’Donovan led Liam out of the office, across the road and into a side alley where they entered a pub few tourists would ever come across. The next words O’Donovan uttered were, ‘Two pints of Guinness’, without asking his new-found friend what he would like.
Liam was able to get through most of his questions while O’Donovan was still sober. He learned that Patrick had been living on the island for over thirty years, and was convinced that Majorca was about to take off like California at the time of the gold rush. O’Donovan went on to tell Liam that the island was attracting a record number of tourists but, more important, it had recently become the most popular destination for Brits who wanted to spend their retirement years abroad.
‘When I set up my agency,’ he told Liam between gulps of his third Guinness, ‘it was long before Majorca became fashionable. In those days there were only a dozen of us in the business; now, everybody on the island thinks they’re an estate agent. I’ve done well, can’t complain, but I only wish I was your age.’
‘Why?’ asked Liam innocently.
‘We’re about to enter a boom period,’ said O’Donovan. ‘An ageing population with disposable incomes and an awareness of their own mortality are migrating here like a flock of starlings searching for warmer climes.’
By the fifth Guinness, Liam had only one or two more questions left to ask. Not that it mattered, as O’Donovan was no longer capable of answering them.
The next morning, and every morning for the following week, Liam did not join Maggie on the overcrowded beaches but took the bus that was heading into Palma. He had some serious research to carry out before he met up with Patrick O’Donovan again.
During the day, he made appointments with several estate agents to view apartments and other properties. What he was shown confirmed O’Donovan’s opinion — Majorca was about to enter a period of rapid growth.
On the final morning of his holiday, having not once returned to the beach in the past ten days, even though his red Majorca skin had faded back to Irish white, Liam boarded the bus to Palma for the last time.
Once he’d been dropped off in the city centre, he headed straight for the Paseo Maritimo and didn’t stop walking until he reached the offices of Patrick O’Donovan, International Real Estate Co. He had only one more question to ask his fellow countryman. ‘Would you consider taking me on as a junior partner?’
‘Certainly not,’ said O’Donovan. ‘But I would consider taking you on as a partner.’
Maggie McBride flew back to Ireland, virgo intacta, while the tinker from Cork remained in Majorca.
Liam’s first year in Majorca didn’t turn out to be quite the bonanza his new partner had promised, despite his working night and day and making full use of the skills he’d honed in Cork. While he spent most of his days in the office or showing clients around properties, O’Donovan spent more and more of his time in the Flanagan Arms, drinking away the company’s dwindling profits.
By the end of his second year, Liam was considering returning to Ireland, which was experiencing its own economic boom, fuelled by massive grants from the European Union. And then, without warning, the decision was taken out of his hands. O’Donovan failed to return to work after the pub had closed for the afternoon siesta. He’d dropped dead in the street a hundred yards from the office.
Liam organized Patrick’s funeral, held a wake at the Flanagan Arms and was the last to leave the pub that night. By the time he crawled into bed at three in the morning, he’d made a decision.
The first person he called after arriving at the office the next day was a sign-writer he’d found in the Yellow Pages. By twelve o’clock, the name above the door read ‘Casey & Co, International Estate Agents’.
The second phone call Liam made was to Pepe Miro, a young man who worked for a rival company and had beaten him to several deals in the past two years. They agreed to meet in a tapas bar that evening, and after another late night, during which a José Ferrer L. Rosado replaced Guinness, Liam was able to convince Pepe they would both be better off working together as partners.
A month later, a Spanish flag was raised beside the Irish one, and the sign-writer returned. When he left, the name above the door read, ‘Casey, Miro & Co.’ While Pepe handled the natives, Liam took care of any foreign intruders; a genuine partnership.
The new company’s profits grew slowly to begin with, but at least the graph was now heading in the right direction. But it wasn’t until Pepe told his new partner about an old local custom that their fortunes began to change.
Majorca is a small island with a large, fertile, central plain where vineyards, almond and olive trees thrive. Traditionally, when a Majorcan farmer dies, he leaves any property in the fertile heartland to his eldest son, while any daughters end up with small pieces of craggy coastline. Liam’s Irish charm and good looks did no harm when he advised these daughters how they could benefit from this chauvinistic injustice.
He purchased his first plot of land in 1991, from a middle-aged lady who was short of cash and boyfriends: a tiny strip of infertile coastline with uninterrupted views of the Mediterranean. A bulldozer levelled the ground, and within a few weeks, after a bunch of itinerant workers had cleaned up the site, a developer purchased the plot for almost double Liam’s original outlay.
Liam bought his second piece of land from a grieving widow. It had splendid panoramic views all the way to Barcelona. Once again he flattened the plot, and this time he built a path wide enough to allow a car to reach it from the main road. On this occasion he made an even larger return, which he used to build a small house on a piece of land Pepe had purchased from a lady who spoke only Spanish. A year later they sold the property for triple their original investment.