Page 35 of The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

‘Yeah. You too. Take care of him, won’t you,’ I say with a sting of sadness as I glance into the car at a sleeping Malcolm. His mouth is gaping and his breathing sucks his bottom lip in and puffs it back out with a quiver. I suspect I won’t be seeing him on the hospital bench any more, now that Shayne has found him, and I find myself oddly discontented. As if I resent Shayne for taking Malcolm away. I know it’s a ridiculous feeling.Especially when just hours ago I was lecturing Ellie about talking to strangers. But something about this old man feels familiar. Maybe he just stirs a familiar feeling in me. The feeling of wishing for a family. Wishing for parents and grandparents. Wishing for a circle of people around me, who would be there for me at the best of times and the worst of times. Wonderful times like Ellie’s birth, or her first steps. As cherished as those memories are, they are tinged with sadness because they are my memories only. I was, as ever, alone for the majority of Ellie’s milestones. Declan was in the air for her birth – somewhere over Ohio, he would later explain. And her first birthday. He was in LA. He was there when she cut her first tooth, but it was a coincidence. He was on a layover between flights. I guess now he was on a layover from his wife. From his family. I’m not foolish enough to think that having loving parents, or even a somewhat cantankerous grandfather, would make Declan’s betrayal any easier. I still really, really wish I had family around me. People to love me, and hug me, and tell me it will be all right even if they are only lying and saying it simply because it’s what I need to hear.

I’m a terrible judge of ages. When I was in junior cycle in secondary school, I used to think my English teacher was at least sixty. She wore cardigans and runners in the late noughties, while everyone else was layering tops and struggling to walk in chunky high heels. A few years after I finished school she got married and had a load of kids, so she must have been half as old as I thought. Still, I take a stab at guessing Shayne’s age. He has fine lines around his sea-grey eyes, but nothing deep. And although there is the odd fleck of grey hidden in his hair, his scraggy beard is grey-free. I assume he’s about my age. Certainly, no older than his mid-thirties. Thirty-four, I decide. As my imagination places a solid age stamp on him, my gut aches and I realise I’m jealous. Shayne Fairbanks is thirty-fouryears old and he still has his grandfather in his life. I haven’t even had parents since I was eleven. Grumpy or not, Shayne doesn’t know how lucky he is to have Malcolm.

‘You take care of him,’ I find myself saying again, with a wagging finger pointed towards the car.

‘I try to.’

My finger stills and I lower my hand.Try harder, I want to say, thinking of the snowflakes that stick to Malcolm’s bare head in the cold. Instead, I say, ‘Get him to wear a hat.’

‘I can’t. I knitted this for him.’ Shayne pulls the colourful woolly hat from his pocket again to show me.

‘You knitted it?’

‘You sound surprised,’ he says.

And he sounds offended.

Nonetheless, I am honest. ‘I am. You don’t seem like a knitter.’

‘Don’t I?’ He taps his chest. ‘Why not?’

I don’t tell him that I invented an imaginary wife for Malcolm who lovingly knitted his scarf and hat while sitting by an open fire in their lovely home. I don’t tell him because I know it’s not normal to create imaginary families for people. But it’s a bad habit. When I see people sitting alone on the bus, or in the hospital waiting room, or even ordering a coffee, I like to create friends and family for them. Just as I used to create a family for me in my mind. I’m very good at it. Straight after my parents’ crash I invented a little sister. She looked just like my mam, because I looked just like my dad. Our neighbour, whose name I can’t remember but I know she had a lot of cats, came to tell me that my parents were gone. She said people would come and get me soon and I would have a new family. I spent my first night in foster care that night. Three days later I went to my parents’ funeral. I was terrified. But at least I wasn’t alone. I brought my imaginary sister with me. I bounced around several foster homesafter that, keeping little sis with me always. Right up until my eighteenth birthday, when the state was no longer paying for me and the family I had been with for three years let me go. I got a job in retail, started medical school and shared a flat with Cora and some of the other girls from college. College life was wild. I balanced hours on the wards with a stupid amount of study. Any hours that were left over, I was working to make rent. I rarely slept and survived on a diet of black coffee and rich tea biscuits and, although I was tired, I was never exhausted. And still, through it all, I kept my imaginary sister. She wasn’t as present as during those years in foster care, but she was there. Like a security blanket in the back of my mind. But I realise now that I haven’t thought about her in a long time. Not since the day I found out I was pregnant with Ellie. Not since the day I was going to have a family again.

‘You okay?’ I hear Shayne ask, and I wonder how long I’ve been zoned out.

‘Scarf,’ I blurt.

‘Sorry?’

Ellie grows heavy in my arms and I readjust my grip. My back cracks, and I exhale, feeling more comfortable now.

‘Did you knit the scarf too? All the scarves? They’ve very nice.’

Shayne unzips a smile. ‘No. Grandad knits those himself.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Nope. Grandad taught me to knit when I was a kid. I wasn’t sporty like all the other boys in my school.’

‘So, he thought he’d toughen you up with knitting skills,’ I tease.

‘Something like that. Yeah.’

‘Well, I think it’s brilliant.’

‘You do?’

‘Sure. The world needs more male knitters.’

‘Erm. Sure,’ he says.

‘I’m joking.’ I smile. ‘It doesn’t really matter if you’re male or female when it comes to knitting, does it? Although, I don’t knit, so maybe…’

He laughs, and I’m glad.

‘No. It really doesn’t matter. And, erm, could we keep this knitting thing between us?’

‘Sure.’ I nod.

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