At First Sight Hannah Sunderland (free e books to read online txt) 📖

‘Dinner won’t be long now,’ Orlagh chimed in.

‘Excellent,’ Una said, taking Jamie’s hand and leading him back towards the door.

‘Good seeing you, Charlie.’ Jamie narrowed his eyes. ‘We missed you last year and the one before that.’ He sent Charlie a grin and then he was gone.

I reached over and took the knife from Charlie’s shaking, angry fingers, placing it on the worktop and taking Charlie by the hands.

‘Come on, let’s get some air,’ I said and led him towards what I presumed was the back door.

As far as I could see by the tattered love stories of everyone around the table, love and life were often incompatible things – Darlow excluded, although I’m sure he’d have a story to add to our list of doomed love affairs in around fourteen years. Love was the Disney film of emotions. It was the tender kisses and the sunset dances, the fade to black after happily ever after. But there was no such thing as happily ever after; there was only happily ever now or happily ever then. Love cannot last forever. It’s slain by poor decisions, lack of compatibility, selfishness, greed and, eventually, death.

With Joel, love had been fleeting and all-consuming, but looking back now, something had always felt ever so slightly wrong. A canker that grew and grew until the love was overcome by it, gradually turning it to hate.

Abi may have died, but Charlie still loved her, as did Carrick and Kenna and countless other people in the town we’d left behind on a motorbike named Steve. But when Charlie died, so would his love. Which begged the question: is there any point in loving? Yes, it makes you feel good at the time, it gives your day purpose and allows you someone to moan to when you return home from work after a bad day, but eventually that love is going to cause someone pain, if it hasn’t already. Even the greatest love has hurt someone. Everyone goes on about the love of Romeo and Juliet, but what about Paris? Does anyone spare a thought for him, cast aside and forgotten in a heartbeat as soon as another floated Juliet’s boat?

I knew that Charlie felt something for me, but what was it? And even if it was love, how would it compare to the love he felt for Abi? Would he forever find the love he felt for me lacking in some way, unable to put his finger on the reason why his heart never leapt as high, why his palms never grew to the same levels of clamminess as when he’d been holding her hand?

Charlie raised a forkful of piecrust to his mouth and ate it as Carrick regaled us with a story of when he and Orlagh had been married. How could it be that I was jealous of Abi? Someone who I’d never met and never would. Someone who was no threat to me, because she was literally dead and buried. But death did silly things to people’s minds. Even the angriest little shite of a person in the whole world could die and still there would be someone who came out with the phrase you hear at every funeral. ‘He was someone who touched many lives and who will be missed by all who knew him.’

No, he wasn’t. He was a rodent with small-man syndrome who instilled pure hatred in anyone who knew him. But he died and so now he is put on the pedestal that only death can award.

I’m not saying that Abi was a horrible person. I’d never met her so I couldn’t possibly know, but her death had canonised her, raised her up to godly standards that I could never dream of reaching while alive.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sometime after dinner, I found myself sitting on the ledge of the actual lighthouse part of the hotel with Charlie, sipping on whisky and listening to the waves crashing somewhere in the distance. I glanced down at the drop below and my stomach lurched when I wasn’t able to see the shadow-blackened ground. I looked down at my feet dangling through the railings and felt a sense of pride inside me at the small victory, even if the lack of solid ground beneath my feet did make me feel a little sick.

‘Twins!’ Charlie exclaimed, his voice thick with quiet rage. ‘Two sets of them.’

‘I know, but who needs that many children really?’ I sighed in reply. ‘As soon as they’re born he’s going to be living in a constant state of sleep deprival and be perpetually covered in some form of bodily fluid. Is that really what you want from your life?’ Charlie swigged from the bottle of bourbon that he’d grabbed on the way out of the kitchen and promised to replace before Donal got back.

‘Well, no. Maybe not four children, all under the age of five, all in one sticky, snot-covered go. But one would be nice.’ The wind was less here than it had been on the cliffs, but it was still cold enough to leave goose bumps in its wake, strong enough to make its way through my clothes. ‘All I’m saying is, what the feck am I doing wrong if a person like him is getting rewarded for being a complete prick?’

‘You’re not doing anything wrong. Life just isn’t fair.’

‘You’re damn right it’s not. He has Una, kids, a distressingly nice house and a sweet job and, what do I have? Feck all, that’s what.’

That last comment smarted a little. You have me, I thought.

‘What is it with you and towers?’ I asked to get on to a different topic, my mouth burning from the whisky.

‘I like being high up,’ he replied. ‘Like a cat, but not my cat because my cat sucks.’

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘There is nothing wrong with Magnus. He’s just a very good judge of character, that’s all.’

‘Ouch. You wound me, Nell Coleman.’ I could feel him easing a little the further away the