Page 10 of The Secret Life of Beatrice Alright
I throw my head back, as if I’m gulping for air. I think I am. ‘You’re sorry. Well then, if you’re sorry that’s all fine, isn’t it.’
‘Bea, please. I get how hard this is. It’s hard for me too.’
I force myself to look at him. ‘You can’t take her family away from her. I won’t let you.’
‘Can you hear yourself?’ He sighs as if he’s exhausted by this conversation. ‘‘You didn’t know they existed until I told you, so don’t give me nonsense about family. They’re not your family, Bea. They are mine.’
‘And they are Ellie’s too.’
‘No,’ he snaps, becoming angry. ‘You are Ellie’s family.’
‘And you,’ I snap back
‘Just you!’ He points an accusatory finger at me. ‘It’s just you and Ellie now. Forget me. It’s best that way.’
‘You’re her father. She can’t just forget you. It doesn’t work like that.’
His finger begins to wag. ‘It does now.’
‘Declan, stop it. Stop talking like this. I know you. I know you wouldn’t just walk out of her life like that. Even if you leave me, you’re still her blood.’
Declan lets his pointed hand flop by his side as his stiff shoulders round, and I almost reach out to him, but I stop myself just in time.
‘She’s given me twenty-four hours, Bea,’ he says, so softly I have to strain to hear him. ‘Elsa has given me one day to tidy this mess up and come home. If I don’t, she’ll take the boys and go.’
I study him. I can see he’s torn but it doesn’t offer me any comfort.
‘So you see, I have no choice.’
‘There’s always a choice.’
‘I’ve let the landlord know,’ he goes on. ‘The rent is paid until the eighteenth of this month. I’ve told him that I won’t be renewing the lease after that.’
My chest tightens as I do the maths in my head. ‘That’s in less than two weeks.’
‘You can stay until then, of course.’
‘And then what? That’s a week before Christmas.’
‘You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.’
I finally realise why our room feels larger and emptier than usual. Declan’s stuff is missing. There’s a large suitcase near the bed that I didn’t notice before now, obviously packed with his stuff. All that remains is an empty bottle of his favourite Versace aftershave on the bedside table, and the tiepin I bought him for his birthday is next to it. I saved for a whole year to have enough for the slender gold clip.
‘You’re leaving tonight?’ I say, pointing at his case.
‘I’m on standby for a flight, yes.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home.’
‘But this is home. This is your home,’ I say, finally starting to cry, as the reality that our apartment was never somewhere his heart belonged sets in.
‘I live in London. Well, just outside it.’
‘London?’ I say, as if it’s the other side of the world, not a fifty-minute flight away. ‘Jesus Christ, Declan. You don’t even live in the same bloody country as me.’ I try to imagine him in a big red-brick house in the suburbs, tubing around the city at the weekends with a beautiful wife on his arm, pointing at Big Ben and saying, ‘Oh, is that the time, darling? We should get some tea and crumpets.’ But the image doesn’t fit. His strong Northside-Dublin accent and refusal to use public transport fits here, with me and Ellie.
‘No. No. No!’ I say, accepting how untrue my life is. Declan is only in the apartment for three or four nights a month and never two nights in a row. Suddenly, I feel painfully stupid.
