The Tea House on Mulberry Street (2 page)

She sighed and touched the picture gently, as if she could somehow close her eyes and open them again and find herself in that beautiful room, standing by the arched window, gazing out over the topiary to the majestic ocean beyond. She wouldn’t even sit on the armchairs, if she were there. She wouldn’t lean back on those plump fringed cushions and squash them out of shape. She wouldn’t touch anything. She would just look at the paintings and enjoy the perfume of the expensive flowers. Penny loved beautiful things. She felt soothed by beauty, in all its forms.

She brought her empty cup and saucer back to the counter. She laid the magazine reverently on its marked surface.

“Look, Daniel – there’s the kind of thing I’d like to do in here. Paint the cafe blood-red. Just look at the effect when the table lamps are switched on. It’s so warm and rich.”

“Here we go,” he sighed, as he polished the glass stand for the cheesecake. “These walls aren’t in good-enough condition to be painted. You know that, sweetheart.”

“Can’t we get some people in to fix them? Or just bite the bullet and have a complete renovation? Bigger windows and new furniture. New units in the kitchen? You know we can afford it.”

“People like it here, pet,” said Daniel firmly. “It’s one of the last places in the city that is still family-run and unchanged from the old days. The students from Queen’s love it. They say it’s ‘cool’. Retro-style or something.”

“Retro, my foot! They don’t have to work in it, and live with it, and see it every day. Anyway, they only come in here because it’s cheaper than the nice places.”

“We aren’t going to waste good money on rip-off builders and fancy designers, Penny. There’s no need for any of it. Extravagance is all it is, with so much poverty in the world.”

“But it would make me so happy, Daniel! We could have a white sofa, there by the door, and a row of high chairs at the counter… I’ve so many ideas…”

“Please, Penny, don’t start this again – not now. We still have to finish the baking. Will you check if the rolls are done? And I’ll get on with the cakes.” He consulted his watch.

Penny looked at her husband and, for the first time ever, she thought she might stop loving him. She brushed past him, quite roughly, and went into the kitchen where she began to bang the cupboard doors in a small display of rebellion. She ignored the oven and made herself a very thick bacon sandwich with lots of red sauce, and a huge mug of sugary tea to go with it. Daniel might prefer a light breakfast, but Penny had a healthy appetite. She wasn’t a robot, she told herself; she would start work when she was good and ready. She sat down on a rickety kitchen chair and enjoyed her breakfast. Daniel sighed, and checked on the bread rolls himself. They were golden-brown and glossy. He slid the tray out of the oven and left them to cool on a wire rack.

Penny and Daniel did not speak to each other again until the coffee-cake was ready to go into the oven. And that was only to discuss whether they should open a bag of paprika-flavour crisps or spicy tortilla chips, to go with the sandwiches. Penny watched him expertly spooning cream onto the top of the cheesecake, smoothing the edges with a palette knife. Then, he added the cherry topping, and placed the whole thing on the pretty glass stand with painted mint leaves around the edges. He smiled with pleasure when it was finished. He was very proud of his baking skills. Penny was jealous of the attention her husband lavished on his desserts. She wished he would look at her with the same devotion in his eyes. She quickly made up a batch of banana muffins and bunged them in the oven with casual abandon.

At seven thirty, Penny unlocked the front door and turned the cardboard sign to OPEN. A smiling postman emptied the letterbox outside the shop, waved to Penny, and drove off smartly in his little red van with his cargo of good news, bad news and bills for the citizens of Belfast and the world beyond.

Chapter 2

T
HE
C
REEPY
C
RAWLEYS

At eight o’clock precisely, two old women came in, peeling off their scarves and gloves and rattling two collection tins. Beatrice and Alice Crawley. Twin sisters and best friends. They laughed and smiled all the time, and had numerous friends and interests. The secret of their happiness, they said, was that they were never foolish enough to get married. Daniel did not like it when they said things like that.

They were retired schoolteachers and they had the abrupt manner of all professional educators. They walked everywhere, briskly, linking arms, and had a habit of finishing each other’s sentences. Daniel called them The Creepy Crawleys behind their backs.

Beatrice and Alice lived in the small, terraced house at the quiet end of Mulberry Street that had been their childhood home. When they were not engaged in charitable activities, they worked hard at keeping their little house perfect. Starched, white lace hung at the windows and the front door was given a fresh coat of dark green paint every summer.

They came into the world together, war babies, born only ten minutes apart. “Identical twin girls,” the midwife announced proudly. “Both healthy and strong, thank God.”

Right from the start, the neighbours marvelled at the girls’ honey-coloured skin and jet-black hair. “Where did such looks come from?” they wondered, as they chatted on their doorsteps. Mr and Mrs Crawley were both pale and fair-haired, with delicate bone structure, and eyes the colour of forget-me-nots. Yet, the two girls grew up to be tall and dark-haired, with chocolate-brown eyes. Their mother, Eliza, was a good, Christian woman, who believed in miracles. God had sent two beautiful daughters to her, she said, when she thought that she and her husband would never be able to have a child of their own. And she was not going to query their exotic appearance after God had been so good and generous. By the time the twins were fourteen, they already towered over their devoted parents but, by then, all the fuss about their unusual looks had died down considerably. They passed every exam they ever sat with flying colours and went on to teach in the same school. They were so close to one another, they never felt the need to take on a couple of husbands or move out of the family home when William and Eliza went to their eternal rest.

With no family to fuss over, they spent their days raising money for good causes, shaking their collecting tins on Royal Avenue. They enjoyed setting the world to rights over a cup of tea in Muldoon’s Tea Rooms and going on various daytrips and country rambles on a church minibus.

Once a week they went to visit their parents’ grave in the city cemetery, and lay fresh flowers there. Their beloved late father, William, was a decorated war hero, and they spoke of him often.

“To think our dear father fought Hitler for the likes of this,” Alice would say sadly, as teenage mothers wheeled their fat babies past the window of the cafe. “In our day, girls like that would have been put in an institution. I think there was one round here, actually, until the liberals got it closed down.”

“Yes, well. Those places had their faults. I’m not saying they were the perfect answer. But, at the very least, the girls ought to dress more respectably.” Beatrice sniffed, observing a cigarette dangling from the glossy lips of one girl who couldn’t have been a day older than fifteen. “You’d think they would make some effort to tidy themselves up.”

“There are no standards any more,” said Alice. “It all went wrong when people stopped wearing hats and long skirts.”

“I can’t believe our dear father served his country for such people,” Beatrice cried, when she read in the newspaper that a nine-year-old boy was expelled from school for burning down his classroom. “His parents, both unemployed of course, have applied for a grant to employ a private tutor, it says here. Ha! The two of them should be shot at dawn for rearing such a reprobate.”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Alice. “Many’s the man was shot for far less. And society was all the better for it.”

On Sundays, they donned their good gloves and formal hats, and walked serenely along to church, nodding regally to anyone they knew. They sat in the front pew, singing loudly with strong, healthy, smoke-free lungs; and praying hard for the salvation of the world in general, and Belfast in particular. After lunch, they wrote letters of complaint: mostly to their local newsagent, deploring the filthy pornography he sold on the top shelf. And, of course, they had plenty to say about the young people of the city, who were sadly underrepresented in the congregation each Sunday.

“Is it any wonder marriage is on the way out?” said Beatrice. “With the young women throwing themselves at this one and that one. And barely a stitch on the whole lot of them. You wouldn’t believe some of the things they wear. They’ve no shame at all. It’s a disgrace.”

“Indeed,” agreed Alice. “And a horrible chip-shop on every corner as well, with young men eating chipped potatoes out of a paper bag, on the very street! It shouldn’t be allowed! Why, the men have no reason to get wed nowadays: they have both flesh and food in plenty.”

The Creepy Crawleys lived comfortably on two good pensions. They had no vices at all, apart from a weakness for new hats, and a terrible huge sense of pride; pride that drove them to collect more money for charity than anybody else in the congregation; pride that kept them awake at night, planning their speeches for when they met Her Majesty, the Queen; for surely they would meet the Queen some day, and be presented with an award, at the very least. A shiny medal in a velvet box. After all their service to the community over the years, it was the very least they could expect.

Alice approached the counter.

“Care to make a donation?” said Alice to Daniel. “Upkeep of the war memorials.”

Daniel’s face darkened. Anything to do with charity made him feel uneasy, reared as he was, in poverty. But Penny took a five-pound note from the register, and folded it cheerfully into the tin.

“There you are,” she said. “That will start you off today, ladies.” She looked at Daniel. It was a look of defiance.

“Good for you, Penny,” said a delighted Beatrice. “Lest we forget, and all that.”

“God bless our fallen heroes,” agreed Alice, and they settled down at their usual table beside the radiator.

Daniel went into the kitchen to ice his coffee-cake.

“Tea and toast, is it?” asked Penny, approaching their table with her little notebook.

Daniel frowned as he opened the fridge. He was impatient with the Crawleys now. Because of them he was beginning the day a fiver down. He could hear them deliberate about what to eat. Would it be a sin for them if they had a fried egg and bacon sandwich? How many calories did Penny think would be in a fried egg and bacon sandwich? They just had to make a drama out of every little thing.

Finally, they decided. “Tea and toast, of course. And could we have some scrambled eggs with that? Oh, let’s go mad and have a couple of sausages each, as well. We’d better eat a hearty breakfast this morning. We’ve a long day collecting ahead of us.” They shook their tins in Penny’s face then, and smiled the easy smiles of the virtuous.

“Scrambled eggs and sausages, tea and toast for two,” Penny called, through the hatch.

“Right,” said Daniel and he opened a packet of sausages. The day’s business had begun.

A few minutes later Millie Mortimer came into the shop and stood at the counter. She didn’t like Daniel, and she wasn’t afraid to show it. She always made a point of smoking in the cafe kitchen, even though he had told her on several occasions that it wasn’t hygienic.

“Well, Penny, what about ye?” she asked. “I was just out, getting some odds and ends, and here, I says, I’ll call in and see me ’oul mate, Penny.”

Daniel sighed. Millie was very common. Her clothes were too tight, her accent was stage-Belfast and the way she inhaled her cigarettes with her mouth open at one side was painful to behold. She was only thirty-six but her fussy perm made her look much older. He didn’t know why Penny had bothered to keep up with her all these years.

“Come on in to the kitchen,” said Penny. “We can have a wee chat there, in peace.”

Millie went straight in, scanning the work-counter for tasty snacks. She took off her coat and lit up a cigarette.

“The cut of them two old biddies in there,” she said, nodding her head towards the Crawleys. “I thought you had the Royalty in, the day!”

She put a chair by the back door and opened it a little, so that she could blow her smoke into the yard. A blast of ice-cold air came rushing in, chasing the warm air out of the kitchen, and Daniel had to bite his lip to stop himself from saying something. The two women had been friends since their schooldays. Millie was always the one to get the laughter going, but she had a terrible temper as well.

“Thinking of doing the place up, are you?” Millie said, reaching over and taking the interiors magazine from the table. “About time too, I say.” And she made a face at Daniel’s back. She licked her thumb and flicked through the pages. “Any particular colour in mind, have you?”

“Oh, I’m still thinking,” said Penny.