The Sugar Men Page 4

  The young couple was touring Europe and was starting with northern Germany, followed by Denmark and the Netherlands, then on to France, where they were planning to spend a lot of time as they were keen wine aficionados.

  Beyond France Susannah only half followed their itinerary; after all these years there was something not quite right to her about someone wanting to tour Europe. Archie had always been interested in exotic places and cultures, and they’d travelled widely together after the children had reached the age where parents were little more than an embarrassment. However, even he knew better than to suggest visiting Europe; that was a lesson he had learned from their early years of marriage.

  Susannah had met Archie Morgan for the first time at a dance in Miami while holidaying with her Uncle Paul and Aunt Helena. She’d been attracted to men before, but there was something different about Archie. There was the physicality, for sure; he was tall, but not too tall, strong but in a sinewy rather than a bulky fashion, and he was good looking, with thick, slightly rubbery lips and warm eyes. But it wasn’t so much those that attracted her. His blond hair had a distinct red tang and refused to be controlled no matter how much wax and combing was employed, and his clothes always had a crooked appearance, as if they were specifically ‘tailored not to fit’, Susannah thought. Also his shoes were always scuffed, and his laces kept coming undone. Somehow she found that air of vulnerability attractive, but above all he was kind in an uncomplicated way and gentle whenever he kissed her, which almost made her faint on the first few occasions it happened. She concluded that love was love whatever, and when Aunt Helena cautioned that she shouldn’t dive into things, that only served to make her mind up. She couldn’t think of a better experience in life to dive into than the attentions of a loving, kind-hearted man. It was only now, looking back, that in spite of the many happy memories of married life, she realized that the ‘diving in’ attracted her almost as much as Archie Morgan himself did. She was aware, more than anyone else she knew, that sometimes life was for living – not for taking time to judge and plan and weigh things up.

  They became pen pals, and Archie regularly travelled up to North Carolina to see her. When he eventually made the effort to move up to Wilmington, it settled things for Susannah and very soon they got married. They started out in a new home in the suburbs, where Susannah looked after the house while Uncle Paul got Archie a job at one of the many nearby boatbuilding yards. All was well for a few months, and Susannah thought she was happy. She looked after the house, tended the garden, and went shopping.

  On an unusually chilly January morning she went out to get some groceries – in truth they didn’t really need food, but it was good to have some extra supplies in the house ‘just in case’ and the routine kept her busy. She collected the usual items and a few that weren’t, and left the store. Mr Abrahams, a retired neighbour, gave her some kind of polite greeting but she didn’t hear the words; all she heard was his dog barking. It was on a lead and it barked only a couple of times, but it felt to Susannah like it was pointing its snout directly at her, preparing itself to pounce. She dropped her bag of groceries where she stood, ran to her car, and jumped two red lights to get home. Once she’d bolted the door shut she opened the kitchen cupboard, fought her way past the pile of groceries that Archie always said was big enough for them to open their own mini-mart, and found the gin.

  That settled her.

  In fact, it settled her enough to completely ignore for a moment the fact that the gin bottle she’d bought only two days before was almost empty.

  And Archie didn’t drink gin.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  On the plane Susannah tensed her muscles as firmly as any woman of her age could and tried to concentrate on the words of that same young couple who happened to be sitting across the aisle from her, how they were planning to spend some ‘work time’ learning about viniculture in France – because the pipedream was to acquire enough land to start their own vineyard – after which they would hire a car and mosey on down into Spain for some ‘play time’. However, they were flexible and knew plans were no more than that because sometimes – when unforeseen events occurred – you couldn’t always go where you intended to.

  And then, just as Susannah was getting interested in the hopes and dreams of others, they turned to the ‘oh, but we must be boring you’ excuse and stopped talking.

  Susannah leaned back into her seat, closed her eyes, and thought of her own hopes and dreams of years gone by.

  It was two months after being upset by Mr Abraham’s dog that Archie confronted her about the number of empty gin bottles in the trash.

  Susannah dismissed his concerns with a frown that could cut and a yell that could maim. Archie didn’t mention the subject for another eight months.

  They had good days and they had days when tempers were tested, but it wasn’t until Thanksgiving that he tried again. They’d been to spend the evening with Susannah’s Uncle Paul and Aunt Helena, who lived ten or so miles to the north. Susannah didn’t drink while she was there, but when they got back she reached for the gin bottle as soon as she was through the door – before she’d even taken her coat off, in fact.

  It was then that Archie let her have it.

  ‘Susannah,’ he said. ‘I have to tell you something, something really important.’

  But whatever it was it was never going to be important enough to stop her unscrewing the top of the bottle.

  ‘Please put that down,’ he said.

  ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  She poured a slug into the nearest thing to hand – a coffee cup. Archie rested the palm of his hand over the top of it and pressed down. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Just . . . just leave it for tonight.’

  But she snatched the cup away from his control and threw the contents into the back of her throat.

  ‘You have to stop this,’ Archie said.

  She grabbed the bottle and poured more into the cup. He grabbed the bottle too and there was a brief tug of war; he obviously wasn’t going to let go as easily as he had the cup.

  ‘Just stop it!’

  ‘I won’t sleep,’ Susannah said. ‘And you know that.’

  Archie wrenched the bottle away and poured the contents down the sink. ‘So see a doctor.’

  ‘You think that’s the only one?’ Susannah said, with a cackle.

  Archie placed the empty bottle onto the side. ‘Why do you do it? I mean, for Christ’s sake, what’s the point?’

  ‘I told you. It helps me sleep.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. Can’t you see? It’s getting to the stage where you’re depending on it. It’s like—’

  She cracked the cup down onto the wooden table. ‘Fine, so I can’t live without it. Happy now?’

  ‘And I can’t live without you, Susannah!’

  She stood frozen for a moment, then said, ‘Is that what it’s all about?’

  ‘What in God’s name is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Perhaps you want to live without me. Perhaps you have someone else.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Archie said quietly.

  ‘I know the signs!’

  Archie stepped closer to her and spoke softly, his eyes glassy with tears. ‘Why do you keep saying things like that?’

  ‘I thought . . .’ Susannah gulped and placed a hand over her eyes. ‘I thought you were going to leave me.’

  ‘But I married you,’ Archie said, his face a mixture of sorrow and confusion. ‘I love you. Why would you think . . . ?’

  Susannah dropped the cup, which shattered on the floor, fragments darting to all corners of the room. She flung her arms around him and started sobbing quietly. Archie held her tightly for a few minutes, until her crying eased off, then slowly manoeuvred them both to chairs at the table. He took off her coat, then his, and sat down next to her.

  ‘You can’t go on like this,’ he said, holding her hand in his. ‘You’re killing yourself.’

  Susanna
h looked into his eyes, then around the room, but couldn’t find the words.

  ‘You want this for the rest of your life?’ Archie said. ‘Ask yourself. Could you ever consider living a normal life like this? We both know you want children, but you can’t.’ He gave his head a languid shake. ‘You can’t – not like this.’

  Susannah’s gaze dropped down to her hands. She said, ‘But . . .’ and no more.

  ‘You’re not well,’ Archie said. ‘And . . . I know it’s hard to accept, but you need to see the doctor again.’

  Two days later she did just that. It didn’t help that he wasn’t her normal doctor, even less that he looked fresh out of medical school. It was apparent within seconds that he came with a head full of textbook.

  ‘You’re still not sleeping?’ he said.

  ‘I can’t.’ She shook her head. ‘Not without . . . help.’

  ‘You can’t drink your way to mental health, Mrs Morgan.’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ she said.

  ‘But I do know what happened to you in years gone by, Mrs Morgan. It’s all in your medical records. You have no lasting physical damage. And you look fine to me too, that’s always a good sign.’

  Susannah leaned forward on the desk between them. ‘But I can’t live without . . . without something. Sure, I’m all right now, sitting here talking to you. But if I’m on my own, or if I have a bad day, if the . . .’ She paused and took a couple of deep breaths.

  ‘Go on,’ the doctor said. ‘If what?’

  ‘I have bad thoughts. Sometimes the . . . the memories get to me . . .’

  ‘You mean, you let the memories get to you.’

  She stared at him for ten seconds, her expression somehow turning from anger to pity. ‘My, my,’ she said. ‘You sure learned good at medical school, didn’t you?’

  ‘Actually, Mrs Morgan, with the greatest respect, this is known to be the best way of overcoming any traumatic incident.’

  Susannah narrowed her eyes. ‘Did you say “incident”?’

  The doctor’s voice rose slightly in volume. ‘You have to leave the past in the past. It really isn’t helping you to dwell on bad memories.’

  ‘Dwell?’ Susannah said, almost shouting the word. ‘Dwell?’

  ‘Mrs Morgan, we can’t change the past. If your memories are getting in the way of living a healthy life, then the best way to deal with the problem is to forget all of that ever happened.’

  She leaned in closer and whispered to him, almost breathlessly, ‘You really think I haven’t tried something so simple?’

  The doctor swayed his head from side to side, as if deciding between a cream soda and a milk shake, Susannah thought. But he didn’t speak.

  ‘This is part of me,’ Susannah said slowly, her voice gaining strength, her finger prodding the centre of her chest.

  ‘All I’m saying is that you have to try to forget all of that and think about the here and now – your future with your husband.’

  ‘I cannot forget!’ Susannah shouted. ‘I cannot forget! I cannot forget!’ She leaned back, rested for a second, then again said quietly, ‘I. Can. Not. Forget.’

  The doctor sighed and reached for his prescription pad.

  ‘And I don’t want drugs,’ she added.

  ‘Mrs Morgan, if you won’t let me help you . . .’

  They stared at each other for a few moments. Susannah saw no vestige of humanity in the man’s eyes; he couldn’t have been less helpful if he’d had a uniform and a helmet on.

  Without a word she grabbed her coat, stormed out of the doctor’s, and stopped on the way home to buy a fresh bottle of gin.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Susannah changed flight at Charlotte and was on her way to Hamburg. Now there was definitely no going back. She found it difficult to relax, her concern for what she might find there keeping her awake for most of the journey. Inflight movies of fighting and destruction really didn’t help. It was only towards the end, when her ‘concerned self’ accepted that she was definitely doing this whatever those concerns might have been, that she was able to settle down and try to get some sleep, and as she closed her eyes and became alone with her thoughts she tried to forget those painful memories of the early years of her marriage. But memories sometimes beget more memories – often worse ones, and she fell into the ambush just like she had so many times before in her life.

  A young woman in a cold, dark cabin shrinks her frame and turns her face away from the darkest of visions. Dirt floor. Bare walls. Live ghosts.

  But she cannot ignore expressionless faces that have mislaid their owners, eyes that are past pleading, cheeks like dirty craters.

  The mass of shaven heads don’t jostle – there’s no point. The SS guard barks a tune – ‘Clothes. Shoes. Glasses. Off!’ – and they danse macabre.

  Subhuman silhouettes shuffle past her, cowering, their eyes facing the blood-spattered dirt but their minds long devoid of meaningful thought.

  ‘Time for shower!’

  The butt of a rifle on her breastbone stops her joining them.

  ‘Not for you. I’m told you’re “The Lucky One”.’

  She stands silently, ignoring the stench of mildew, disease and human waste, as the Untermenschen drop their fetid rags, indifferent to their cadaverous nakedness, and leave the dim cabin.

  ‘You would prefer to go with them?’ the guard asks her.

  She ignores the jet of spittle that hits her as he cackles. She doesn’t answer.

  ‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘Because you are “The Lucky One”, is that not what they say?’ He turns to kick the legs of the last Untermensch to leave, who drops his wreck of a body to the floor, then crawls out of the room. He hooks his rifle on the door edge and swings it shut, its clang echoing in the dank emptiness.

  He steps towards her, places the butt of his rifle on her shoulder and nudges.

  ‘So, tell me, why are you different, so special? What is it you do?’

  She keeps her head low, swings it left, right, left. Then she feels her shoulder being shaken, again and again.

  ‘Tell me! Why are you called “The Lucky One”?’

  She feels faint, losing consciousness in spite of the guard’s unrelenting interrogation.

  ‘Excuse me, madam?’

  Even in waking Susannah couldn’t escape the pain of the rifle nudging her shoulder – except that now it was being used more gently, not hurting quite so much.

  ‘Could you put on your seatbelt please, madam,’ the voice said. ‘We’re about to land.’

  In that no-man’s-land between sleeping and waking, Susannah looked up and gasped as she saw someone in a perfectly pressed field-grey uniform bearing down on her, giving her orders. After a shocked blink she looked again and sank back slightly, seeing now that she’d made a mistake; the figure standing over her was a flight attendant dressed in light-blue garb. She almost cried out, Where am I? but her natural reserve held judgement just long enough for her to glimpse the polite smile, and she let out a long sigh, then another.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied breathlessly. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then she obeyed the order – no, she complied with the request.

  It was another moment before she could answer her own unspoken question: where was she?

  ‘Hamburg,’ she muttered. ‘Of course. That’s where I am.’ And then the loudspeaker announcement confirmed the destination. It took another moment for her to consider the question that followed on in her mind: why was she here?

  Within minutes the unsettling judder of the rubber tyres on the runway made her give the question more thought. Yes. Why, exactly, was she here? Guilt? Hardly. Perhaps seeing again how unlucky so many others had been – how a whole generation had had their lives and dreams stolen from them – would remind her how lucky she’d been to escape sixty-four years ago. Of course, in the immediate aftermath of the war those questions had dominated her life. Why had she escaped? What was so special about her? Why had God spared her and not some of th
e younger children? Would she have been better had she been with them? Those thoughts and feelings had controlled her life for many years – and had almost ended it once. But she’d fought and beaten those demons – together with the bottle – to leave those memories well and truly behind, and had all but straightened herself out by the 1950s. She’d had to in order to have any kind of normal existence, to share what had been – all things considered – a happy home with Archie, David and Judy. There had been aberrations during those years – of course there had – but she’d learned the tricks of how to cover up, how to project those feelings of guilt and regret inward, how to brick up the wall when those memories came marching back into her fractured world.

  Guilt? After all these years? Of course not. But perhaps this visit would help her put her life – and in particular the fact that it was nearly over – into some sort of perspective. Yes, perhaps that was what it was – seeing that place again might bring her some sort of closure (that was a modern term she hated but she had to admit it had an accurate ring to it).

  And no, it wasn’t about finding out why she was really called The Lucky One, but it might just possibly make her final months on this planet more peaceful ones.

  As the plane came to a halt and the passengers started standing up and gathering their hand luggage, Susannah did likewise – albeit quite a bit more slowly – and turned to the aisle.

  She let out a small shriek as she locked eyes with a gaunt, shaven-headed man inches from her face. A dry swallow turned to breathless panic as her eyes were drawn down to the grimy blanket covering his paperweight frame. She fell back into her seat, squeezing her eyes shut.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ the man said. ‘After you.’

  She opened her eyes again, and between deep breaths saw him step back and wave a hand to invite her into the aisle. Yes, he was bald, maybe a little slim, and a scruffy grey T-shirt hung limply down over his jeans. But the accent was English and the face was clean rather than dirty, healthy rather than covered in scabs and pockmarks.