Page 16 of The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

No.17 is available from Dec 18th. I will need a reference and a direct debit set up. I have a lot of interest so whoever sends me the deposit and one month’s rent in advance first gets it. Rent is 3000 per month. Bills extra. Let me know if you would like to proceed and I will send you my bank details. Regards, Adam

I almost drop my phone. I have never had six thousand euro in my bank account. Ever. It would take me years to save up that much. Even if I rent both bedrooms, a section of the hall and the bloody balcony I still can’t come up with funds like that. Declan was right, I was wasting my time texting Adam. I text him againwith my fingers shaking as the harsh reality of my predicament grips me.

I can’t afford it, I’m afraid. But thank you.

No worries. Best of luck finding something in your budget.

His final message is kind and encouraging but it fills me with overwhelming stress. I suspect it will be near impossible to find something I can afford. Panic sets in and I find myself sitting on the floor of the cleaning closet for at least half an hour, simply rocking back and forth with my knees tucked against my chest. Thankfully, almost no one comes in here except me, so it’s the perfect place to hide while the panic subsides. I’m glad when I find I’ve no appetite, and I think of the money I will save not buying lunch. I spend the other half an hour of my break searching the internet for flats anywhere and everywhere in a remotely commutable distance from work. I send several enquiring emails and finish my shift.

When I return to the closet at the end of work to fetch my bag and my phone, I am met by countless helpful and friendly emails. But one after another confirms that their properties are too expensive. Even flats in areas of town I’d be afraid to live are more than I can afford. I move on to enquiring about sharing with others. The ads almost all insist that pets are not welcome, but none of them say anything about kids. There’s a couple of places that I could just about afford, if I stopped getting the bus and walked everywhere, but as soon as I mention Ellie they ghost me.

I don’t notice I’m crying as I leave work, but when I face into the wind and start walking a voice calls after me, asking, ‘Bad day?’

I stop and turn to find Malcolm sitting on the same bench as yesterday. His head is once again hatless, but he’s wrapped in another colourful scarf. A grass green, like a summer’s day. It’s bright and cheery against the otherwise grey world. The grey car park, the grey hospital, the grey sky. My grey life.

‘Yes. Pretty bad.’ I sniffle.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tissue. I don’t move.

‘I haven’t blown my nose in it, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

I wasn’t.

‘It’s clean,’ he says. ‘And you look like you need it more than I do.’

I shuffle towards him, wondering if this winter frost will ever thaw.

‘Still in those silly things?’ he says, pointing at my runners that the grip is long worn down on. ‘In my day people dressed for the weather. Not any more, though. Young people are a slave to fashion.’

I glance at my worn-out runners and wonder how anyone could possibly consider them a thing of fashion.

‘I don’t have different ones,’ I find myself confessing out of nowhere as I take his tissue and dab under my eyes. I crumple it up and shove it in my pocket.

I wait for him to blush, or feel uncomfortable the way most people do when they realise someone else’s misfortune. Or, worse still, I wait for him to pity me. But he doesn’t.

He pats the empty space of the bench beside him and says, ‘Sit,’ the same way you might command a dog, perhaps.

I check my watch. I don’t really have time to pause. But I think about the money I saved skipping lunch. I could treat myself to a trip on the Luas. I’d be at the crèche in half the time.

‘Thank you, Malcolm,’ I say.

‘You don’t need to thank me. This bench doesn’t belong to me. It’s public property. You can sit if you want to.’

I sit in the empty space beside him and bop my knees up and down to keep warm.

‘That’s unpleasant,’ he says, shortly.

‘Excuse me?’

‘If I wanted to bounce around like a fella at sea in a storm, I’d set sail. But I don’t. I want to sit here on my bench. Nice and still.’

I notice my nervous twitching and steady myself. I’m blushing when I say, ‘I thought it wasn’t your bench.’

He chuckles. But it’s quickly followed by a chesty cough that shakes the bench more than I ever could. It takes some time but, finally, his coughing fit subsides and we sit as we are. Two strangers, on a wooden bench, under an old oak tree that guards the hospital like a huge, strong security guard. Lost in silent thought, tears once again trickle down my cheek and I’m about to excuse myself when he says, ‘Do you want to tell me why you’re crying?’

I wipe around my eyes with the tissue again, embarrassed. ‘Oh, you really don’t want to know. Trust me.’

‘I can’t trust you. I don’t know you,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘Likewise, you can’t possibly know what I do and don’t want to discuss. You don’t know me.’

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