At First Sight

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘Now remember your promise. No judgement.’

  I held up three fingers and clapped my heels. ‘Scouts honour.’

  He shook his head at me, although I saw his smile before he had chance to hide it, and he turned back to the door, slid in the key and gave it a push. The door fell open with a squeal that suggested WD-40 was in order and came to a premature stop as it hit something behind it. He reached inside and flicked on the light before slipping into the apartment with a sense of nervous tension keeping his shoulders rigid.

  I followed him in and tried my best to keep my eyebrows from raising when I took a look around. I imagined the voiceover from one of the true crime documentaries that Ned and I watched. The scene was not all that different from the ones shown in grainy, darkened footage at the beginning of every episode before someone finds a dismembered body in the bathtub.

  The flat followed the blue theme set by the front door, although the shade was a little darker in the open-plan living room and kitchenette. I closed the door behind me and tried not to look with horror at the pile of unopened letters on the mat that sat like a snowdrift against the skirting board. Bowls and pans were stacked high in the sink and a pile of clothes lay on the floor in front of the washing machine, with a soggy load turning musty in the drum. Stacks of books and an incomprehensible number of remotes and game controllers lay over the coffee table that sat between a sofa and the large wall-mounted TV and a pillow and duvet were lying in disarray on the sofa cushions, showing that he’d slept there recently.

  A bottle of whisky lay empty on the floor beside the sofa, next to a wilting Swiss cheese plant, its leaves drooping sadly down towards the gunmetal grey carpet.

  ‘Well, you weren’t lying,’ I said, feeling more impressed than anything that he was capable of living functionally in all of this.

  ‘Thank you. The upkeep is almost a full-time job,’ he jested. ‘D’yer know how difficult it is to stack bowls that high?’ He picked up a few things and nervously fondled them while looking for somewhere else to put them. ‘I don’t tend to have visitors anymore. Not since … yer know.’ He glanced towards a door off the living room that sat ajar. He paused, looking truly uncomfortable for a moment or two before he turned around to the sink and began tipping water from soaking pans.

  Self-neglect. The progressive lack of care about one’s own levels of personal hygiene and/or the cleanliness of living areas. This had been the topic for one of the few papers I wrote for my first year of uni. It all comes from the idea that the person thinks themselves unimportant, unworthy and therefore, combing their hair or doing the dishes doesn’t seem necessary. It’s strange how the human brain can sabotage itself sometimes. I hoped that if Charlie hadn’t told me about his depression, that I’d have known when I’d walked in here tonight. But then again, I’d been pretty useless at noticing hints up until now.

  ‘You don’t need to tidy on my account,’ I said, walking over to the sofa covered in Charlie’s bedding. On the wall to my left, there were around eight or nine small photo frames, all a different bright colour and in a mock baroque style that could have come off as tacky, but seemed to look good here. Each frame sat empty, the wall showing through where the photograph should have sat and I wondered if this was just a quirky interior design choice, or if the photos had been removed by Charlie after Abi’s death. I wondered what she’d think of me being here, or me in general. It’s hard to imagine the feelings you might have for the person that comes after you. Would she be happy that he was finally beginning to move on, or would she want to try and cross back over from the afterlife, just to gouge my eyes out with her bare ghostly hands? How would I feel towards the person Joel found next? I guess only time would tell.

  I moved aside an empty Starburst packet and sat down on the grey corduroy sofa. ‘You got any clean glasses?’ I asked, pulling the unfinished bottle of wine from my bag.

  ‘Probably not, but I’ll see if I can remember how to wash them up.’ I leaned back my head and awarded myself the luxury of closing my eyes for a moment or two, the soft hands of sleep beckoning me to it. I felt the weight of Charlie drop onto the sofa beside me and my moment of sleepiness was over.

  I saw that he was sitting uncomfortably rigid, staring forward at the plastic beaker on the table in front of him that sat beside one of those enormous Sports Direct mugs.

  ‘You okay?’ I heaved myself up to a more acceptable, yet less comfortable, sitting position and put the bottle of wine on the coffee table.

  ‘I will be. It feels a bit odd, is all.’ He seemed to be finding it hard to make eye contact. ‘There’s not been a woman in this apartment since her.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said, although that wasn’t wholly true.

  ‘Shall we finish this?’ He motioned to the wine and shuffled forward in his seat. He poured what was left of the wine into the two cups and handed me the Sports Direct one. ‘Sláinte.’

  I assumed that meant cheers in Irish and repeated it, clinking my mug to his plastic beaker. He pretty much downed what was in it and placed it back on the table, beside a stack of books.

  I felt a strange feeling churn in my stomach that I couldn’t quite put a name to. It felt kind of like when you eat ice cream and then wash it down with a glass of Coke and you can feel it curdling in your gut.

  ‘Has there been anyone else, since Abi?’ I asked, without really thinking.

  He visibly flinched and glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

  ‘Not really.’ His eyes glazed a little as a memory entered his mind. ‘About a year ago, most of my friends had fecked off already, but Jamie was still stickin’ around at that point. He came to get me for a lads’ night out.’ He chuckled and looked down at his wringing hands. ‘There was this packet of pork mince in the back of the fridge that I hadn’t found the energy to throw out yet. It was what, almost four weeks out of date? And I seriously considered eating it raw to get out of lads’ night. Food poisonin’ was more appealin’ to me than goin’ out with Jamie and his friends whose brains hadn’t developed any further than their fourteenth year. Jamie was married to one of Abi’s closest friends, Una, and Jamie and I had kinda been shoved together and forced to be friends. In the end, I didn’t try to poison myself and went out with them instead. There was a group of about ten of us, all leering, cocky little bastards, the lot of ’em. We went to this nightclub in town, the one with the big gold sign. You know it?’ he asked looking up.

  I nodded and then scrunched up my nose. ‘I went there once when I was eighteen.’

  He continued. ‘So, I’m in this club and hating every moment of it. The lights were too bright, the music was deafening and the people – sweet Jesus. I need to tell my mammy to stop praying for the youth of today because she’s fighting a losing battle on that one. But, anyway, Jamie sends this girl my way. She couldn’t have been older than twenty and had left the house without ninety per cent of her clothes. I didn’t want to talk to her, doubt I could even hear a word she said over the noise, but I held out my hand and said hi. This girl grabbed my hand and put it straight on her boob then she just pulled me in and kissed me.’

  A twang in my chest. The feeling of curdled ice cream got a little stronger.

  ‘I try to push her away but she’s on me like a limpet,’ he carries on. ‘So, in the end I just roll with it. Try to pretend it’s Abi. But it wasn’t like any kisses I’d ever had with Abi. Kisses with someone you love are emotional, intimate – you know this – but that kiss was like … it was purely about sex and her trying to check if I still had tonsils with her tongue. I eventually got her off of me and went to the bathroom where I ended up gettin’ so frustrated with myself that I punched the reflection of myself in the mirror and cut up my hand.’ He flashed his hand to me and, once again, I saw the hairline scars that I’d noticed on that first day I’d met him, running over his knuckles like fractals of ice. ‘I wrapped my hand up in toilet paper and went out to find Jamie to tell him I’d better take myself out befor
e I was kicked out and what did I find?’

  ‘I dread to think what you’d find in there.’

  ‘I find Jamie in the smoking area with some girl pressed up against the wall.’ He gritted his teeth together and shook his head. ‘There I was, attempting to forget that my wife was dead by attempting to have a “good time” and there was Jamie, making a fool of his own wife by stickin’ it wherever would take it.’

  ‘Oh my God. What did you do?’ I asked, shocked.

  ‘I started screamin’ at him. His pupils were the size of golf balls and he kept tellin’ me to calm down. Needless to say, I didn’t.

  ‘He ended up lampin’ me round the head when I said that he needed to show Una some respect and tell her. So, I punched him right back. It looked ten times worse than it was because of the blood from the mirror, but they threw me out anyway and I never spoke to Jamie again after that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And that is the story of the only person who has been anywhere near me, since Abi and also about how I earned a lifetime ban from that club.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment or two.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a felon,’ I jested to try and ease the tension.

  ‘I resigned myself to the monk’s way of life after that. Hell, I’m not even sure if everything still works down there.’

  Would you like me to check? I thought and then instantly started chastising myself.

  ‘I didn’t think it would happen again.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Feelin’ things for someone. I thought all of that was done with …’ he turned and looked me directly in the eyes ‘… until you threw a sandwich at me.’

  A pregnant pause. A flickering of eyelids, unsure whether to look away or not.

  ‘You know, I’ve heard this before,’ I said, just to fill the aching silence. ‘Most men do find me irresistible, especially the way I eat like a starving bloodhound. It’s kind of like a fetish.’

  ‘That’s it!’ He held up a finger in the air between us. ‘That’s what yer looked like at dinner.’

  We both chuckled.

  ‘Nell,’ Charlie uttered quietly and I looked up. Before my brain had time to even compute the fact that his finger was under my chin and his face was moving closer, he already had his lips pressed to mine and I was holding a startled breath in my chest.

  His lips were warm and soft, a stark contrast to the stubble that grated against my face as his lips moved over mine. Gentle knuckles moved along the line of my jaw, his fingers unfurling and sliding into my hair as he pulled me closer to him. My blood thundered through my ears, blocking out the sounds of my heavy breaths, the smack of lip upon lip.

  Was this wrong? Should this be happening now, after he’d just told me about Abi? Or was that the last bit of withheld information, the final obstacle to overcome, before allowing himself to do this?

  I had never really settled on a decision as to whether I believed in any sort of afterlife, but if there was one and ghosts were real, what would Abi have to say about this?

  I had no idea what she looked like but I could imagine her there, a faceless blur in my periphery staring daggers at me while I made out with her husband.

  Well, seems as though it IS all still in working order down there, she’d be saying, or something equally as snarky.

  I think that our minds must have had the same thought at the same time, because just as I was about to pull away, Charlie broke the connection and leaned back.

  For a moment we just looked at each other, our lips still pursed, stuck in kiss face as our eyes narrowed at each other.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Thank you,’ I said, awkwardly.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he replied, formally, withdrawing his hands to his lap. ‘And, thank you, too.’

  He reached for his wine, sipped at the last straggling drop and bounced his legs up and down, making the sofa shake as he did.

  ‘So … erm …’ I fidgeted awkwardly as I tried to think of how to word it. ‘How exactly does something like this work?’

  ‘You tell me. You’re the one with all the advice.’ He chortled nervously.

  ‘Seems I’ve drawn a blank on this one. Although I’m not sure that kissing someone in the same evening as telling them about your dead wife is best,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. It seemed to make me forget for a moment or two.’

  I wondered what advice Ned, or rather Celine Dion via Ned, would have for me now.

  ‘Sometimes it feels like it was ten minutes ago and other times it feels as if it didn’t happen to me at all. The idea of doin’ anythin’ with someone other than her is gonna take some gettin’ used to.’

  ‘I understand.’ I nodded. The air of romance sapped from the room and a new awkwardness hung in the air like the strange smell coming from the sink. ‘I should get going.’ I pulled my phone from my bag and was beginning to summon an Uber when he spoke again.

  ‘Yer don’t have to. Yer can sleep on the sofa if you want. I know you’re tired.’

  He was right: I was so very tired and the idea of even travelling to the bathroom seemed like too much.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. There’s a pillow and duvet there,’ he said, motioning to the sofa.

  ‘Okay.’

  He stood and walked towards one of the two doors leading off from the room. ‘I’ll get the light for yer.’

  He waited for me to settle under the blanket.

  ‘Safely in bed,’ I called to him.

  He sent me a smile and switched off the light. ‘Night, Nell.’

  ‘Night,’ I said, my eyes already falling closed.

  I was so tired that I instantly felt myself slipping, but the room was spinning. The only consolation being that I wouldn’t have to endure a hungover day at work tomorrow and could spend the day slowly coming back to life at my own speed.

  My lips still tingled where his had touched mine, the skin around them tender from his facial hair. I hoped that, in the morning, things wouldn’t be different, awkward. That one drunken kiss on a sofa wasn’t going to ruin everything.

  The situation was delicate. Charlie was delicate and I guessed that, to an extent, so was I. Even when I had known that I was in love with Joel, I didn’t feel vulnerable, as if my heart was in any way at risk by handing it to him. But maybe that was because I never handed Joel the whole thing?

  Chapter Twelve

  I woke with a feeling like someone had parked a tank on top of my head. Wine was not my friend. How many times did I have to do this to myself to remember that fact?

  I peeled open my eyes, one by one, and was surprised I didn’t hear a sound like Velcro being pulled apart. It took me a moment to realise where I was and when I did, my stomach tossed and tumbled like a shoe in a washing machine. Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but images of what had happened last night on this sofa, a kiss shared in wine-soaked curiosity, made my heart begin to thump in my ears. I shifted onto my elbows, pushing myself up with a groan, as if every inch of me now weighed ten times as much as it had done when I’d fallen asleep. I wiped my face with my hand. Yesterday’s make-up flaking away against my palm.

  My legs felt as if they’d fused into position and I groaned as I eased them straight, but as I did, I became aware of a weight on my stomach. I looked down and was met with a pair of large yellow eyes. After a brief moment of shock where a small gasp escaped my lips, I reached out a hand and tentatively ran it over the fluffy ginger head of the cat sitting in my lap. It was one of those cats that need grooming almost every day due to their long, fine hair to stop knotted clumps from forming, but clearly, Charlie hadn’t been keeping up with the grooming schedule, if this was indeed Charlie’s cat and not a street urchin who’d somehow found a way in. It had a stub nose and a perpetual grimace that made it look like he should be living in a dustbin on Sesame Street.

  ‘Hello there,’ I said. The cat opened its mouth and made a soft, high-pitched warbling noise that I could only assu
me was a greeting, before curling itself back up and tucking its face away from view.

  I sat for a while, weighing up the pros and cons of moving. My bladder ached, but as anyone who has ever been chosen as the spot for a cat’s nap will know, disturbing them seems like the worst thing you’ll ever do in your entire existence. Eventually I simply had to go and gently placed the mass of ginger fur down on the ground before scurrying off to the toilet. There were two doors branching off from the living room – one leading to an indescribably messy bedroom, the duvet sliding limply down the side of the mattress onto the floor and the pillows lying in disarray. I glanced around for Charlie but didn’t find him, noticing a speckling of fine glass shards on the floor a few feet inside, before I turned to the other door where, thankfully, I found the toilet.

  I rushed over and took care of business and as I made my way over to the sink, I noticed the sound of quiet breathing coming from somewhere in the room.

  I looked around, puzzled, trying to find the serial killer lurking in the corner, ready for me to catch a spooky glance of him in the mirror behind me, but didn’t find him. Instead, my eyes travelled to the bathtub, where I peeled back the shower curtain a little way, to find Charlie, sleeping peacefully amongst a mass of blankets and towels. He clearly must have been more drunk than I’d thought to end up sleeping there, rather than the perfectly fine bed in the next room.

  I made my way out quietly and closed the door behind me, wondering what I was meant to do now. Did I just hang around until he woke up or sneak out quickly? No, this wasn’t a sleazy one-night stand; I would stay and be waiting with a soothing cup of coffee when he woke. That’s if I could find the coffee amongst the mess.