They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

88 June 2017

So, to all those armchair sages who say that money doesn’t bring you happiness, let me tell them something. They are right. I can say this five years after my win — it doesn’t bring happiness, but it makes a miserable life a lot more tolerable.

One example of which is we’ve moved from Frankfurt to Munich. I’ve traded up from our dump of a room at the Gasthaus & Hotel Seehaus to a very beautiful fourth-floor apartment on Munich’s Widenmayerstrasse. We have a gorgeous view across the road to the park and the Isar, the pretty river that flows at some speed through the city. And the location is unbelievably handy — it is half a kilometre’s walk from the psychiatrist to whom Dr Ramsden referred me, who I now see twice weekly. His name is Dr Eberstark.

He’s a strange guy, short, in his mid-fifties, I guess, who has the knack of almost making himself seem smaller still. Maybe it’s the suits he wears, which all seem to be one size too big, as if he’s waiting to grow into them, or maybe it’s the way he sits in his leather chair, all hunched up, or maybe his large, black-rimmed glasses that give him the appearance of a hawk.

But I think he gets me, and we are currently working through — old ground, I know — the reasons I left Roy in the first place, and my old anger issues that I’d thought I had under control ever since my drug addiction days, but which were now periodically resurfacing. I’ve twice lost it with Bruno, once when he threw a tantrum because he didn’t want to go to bed, and another time when he was just plain damned rude to me when he didn’t like the sausages I’d cooked for his evening meal. It took a lot of effort for me to calm down and I hate myself for making him scared. We make up quickly, but the guilt doesn’t leave me.

From what Dr Eberstark seems to be saying, I’ve never properly come to terms with having left Roy, and my anger is all part of this, which is why I can’t properly move on. He’s explained the treatment he’s giving me, it’s called DBT — dialectical behaviour therapy. Of course I’ve googled it dozens of times. It’s a therapy developed to help people cope with extreme or unstable emotions and harmful behaviours. It’s meant to be able to help me to regulate my emotions, like it’s some kind of mental thermostat. And there’s something that Dr Eberstark omitted to tell me about DBT. It’s also a treatment for borderline personality disorder, particularly people at risk of self-harming.

Me?

I guess self-harm comes in different guises. It’s not just cutting yourself. It’s making choices that are ultimately harmful. Like leaving the person who loves you and will always take care of you, because...

Because...

Because, that old cliché, you think the grass is greener.

Stoker had been crazy for me. I don’t know what influence he had, but it was pretty impressive. He managed to get me German citizenship in the name of Alessandra Lohmann, and a bank account, where I had finally been able to turn that cheque from the casino into real money. As well as an investment manager who was looking after my windfall, giving me an income more than sufficient for my needs, as well as growing my capital.

Stoker was fun, but I just couldn’t give him the relationship he wanted. He even told me he wanted to marry me. But much though I liked him, I didn’t want to sleep with him, or anyone. I just had this constant, burning feeling that I ought to be back with Roy — however much I tried to forget about him. To put him behind me. Like he was someone I knew in another life but not this one now.

Except Bruno is a constant reminder of him. Although I still can’t be sure Roy is his biological father, I have a strong feeling, which I can’t explain, that he is. When I look at him I see Roy’s eyes. Roy’s nose. When he smiles I can sometimes swear it is Roy smiling.

I keep thinking I should do one of those DNA paternity tests. But there’s a big problem with that — I don’t have anything from Roy to get DNA from, for comparison. However, that is about to change.

I really like Munich, and I see a bit of Hans-Jürgen — we have lunch and sometimes dinner together. We’re good friends now, although at times he drives me crazy with his weird views. Actually, he is always driving me crazy with his weird views. But I do like him. Every time I go to see him at the schloss, with its scented candles and all its intense weirdies in their white tunics, I’m just so pleased I can leave and go back to my gorgeous apartment.

He constantly tries to encourage me to return there permanently, but it’s not for me. I’m happy — well, content for now, anyway — in Munich. Frankfurt is a nice enough city, but Munich has a soul that I never felt in Frankfurt. It is beautiful and so walkable. And I guess the real reason we moved here was that Dr Ramsden was returning to England and put me in touch with a child psychologist in Munich whom he felt could really help Bruno.

He’d been right. Bruno, now nearly nine and a half years old, did seem to be improving and had made friends with a boy at school. His name was Erik. Erik Lippert. They hang out together almost to the point of being as inseparable as twins. Their friendship cemented by their love of the Bayern Munich football team, they are often dressed in identical replica club shirts and their bedroom walls are plastered with posters of their heroes. Bruno’s favourite player, Pascal Gross, is German but doesn’t play for Bayern Munich. He and Erik follow his every move. I’m happy Bruno has developed such a passion for the sport and after treating them to go and see a couple of games live I found myself enjoying it too. Erik’s parents, Anette and Ingo, are lovely, smart people. They are part of a small group of friends I have made here. I’ve not had any serious relationship in some years. But the Lipperts made a couple of efforts at matchmaking, resulting in a couple of embarrassing dinners with divorced single guys they knew, before I managed to dissuade them from any more.

Roy would have liked them.

Roy.

No matter what happened, no matter what I did, everything came back to Roy.

I set up a Google alert on his name so every time there was a mention of him, usually in the Argus newspaper, sometimes other Sussex newspapers, I got to read about his work and to see Roy’s name. It does make me proud; he gets his fair share of mentions as the SIO on various murder cases. I wonder why I never felt so proud before, or did I? Did I just resent his work because it impacted our life so much? Hard to tell now after so many years. I’m not able to find out about anything to do with his personal life, though. And that’s what I’m really curious about.

It’s now almost ten years since I left him. But there hasn’t been a day when I don’t think about him. When I don’t wonder what his life is like now. Does he have a girlfriend? Has he remarried?

Shit, that thought twists my heart.

Ten crazy years.

God, how I miss him.

Would he be impressed that I am rich now?

No. Money wasn’t his motivation. He cared about people, about making the world a better place, in whatever small way he could.

He’s a better person than I will ever be.

There’s a line in Shakespeare’s Othello that sometimes finds me in the middle of the night, as if it has tracked me down and wants to haunt me.

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away, richer than all his tribe.

Maybe I should go to England. Tell Roy I’m sorry. Tell him he has a son. Our son. Tell him I made a big mistake and that I so much want him back.

Do I have the courage?

No, I don’t. But I’ve just found a way to get his DNA.

I think it is bloody brilliant.

My psychiatrist does not.

Dr Eberstark tells me it’s crazy and to put that idea right out of my head.

I don’t think it’s crazy at all. I think it’s very smart.