Sugar, page 22
Erin sighed. ‘What was she thinking?’
I paused, and then reached into my pocket. I pulled out a piece of paper, folded and folded and folded, and gave it to Erin.
‘What’s this?’
‘Sylvia’s password.’ Four letters, four digits. Erin2005.
Erin unfolded the paper, and stared at it. ‘That’s the year we met.’ She held the password with two hands, so tight I thought it might tear. Tears glinted in her eyes. ‘It was me,’ she said. ‘I had her account disabled.’
I studied the side of her face.
She shook her head. ‘It was fucked up,’ she said. Erin looked at me. ‘And I was worried about you.’
I nodded. There wasn’t anything else we could know about Sylvia. But there were still things Erin and I could know about each other.
‘Your tattoo,’ I said. ‘What does it mean?’
Erin reached a hand to the back of her neck. ‘God, I forgot about that. It’s a match.’
‘Yeah, but what does it mean?’
Erin shrugged. ‘It means I was drunk and I pointed to the first drawing I saw in the shop window.’ She smiled. ‘Not everything is a symbol, Persephone. Not everything has a meaning.’
This is a cup, this is a stone, this is a needle. This is the ink beneath the skin of a person who might just be your best friend.
‘Persephone,’ Erin said. ‘I’m so sorry about your dad.’
I breathed deep. I tried to figure out this feeling. Circled the colour wheel. There it was—not anger. Something else. Something harder. Something easier. Gratitude.
I exhaled slowly. ‘Thanks,’ I said.
Later, as I was unhooking Berenice from the tree, I remembered the other question I needed to ask.
‘Did you call the ambulance? After I left here?’
Erin frowned, and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought your mum must have.’
‘She didn’t,’ I said. Mentally, I crossed Erin off the list of people that might have cared enough to save me. It was a small list. As in, it was a list of five people. Demi, who had been deep in the bush. Iris and Steven, who had been deep in the bunker. Joseph Barnett, who’d told me he’d been watching TV in his caravan on the other side of town. And Erin. Which left exactly no one.
Berenice pulled on the lead. I let her drag me home, and all the way I wondered how I was still alive.
7.0
On Friday night Iris came home late from work, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat down beside me on the couch. The TV was on, but Iris didn’t care.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘he might have called you a cunt, but Alexander Manson’s a good kid.’
I stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’
She took a long sip. ‘Every day, without fail. That’s commitment.’
I tried not to growl at her in frustration. ‘Every day what?’
She tilted her glass towards the screen, where an American sitcom was bleating with canned laughter. ‘How do you watch this shit?’
‘Iris!’
‘What?’
‘Alexander. How is he a good kid?’
Iris shook her head. ‘Brings her flowers, looks after the kids. Comes and sits with her while she does chemo.’
I paused. ‘While who does chemo?’
Iris looked at me from the side of her eyes. I knew she was thinking she shouldn’t be talking about this. Nurse–patient confidentiality. Etc.
‘Iris?’
A gentle nudge, and she caved.
‘His sister,’ she said. ‘Breast cancer.’
I felt something inside me drop. Fuck. I remembered the messages I’d sent Alexander, weeks ago, that he’d never replied to. My cousin’s dad might have cancer…He deserves it.
I swallowed hard.
‘Will she be okay?’
Iris shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ She finished her wine, and stood up. ‘No guarantees.’
The next day I sent Alexander a friend request, and then a message.
Can we meet?
He replied: Can’t today. Tomorrow?
The next day I woke up early, and walked through the bush in the morning light. I waited beneath the bridge for half an hour before his bike skidded along the track.
‘Hey,’ he said, and slid down in front of the concrete. ‘I’m late, I know. Sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. I showed him my phone. ‘I looked up Manson.’
He made a face. ‘The family? Yeah. I know the story. It’s fucked up.’
I shook my head. ‘No. The meaning. As in, “Define Manson”. It means fierce.’
Alexander nodded. ‘Huh. There you go.’
He sat down, and for a moment we listened to the traffic rumbling above us. Then I said, ‘Iris told me about your sister. I’m really sorry.’
He nodded.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I called you a cunt. But honestly, it had nothing to do with you.’
I smiled. ‘I am not the centre of the universe.’
Alexander looked at the ground. ‘It got to me,’ he said. ‘The way you had a go at that girl. The way you were so angry.’ He shook his head. ‘I remember thinking, What the fuck has she got to be angry about? Diabetes is nothing. What about chemo? What about radiation?’ He looked at me, and half-smiled. ‘It pissed me off. So I said the worst thing I could think of. It was dumb, I know. Diabetes sucks, too.’
I half-smiled back at him. ‘You called me a cunt because of my diabetes?’
‘That. And your hair.’
‘My hair?’
He pointed at my ponytail. ‘Your hair tie,’ he said. ‘That gold one. You were walking down the hallway, and the sun came in that side window. And your hair tie sparkled. If the sun hadn’t been shining like that I wouldn’t have noticed.’
He pulled his knees up to his chest. ‘Zoe had hair as long as yours, maybe longer. Before the chemo. And she had a bunch of those hair ties, same as yours.’
‘Yeah,’ I said quietly. ‘They’re cheap. You can get a pack of five from the chemist.’
Alexander nodded. ‘But then Zoe lost her hair, and I kept finding those fucking hair ties everywhere. Under the couch, in the bathroom. And when I saw yours, in your hair, I just got so fucking angry. It felt so unfair. And I wanted to make someone feel bad for it, I wanted to hurt something, you know?’
I thought about wanting to kill Joseph Barnett’s fly. I thought about Daria, on the track, before she fell. I knew.
‘So I called you a cunt.’ Alexander smiled, all the way this time. ‘And you punched me in the face.’
I laughed. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sorry about that.’ I kicked a stick down the hill, towards the water.
‘Then I heard about your dad,’ he said. ‘I thought you might kind of understand.’
‘You never mentioned that,’ I said. ‘You never mentioned your sister.’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know what to say. Like, I couldn’t think of the words. It was easier to talk about warheads.’
Zombie apocalypse vs cancer. Nuclear annihilation vs diabetes. The bigger disasters were easier to face.
We stayed there, under the bridge, for another hour. When we got up to leave Alexander said, ‘See you at school?’ I thought about the bag of stationery and shoes I’d kicked under my bed. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘See you.’
Berenice and I walked home, and on the way there were a few spots of rain.
Define grief. When something you love is gone, but you’re still here. Waiting. Walking. Balancing on the tightrope of devastation, and whatever happens next.
That night, I sent Alexander another message.
You called the ambulance, didn’t you?
He waited a few minutes before he replied. Alexander Manson: saver of lives, builder of suspense.
He wrote: Yeah, I went to your place. After you blocked me. When you weren’t there, I went out the back, into the bush.
I wrote: How did you find me?
There was a cat. I followed it. I don’t know why, exactly. I just felt like it wanted me to.
Hermes. Surprise fucking surprise.
I wrote: Why? I wrote: Why did you look for me?
There was a pause. Three dots floated in cyberspace.
Then: Didn’t think you were ready for the world to end.
I went to sleep thinking about the sort of universe I lived in. A universe where people could have cancer and diabetes and terminal heart conditions without doing anything to deserve them. A universe where people could die and you could grieve and still keep living. A universe where it was completely possible for someone to call you a cunt, and then save your life.
That was a universe I could get used to.
5.5
The drought broke a week before school went back. Demi and I were sitting on the couch, looking at used cars on my laptop. We went outside and stood in the downpour until we were soaked through. It was freezing and wonderful.
The next day I had another meeting with Keleos. She looked over the list.
‘You’ve done a lot of work,’ she said. ‘But do you want to come back? What is it you really want, Persephone?’
I didn’t realise I had an answer, until I gave it to her. ‘I want this,’ I said. ‘I want to be here.’
Keleos moved her lips in a way that might have been a smile. ‘See you next week,’ she said.
On the way home, I made a mental list of the things I now realised I wanted.
1. An education.
2. An insulin pump.
3. A life.
8.1
The day Daria died, Demi was listening to the radio. On the hour, the announcer said, ‘There is no news today.’ Then she played piano music. ‘That’s more like it,’ Demi said.
Two days later, I messaged Joseph Barnett.
Come to a funeral?
Sure, he replied. What time?
I took Berenice, and walked. The day was clear, and on the sides of the hills there were splashes of new, after-fire green.
Joseph Barnett met me on the corner. So did Erin, and Alexander. I checked my blood sugar before we went in, and then tucked the machine into the bottom of my bag and forgot about it.
Daria’s funeral was short, and small. Some distant cousins, some people from the hospital. Iris was there, and Demi and Steven. One of the cousins did the eulogy. I read a poem that Erin had taught me. I held Daria’s necklace in one hand as I read, and it took me all the way to the end.
Love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Afterwards, we went to the cemetery. I followed Daria up the hill and through the graveyard clay. This was a place I thought I’d never go back to. Just like I thought Demi would never drive again. Just like I thought Steven wouldn’t survive. And yet…
This time last year, my pancreas officially stopped working, and Dad went underground. I showed Erin and Alexander and Joseph Barnett where he was. As we stood there, I remembered my anger. But I also remembered my grief, and how losing Dad had almost killed me. Only he could make me feel that way.
Define love. An emotion strong and sharp enough to bring tears to your eyes. This time, I cried them.
Erin read the words on his headstone out loud, and hearing them in her voice was like gentle rain.
SILAS NEDRA
SON, PARTNER, FATHER
‘WE ARE MADE OF EARTH, TO HER WE DO
RETURN’
While we stared at the stone, I said, ‘How do you think the world will end?’
‘Nuclear war,’ said Erin.
‘Definitely solar flares,’ said Alexander.
I looked at Joseph Barnett. ‘Hard to say,’ he said.
‘If you had to,’ I pressed. ‘If I held a gun to your head.’
He thought for a moment. ‘Zombie apocalypse?’
I smiled. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think I could actually live with that.’
Acknowledgments
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes almost ten years ago, when I was twenty-eight. Persephone’s experience of diabetes is based on mine as an adult, as well as conversations I’ve had with friends who were diagnosed in childhood or early adolescence. I’d like to acknowledge those people who walk the tightrope of diabetes every day. This book is for you.
I’d also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this book was written, the Dhudhuroa people.
This book took years to write, and more years to get right. I’d like to thank my editor, Jane Pearson, who played a huge role in the ‘getting-right’ of Sugar. Jane, thank you for your patience, your encouragement and all the video chats. I could not have done this without you.
Thank you to Rebecca Humphreys, DNE (diabetes nurse educator) extraordinaire, who has been there for me since I was first diagnosed, and was the source of much valuable information for this book. Bec, I could not do diabetes without you.
An enormous thank you also to those who read drafts and gave feedback along the way: Andrew Wheeler, Monique Hutchinson, Michelle St George, Ella MacDermott, Kel MacDermott, Lin Kim, Tee O’Neill, Emma Manning, Ramona Long, Jess Houghton and Erica Hamence.
Thanks to Julie Hollow for her wonderful photography skills.
Thanks to Peta Cherry for research assistance.
Thanks to Amelia Mellor for being my writing buddy.
Finally, thanks to my family. Your support, as always, is invaluable. I love you.
Carly Nugent lives in Bright in Victoria. Her short fiction has featured in numerous publications, including the Bellevue Literary Review and Award Winning Australian Writing. Her first novel, The Peacock Detectives, won the Readings Children’s Book Prize, was a CBCA younger readers Honour Book, and was shortlisted for the Text Prize, the Australian Book Design Awards and the Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards. Sugar, inspired by her own experience of type 1 diabetes, is her first novel for young adults.
The Text Publishing Company acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the country on which we work, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and pays respect to their Elders past and present.
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The Text Publishing Company
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Copyright © Carly Nugent 2022
The moral right of Carly Nugent to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2022
Book design by Imogen Stubbs
Cover illustration by gozitive
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
Lines from the poem ‘The Hollow Men’ from The Complete Poems and Plays by T. S. Eliot reproduced, page 23, with permission from Faber and Faber Ltd Lines pages 102, 348–9 from ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold The Cold War manual referred to is How to Survive an Atomic Attack: A Cold War Manual, a collection of US Department of Defence documents from the height of the Cold War, edited by John Christopher, Amberley Publishing, 2014
ISBN: 9781922330741 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781922459183 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
Carly Nugent, Sugar
