They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

95 September 2017

I realized what it was about Dr Eberstark that made him look like a hawk, albeit a wise hawk. It was his nose, a big hooked proboscis that could almost be a beak, partly concealed by the enormous black-rimmed glasses he wore. He had kind, sympathetic eyes through those lenses, smiling eyes, but an almost permanently bemused expression.

In all the times I had seen him, I’d not figured out whether he reserved that expression for me, or it was simply how he viewed the world — or at least, the world as seen through the eyes of his patients. Not a very happy world, I would think.

So am I now officially dead? It seems ages since I picked up that copy of the Münchner Merkur in the Englischer Garten and read the advertisement my husband had placed, to have me declared dead.

So was he my husband still, even if I was legally dead? Was he my ex-husband, my was-husband? My lawyers weren’t sure. No one was sure.

This Monday afternoon we were having one of our long, habitual and expensive silences, punctuated only by the sound of the traffic three floors below on Widenmayerstrasse. I say expensive because it was costing me the same whether we talked or not. I had started to speak but then hesitated, feeling embarrassed, although Dr Eberstark was the one person I should be able to talk to about anything, because he wasn’t there to judge me. Just to help me.

But there were times when I felt he was like a judge at the Bench, looking at me, the villain on trial in the dock. Even though I was on the couch facing him, I could feel his eyes on my back.

‘I do horrible things sometimes,’ I said, finally getting it out. Then fell silent again.

After a while he asked, ‘What kind of horrible things, Sandy?’ His voice was always calm.

‘I put an advertisement in their local paper’s Deaths column that their baby had died.’ As I say the words out loud I am so embarrassed it feels as though I am hearing someone else speak them. Come on, judge me, be shocked! He stays as calm as ever as if what I am telling him is just so routine. I bet inside he thinks I’m nuts. Who wouldn’t?

The problem was I was upset and fuming. I drank far too much and made two very bad decisions that I now regret. Not only did I put the advert in their local paper, but I had also scratched into the bonnet of Cleo’s car: ‘COPPER’S TART. UR BABY IS NEXT.’

What on earth was I thinking? I am deeply ashamed, but alcohol had made me feel confident and heightened my emotions. The day I left Roy I was so wrapped up in the threat and my own danger I didn’t give him or his future enough thought. I didn’t consider that he would have a new girlfriend or children. But now I wanted him back, everything was different.

I tell Dr Eberstark about vandalizing Cleo’s car. I’m on a roll now, may as well get it all out in front of the expert.

Did I detect a hint of admonishment in his tone?

‘What did you think you would achieve by doing that?’

There was a framed photograph on the doctor’s desk of him with an attractive, rather academic-looking woman and two very serious-looking girls in their late teens. They stood in a posed group, all looking so prim, so perfect, so anodyne. As if none of them, ever in their lives, had farted.

‘Sometimes I feel I’m like the scorpion in that fable,’ I told him.

‘Which fable?’

‘The one where the scorpion asks the turtle to give him a ride across the river to the other side. The turtle replies, “I can’t do that. You might sting me to death.” The scorpion says, “Look, I’m not dumb. If you carry me across the river and I sting you, we will both die — you from my sting and I will drown.”

‘So the turtle says, “Okay, that makes sense!”

‘They get halfway across the river and the scorpion stings the turtle. The turtle, in agony and starting to sink, turns and looks at the scorpion and says, “Why did you do that? Now we’re both going to die.”

‘The scorpion replies, “I know. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature.”’

Dr Eberstark asks if I think I’m the scorpion, if that’s how I justify my anger and what that tells him. I don’t know what it all represents but I know it makes me sad that Roy’s moved on without me.

Then, totally changing the subject, he asks, ‘In our last session you were going to tell me something about the baby. Do you want to tell me now?’

The baby? Cleo’s baby?

No, I realize. He means Bruno. ‘The thing is, I’m not sure it was Roy’s.’

He barely reacted at all. Maybe he’d been expecting something like this. ‘Oh?’

‘I was having an affair. With one of his colleagues.’

He looked at me, silent and a little expectant, which made me feel I ought to continue.

‘A short while before I left Roy, I had an affair with a man called Cassian Pewe. Well, more a fling than an affair. More like a few one-night stands. I saw him a handful of times right up until the time I left Roy before I realized that actually I really didn’t like him. I’m in the process of having a DNA test done now, to see if I can establish whether it’s Roy or him who is the father.’

I watched him nodding, absorbing this.

‘Interesting,’ is all he replied.

Then, infuriatingly, as he so often did just when things were getting going, he looked at the clock on the wall.

‘OK, time’s up. I’ll see you on Wednesday.’