At First Sight

by Hannah Sunderland

  I didn’t take in much of the surroundings as we zoomed past them at breakneck speed. It wasn’t that Carrick was a bad driver, in fact, I would say he was better than most by the way he handled the car at high speed, but I do think that he was on a mission to violate as many traffic laws as he possibly could in one single journey.

  We passed a brown sign, which I didn’t read due to it being nothing but a brown and white blur, but I assumed that it was the ‘Welcome to Westport’ sign, because as soon as we passed it, Charlie began fidgeting and looking down into his lap.

  The atmosphere inside the car was growing more and more tense the closer we got to Charlie’s parents’ house. I wondered what they would be like. From what I’d heard so far they weren’t the easiest of people to warm to, but maybe I’d be pleasantly surprised.

  ‘Attention, tourists,’ Carrick said, clearing his throat before he continued. ‘If you look to your right, you’ll see the picturesque Clew Bay with its fine examples of sunken drumlins. What is a drumlin? I hear you cry. Well, I’ll tell yer. The word “drumlin” is derived from the Gaelic word “drumin”, meaning mound. So, in other words, they’re those fancy little hills that stick outta the water and look like boobies in a bathtub.’

  ‘Have you ever seen boobies in a bathtub?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Oh, far too many to count, Boyo, unlike the drumlins, of which there are three hundred and sixty-five. One for every day of the year.’

  ‘Do you get much work as a tour guide?’ I asked, sarcastically.

  Carrick sent me a wink in the mirror and continued to tell me about how the bay had been the focus of the seafaring O’Malley family, especially Grace O’Malley, the famous pirate queen who had ruled over the bay and terrorised the sailors going to and from Galway during the reign of Elizabeth I. I didn’t know how much of it was true, as with much of what Carrick said, but it took my mind off my potential car-related death and so I was glad of it.

  Just as he was finishing up his story, we slowed and he pulled the car over to the kerb. He’d parked us in a bus stop, the butt of the car sticking out into the road. A car horn blared from behind and several old ladies at the bus stop began tutting our way, each and every one of them in plastic rain bonnets, tied beneath their turkey-like chins with white strings.

  ‘And that concludes this portion of the tour. Excuse me, will yer – I just need to pick somethin’ up,’ Carrick added before unbuckling and quickly hopping out of the car.

  As soon as he was gone, Charlie turned to me and sighed. ‘I can only apologise. He really is a very good driver when he wants to be.’

  ‘It’s okay. I only accepted death about three times.’

  ‘Only the three? Well then, I needn’t have worried.’

  The bay was beautiful, the type of picturesque view that’s always found on postcards and souvenir fudge tins.

  ‘So, how does it feel being back?’ I asked, watching the old ladies who were whispering to each other and looking straight at us.

  ‘Oh, fantastic.’ He attempted a smile, but there was no truth in it. ‘Was that convincing?’

  ‘Needs some work.’

  There came a tapping of long, claw-like nails, hardened and yellowed with age, on Charlie’s window.

  ‘Christ,’ he said under his breath, donning a smile and winding down the window.

  ‘Bless my eyes, is that Charlie Stone I see?’ the woman said with a hint of flirtatiousness.

  ‘Mrs Kelly, how’re yer?’ he replied, on the charm offensive.

  ‘Oh, call me Roisin. Yer not a lad anymore.’ She giggled.

  ‘Nice t’see yer, Roisin. Yer lookin’ well.’

  The woman’s face suddenly puckered and I braced myself for what I knew was coming next.

  ‘Terrible business with your Abi.’ She tutted and shook her head, crossing herself and looking at him with an expression of pity that I knew he’d hate. ‘Is that why yer haven’t been back home, so?

  Another face appeared in the space beside the first, equally as wrinkled and weathered and with a matching rain bonnet. ‘Charlie Stone, you get more handsome every time I see yer. You’d better stop hoggin’ all of those good looks, else there’ll be none left for the rest of us.’ She giggled, holding a hand to her heart, her eyes darting to me. ‘And who’s this?’ All attention turned to me and I pressed myself harder into the inside of the door, hoping to defy science and slip through the metal and out onto the other side.

  ‘This is Nell. She’s a friend from England.’

  ‘A friend, is it?’ the first of the women said with raised brows.

  ‘Too pretty to be friends with if yer ask me,’ said the second.

  No one did, I thought. Now go away.

  ‘Ah, right yer are, Agnes.’

  Carrick reappeared on the pavement with a suit bag in hand and sent the old ladies a wolf whistle as he passed. ‘Lookin’ good, girls.’

  The women both straightened and blushed, chuckling to each other like geese.

  ‘Pickin’ up yer suit for the memorial, are yer?’ Roisin asked him.

  ‘Right yer are.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see yer there, won’t we, Agnes?’

  ‘Ah, yer will,’ Agnes added.

  ‘It was nice t’see yer both,’ Charlie said, his finger poised on the window button, ready to block them out.

  ‘Nice t’see yer and t’meet yer new lady friend.’ Agnes sent me a wink and they quickly pottered back to the bus stop.

  Carrick got back into the car, tossing the suit bag onto the passenger seat.

  ‘What you got there?’ I asked.

  Carrick turned to me as if he’d been waiting for someone to ask just that question. ‘My suit for tomorrow,’ he said with pride, unzipping the bag and pulling back the sides. I raised a hand to my mouth to stifle the gasp that came out of it and my eyes rolled from Carrick to Charlie.

  ‘What the feck’s that, yer eejit!’ Charlie shouted at Carrick from the back seat.

  ‘My suit,’ Carrick replied with pinched brows.

  Charlie turned his angry eyes up to mine and sighed loudly. ‘Would yer look at the state of it!’

  ‘Don’t get thick with me, Boyo. I put a lot of thought and money into this. I just thought I’d try to liven things up a little. We had the funeral and anniversary mass already. It’s about time we started celebrating her instead of mourning.’

  ‘What … erm …’ I mumbled, unsure how to word it. ‘What colour is that?’

  ‘Oh, I think the lass in there called it chartreuse. Had it specially made, I did. What d’yer think, Nell?’

  ‘I think it’s … very striking.’

  Carrick’s chest seemed to puff out a little. ‘See! Now that’s how yer meant to react when yer uncle makes an effort.’

  He zipped the bag back up and haughtily threw it back down onto the seat.

  ‘He doesn’t need any encouragement to be an arse,’ Charlie whispered to me.

  ‘Neither do you,’ I pointed out as the engine roared into life. ‘He’s only trying to make an effort and if anyone can carry a suit like that off, it’s Carrick.’

  ‘Right yer are, Nell,’ Carrick said, turning in his seat and sending me a serious look. ‘Now, are yer feelin’ strong? Because there’s no more puttin’ this off.’

  ‘Sure.’ I said. ‘How bad can they be?’

  Carrick pulled his top lip between his teeth and looked, shiftily, between Charlie and me. I turned to Charlie and asked the question again in the form of worried brows.

  ‘Just … prepare yerself,’ Carrick said, patting my knee gently.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘I think it’s best to treat this like a waxing strip,’ Carrick said as he got out of the car, his shoes landing on the satisfyingly crunchy gravel of the Stones’ drive. ‘It’s gonna be feckin’ painful no matter how you do it, but things will be smoother once it’s done.’

  I jutted out my bottom lip and nodded, impressed with Carrick’s metaphor as I got out to joi
n him. Charlie remained in the back seat, looking through the window at the house like he feared he might get murdered when he stepped through the door and right now, I wasn’t sure just how possible that might actually be.

  ‘They know I’m coming, right?’ I said, turning to Carrick.

  ‘Yeah.’ There was a slight hint of worry in his eye that made my stomach acid writhe. ‘They’re a little more – how can I put this? – by the book with things than I am. The Good Book, I mean, so don’t expect them to be too thrilled that you’re “livin’ in sin”,’ he said, air quoting the last few words of his worrying sentence.

  ‘Oh, we’re not … Charlie and I haven’t …’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Carrick flexed his brows and rolled his eyes. ‘Yer mean, yer haven’t yet.’

  I flailed in the embarrassment of the conversation, even more nervous now than I was before.

  Would they be waiting by the door with pitchforks and torches in hand, ready to slap a red A on my chest? I guessed there was only one way to find out.

  I turned back to the car to check on Charlie’s progress. He’d managed to take off his seatbelt, but that’s as far as he’d got. I popped the car door and bent down. ‘How you holding up?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, just terrified with a side of panic, nothin’ I can’t handle,’ he replied, his words coming out too quickly and falling over themselves. ‘Just give me a minute to myself and I’ll be out.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, closing the door to let him marinate in his own panic until he absolutely had to get out of the car.

  I turned back and walked a little closer to the house and took in the place where Charlie had grown up.

  The house was average in size and everything else for that matter. Average and pleasing to the eye but not winning any prizes for inventive style. It was painted a bright white that contrasted blindingly against the steel grey sky. The house was surrounded by plants, lovingly tended and flourishing with early spring buds. The front door, which sat inside a UPVC porch, was painted a bright red and a mud-speckled Land Rover sat a little further up the gravel drive near a detached garage. The door to the garage was open and soft classical music floated out into the air.

  ‘Eoin!’ Carrick bellowed, the sudden volume of it making me jump. ‘Oh, beloved brother! I’ve some guests for yer.’

  The music quietened and a moment later, a stout man, who looked much older than Carrick, stepped out of the garage, wiping his hands with an oil-darkened rag.

  He looked over for a moment, pausing as if he wanted nothing more than to stay hidden in his man cave, before reluctantly walking towards us with a look of consternation.

  ‘Nell,’ Carrick said when Eoin was close enough for me to see the cornflower blue eyes of the Stone boys and the almost black hair, grey at the temples. ‘This is my brother Eoin. Eoin, this is Nell, Charlie’s friend from England.’

  He observed me for a few daunting moments, before extending his grease-blackened hand to me. ‘Welcome, Nell. How was the flight?’

  ‘Good. Thank you. It’s nice to meet you,’ I said timidly.

  ‘Ah, you too, you too.’ He sighed through his nose and went back to wiping his hands. I flexed my fingers against my palm, feeling the oily residue that he’d transferred to me during our shake. Eoin glanced over at the car for a millisecond before looking down at the rag in his hands and shouting in a voice that made me jump again. ‘Out yer get, Boyo. Let yer father see what it is yer look like these days.’

  The tension in the air was palpable as the car door eventually and tentatively opened. It took a good twenty seconds longer for a sheepish-looking Charlie to step out, keeping his eyes firmly glued to the ground. ‘Bring yerself over here,’ Eoin said, quieter this time. ‘My eyes aren’t what they used to be.’

  I turned back to Eoin and waited, tension building even more, for the crunch of gravel to stop. Charlie came to a halt beside me and I found myself unable to look at anyone, so I looked down at my feet instead.

  ‘You’ve got skinny,’ Eoin said.

  ‘You haven’t,’ Charlie retorted.

  ‘Yeah, well. With the way yer mother feeds me up, you’d think she was tryin’ to do me in. Does she know you’re here?’

  ‘No,’ Carrick answered after an uncharacteristically long silence. ‘We haven’t provoked that particular viper yet.’

  Eoin inhaled worriedly and stepped away from his son and towards the house. ‘Well, there’s no time like the present.’

  Ava Stone, Charlie’s mother, had a friendly, motherly vibe around her that made me, at first, think that everything the others had been saying about her was hyperbole. But it didn’t take long before I realised that my first impression of her was nothing but her lulling me into a false sense of security. She was a little shorter than me, with slender, delicate features that lured you into thinking that she was a gentle soul. Her eyes were darkest brown, verging on black that almost perfectly matched the thick, wiry hair that fell down to her shoulder blades. She wore clothing that was soft in both colour and texture. A slightly fluffy baby blue cardigan, with only the top button done up, the rest of it hanging open over her cream jersey dress that hung down to below her knees, the rounded collar neatly pulled out from under the cardigan and folded into place over a string of pearls.

  She’d greeted me with a reserved and slightly judgemental air about her and every time she’d looked at me since, it had been clear that she was studying me like I was a rat in a cage. At any second I expected her to pull out a clipboard and start scribbling down notes. She brought a repressed feeling of terror out of the recesses of my brain, feelings long forgotten of frightening teachers and authoritative bosses. I don’t think I was getting the best introduction to her, or her husband, Eoin. The air hung thick with a tension aimed at Charlie and I was simply caught in the crossfire.

  We sat in the garden with Ava talking nonstop about the flowers that surrounded the central patch of grass, uttering words that I didn’t hear often like ‘deciduous’ and ‘perennial’. I had hoped that it might start raining and we’d have to go in, but the steely sky held on to its raindrops, eager to hear more about how she’d recently started using green tea leaves in the soil. After almost an hour of her barely taking a breath and nattering on about nothing of great import, I was ready for a good half hour shut in a darkened room. She didn’t ask any questions about me or why I was there, what my life was like back home, or if I was, in fact, living ‘in sin’ with her not so darling boy. In fact, she barely acknowledged me after my initial greeting, only to ask if I’d like a cup of tea.

  The clock had barely stuck midday by the time we’d been ushered in through the front door and all sat down around the large mahogany table that was so highly polished that I could see the dated brass light fitting with its frosted glass shade reflected in the surface.

  Stepping into this house had felt like stepping back in time. It was a house you’d expect more of a grandparent than a parent, with a crucifix or some other piece of religious paraphernalia in every single room (even the downstairs toilet), the heating whacked up to Australian outback levels of unbearableness and little porcelain knick-knacks scattered about the place that ranged from poor taste to downright terrifying. A china Bo-Peep-esque woman peered at me from the tiny black pinpricks she had for eyes, her crook raised above her head and three or four sheep around her feet, which looked like they’d been designed by someone who had never seen a sheep in their life.

  The house was quiet, to unnerving levels, as Ava walked around the table with an ancient-looking ceramic pot cradled in her arm like a medieval serving wench. Beside Carrick was an empty seat, not unusual around a table for six when there are only five people, but what I found curious was how Ava had set the table for six. Had she been expecting someone else to show? Was it a sign of respect, setting a place for Abi? Or could she simply not stand the lack of symmetry of an unset place? Ava moved around behind Carrick, spooning a ladle of light brown stew into his bo
wl before moving around to Eoin, who sat at the head of the table. It was plain to see the Stone family resemblance, with the men who all had the same sculpted look to their faces, as if they were bronze busts brought to life.

  It seemed baffling to me that Carrick and Eoin were brothers, regardless of the undeniable resemblance. Where Carrick was comically over the top and flamboyant, Eoin was subdued and stoic. Charlie hadn’t said much to me about their upbringing, but from what I could see, their experiences had been very different. Eoin sat, expressionless, rigid-backed and joyless, while Carrick sat there, grinning at nothing, his bright turquoise scarf dangling dangerously close to the surface of his stew as he drummed on the edge of the table with his fingers. It struck me that Eoin had been the one to get the clip around the ear, whereas Carrick hadn’t had nearly enough. But then, wasn’t that often the way with the oft-spoiled younger sibling? I knew nothing about it personally, but to me it always seemed that the youngest could always get away with murder.

  I’d been fighting the urge to talk for going on twenty minutes now, since we’d moved inside and the conversations about border flowers had come to an end. My mouth wasn’t used to this. Where there was a silence, I was there to fill it. But the tension in the air that came with unsaid words and unsettled scores was striking me mute and, on top of that, I’d never been around anyone who so much as said ‘bless you’ when I sneezed, let alone staunch Irish Catholics, and so I was afraid that I’d somehow blaspheme and make a tense afternoon even worse.

  Ava reached me and gave me a sweet, if somewhat insincere, smile. ‘Looks to me like yer need feedin’ up a bit,’ she said as she dished out a portion of stew, which slopped into my bowl with a thud. ‘Have a wee bit’o bread with it.’ She nodded towards a bowl of bread in the centre of the table and I obeyed without pause. She moved on to Charlie who sat beside me, his body becoming more rigid the closer his mother got to him. She served his food silently then took her seat, at the opposite end of the table to her husband.