Sugar Hall

by Tiffany Murray

  She lifted her sandals off the ground, almost happy.

  Alex drove past the first gate. Lily’s house had two gates and that sure was something. In fact Lily’s house was something. As he turned up the driveway lined with ancient trees he couldn’t name, Alex wondered at the size of the place. At this distance the falling gutters, the missing roof tiles, the strangling ivy, were blurred; it seemed like the grandest of houses and not somewhere he’d expect to find Lily Fisch. He thought of Flatbush Avenue and the way it ran through Prospect Park; it wasn’t a touch on the wildness of Lily’s home.

  Alex changed gear a little late; it had been so long since he had driven shift.

  The daughter, Saskia, was sitting in the front seat and he couldn’t wait to get her out of the car.

  ‘Thank you so much, Mr Behr.’

  ‘I’ve told you, kid, call me Alex.’

  She giggled and he pressed down on the accelerator.

  ‘All these things you bought for me. It was so kind.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  She giggled again and Alex was glad to spot Lily on the lawn, a dot in the distance, but Lily nonetheless.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Saskia said, her voice suddenly serious.

  ‘Of course, you call me Alex, sweetheart.’

  He felt her turn to him, almost climbing across the seat. ‘No, not that. The other question.’

  They jogged into a pothole and Alex shifted gears: the clutch stuck. ‘God damn it.’ He tried again.

  ‘Are you sure…?’

  ‘I told you, there is no way, honey.’ He said this as firmly as he could, staring forwards, praying the car would get them to the front door soon and he wouldn’t have to listen to this girl anymore.

  ‘I think you must be.’

  ‘I’ve told you…’

  ‘We have the same look.’

  ‘And what look is that?’

  ‘You are my father, I know you are.’

  Alex slammed on the brakes. Saskia tumbled forward.

  He winced because she bumped her head on the dashboard. When she looked up at him, half-crumpled, she was close to tears.

  ‘Honey, you’ve got to understand, your mother and me…’ he coughed. ‘We were kids. I can’t be your father, sweetheart. It’s just not possible. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Tears popped from her big blue eyes but Alex could see little comprehension in them.

  ‘It’s just not possible,’ he repeated, but he knew he’d have to speak to Lily, it was ridiculous but there you were. English girls were so unworldly, backwards. It both pleased, and in this instance, annoyed him to hell.

  ‘Hey, don’t spoil the day. OK?’ Alex patted Saskia on the arm, but she was hysterical now, little gulps of sobs came from her so he put the car in neutral and handed her his white handkerchief. He stared through the windscreen at the big house and he wondered how Lily had got herself into this fix, all alone in an English palace with two kids and no husband. He wondered how he could get her out of it.

  His Lily.

  Alex Behr thought of his simple apartment in Park Slope. He’d bought it after his divorce. South facing, the light came right into his living room. At weekends he’d lie back in his recliner and let that sun heat him up. It was a luxury. Then there was the kitchen: clean white, a dishwasher, washing machine, and him standing over the counter watching cars zoom up to Prospect Park. And here Lily was, in this forgotten place tucked away like a mouldy book when Alex wanted her to be lying in a recliner next to him, the blind a quarter down. Alex wanted them to hold hands as the business of a Brooklyn weekend roared outside.

  He was a romantic fool; he knew that.

  Alex chewed the inside of his mouth, a habit he’d not lost. Lily: his Lily. He thought of yesterday and how he’d found her down in that crypt of a kitchen, a big wooden spoon in her hands, stirring clothes in a pot like some peasant.

  He’d tip-toed up behind her and whispered, ‘You know you live in a modern world, right?’

  She had straightened up, arching her back against him.

  ‘In America we’ve got machines, Lily.’

  ‘Mm…’

  ‘We got the atomic bomb, too…’

  She turned to him, wiped the sweat from her face. ‘What?’

  ‘Checking you were listening…’

  ‘I am busy, Alex, can’t you see that?’

  ‘You need someone to do this for you.’

  ‘You think I am made of money?’ She was getting angry, and he hadn’t meant for that to happen.

  He’d changed tack. ‘You know in America you can go for a hamburger in the middle of the night. You can have a coffee at 3am.’

  ‘I can have a coffee at 3am here, Alex.’

  ‘Not like this coffee.’ He smiled, touching her wet arm.

  ‘A hamburger?’ she smiled back. ‘What do I want with food in the middle of the night. I am greedy?’

  ‘No,’ he laughed.

  ‘In the middle of the night I am sleeping. So when do you sleep, Alex?’

  ‘I sleep.’

  For a moment he lost his playfulness. He watched the scummy suds rise in that copper pot, and Lilia went back to stirring. ‘Patience, Alex,’ she told him, ‘you must have patience.’

  They’d looked at each other then, and in that small moment Alex Behr allowed memory through. All at once he was reading over Lilia’s shoulder at her mother’s dining room table, he was laughing with her middle brother – Ari – down by the river. Alex had fallen in love with Lilia Fisch the first time he saw her, when she was nine and he was, what, thirteen, fourteen? He had come home from his new school with Ari and Leon, and there Lily was, sitting like a madam in a high-backed chair by the open window reading a book. She glanced up at him only once when Ari said, ‘and that’s my sister, don’t mind her.’ She’d shrugged and Alex felt his flesh pulse: he’d never recovered. ‘Don’t you want to come out and play?’ he asked her once, and she hadn’t even looked up at him; she’d turned the page of her book. Always so contrary, in her own world, cut off, that was Lily Fisch.

  As he stood in the basement kitchen of Sugar Hall, Alex tugged the rope of the wooden Jenny; he had to put these thoughts out of his mind, because of course these thoughts led to others that Alex Behr knew it was unwise to touch.

  ‘Lily, I’m not kidding,’ he told her.

  She was back to stirring the dirty washing.

  ‘Lily, listen to me!’ Exasperated, Alex slumped into a hard kitchen chair. ‘OK, then, but what if this place eats you up, Lily? What if you can’t do it?’

  She stopped and turned to him, wiping her top lip. ‘You think I can’t?’

  Alex knew he had said the wrong thing. Never challenge Lily Fisch, he’d learnt that the year she left for Berlin. He leant back in the kitchen chair. ‘You can’t stay here, you must protect yourself and your family, Lilia,’ he told her, using her proper name.

  ‘You silly man,’ she said as the steam from the pot covered her face, ‘what do you think I’m doing?’

  English cars were like tanks, Alex thought. He gripped the wheel of the hire car and longed to sink into his Lincoln Continental. Saskia seemed to have calmed, he could only hear the tiniest of gulps from her now in the passenger seat.

  ‘You better?’

  She nodded at him. Alex sighed. He could tell she wouldn’t let go, that she didn’t believe his denial. Well, I’ll be her goddamned father, he thought, miracles do happen! Alex pressed on the gas, released the handbrake, and continued up the drive.

  ‘You know your name, “Behr”?’ Saskia asked with a parched whisper.

  He couldn’t fathom where the girl was going with this, but he doubted it would be good. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Mr Behr is the man Jo March marries in Little Women.’

  Alex had to think. ‘Right.’

  ‘Oh! You know the book?’

  ‘My daughter’s favourite. Read it to her, now she reads it herself,’ he tried to remember the book, it wa
s hazy.

  ‘You have another daughter?’

  ‘I have a daughter, yes.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  Alex had to count. The divorce had been unpleasant and – he believed – a truly American experience. ‘She’s eight. Peggy’s eight.’ Alex considered this: his little girl was growing up.

  It seemed that Saskia wasn’t giving him his handkerchief back, and Alex drove on, past the waterless fountain, past those shattered greenhouses; happy to see the dot of Lily grow bigger as she stood up to greet them.

  He had a few more weeks, tops, then he’d have to fly home. Business was business and right now Alex Behr’s was entirely neglected. This was the longest break he’d taken his entire life and he wanted it to mean something. To get what he wanted he would have to work faster. There was his Lily, he just had to grab her while she was still flesh and bone, before this place entombed her.

  ‘Will you come up to see me in London?’ the girl asked.

  Alex lied, ‘Of course, sweetheart. Of course.’

  He made a vow then: in two weeks he’d be gone from this God-awful place and Lily with him, however she came and whoever came with her.

  A Midnight Feast

  22

  When Dieter woke to see the boy sitting on the end of his bed, a pudding bowl of jelly at his chest, he wanted to scream. Instead he sat up, pulled his sheet to his neck and whispered, ‘You’ve come back.’

  ‘You’ve come back,’ the boy copied.

  ‘But where have you been?’

  ‘Where have you been?’ the boy said.

  The lights were on. Dieter panicked and looked for Ma and Saskia: there they were in their beds, sleeping soundly.

  The boy seemed smaller again, the velvet blue suit he wore was baggy: he had bare feet; his bright buckled shoes and the white tights were gone. He pushed a silver spoon into the bowl of red jelly and it made a thock noise. He shoved a wobbling spoonful into his mouth but he didn’t chew, he sat there; cheeks puffed out, eyes blank. Jelly fell on the bed.

  ‘You have to chew,’ Dieter whispered and his breath was white in the cold. He watched the boy’s cheeks deflate as he smacked his lips. ‘Sh!’ Dieter hissed and he looked over at his mother: her face was to one side, the sheet was down by her waist and she had one milky arm up above her head and hanging over the side of the bed.

  Saskia snored.

  The boy put the bowl on Dieter’s bed. ‘They won’t wake up.’

  Dieter felt that rising tide of panic come back, ‘Why?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  Dieter kept his eyes on his mother. ‘Is she just sleeping? What have you done to her?’

  ‘Shhhhhhhh!’ the boy said and the long sound cut Dieter in half, the breath went out of him and he fell back onto his pillows, slack. He watched: how long had it been since Saskia’s party, since he last saw him?

  The boy let his head drop to one shoulder, his eyebrows raised, ‘You want to ask me a question?’

  Dieter nodded. The boy ate jelly.

  ‘What did you do to my sister that day?’ Dieter tried to steady his voice. ‘At her birthday, you scared those girls. What did you do?’ Dieter thought about the things that would scare him. ‘Did you play Murder in the Dark?’

  The boy smiled, bits of red jelly pressing through his teeth. ‘I appeared,’ he said.

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I appeared.’

  Dieter’s chin trembled. ‘Is that all?’

  His friend laughed and Ma flinched in her sleep. Dieter tried to get his breath. ‘Why did you go away?’ he whispered.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You did! You’ve been gone for ages, you didn’t even say goodbye.’

  ‘But I am always here, Dee-tah.’ The boy reached out and touched Dieter’s cheek. ‘I am hungry,’ he said.

  Dieter felt a sick shudder and groaned, ‘No,’ he whimpered.

  The boy grinned.

  Dieter glanced down at the healed white scars of nips and bites on his fingers. He thought they were like little ghosts. He wondered if it would hurt as much when the boy bit into him. Then he felt the bed move, and he looked up to see the boy climbing over his mother.

  ‘No!’ he cried.

  ‘Sh! Dee-tah Sugar,’ the boy said and Dieter fell back again.

  It looked so horrible; the boy was now sitting on his mother’s chest and gazing down at her, his face moved closer to hers. Dieter could hear him suck the air, suck in his mother’s breath.

  ‘No,’ he cried. ‘Please don’t hurt her!’

  But the boy was so close now it looked like he was kissing her.

  ‘Please!’

  Saskia snorted in her sleep and the boy jerked his head up. He laughed.

  ‘Please,’ Dieter said again. His mother’s breath was white in the freezing air; he saw the boy’s small toes flex and press in her flesh and her nightie. Dieter wanted to jump out of bed and hit him away but he couldn’t move. He started to cry.

  ‘You smell of your mother,’ the boy said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You smell of her.’

  For a reason he couldn’t quite fathom, Dieter blushed. Then he felt angry. He wiped his cheeks, ‘What does your mother smell like, then?’

  The boy stretched his chin up and Dieter saw the dark mark around his neck. ‘My mother,’ he hacked a cough. Something flew out of his mouth; it hit the hanging bulb in the room, and fell to the floor: a moth.

  ‘Maybe…’ the boy paused as he gazed down at Lilia. ‘Maybe she smells of sweat and metal. She smells of stone.’

  Dieter wanted to say that his ma smelled of Rose Laird face powder and sweet coffee. Dieter wanted to shout at the boy and tell him to get off his mother, to stop sitting on her like that, his feet on her chest as if she were a doormat, but the boy was shaking his head. ‘No, Dee-tah, I smell nothing of my mother. I see nothing of her. Just touch. Scars, there are scars on her neck, her back, like…’ the boy shook his head as he stared down at Lilia. ‘I do not remember. I was born here. She was not. I lived and she did not want me to live.’

  He licked his lips, leant forward and kissed Lilia on the forehead. He stared down at her. ‘They took her to the islands in the oak ship. They brought her to this island. I am born at Sugar Hall. She speaks in another tongue, my mother, but she tells me I am the toubab’s. I am his. This is my house.’

  Dieter’s head swam, his vision blurred. ‘But…’

  ‘They tied her to the yew tree,’ he motioned at the window, ‘out in these gardens. She hurt the toubab. They buried her but she was not dead.’ The boy closed his eyes; he was trying to capture something. ‘I do not remember.’

  Dieter heard his springs creak before he saw the boy move, but there he was at the end of his bed again, the jelly bowl in his arms. Dieter looked back at his mother: her face was so white, her lips shivering, her breath laboured, but the boy wasn’t on her any more. Dieter heard the thoc! as the boy spooned red jelly from the bowl.

  ‘Why are you here!’ Dieter spat. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘I want to play.’

  Dieter stared at his mother’s breath coming in puffs like a steam train, shuu-tuuu. ‘I don’t want to play now.’

  ‘You should be happy to see me.’ The boy threw the bowl on the bed. ‘We can’t play tomorrow. Tomorrow I may be gone,’ he said.

  Dieter looked up, ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  All Dieter felt was relief. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  The boy slipped off the bed and shot beneath it: he came back up with a book. It was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. He opened it and turned the foxed pages, a white spider crawled across his hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dieter asked.

  When the boy looked up Dieter saw something in his face, something animated he hadn’t seen before: golden flecks in his eyes sparkled.

  ‘I am saying goodbye.’

  The boy pointed his finger and the pages of the book turne
d, fast, faster.

  It’s magic, Dieter thought, and then his friend’s finger stopped and landed on the picture of the Mock Turtle sitting on a rock, crying. The Mock Turtle had always made Dieter feel strange because it was such a mournful creature; so soft inside that hard shell of his.

  ‘He wants to be a real turtle,’ Dieter murmured.

  The boy flicked through more pages with that magic finger until he stopped at the drawing of the Queen of Hearts. ‘Off with her head!’ she was screaming, and the boy laughed.

  ‘I must say goodbye to your mother, Dee-tah,’ he said, and he traced the face of the Queen. ‘I must kiss her properly.’

  ‘No!’ Dieter grabbed the boy’s arm. ‘She’ll wake up this time.’

  ‘She won’t. I have promised.’ He left the book on Dieter’s bed, next to the bowl of jelly.

  Dieter’s breathing quickened as the boy stood above his mother, ‘Watch,’ he said. He leant over until Dieter couldn’t see her face or the rise and fall of her chest, all he saw was her milky arm above her head and he wanted to scream the biggest scream he could find. He hit his chest with his fist. ‘No,’ he moaned.

  The boy straightened up. Dieter heard his mother sigh.

  ‘Dee-tah, you must kiss her, too.’

  He was trembling all over now – he drew his knees up to his chest. Somehow he knew a simple kiss on Ma’s creamy cheek would mean something. It would mean something big and grand and unstoppable, it would mean something he could never take back.

  ‘Come here and kiss her,’ the boy commanded.

  Dieter saw the book again: ‘Off with her head!’ he read. Clammy sweat covered his forehead and he wanted to be sick.

  ‘Kiss her.’

  Dieter thought the boy’s eyes weren’t black or brown or blue or green or bright with gold anymore, they weren’t even eyes, they were things that Dieter couldn’t put a name to. He felt a tug and he pulled back his bedding and let his feet drop to the side of the bed, then he stumbled towards his mother’s bed and he kissed her roughly on the cheek, hoping she’d wake.

  But the boy was right, she didn’t.

  ‘Now, let’s play,’ and the boy was already standing at the bedroom door. ‘Hurry up, Deee-tah. Follow me.’