The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

Chapter 3

THREE

I slide through the doors of the crèche at one minute to six. The relief that I made it is so great, I can hardly feel that my heel is completely skinned and has started to bleed.

‘Evening,’ I say, wanting to bend in the middle to catch my breath.

Alannah looks up from behind the reception desk, which is painted in rainbow colours that are chipped on one side, and checks her watch.

Smiling, she says, ‘Hi, Bea. How was your day?’

‘Oh…you…know,’ I puff out, tilting to the right slightly as I yield to a stitch. ‘Same old, same old.’

‘I’ll fetch Ellie for you now. Have a seat.’

I sit down in the waiting area next to a water cooler that is always empty and make small talk with the handful of other parents waiting too. A dapper father in a suit arrives at two minutes past six. He pushes his long, warm coat off his hip to fetch his wallet.

‘Sorry about this,’ he says, pulling his card out. The other woman on reception, whose name I can never remember, tilts the card machine towards him and he taps his card casually. ‘Hammered in work,’ he goes on, shaking his head. ‘I’ll probably be late all week, I hope that’s okay.’

‘It’s no problem,’ she says, smiling brightly as she twirls a strand of bleached-blond hair around her finger. ‘It’s what we’re here for.’

‘Mammy,’ Ellie squeals, running towards me.

I stand up and lift my little girl into my arms.

‘What’s this?’ I tuck her golden curls behind her ear to reveal a graze and bump above her left eyebrow.

‘Josh hurted me,’ Ellie says, scrunching her face disapprovingly.

‘Well, that’s not quite true, is it?’ Alannah is quick to cut in.

‘Oh.’

‘You know kids, Ellie and Josh had a little disagreement over some building block.’

‘Josh taked the lellow one,’ Ellie explains, her chest heaving now as she refuses to give in to tears. ‘But lellow is my favourite.’

‘But we must share,’ Alannah says. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve told her this, Bea. She really needs to learn to share.’

I kiss the bump on Ellie’s head and place her down. I take her hand in mine as I look at Alannah. ‘Did Ellie have the yellow block first?’

‘Technically, yes.’

‘Technically.’ My eyes widen.

‘Ellie takes the yellow blocks all the time. The other children are left with blue or green or red.’

‘Right,’ I say, not quite able to believe how serious Alannah is about building blocks. ‘And are the yellow blocks particularly special? I mean, is there something wrong with the red ones, for example?’

Alannah inhales sharply. ‘No. Of course not. But Ellie must learn to share. It’s okay that she likes yellow, but so do other children. You are going to have to talk to her, Bea. This cannot go on.’

Ellie tugs my hand. ‘Can we go now, Mammy?’

‘I’ll talk to her,’ I say, desperate to put an end to this ridiculous conversation.

‘That’s all I ask,’ Alannah says, with a patronising smile. ‘That’s all I ask.’

Outside, I hear the father in a suit tell his little boy that, ‘You cannot hit other children, Josh. I don’t care what colour blocks they have.’

I sigh, hoping the children and, most importantly, Alannah, will have forgotten all about building blocks by tomorrow.

Ellie and I get the bus to the flat. The bump above her eye is going down, although I suspect it will leave a nasty bruise, and she sings the same line of a Taylor Swift song over and over with the same adorably mispronounced lyrics.

‘Shh, chickpea,’ I tell her when her voice becomes too screechy for the shared space of a busy bus and even the guy talking loudly into his mobile phone starts to glare. My mind is on the bottle of wine in the fridge that one of the patients gave Elaine. She passed it on to me because she doesn’t drink white.

‘It’s snowing,’ Ellie announces excitedly as the bus skids slightly at our stop and we hop off.

‘It’s snowing. It’s snowing.’ She throws her arms in the air and tries to catch the measly few flakes attempting to fall but melting before they hit the ground.

‘Be careful,’ I warn her, remembering my fall earlier. Ellie ignores me, too excited by falling sleet that makes Christmas suddenly feel imminent instead of almost two weeks away. I grip her hand tightly and she skips alongside me as we navigate the slippery footpath towards our apartment block. My breath catches when, from the roadside, I notice the light in the kitchen is on. I never leave lights on. The snow begins to fall more heavily and I pick up the pace.

Ellie is a chatterbox in the lift, and down the corridor, and I think my head might explode by the time I open our apartment door. Inside, Ellie kicks off her shoes and runs straight for the couch, hoping to catch the bedtime story on CBeebies. I hear the telly come to life. And then I hear Declan. His voice is carrying from our bedroom and I can tell he’s on the phone.

‘I’m doing it tonight. I know, I know, I should have done it ages ago.’

My heart races and I really, really wish I didn’t have a hole in my tights the night Declan chooses to propose. I need a shower to wash the smell of MrsQuinn in room 108’s vomit from my hair and I still need to have a conversation with Ellie about sharing, but bubbles of excitement are fizzing inside me.

I take off my shoes, leave them beside Ellie’s and go to kiss her on the head.

‘I’m going to change my clothes,’ I tell her. ‘You stay watching your show, okay?’

‘Okay, Mammy.’

I tiptoe to our bedroom and slowly open the door.

‘You’re home,’ I say when I find Declan sitting on the edge of our bed. He’s not in his uniform, as he usually is when he returns from a flight. Instead, he’s barefoot in jeans and a navy knitted jumper that brings out the bright blue in his beautiful eyes.

‘I am.’

‘That was a quick flight,’ I tease playfully, glancing at my watch. ‘New York to Dublin in two hours.’

I’m giggling, knowing he was most definitely not in New York today. I assume he used a delay as a decoy to keep me out of the apartment while he got ready.

‘Long day?’ he asks.

I flop onto the bed beside him and rest my head on his shoulder. He feels tense and a little nervous.

‘The longest.’

‘Are you tired?’

‘Nope,’ I lie.

‘Good. Good.’ There’s a wobble in his voice, and I want to reach out and tell him not to be nervous, but I have a feeling he has this rehearsed, and I don’t want to mess it up, so I sit quietly and smile.

There is a long silence, and oddly it feels awkward as my stomach begins to somersault. I think I might be nervous too, despite knowing my answer will be a huge resounding YES!

‘Bea.’

He’s so serious. I’m slightly dizzy with excitement and I wish I’d remembered to eat before I left work. I wonder if he has a meal prepared. Or a takeaway. There’s always food in the movies, and champagne. I just know Declan will outdo any movie I’ve ever seen.

There’s another awkward pause and I listen for Ellie in the sitting room. CBeebies is blaring and I know we have time. The bedtime story won’t come on for another fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes, I will be an engaged woman.

‘Bea,’ he repeats, taking my hand. ‘We have to talk.’

My pulse is racing, and I swear my heart feels like a little bird with fluttering wings that might fly out of my chest with anticipation.

‘We do?’

His brows pinch. ‘Yes. We do.’

‘I’m ready when you are.’

‘Ooookay.’ Declan draws in a huge breath that seems to fill his chest until it seems as if it might burst. ‘Bea. I’m married.’

‘Yes!’ I throw my arms in the air and lean in to kiss him, but instantly pull back.

‘What?’ he says, pulling back too.

‘What?’ I echo, wondering what the hell I just heard him say.

‘Bea, I’m married.’

And there it is. Repeated, I hear it clearly. Declan didn’t say, ‘Bea, will you marry me?’ He said, ‘Bea, I already am.’

I’ve never fainted in my life, but for a brief moment I think I might.

‘WHAT?’ My arms are down and I’m on my feet. ‘Did you just say you’re married ?’

Declan isn’t looking at me any more. His eyes are on my feet. Where my toe pokes out through my tights.

‘Did you?’ I snap. ‘Did you seriously just say you are already married?’

‘Bea, calm down. Please? Ellie will hear you.’

‘Did you?’ I stomp my toe-poking foot. ‘Did you say it, Declan?’

He gets to his feet and places his hands on my shoulders. I shrug him off as his touch burns me.

‘It’s complicated.’

My eyes sting and I bend in the middle as if I’ve been gut-punched. It hurts as if I have been.

‘This can’t be happening,’ I gasp. ‘This can’t actually be happening. When? How long? Have you always been married? Jesus, Declan. What the hell. Who the hell are you? Actually don’t answer that. I don’t even want to know. Married. My God, married.’

My thoughts are spilling past my lips before they have time to fully take shape in my head.

‘We have an understanding. My wife and I,’ he says calmly, as if he hasn’t just turned my whole world upside down.

‘Oh. Oh. An understanding. Well, that’s all right then.’ My words are clipped and reflect the anger that swells inside me like tiny bombs exploding.

‘What I mean is, she understands how lonely travelling so much can be.’

‘So, she knows about me?’

He winces and steps closer to me. I step back.

‘She knows I don’t do well alone.’

‘So, there are others?’ I ask, a little sick trying to squirm up the back of my throat.

We repeat the process of him stepping forward and me stepping back. We’re standing in the middle of our bedroom now. It’s not a particularly large room, but all the furniture feels unusually far away. As if I’m stranded on an island, and I can see familiar landmarks but they are too far to swim to.

‘Are there others?’ I repeat, eyeing up the door as if it’s one of those landmarks that feels almost impossible to reach.

‘There were. Before.’

I tap my chest with my fingertip. ‘Before me.’

‘Before Ellie.’

A noise comes out of me, something guttural and full of hurt, as I hear our beautiful daughter’s name pass his lips. Our precious little girl, who is sitting on the sofa watching her favourite show. I thought I would tuck her into bed tonight engaged to her father, and we would be one big, happy family. I dreamed of it.

‘What are you saying, Declan?’

Declan takes a deep breath and this time, when he moves forward, I don’t step back. I look him in the eye and wait for an answer I’m afraid might ruin my life.

‘I’m saying she found out about Ellie.’

My mouth rounds into the shape of an ‘oh’ but no sound comes out.

‘She can handle the affairs, but a child is different,’ he says, as if somehow his wife is being difficult.

‘Ellie is four,’ I tell him, as if he doesn’t know our daughter’s age. ‘You hid your daughter’s existence for four years. Who the hell does that?’

‘Listen, baby.’ He places his hands on me and I don’t budge. I can’t muster the strength to move. Not even to shake him off. ‘None of this is your fault. Or Ellie’s.’

My eyes widen until they burn, and from nowhere a bolt of energy rushes through me and I push him away. He stumbles, and falls onto the bed. He looks up at me, open-mouthed as if he’s hurt. I want to scream. I almost do, but I remember my little girl in the next room just in time. I can’t scare her.

And so, I keep my voice low when I ask, ‘Why are you telling me this? Why now?’

‘Elsa is devastated,’ he says, getting to his feet again.

‘Elsa!’ I repeat his wife’s name. ‘Your wife seriously has the same name as Ellie’s favourite Disney character. I can’t believe this. I actually can’t. How many times have you watched that damn movie? And all the time you must have been thinking about her . This is too much. My God, it’s too much.’

Declan presses his fingers between his eyes the way he always does when he feels a headache coming on.

‘She always wanted a daughter,’ he says. ‘But we have three boys.’

‘You have other kids?!’ I throw my arms in the air as if I am a wounded solider surrendering. ‘Of course you do. Oh, this just gets better and better.’

I can’t breathe. For a moment it is as if his words have wrapped round my neck like a noose and they are choking me. It’s a while before I draw in air again and realise that he’s staring at me, pitifully. As if he’s expecting me to ask something about them. How old they are, perhaps. Do they look like him? Or, worse still, do they look like Ellie? The sudden discovery that my daughter has three brothers is monumental and I can’t function. I need to sit. I need to feel his arms around me. Holding me, hugging me, comforting me. I ache to feel his lips on mine as he whispers that everything will be all right. I need him to love me, the way just moments ago I believed he did. I need him to rewind the past ten minutes and take it all back. I need the life we were supposed to have. But instead, I cannot bear the sight of him.

‘Are you leaving her?’ I ask, my voice cracking like radio static.

He doesn’t reply.

‘Is she leaving you?’

He shakes his head.

Finally, the realisation of what’s really happening slices through me like a sharp blade. ‘You’re leaving me. Us.’

‘They’re my family,’ he says, softly. ‘Elsa and the boys. They’re everything, Bea.’

Tears spill down my cheeks, but I’m not crying. I’m too broken to cry. ‘And what about us? What are we? Ellie is your daughter.’

‘It was a mistake.’

I clutch my chest, wounded deeper than ever.

‘She is not a mistake,’ I hiss. ‘She is the best of us.’

He’s still shaking his head and it turns my stomach. ‘It was just supposed to be a little fun. You were so young and beautiful. And, like I said, Elsa was okay with me having a little fun while I was away from home. But then you got pregnant. And, well, to be quite honest, Bea, I didn’t sign up for that.’

‘And you think I did? I was in college, for God’s sake. I gave everything up for you.’

‘No,’ he says, firmly. ‘You gave everything up for Ellie.’

I swallow hard. I can’t argue with that.

‘You’re a great mother, Bea. And if things were different with Elsa and me, we could have a great life. We could, I promise. But I can’t leave her. I love her. I love my boys.’

‘So, what happens now?’ I ask, as tears wet the collar of my uniform. ‘Does she want to meet Ellie?’

‘No. God no.’ He jumps back, clearly horrified by the idea.

I nod. I get it. This must all be as shocking for his wife as it is for me.

‘Okay,’ I say, trying desperately to gather my thoughts. ‘Just the kids, then.’

‘What?’

‘Ellie and your sons. They need to meet, don’t they? They’re siblings.’

‘Half-siblings,’ he snaps, coldly. ‘And no. They won’t be meeting. The boys don’t know about her. They won’t ever know about her.’

‘I… I…’

‘Elsa and I have agreed to put this behind us. For the boys’ sake. We have a perfect family. I will not let anything destroy that.’

‘You have a perfect lie.’

He shrugs. ‘I’m sorry, Bea. It was never meant to get this far. You’re a great girl and I didn’t mean to mess things up for you.’

‘And Ellie – how are you going to explain this to your daughter?’

‘I’m not.’

My mouth gapes. ‘You’re going to keep lying to her too, are you? Well, no.’ I stomp my foot and realise my toes have gone numb from the cold. ‘Your wife might be happy for you to live this pretend, perfect life.’ I add air quotes, that instantly annoying him. ‘But I’m not. I have to tell Ellie that she has brothers. I want her to meet them. Have a relationship with them. I never had a family. I don’t want that for Ellie.’

He’s shaking his head again. ‘Absolutely not. I told you, the boys can’t ever know about this. About any of this. And that includes Ellie. I’m sorry.’

I throw my head back, as if I’m gulping for air. I think I am. ‘You’re sorry. Well then, if you’re sorry that’s all fine, isn’t it.’

‘Bea, please. I get how hard this is. It’s hard for me too.’

I force myself to look at him. ‘You can’t take her family away from her. I won’t let you.’

‘Can you hear yourself?’ He sighs as if he’s exhausted by this conversation. ‘‘You didn’t know they existed until I told you, so don’t give me nonsense about family. They’re not your family, Bea. They are mine.’

‘And they are Ellie’s too.’

‘No,’ he snaps, becoming angry. ‘You are Ellie’s family.’

‘And you,’ I snap back

‘Just you!’ He points an accusatory finger at me. ‘It’s just you and Ellie now. Forget me. It’s best that way.’

‘You’re her father. She can’t just forget you. It doesn’t work like that.’

His finger begins to wag. ‘It does now.’

‘Declan, stop it. Stop talking like this. I know you. I know you wouldn’t just walk out of her life like that. Even if you leave me, you’re still her blood.’

Declan lets his pointed hand flop by his side as his stiff shoulders round, and I almost reach out to him, but I stop myself just in time.

‘She’s given me twenty-four hours, Bea,’ he says, so softly I have to strain to hear him. ‘Elsa has given me one day to tidy this mess up and come home. If I don’t, she’ll take the boys and go.’

I study him. I can see he’s torn but it doesn’t offer me any comfort.

‘So you see, I have no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘I’ve let the landlord know,’ he goes on. ‘The rent is paid until the eighteenth of this month. I’ve told him that I won’t be renewing the lease after that.’

My chest tightens as I do the maths in my head. ‘That’s in less than two weeks.’

‘You can stay until then, of course.’

‘And then what? That’s a week before Christmas.’

‘You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.’

I finally realise why our room feels larger and emptier than usual. Declan’s stuff is missing. There’s a large suitcase near the bed that I didn’t notice before now, obviously packed with his stuff. All that remains is an empty bottle of his favourite Versace aftershave on the bedside table, and the tiepin I bought him for his birthday is next to it. I saved for a whole year to have enough for the slender gold clip.

‘You’re leaving tonight?’ I say, pointing at his case.

‘I’m on standby for a flight, yes.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Home.’

‘But this is home. This is your home,’ I say, finally starting to cry, as the reality that our apartment was never somewhere his heart belonged sets in.

‘I live in London. Well, just outside it.’

‘London?’ I say, as if it’s the other side of the world, not a fifty-minute flight away. ‘Jesus Christ, Declan. You don’t even live in the same bloody country as me.’ I try to imagine him in a big red-brick house in the suburbs, tubing around the city at the weekends with a beautiful wife on his arm, pointing at Big Ben and saying, ‘Oh, is that the time, darling? We should get some tea and crumpets.’ But the image doesn’t fit. His strong Northside-Dublin accent and refusal to use public transport fits here, with me and Ellie.

‘No. No. No!’ I say, accepting how untrue my life is. Declan is only in the apartment for three or four nights a month and never two nights in a row. Suddenly, I feel painfully stupid.

He fetches his case, and says, ‘I really am sorry, Bea.’

I follow him into the sitting room, where he bends over the back of the sofa to kiss Ellie’s head. She giggles, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the telly.

‘Goodbye, beautiful girl,’ he whispers, choking up.

‘Bye-bye, Daddy,’ Ellie chirps, so used to a quick kiss from her father before he dashes off to the airport not to be home again for days.

My heart almost stops beating knowing that, some day, she will realise he is not coming home again.

‘Declan?’ I say, as he reaches for the front door.

He turns back to look at me, and neither of us have words. He is not the man I thought he was, and now, with my life in tatters, I am not the woman I thought I would become. I follow him into the hall and call after him again. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m expecting him to turn round and tell me it’s all a big horrible mistake and he loves me and Ellie, and he’ll fix everything.

‘Declan,’ I try one more time, loud and scratchy.

I hear our neighbour’s yappy dogs bark, before her door swings open and she glares at me in her dressing gown and slippers.

‘What’s all this?’ she says. ‘Who’s shouting?’

‘Sorry, Mrs…’ I search my brain for her name but, as always, I just can’t remember. Ellie and I call her the dog lady, because she is never without dogs on leashes despite the sign downstairs that clearly states no pets .

‘No one’s shouting, MrsJohnson,’ Declan says.

‘Another trip.’ She smiles at his case. ‘Some job you have. Who wouldn’t love to travel the world.’

‘Ah, it’s not as glamorous as it seems. It can be a lonely business.’ He sighs.

It’s exactly what he said to me when we first met, and I felt so sad imagining him all alone in one hotel room after another that I fell into bed with him. I doubt he would want to share a bed with MrsJohnson, her dogs or her flannel slippers, but he just can’t shake off the charm, even as he abandons his daughter.

‘Go back inside, MrsJohnson,’ I say, and it comes out like a direct order.

‘Excuse me,’ she snaps back.

‘Bea is right, MrsJohnson. It’s freezing out here, and you don’t want to get sick for Christmas,’ Declan says as if he’s terribly concerned for her health.

She giggles like a smitten schoolgirl. ‘You’re right. Absolutely. My Chi-Chi and Co-Co need me well.’ She rubs the two small balls of gleaming white fur at her feet and closes the door.

Declan turns away without another word and continues walking.

‘I hate you,’ I shout, half expecting MrsJohnson’s door to fly open again. ‘I fucking hate you.’

Finally, he stops and turns back. ‘No, you don’t,’ he says with a confidence that makes me want to throw something. ‘But I hope you do. I hope when you wake up tomorrow you hate my guts. It will make this all easier.’

‘I already do. I hate you,’ I repeat, louder than ever. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hat?—’

I cut myself off quickly as I feel small hands wrap round my legs. I look down to find a head of golden curls snuggled against my hip. When I look back, Declan has turned the corner and is gone. I hear the upbeat theme tune of CBeebies ending for the day coming from our apartment, and Ellie breaks away from me and says, ‘I’m hungry.’

I look into my little girl’s big, beautiful eyes and I wonder how anyone could ever possibly leave her.