Acheron – Chapter 1

Reflections

Blue eyes. Brown eyes. Green or hazel. Why do we even notice? It’s just pigmentation of the iris. It says nothing about the person behind the eyes. Yet it might be the difference between never looking at them, not properly, and never being able to look away.

It’s unfair. My eyes are sort of muddy. Even my wife of thirty-five years would be pushed to say what colour they are. I was short-changed in the iris department.

Unlike Áine.

The first thing I noticed about Áine were her eyes: the colour of the pre-dawn sky. Her gaze was startling, arresting. When I looked into her eyes, I saw — light.

Yes, that’s it: I felt illuminated by her light.

Does that make sense? Probably it sounds daft.

She wasn’t a pretty girl, in the conventional, symmetrically-featured way we see on TV. It was a strong face: a long jaw squared off at the chin; sculpted cheek-bones. Her long nose had a slight downward curve. Thick brows tried hard to meet under a broad forehead over which thick brown hair tumbled, so dark as almost to be black. Large canines gave her wide smile a hint of the wolf.

Pretty or not, Áine had presence.

To me, from the moment I saw her, she was the only girl in the school. The only one who mattered.

It was in year nine.

‘We have a new student in our class,’ announced Mr Grant. ‘Onya Doyle.’ A slim, dark-haired girl stood next to him, hands clasped, surveying the class with a faint smile on her lips.

‘It’s pronounced Awnya,’ corrected Áine mildly. Clearly she was used to this situation. ‘Long “awn-”, not short “on-”.’ Tittering around the class. ‘Onya, Awnya,’ called some wit.

Poor old Grant was flustered. ‘Sorry, Awwwnya Doyle … Please make Awwwnya welcome.’

Half-hearted applause.

The uniform she wore was obviously second-hand, and not a particularly good fit. Still she wore the baggy sweater and the threadbare skirt with the poise of a dancer. Straight back, squared shoulders, chin tilted upward. When she walked, she placed each foot.

As she walked past my desk to take up the only vacant seat, behind mine, I kept my eyes glued to my desk to avoid catching her gaze or ogling her breasts. I caught a glimpse of brown legs, scratched and bruised, with a light covering of delicate dark hair. Her shoes were scuffed and her socks at half mast.

A school bag collided with my shoulder in a light but painful thump. When I looked around, startled and slightly indignant, those eyes met mine. She gave me a half-smile as she pulled her chair in.

Áine Doyle was weird. That was the class consensus and they hadn’t even met her parents yet.

Even in our patchwork of accents, from broadest bush Strine to Indian, Vietnamese and Pommie, her Irish vowels and rolling Rs stood out, along with the alien melody of her intonation. For several months I thought she came from a place called Karrkh, until I eventually worked out that it was Cork.

And when Áine got excited! Her voice would rise in both pitch and tempo and — damn! — to hear it was pure, erotic joy to this fourteen-year-old boy.

Weird she may have been — but our schoolmates soon worked out, with their infallible pack instinct, that Áine was not victim material.

‘I wouldn’t mind getting on ya, Áine,’ smirked Roddy Grady during break.

Roddy was a big, handsome athlete, a ruckman as free with his fists as with his mouth. The girls thought him quite a spunk. Outrageous speech and dickish behaviour were ‘adorable’ when they came from Roddy, apparently.

Áine simply looked at him. Didn’t smile; didn’t frown. She looked at him with as much interest as if he had been a tree stump or a beetle. Silence. He grew red under her steady gaze; looked to the side; shrugged and walked away with his retinue.

After that he was careful what he said, when Áine was around.

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Coming next week in ‘Acheron’:

Chapter 2 – Kerosene on the Fire

Our narrator introduces himself and his family, makes a delightful discovery on the school bus … and has to let his mum in on a secret.