The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

Chapter 24

TWENTY-FOUR

I was wrong. The petrol station is selling off small turkeys for half price and the guy behind the counter throws in a free ham.

‘No one is going to want these after today,’ he says.

We buy potatoes, vegetables and chocolate cake for dessert. Malcolm insists on paying for everything. So, when his back is turned, I pick up a Christmas card and leave the exact amount of cash on the counter.

Malcolm wasn’t exaggerating when he said his house wasn’t far. It’s less than a ten-minute walk to his front door. And I know which house is his before he says a word. It’s a large, red-brick, Georgian house, identical to its neighbours that line both sides of the road. But while the other houses have been upgraded over the years with new, cream or grey windows, and had their large front gardens landscaped and tall, wrought-iron electric gates fitted, Malcolm’s house has a personality all of its own – standing out from the crowd, proudly and uniquely. The front grass is long enough to poke up through the layers of snow like tiny green spikes. The gate must be as old as Malcolm himself and it’s in need of a lick of paint. There’s a glass porch and inside is a free-standing coat rack that is home to several long chequered coats. There are pairs and pairs of wellington boots scattered inside the porch too. I count them and get eight in total. And finally, there are some flower pots without flowers. Instead, some tennis rackets sit in the pots as if they have sprouted from racket seeds and grown into small racket trees. Rackets that I know Malcolm plucks at will and attaches to the bottom of his wellingtons.

‘This way,’ he says, with a plastic bag dragging from each hand. I worry that they were too heavy and offer to carry them, but he scowls at me and says, ‘My arms work just fine.’

I don’t bring the bags up again. Not even when we have to stop for a moment on the corner for him to catch his breath. There is a narrow path in the snow, leading from the gate to the door, and I wonder if Shayne hand-dug it. We have to walk single file to fit. Malcolm goes first, then Ellie and then me. The porch door slides back with a creak and Malcolm kicks his shoes off. Ellie and I do the same. The front door creaks even louder as it opens. Inside smells of an open fire and burnt toast.

‘Ew,’ Ellie says, holding her nose.

I glare at her with wide eyes, but she doesn’t take her hand down and I don’t want to scold her and draw Malcolm’s attention.

The hallway is long and narrow and full of colour. Lilac walls. A multicoloured carpet with a dominant maroon tint and a pattern that reminds me of ocean waves. The stairs are a creamy-yellow, but I can tell they were once white and have darkened over the years.

‘Can I watch telly now?’ Ellie asks, already taking herself through an open doorway that I can see leads to a sitting room.

‘You can,’ Malcolm tells her as he follows her.

I poke my head round the door and into a room with the exact same décor as the hall. I watch as he turns on a large, cube-shaped television in the corner that reminds me of the one my parents had when I was Ellie’s age. There doesn’t appear to be a remote control, and Malcolm brings the thing to life by pressing buttons on the front. Ellie lowers herself to sit on the floor, cross-legged, in front of the big black box as a Disney classic comes on the screen.

‘ Lady and the Tramp ,’ I say. ‘I love this one.’

Ellie has stopped listening and is fully engrossed in the image of two dogs sharing meatballs at a restaurant-style table. Something rattles and I shift my gaze to Malcolm, to find him tossing some coal from a dusty black bucket onto a barely burning open fire. He tucks in a large safety guard that encapsulates the whole fireplace and says, ‘There. That should heat up soon.’

‘Don’t touch,’ I warn Ellie, who’s never seen a real fire in her life before. ‘It’s very hot.’

Malcolm leaves the room without another word and for a moment I’m not sure if I should follow him or not.

Soon he calls out, ‘Dinner won’t cook itself.’

I take my cue and find the kitchen at the end of the hallway. The kitchen is blue. Very blue. The walls are the colour of the sky on a summer’s day. The cupboards are a slightly darker shade, edging towards turquoise, and the floor tiles are a vibrant mix of both colours. It’s how I imagine being lost at sea might feel. There is a small, brown table in front of a large window overlooking a garden that I can tell under the snow is completely overgrown. Various sized and shaped trees and shrubs are dotted haphazardly around the space.

There’s a low buzzing sound coming from somewhere and I look round to discover that Malcolm has turned the oven on to preheat. He’s placed the plastic bags on the countertop with the groceries still inside. He’s fetched slippers from somewhere and he sits at the table with his legs crossed and I can’t see completely from where I’m standing but I think he’s attempting the crossword in the paper.

I have no idea what to say or do. I get the impression he wants me to unpack and make myself at home, but I don’t feel right.

‘Excuse me,’ I say, my voice catching like a lump in my throat. ‘What exactly is happening here?’

He puts down his pen and looks up at me, as if he’s the confused one.

‘Dinner,’ he says, with a firm nod.

‘Yes. I know. But…’ I search my brain for a way to make this all less strange, but I’m standing in odd socks in a man I scarcely know’s kitchen on Christmas Day with a petrol station-bought turkey on the countertop. I think we have long passed weird, so I decide to just spit it out.

‘You don’t expect me to cook alone, do you?’

He’s expressionless as he looks at me. The deep lines around his eyes and mouth don’t so much as budge.

‘I mean, you’re going to help, right?’

‘I wasn’t planning to.’

My eyes widen. ‘Oh, really.’

‘I’m not a good cook.’

I jam my hands onto my hips. ‘That sounds like an excuse to me.’

He smiles and the lines in his face deepen. ‘I’m not. I’m not at all. I can just about make beans on toast.’

I think of the smell of burnt toast that seems to have lessened now and I believe him.

‘Okay. We’ll start with basics,’ I say, making my way to the countertop to begin unpacking.

‘You’re going to teach me?’ he scoffs.

I pull out potatoes and carrots first. ‘You can start with these. Where do you keep your peeler?’

‘Don’t you think I’m a little old to learn how to cook now?’

‘No. I do not,’ I say, pulling out the rest of the ingredients for dinner from the bags. ‘You’re never too old to learn something new.’

I expect him to grumble and find an excuse to get back to his crossword. And If he does, I won’t argue. It’s his house after all. He’s paid for dinner and given me and Ellie a warm house to enjoy a good meal in. But he rolls up his sleeves with a force of determination that is both unnecessarily intense and wholly admirable.

We stuff the turkey, boil the ham, peel potatoes and carrots and chat effortlessly. I tell Malcolm about Declan and he says, ‘What a prick.’ I drop a carrot on my toe with shock and Malcolm says, ‘Don’t waste good vegetables on the prick.’

He tells me about his wife who passed twenty years ago and his voice cracks every time he says her name. ‘My Alison was a beauty. My Alison was an amazing cook. My Alison had the best taste in décor. My Alison was the love of my life. She was the only one who could keep the peace between me and my daughter.’

I try asking him about what happened. How they ended up not speaking. ‘You must miss her,’ I say. ‘Almost as much as you miss your wife.’

Malcolm doesn’t reply. He bends down and opens a low cupboard. I worry when it takes him a long time to stand back up. But slowly he pulls himself upright and turns round to display a bottle of wine.

‘I hope you like red,’ he says.

I smile.

He fetches two ginormous glasses that I’m almost certain are gin goblets and not wine glasses. He struggles a little with the cork, but finally it pops and he pours generously into both glasses. We join Ellie in the sitting room with our wine as we wait for the turkey and ham to cook. Ellie sings along with the songs at the top of her lungs and Malcolm says, ‘You really need to get that child some singing lessons.’

The movie ends and another begins straight away.

‘ Frozen ,’ Ellie shrieks with delight when the opening credits to her favourite movie begin to play. She spins around and sings and I have to warn her countless times not to twirl into the fire. Malcolm spends a lot of the movie with his hands over his ears and his face scrunched.

‘Ellie, shh. Not so loud,’ I say, draining my glass and feeling the wine go to my head.

I look at Malcolm to find his glass is barely touched. Instead, his head is flopped onto the back of the couch, his mouth is open and a raspy snore rattles his chest. Ellie soon tires of spinning and comes to sit beside me on the couch. Within minutes, there is a small child asleep on one side of me and an elderly man asleep on the other and it feels exactly as I imagine Christmas should. I sit contently for quite some time before the sound of the front door opening startles me and I hurry into the hall.

Shayne clutches his chest and jumps back when he sees me.

‘Bea. Wow. Hello?’

His surprise is natural and reasonable and yet it still rattles me and I find myself stumbling over words.

‘I, eh, your grandad invited me. And Ellie. Ellie is here. She’s asleep. He’s asleep too. Your grandad, I mean. Asleep on the couch. We had some wine. Well, I had wine. He didn’t really drink his. And I’m cooking dinner. It’s in the oven right now, and, eh…’ I pause and catch my breath as if I’m coming up from under water. ‘And so, yeah, I’m cooking.’

He nods as if anything I just said makes sense and doesn’t raise a million questions.

‘It’s nice to see you again. I didn’t think I would.’

‘No. Yeah. Yes. No.’ I shake my head and try again. ‘I didn’t think so either. But then I bumped into your grandad?—’

‘At the hospital again, was he?’ Shayne asks.

I know it’s a rhetorical question but I find myself answering nonetheless.

‘Yeah. On the bench again.’

Shayne sighs and I can sense his sadness that his mother and his grandfather don’t speak. I wonder if I should bring it up, but I squash the thought quickly, knowing it’s the wine talking.

‘He wasn’t wearing a hat again,’ I settle on saying instead.

Shayne laughs and I know it’s come out like a small child telling tales. Ellie does it all the time. So-and-so took my toy car. And they wouldn’t let me be the leader. And they did a wee-wee on the floor.

‘Is there any more wine?’ he asks.

I nod. ‘In the kitchen.’

‘Another glass?’ he asks.

‘Sure,’ I say, too quickly, and he laughs again.

‘Let’s leave them to sleep for a while.’ He tilts his head towards the kitchen. ‘Anything you need help with? I am a mean carrot-peeler.’

‘Like your grandad,’ I say, but the joke is lost on Shayne as he looks at me confused.

‘Nothing. Never mind. Carrots all done. But there’s a crossword in there that we could tackle while we wait for the turkey to finish?’

Shayne snorts. ‘A crossword.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, suddenly serious. ‘Don’t people do stuff like that at Christmas?’

‘I didn’t know a Christmas crossword was a thing.’

I feel a heat creep into my cheeks. ‘No. I mean, it’s Christmas. People take the time to do the stuff they normally don’t. Like, they sit down and drink wine and watch a kids’ movie even though they hate the songs. And they do the crossword while they wait for the turkey. And they just talk, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, smiling brightly. ‘People should talk at Christmas.’

Despite the wine making my head fuzzy, I wonder if he’s referring to his mother and his grandfather.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’ I trail off before finding a better approach. ‘I’m just happy to be here. I didn’t really have Christmas growing up.’

‘You didn’t.’

I shake my head. I don’t want to get into a woe is me my childhood sucked conversation so I simply say, ‘That was a long time ago. It’s different now. I have Ellie.’

A huge smile unzips across his face and he says, ‘Christmas must be great with a kiddo. So exciting.’

I swallow hard. Suddenly I think talking about my shitty childhood would be a lot easier than lying about my currently shitty adulthood.

‘Do you smell burning?’ I say, abruptly. I don’t smell anything but I’m desperate to change the subject.

Shayne sniffs the air. ‘Nope. No burning. But something smells A-mazing.’

He’s right. The air smells delicious as scents of browning turkey waft from the kitchen and beckon us.

‘Let’s leave those two sleeping beauties to it,’ he suggests.

‘ Sleeping Beauty ,’ I echo, much too loudly for the small space of the hall. ‘That’s on next.’

‘Well, I’m afraid you’re going to miss it. We have a dinner finish cooking.’

‘We?’

‘Well, clearly Grandad is no help, and I’m not going to leave you to do all the work alone.’

‘You can cook?’ I say, delighted.

‘Nope,’ he admits, oddly proudly. ‘But that’s never stopped me before.’

I belly-laugh. It makes the wine inside me swirl but I don’t stop.

‘You’re a lot like your grandfather, you know.’

‘Yeah.’ He smiles, taking it the way I meant it. As a compliment. ‘I think I am.’