Page 66 of The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright

‘It must be minus something out here,’ Shayne goes on as he looks up at the cloudy sky that might spit heavy snow at anymoment. ‘We can’t leave him here. He won’t make it through the night. Especially not if it gets any colder.’

I nod. ‘We should call an ambulance?’

Shayne shakes his head. ‘We need to get him warm right now. I say we get him into the car and drive to the hospital.’

I balk for a moment. I think about a journey across the city with a dying man and my four-year-old in the back of the car.

‘What if he’s dangerous?’

Shayne looks at me seriously. ‘I think this poor man is a little too busy struggling to survive, to have time to hurt anyone.’

I nod. I hate myself for going there. I can only imagine what people would say about me if they knew. They’d blame drugs. Or booze. Or maybe a gambling habit.

‘Get him into the car,’ I say.

I put Ellie down so I can help Shayne lift the man. We manage to get him onto his feet and he drops in and out of consciousness.

‘What’s your name?’ Shayne asks.

It takes six attempts and baby steps across the footpath but finally we get him into the car and learn his name is John and he’s been homeless eleven months.

Eleven months. The thought of still living in the storage room in almost a year’s time consumes me and quickly I remind myself of my savings that are going to get Ellie and me out of this mess. In eleven months our lives will be back on track. In eleven months we will be okay. We have to be.

I sit in the back seat with Ellie and John. Shayne starts the engine, but before we drive off he twists round in his seat to look at me.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah. Just worried about John,’ I say, which isn’t a complete lie.

‘Yeah.’ Shayne swallows, turning back round. ‘Homelessness is so sad. But we’re going to get him help.’

TWENTY-SEVEN

I tried to visit John on StStephen’s Day. But the fact that I didn’t know his second name, whether or not he’d been admitted and if so to what ward made finding him as difficult as searching for a needle in a haystack. Ellie and I spent the day wandering the city instead. I hoped the cinema would be open so we could kill a couple of hours, but it wasn’t. I was torn between being glad to save the price of the tickets and add it to a flat deposit and flustered, cold and bored as we dotted in and out of shops we couldn’t possibly buy anything from.

Today, two days after Christmas, I am glad to get back to a routine. I drop Ellie to crèche. And Órlaith is back on reception at the hospital. Her face lights up with the challenge of finding John Doe.

‘I always wanted to be a detective,’ she tells me. ‘Like your one inMurder, She Wrote.’

‘Wasn’t she a writer?’ I ask, almost certain.

‘No. No,’ Órlaith says, with conviction. ‘Definitely a detective. Anyway, leave it with me. I’ll find the homeless guy.’

The homeless guy. The words are like a knife to my gut.

‘John,’ I say. ‘His name is John.’

She dismisses me with a wave of her hand. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. John Doe. That’s actually funny, isn’t it?’

My face hopefully says that it is not funny at all, but since I’m asking her for a favour here I don’t pull her up on it.

‘I’ll pop back at lunchtime, yeah?’ I say.

‘Cool. I should have found something out by then.’

A queue is forming behind me and I step aside. I’m about to go back upstairs and see if there is any rice pudding left over after patients’ lunch, but the double doors part and I spot Malcolm on the bench under the oak tree. I hurry out.

I’m not quite halfway across the car park when he points at my feet and shakes his head. I’m wearing my work shoes. My wellingtons are in the storage room, where they will stay hidden behind a bucket until it is time to change into them and pick Ellie up.

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