Page 40 of The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

I make a face. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

She shrugs casually. ‘Swapped shifts. It’s no big deal, one of the girls owed me a favour anyway. We’re going to get you packed up and ready to go. You’ll feel better when you’ve made a fresh start.’

‘I’m not sure your couch counts as a fresh start?’

Cora sets her coffee down, folds her arms and looks at me like a school principal about to give a troubled but brilliant pupil a stern talking-to. ‘You’re leaving this apartment behind you and you are starting over. It’s as fresh as it gets. And it’s my couch now, but that’s just a start. You’ve got this, Bea. I know you do.’

The coffee swirls in my otherwise empty stomach. Maybe Cora is right. I just need to sleep on her couch until my next payday. Then I should have enough to start looking for a flatshare again. I just have to make it through Christmas.

‘Right,’ she says, with a commanding clap of her hands that makes Ellie jump. ‘Where are your black sacks? Let’s get packing.’

I don’t have black sacks but there are some Tesco plastic bags under the sink. Cora turns on her Spotify and Ellie requests Taylor Swift on full volume. Then, before the sun is up, we dance around my apartment as if we haven’t a care in the world.

‘My poor neighbours,’ I shout. Certain that, although ‘Bad Blood’ is one of my favourite songs, no one wants to wake up to it blaring through their ceiling.

‘Give them something to remember you by.’ Cora laughs, twerking and encouraging Ellie to copy her.

I hope when Ellie is older she forgets the coffee shop downstairs and, instead, remembers this moment. The day we danced our cares away.

THIRTEEN

The snow is relentless. The guy on the radio said it’s the coldest December in fifty years and it’s all anyone at work can talk about.

‘There’s inches out there,’ MrsMorgan on StPaul’s ward says as she stands by the window overlooking the car park.

The heating is blasting in the hospital, but she’s wrapped in a fleece dressing gown and fluffy, boot-like slippers as if just looking outside chills her to the bone.

‘You should say there’s centipedes out there,’ MrsBrennan croaks from her bed across the ward. Her health is deteriorating quickly, and I am worried she might not see the year out, but she still manages to wag her finger towards the window to argue with MrsMorgan. ‘All the young people say, centipedes. Don’t they, Bea?’ She looks at me with a smile that warms my heart and I wish so much I could reverse time and know her as a young, healthy person. I can only imagine the fun we would have.

I sweep the floor, taking care to get the brush in under the beds where dust likes to gather. My back cracks audibly and I can see them both look at me with concern. I snap upright,to ease their worries, and softly say, ‘I think you might mean centimetres.’

MrsMorgan begins to laugh, folding in the middle.

‘Stop it,’ MrsBrennan grumbles, mustering sudden energy from somewhere to pull herself up in the bed. ‘Stop laughing at me.’

MrsMorgan laughs louder. A deep, rattly laugh that highlights that she’s been a heavy smoker for most of her life.

‘Oh, say what you like,’ MrsBrennan says, lying back down and turning her back like a sulky toddler.

‘Ah, don’t be like that,’ MrsMorgan says, cutting out her giggling and straightening up, obviously worried she has offended her frenemy. ‘Inches or centimetres. It doesn’t change the fact that there’s plenty of it out there. It’ll be a white Christmas for certain.’

‘My last Christmas,’ MrsBrennan says, turning back.

MrsMorgan jams her hands on her hips, ready to scold MrsBrennan again. ‘None of us know how long we have, but you owe me at least ten games of chess, and with the snail’s pace you play at you’ll be at it for ever.’

There is a moment of shared silence, while we all wish it was that simple. It’s not long before my two favourite patients return to chatting. They move on from discussing the weather to talk about politics. I leave them to it, and make my way to the storage room to fetch themind the wet floorsignbefore I start washing.

The storage room is as chaotic as ever and it takes some time to find the plastic safety sign. When I finally spot it and take it off a low shelf, something beside it rolls onto the floor. I look down and discover a yellow colouring pencil rolling around my feet. Recognising it as Ellie’s, I pick it up. I know she’ll be delighted when I give it to her later. I’m about to slide the pencil into my uniform pocket when my phone vibrates and startles me. I takea breath and slide my phone out. I exhale with relief when I find Cora’s name on the screen and not the crèche.

‘Hello,’ I chirp.

‘Oh, you sound happy.’

‘Thought you were the crèche. You’ve no idea how happy I am that you’re not.’

‘Right. Okay. Getcha,’ she says, sounding equally happy but not actually getting me at all.

‘What’s up?’ I ask.

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