At First Sight

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘Smells great, so it does,’ Carrick said, fidgeting with the corner of his napkin, his accent seeming thicker now that he was back amongst the family. ‘Ava makes a grand stew,’ he added, I think for my benefit, and he took some bread for himself. I took this as an invitation to start so I picked up my spoon and plunged it into the bowl.

  Ava cleared her throat and I felt the warmth of Charlie’s hand land on my knee. He squeezed my leg tightly in warning and I looked up to see Ava smiling, although it could be mistaken for a grimace.

  ‘Would yer like to lead us in sayin’ grace, Nell?’ Ava asked, her dark eyes narrowing with relish at my first slip-up. I lowered my spoon to the table, remembering too late that it was covered in gravy and smearing it all over the table.

  I mumbled an apology as Carrick gracelessly stood, flicked his scarf over his shoulder, picked up his own fabric serviette and mopped up my mess. ‘Let me get that for yer.’ I thanked him with my eyes.

  ‘Oh, I err, I don’t really know ho—’ I began. Why did I suddenly feel like I was back in school, being picked on to give an impromptu answer to a question I hadn’t been paying attention to.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Charlie butted in, saving me from my embarrassment. He cast me an apologetic sideways glance before bowing his head and clasping his hands together. Everyone around the table followed suit and I played along.

  Charlie cleared his throat before speaking and then said the words that I knew he didn’t believe. ‘Bless us, O Lord, and these, Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.’

  The Colemans, the few of us that there were, had never been a family that pretended to be anything other than what we were. My uncle had been gay; my mother was a workaholic and a feminist. I’d taken a while to discover who I was, but when I’d found out, I’d been accepted for it. Even Joel and his family invited everyone in without question and so this was a new experience for me, to see someone pretending. It felt wrong to me that Charlie should have to put on this show for his parents, who must know the actual truth that he didn’t hold much stock in the faith he’d been brought up in, but then I guess every family has its own ways.

  The word ‘Amen’ echoed around the table. I mouthed the words but didn’t say them out loud. This wasn’t my faith; it felt wrong for me to join in. Everyone crossed themselves, except me and the sound of spoons being picked up made me feel safe in going back to mine.

  ‘So,’ Ava began, turning her eyes to me and sparking a firework show of anxiety that crackled in my chest, ‘how did you two meet?’

  Shit! I hadn’t had the forethought to come up with a story. We hadn’t corroborated facts or agreed on a convincing lie. I was certain that the Stones weren’t a family who would openly discuss their mental health, let alone the fact that I’d gotten to know their son when he called a mental health support line, on the night he planned to kill himself. I purposefully spooned an extra-large spoonful of stew into my mouth and apologised with my eyes as I chewed, under the pretext of not wanting to speak with my mouth full.

  ‘Nell and I met at a café. We got to talking and have been friends ever since,’ Charlie came in to the rescue.

  ‘Is that so?’ She smiled but her eyes remained wide and judgemental. This woman was the queen of passive-aggressive facial expressions. ‘It’s so nice for yer to offer your … friendship. But I’m sure a girl as pretty as you doesn’t lack for … friends.’

  Charlie cast a warning look her way and squeezed my knee once more, his hand remaining there comfortingly.

  The jibe didn’t go unnoticed by me either and I inhaled a steadying breath. It would seem that it was okay to call someone a harlot at the dinner table in this house, as long as it was done on the sly.

  I sent a forced smile back her way.

  ‘What is it that a girl like you does for a livin’?’ she asked.

  A stuffiness came over my ears, like when you get water trapped in there after swimming, and just like that, there she was again. Abi leaned against the wall, wearing the same outfit I’d seen in the photograph of her crammed into a drawer, plastic headband veil and all. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one that woman can make squirm, she said, her arms crossed over her chest.

  Great! That was all I needed now, a figment of my imagination making this conversation even harder than it already was.

  ‘Nell?’ Ava said. ‘What’s your profession?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I apologised and tried to ignore Abi as best I could.

  I contemplated replying to her question about my career by saying that I was a woman of the night or that I was head rune priestess in a satanic cult, but the intention to enrage the beast was only fleeting.

  ‘I work at a mental health support line,’ I said confidently and by the look on her face, rune priestess would have been a more favourable option.

  Oh, she’ll love that. Abi chuckled cruelly.

  ‘Is that so?’ She tilted her head and leaned in over her dinner. ‘Well, that can’t be an enjoyable job, but I guess that someone has to do it.’

  ‘Actually, I love my job. I find it rewarding to help people work through things that are causing them distress. We help people who are in financial difficulties, emotional distress, people with mental health issues and people contemplating suicide.’ I cleared my throat, seeing Charlie flinch at my last couple of words.

  Ava drew a sharp intake of breath and crossed herself. She scoffed and shook her head. ‘Well, the Lord must have blessed yer with the patience of a saint to have to talk to those people without judgement. No doubt a lot of them are drug addicts, homeless.’ She tutted and shook her head. ‘The idea of wasting the Lord’s gift of life is … well it’s inexcusable.’

  I felt anger begin to unfurl in my chest and Charlie shifted uncomfortably. ‘So, Mammy, how’s Siobhan doin?’ he said, trying to change the topic. But I wasn’t having any of it. One of my bugbears was unempathetic people and Ava had riled me in just the right way to warrant a response.

  ‘Some of them are addicts or recovering addicts, yes, but we don’t judge them at all,’ I replied, Charlie’s question evaporating as if it had never been uttered. ‘There are so many causes for mental illness – physical, environmental and psychological. We don’t see these people as wasteful or inexcusable. We see them as people who’ve experienced things that we haven’t, whom we can help and reassure.’ I said all of this with a taut smile, although my eyes stared into hers with a strength that I hadn’t felt in a long time. ‘We even work with a few local churches for those who find comfort in their faith.’

  It was clear that Ava Stone was used to dominating everyone in a room, but I wasn’t frightened of Ava Stone, nor would I let her think for a moment that I was.

  Jesus, you’ve got some brass knackers, ain’t yer? Abi sounded a little impressed, before the pressure in my ears lessened and Abi disappeared back to wherever the hell she kept coming from.

  ‘Siobhan, Ma,’ Charlie said with a little more force. ‘How is she?’

  Ava’s eyes lingered on mine for a few moments longer. I could see the battle waging in her head between not wanting to appear like she was trying to provoke an argument and not wanting to be the first to look away. In the end she turned her eyes to her son and answered his question. I caught sight of Carrick in my peripheral vision as I turned back to my stew, his lips pressed tightly together to stop himself from smiling.

  I had wondered why Charlie was so dismissive when it came to talking about his family, but now I knew exactly why he hadn’t been home in so long. Charlie wasn’t judgemental or spiteful in the way he talked, neither did he veil it behind a pretence of piety. I had nothing against people who found comfort in religion – each to their own. But the inability to see anything from another’s point of view and judging them for it? I had a problem with that. How had Charlie managed to come out of this family so cleanly, so open-minded?

  I guessed that Charlie’s kind manner was down to the influ
ence of someone else, someone who’d taken him away from his parents and shown him the greater world. Carrick would surely have had something to do with it, but there was one other person who must have shaped him into who he was today and she was the reason why we were all here.

  The sound of the front door opening caused everyone to stop eating and look around as purposeful footsteps grew louder. I glanced towards the empty place, set next to Carrick, and wondered if this might be the guest who hadn’t shown. I saw Charlie stiffen from the corner of my eye, his spoon clinking down against his bowl and almost disappearing completely under the surface of his stew. When the woman finally appeared at the threshold of the room and stood in the doorway, I heard myself breathe a quiet gasp. For a few terrifying moments, I thought that it was Abi, standing there with a face like thunder. But the longer I looked at her and her film-star-perfect face, her mass of russet corkscrew curls that dwarfed her in size, I realised that this must be Abi’s sister, Kenna.

  She scanned the room, eyes seething, as each of us stared with quiet fear. She was tiny. Almost a foot smaller than I was and yet, she commanded the room like a giant. Her eyes travelled over each of us, lingering on me for a few seconds more than was comfortable, before moving on to Charlie. I guessed that Charlie had been who she was looking for, because the moment she saw him, she calmly pushed off with her tiny, child-sized feet and made her way to his side.

  Charlie, by this point, looked like a baby rabbit when faced with the snarly, saliva-moistened jaws of a fox, his chest rising and falling quickly with rapid breaths.

  She came to a stop facing Charlie side on, her back to Ava who reached up an affectionate hand and patted Kenna’s shoulder.

  ‘Hi, Ken,’ Charlie said, his voice fragile and afraid. ‘How’ve yer bee—’ His sentence was cut short by the dainty palm that was brought with surprising speed and strength across his cheek. The sound of it sang around the room, like the final ring of a bell, the connection of palm to face so exquisitely placed that I had no doubt it would leave a mark.

  Kenna sighed, looked up at me, smiled and extended a hand across Charlie as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘Kenna Murphy, nice t’meet yer.’

  ‘You too,’ I said, fearfully shaking her hand. ‘Name is Nell. My! My name is Nell.’

  Kenna smiled genuinely and then walked around to the empty space, spooning herself some stew before sitting down, her incredible amount of hair moving a moment or two after she did, as if it was a separate entity that travelled around with her. She brought her hands together in front of her, said grace unceremoniously, and brought a large spoonful to her mouth.

  ‘Mmmm, great stew,’ she mumbled through her still-full mouth.

  I turned to look at Charlie, who remained frozen, his eyes staring forward at Kenna as if she might leap across the table and assault him again at a moment’s notice.

  ‘So,’ she said in a cheerful voice, as if nothing at all had happened, ‘how’s everyone been?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Siting in Ava Stone’s garden, in what passed for the early afternoon sun in Westport, I held my phone in my hand, dew seeping into the fabric of my leggings.

  During the lunch that had proved to be one of the least comfortable of my whole life, I’d felt my phone buzz from where I’d pushed it between my skin and my waistband. I’d waited until everyone had finished their stew and Charlie had stopped telling tall tales about the current state of his life to duck outside and read it. Charlie had failed to tell them that he’d quit his job, but then, they hadn’t ever known he’d taken a job at Aldi in the first place, and so there was little point. As far as they knew, Charlie was still working in the theatres of Birmingham, his career and his life, still completely on track. I took comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only one here who knew that he was lying. Carrick had seen what state Abi’s death had left him in and yet we’d let Charlie have his tall tales, his fabricated life of work fulfilment and contentment that couldn’t be further from the truth of what he actually had.

  I looked down at the screen of my phone as the sound of Kenna’s angry Irish tones drifted across the garden from where she was ‘talking’ with Charlie, her arms folded neatly across her generous chest, which looked rather too round to be natural, but I didn’t want to be one to make sweeping statements. The text that had come through was from Joel, a sequel to the text I’d got yesterday but had ignored. It had simply read:

  So, I guess that the ridiculously attractive guy at yours the other night means you’re not interested in talking?

  This text was just as to-the-point, short and less than sweet.

  You can kid yourself that we’re over, Nell. You can prance around with that guy and flaunt him in front of me cruelly, but you know as well as I do, that we are always going to come back to each other. We still love each other and we are meant to be together. xxx

  Prance? Flaunt? As far as I could remember, I had done neither of those things. Yes, okay. Maybe I had been slightly cruel in leading him on, in making him think that this relationship was salvageable, but I hadn’t been cruel about Charlie; I hadn’t even been the one to open the door the night that Joel had shown up. Joel was wrong. We weren’t meant to be together. We weren’t always destined to return to each other and I did not still love him, not in the way he wanted me to. I flinched at my own thoughts. Something clicked inside my brain and suddenly I felt something like an iron band release around my chest. My lungs felt as if they could expand further, the air entering them, cleaner. I did not love Joel anymore and this wasn’t just me being positive and vocalising my wishes. I really, truly, categorically, most certainly did not love him.

  I pressed the little phone icon at the top of our chat, wincing at one of my not so subtle booty call texts that I could see, half hidden at the top of the screen as if it too was embarrassed by my past actions. Three rings and then there was a rustling as he manoeuvred the phone to his ear.

  ‘Nell.’ He sounded painfully enthusiastic. ‘I’m so glad you called. You got my text? I knew you’d come around.’

  ‘Joel.’ I stopped him before he said anything else that would shortly come back to bite him in the ass. ‘Yes, I got your text, but I’m not calling for the reason you think I am.’

  ‘Oh, are you all right? Did something happen?’ His tone was markedly more downtrodden.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Not completely true but not a lie either. ‘I’m in Ireland actually.’

  I could almost hear the angry repositioning of the phone against his ear to check that he’d heard that correctly. ‘Ireland? Wha— erm, what are you doing there?’

  ‘I’ve come over to meet Charlie’s parents.’ I left out the part about Abi’s memorial.

  He exhaled loudly, shakily. ‘Moving a bit fast, isn’t it?’

  ‘Look, Joel,’ I said. ‘I’m calling because … well, because what we’ve been doing for the past six months is wrong and stupid and something that we should have known would only end painfully for the both of us.’

  ‘That’s not how I saw it. I saw it as us trying again to fix something that we both know is best for us.’ I heard his purposeful pacing through the phoneline. He always paced when he got angry.

  ‘I’m so very sorry for my part in keeping open the wound that we should have let heal a long time ago, but I’m doing now what I should have done when all of this started and saying no.’

  ‘Nell, think about this for a minute.’

  ‘No,’ I said, pressure building behind my eyes.

  ‘You know what’s going to happen with this Charlie person, don’t you? Men like that are all the same.’

  ‘Men like what?’ I spat.

  ‘The good-looking, charming, cocky sort, that’s who. He’ll be all over you while you’re new and interesting. It’ll even make him feel good about himself, make him feel more wholesome because you’re grounded and funny and normal. But as soon as things calm down, he’ll realise that he’s bored with you and go straight bac
k to dating hot girls. Ones who eat nothing but kale and wear suspenders for him.’

  I physically flinched at his words and held a hand to my chest. My mind was whipped back to something that had happened in our third year as a couple. We were still sleeping together at this point but things had become a little stale. He’d brought me some sexy underwear for my birthday and asked me to try it on for him. I’d stood there in the bedroom, looking at myself in the mirror and feeling ridiculous, cheap. I knew it was empowering for some women to dress this way, but not for me. I felt like I was being forced to become the porn star that every millennial boy grew up thinking girls were.

  I took it straight off again and instead, walked out there in my normal underwear. He’d thrown a fit, yelling at me about how expensive it had been and how I didn’t really love him because I wouldn’t wear what he’d bought. That, I think now, was the beginning of the end. But I stayed for so long after that. Why had I wasted all of that time?

  ‘Well, at least Charlie can bring himself to touch me. He can hold a conversation about something that isn’t self-serving and he even cares about how I feel. I didn’t even know men could be like him. But then I don’t have much experience with men, do I?’

  He heaved a sigh and a growl escaped the back of his throat. ‘You know what? You’re tired, Nell. No doubt you got stressed during the flight and it’s left you confused. We’ll talk when you’re back.’

  I opened my mouth to say that I would rather rip off all of my toenails, right here on this immaculately mown grass, than ever see his face again, but the line went dead. A few tears escaped my eyes and trickled down my cheeks as I tossed my phone onto the lawn and held my face in my hands.