At First Sight by Hannah Sunderland (latest novels to read TXT) 📕

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,