The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

Chapter 9

NINE

I check on Ellie regularly. The first couple of times, I find her colouring happily and sucking on her lollipop. After that, she’s curled up napping on my cardigan and I’m guilty of being pleased that the walk to hospital tuckered her out. It’s lunchtime before I know it. I sneak some snacks from the catering trolley – a couple of rice puddings and two apples. Then, I pour two small glasses of water from the cooler next to the nurses’ station and tiptoe towards the storage closet.

‘I like picnics,’ Ellie chirps as she dribbles rice pudding down her chin.

I sit cross-legged beside her. Despite the cramped space, it’s the most I’ve enjoyed my lunch break in a long time. I would love to take her outside for some fresh air, but the stress at the thought of sneaking her back in makes me chicken out. Instead, I give her my phone and tell her she can watch Bluey with the volume down. Her face lights up with delight at this unexpected screen time, and I know she’ll sit happily for another hour at least.

‘This is so funner than crèche,’ she tells me as she stares at the screen.

I kiss her head and remind her of the rules of our game of hide-and-seek.

‘I’m winning.’

‘You are winning, chickpea. You’re the best hider.’

‘I’m winning,’ she says again, but her attention is less on me and more on the colourful animals and low music coming from my phone.

I back out the door, and bump into Elaine just as I’m closing it. I yelp as if I’ve seen a ghost.

Elaine is most obviously unimpressed. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Sorry. I didn’t see you there.’

‘It’s patients’ quiet time,’ she reminds me as she places a finger over her lips.

‘Yes, sorry.’ I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘I was just looking for the, eh…the mop.’

‘And you didn’t find it?’ she asks, pointing at my empty hands.

I wince, wishing I could stop talking, but I’m on edge and words keep tumbling out no matter how much my brain aches for them not to.

‘Left it on the ward. I don’t know where my head is at today.’

‘Probably on your daughter.’

A shiver runs down my spine. ‘

Oh…Ell…ie,’ I say, as if I have to search my brain to find my own child’s name.

‘Yes.’ She looks at me with a pinched expression, telling me that she’s worried I’ve lost my mind. ‘She was unwell yesterday. You left early to attend to her.’

‘Oh. Eh. Yes. Tummy bug. All good now.’

‘Kids.’ She sighs. ‘They like to keep us on our toes. I’m glad it was nothing.’

‘Yes. Yeah. Me too. Kids.’

I roll my eyes for effect.

‘Don’t suppose we have any wipes?’ she goes on, eying up the door behind me.

The handle digs into my spine, and I realise I have my back pressed firmly against the door, guarding it. My heart begins to race as she watches me, and I can tell she’s waiting for me to step aside so she can open the door and check.

‘I spilled coffee all over my desk earlier and it’s still sticky. That’s what I get for trying morning yoga before work. I just can’t do without my sleep.’

‘We don’t have any,’ I blurt.

She crooks her head.

‘Wipes. We don’t have any. I forgot to order them.’

Her eyes narrow but I cut across her before she has time to say anything.

‘I hear you about the sleep thing. Ellie kept me up when she was sick and I just totally forgot to order. I’m sorry. I’ll get on it now, though.’

She nods, accepting my excuse, and is just about to walk away when she suddenly becomes very still and says, ‘Do you hear that?’

I hear the gentle hum of Bluey and his animal friends talking behind the door. I pretend to listen intently for a moment before I say, ‘No. What?’

‘Squeaky voices?’

‘Really?’ I make a face and act curious. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

She listens again, and shrugs. ‘Never mind. It’s gone now.’

‘The wind,’ I rush in to say.

‘Yeah. Maybe. It’s a bit draughty up here, certainly.’ She pulls herself upright and, with a single clap of her hands, she says, ‘Right. Best get back to it. Can you see to the floor in room 128. I think MrPurcell wet the floor again. He says he didn’t, of course, but?—’

‘I’ll see to it.’

She smiles and takes her time walking away and I know she can just about still hear the faint hum of music.

I wash and polish the floor in room 128 until it sparkles.

‘He peed there, you know,’ MrCanterbury says, proudly pointing at MrPurcell in the bed next to him.

MrPurcell jolts upright to protest his innocence. ‘I did not, you lying old codger. It was you!’

‘Now. Now. What does it matter?’ I jump in, waving my arms as if we’re in a war zone. ‘It’s all cleaned up now.’

‘It matters to me,’ MrPurcell says, in a tone that hints that if he wasn’t lying in bed he would stomp his foot like a tantrum-throwing toddler. ‘This fella is driving me cracked. I want to move beds.’

‘I can have a word with the ward manager,’ I suggest, knowing Elaine will never agree to swapping patients around.

‘My son is coming in later,’ MrPurcell goes on. ‘He’s a solicitor.’

‘You can’t sue me for peeing on the floor,’ MrCanterbury grumbles, his elderly voice crackling like an open fire on a winter’s day.

‘So you admit it.’ MrPurcell laughs, as delighted with himself as if he’s solved a serious crime. ‘It was you.’

I leave them to argue it out, and make my way to the storage closet once again to check on Ellie.

‘Hey there, chickpea,’ I say, as I push the bucket and mop inside. ‘Are you having fun watching Blue —’ I drop the handle of the mop and it topples the bucket over, sending soapy water all over the floor and soaking my cardigan. ‘Ellie,’ I call out, ignoring the water that pools around my ankles when I don’t see my daughter sitting in the spot where I left her. ‘Ellie. Ellie. Ellie, where are you?’

I charge into the pokey room and push sweeping brushes aside and move anything that is movable.

‘Chickpea, we’re finished playing now. No more hiding, okay? Come on out.’

My heart is thumping so hard it’s almost painful as panic rises inside me.

‘Ellie. Oh God, please, Ellie, where are you?’

When she doesn’t answer, I run into the hall shouting her name.

‘Ellie. Ellie. Ellie.’

I race through the corridors of various wards. I don’t care if it’s patients’ quiet time. I am like a foghorn repeating my daughter’s name over and over and over.

I’m such an idiot , I tell myself as I race down flights of stairs and search the next floor. Why couldn’t I just take the day off work like Alannah told me to? Why did I think I could hide a four-year-old in a closet all day? I’m an idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

I’m sweating when I reach reception and I can’t tell if I’m crying or if it’s beads of perspiration racing down my cheeks.

‘órlaith,’ I shout, across the whole reception area where people are patiently queuing to speak to her.

She looks up when she hears me and, seeing my face, she stands up and asks, ‘What? What is it?’

‘Ellie. Have you seen Ellie?’

‘Your daughter?’ she asks, as I realise Ellie and órlaith have never met. órlaith wouldn’t know if she saw her or not.

‘She’s here somewhere,’ I just about manage to say, before my voice breaks. ‘She’s run off. She’s all alone. Oh God, órlaith. She’s only four.’

‘Hang on. Hang on,’ órlaith tells me as if I might run off before she reaches me.

She steps out from behind her desk. No one in the queue seems to argue. All eyes are on me. Each stranger looks at me with pity. As if they understand my fear.

‘Where could she be?’ I pant, bending in the middle as órlaith reaches me. ‘She’s not upstairs. I looked everywhere. Where would she go?’

órlaith can’t possibly have answers for my questions, but yet she is calm and I can see on her face that she is formulating a plan. My stomach turns with distress and if there was anything more than a couple of mouthfuls of rice pudding inside it, I think I would be sick.

‘Let’s call security. They’ll look around. And they can check the cameras.’

I nod. I hadn’t thought about the security cameras.

‘I mean, how far could she get?’ órlaith says, so calmly it’s almost soothing. ‘She only has little legs.’

I think about how tired Ellie’s legs were on the walk to the hospital this morning and I hope she is still much too tired to wander far. Suddenly I am cursing the long nap she took earlier.

Frank, an elderly security guard with a thick grey moustache and round, black-rimmed glasses, jots down a description of Ellie. And Flint, his young colleague who looks like he should definitely still be in school, hurries away to check the security tapes.

órlaith offers to fetch me tea or coffee from the vending machine but I can’t stomach a sip.

‘Excuse me,’ a voice with a hint of an American twang says behind us.

órlaith raises her hand as if she’s double-jobbing as security. ‘Now is not a good time, sir.’

‘But—’

‘It’s patients’ quiet time,’ she snaps. ‘Visiting hours resume at three.’

‘Oh, it’s not that, it’s?—’

‘Mammy,’ Ellie calls out with delight. ‘Hello, Mammy.’

I look up and see a smartly dressed man with a warm winter coat and brown hair, with my daughter on his hip.

‘That’s my mammy,’ Ellie tells him.

‘See. I told you we’d find her,’ he says as he sets Ellie down. She runs to me.

I scoop my little girl into my arms and nuzzle my face into her hair that smells cool like the frosty air outside.

‘Oh, Ellie. You scared me. Where did you go?’

‘I needed to do a wee-wee,’ she says, with a simple shrug.

‘Oh.’

‘I didn’t wet my pants or nothing,’ she continues proudly.

I look up at the man, who is still standing next to us, waiting either to be thanked or dismissed or both.

‘Where did you find her?’ I ask, still shaking.

‘The car park.’

I inhale sharply. ‘Oh, Ellie, no. What did we say about cars?’

‘They’re dangerous,’ Ellie parrots.

‘I don’t think she meant to cause any trouble,’ Mr stranger with an unusual accent says. Dublin, but with a hint of somewhere in America sticking to some of his words.

‘Well, thank you,’ I finally say. ‘Thank you very much. I’m so grateful you brought her back inside. I was worried sick.’

‘Ellie told me you work here, so we knew we’d find you.’

‘Oh, did she?’

I cringe, realising my many warnings about not talking to strangers have clearly fallen on deaf ears.

‘Don’t be too hard on her,’ he says, ‘I think she got just as much of a fright.’

I wasn’t planning to be hard on Ellie. Every second of this mess is my fault. I never should have left a four-year-old alone in a damn broom cupboard all day; but something about this stranger telling me how to parent my daughter rubs me the wrong way.

‘Well, as I said, thank you very much for your help, Mr…?’

‘Shayne,’ Ellie says, introducing him with a gummy smile.

Ellie and Shayne seem better acquainted than I would like.

‘Thank you, Shayne,’ I try again and I wait for him to acknowledge my gratitude and leave.

‘You know, you should really have a word with the crèche. Anything could have happened to Ellie out there.’ He throws his thumb over his shoulder, towards the car park.

‘Oh, we don’t have a crèche on-site,’ órlaith says and I can almost see the cogs in her brain turning. Now that the panic is over, I have no doubt she is wondering what Ellie is doing here in the first place.

‘Oh.’ He half smiles, befuddled. ‘But Ellie said you worked here.’

I want to tell him he already said that, but instead I unzip an uncomfortable smile and say, ‘I didn’t just leave my child running around a car park while I was working, if that’s what you’re implying.’

‘I wasn’t.’ He folds his arms. ‘But, since you mention it, I did find her alone in the car park. And you were working.’

‘Who says I was working? I didn’t.’

He’s staring at my uniform. órlaith’s eyes are on me too and I will her to keep her mouth shut. Thankfully, it’s Ellie who speaks.

‘I’m hungry.’

‘I’m glad you found your mom,’ Shayne tells her, then he turns towards me and adds, ‘And it was nice to meet you…’

I know he’s waiting for my name but I don’t give it. I simply widen my smile and wait for him to walk away. He pulls one side of his long, warm coat over the other, bows his head and walks through the automatic glass doors and into the cold outside.

‘What is Ellie doing here?’ órlaith asks, finally twigging that this whole situation isn’t right.

‘Long story,’ I say, on the verge of tears.

‘Well, you better get her the hell out of here before Elaine sees her.’

‘My shift doesn’t end for another couple of hours.’

órlaith rolls her eyes and exhales heavily. ‘You owe me big-time,’ she says, glancing at Ellie and then at the reception desk.

‘You won’t know she’s here,’ I say. ‘She has some colouring. I’ll bring it down.’

órlaith waves her hand and lets me know there’s no need for a colouring book. She’s got this.

‘Come on, honey,’ she says, reaching for Ellie’s hand. ‘Do you like lollipops?’

This time Ellie checks with me if it’s all right to take the hand of a stranger. ‘Go on,’ I encourage. ‘It’s okay.’ And then I mouth a silent thank you to órlaith.

órlaith winks, takes Ellie’s hand in hers and leads her towards the tuck shop before it closes.