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

‘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,