The Tea House on Mulberry Street (30 page)

Chapter 38

D
ANIEL
T
RIES TO
M
AKE
A
MENDS

Daniel walked all the way to Teresa’s old home, with tears streaming down his face. All his life he’d been living in two tenses: the present, where he went to work in the tea house, and the past, where he waited for his mother to come back. Now, those two worlds had collided, and everything was ruined. He let himself into the house and sat on the sofa until it grew dark. Then, he heated some milk and made a hot drink. He drank his cocoa in a trance.

Penny was leaving him. She had left him. It was all over. He thought and thought of how she could have found out about the house, but he could not work it out. He wept again.

She had a lover. He was angry about that. Why did women set so much store by romantic love? And why did it take her so long to have an affair, anyway? She could have left him any day she wanted, in the last seventeen years. She could have divorced him years ago. But she did not. So, she must have loved him.

Still, his mother loved him, and she had gone away. Women were unpredictable creatures, he knew. They were strange, and impossible to understand. And yet, when they were not around, life seemed bleak and empty. The years ahead stretched out before him. There would be no-one to talk to at the end of the day. He must not let Penny leave him.

He would go back to the tea house and tell Penny the truth and make her understand. He would take her away to a hotel so that they could talk it all through. Penny would like that. She liked pretty things. What was the name of the hotel that Penny talked about? The one in the magazine? The Lawson Lodge?

The hotel that Penny admired so much confronted him like a guilty secret. It was the very opposite of his meanness, and all the years of thrift that Penny had endured with him. He began to weep. He took from his wallet the shilling that Father Mulcahy had given him for his missing mother, when he was four years old. He turned it over and over in his hand.

And suddenly, it all made sense. His mother had not left him because she did not love him. She went away because her heart was broken; because her husband let her down and left her with a stack of bills she could not pay. She went away because the neighbours whispered about her behind her back, and said bad things about her, that were not true. She went away because she had no friends. The other women who lived on the street did not like her because she was beautiful and slim and unattached. It was not Daniel’s fault that she had gone away. She must have re-married and not told her new husband that she had a son already. Why had no-one explained all this to him before?

He was no better than his father. The truth winded him like a boxer’s punch. Penny was leaving him. He would be alone again, and this time, it was all his fault. There was no-one else to blame. What time was it? Ten-thirty in the evening. He went out and walked until he came to a payphone. He asked the operator for the telephone number of the hotel. He dialled the number.

“I’m sorry for calling so late,” he began. “I just wanted to ask you, is it too late to book a room for Christmas? I mean, do you have any rooms free over the holiday period at all? I want to surprise my wife with a last-minute holiday.”

The lady on the other end of the line was businesslike. She registered no surprise at the late hour. “Let me see,” she said. There was a pause. “We do have a room available, as it happens. Just the one, remaining. But it’s very expensive. It’s the bridal suite, comprising en suite luxury bathroom, and sitting-room with real log fire. It’s three hundred pounds per night.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, his voice a husky whisper.

“Certainly, sir,” she said. “What night were you thinking of? We’re open right through the holiday period.”

“Could I possibly have it for three weeks? From December eighteenth, through to January seventh?”

The receptionist in The Lawson Lodge sat up in her chair and set down her coffee-cup on the mahogany counter. She seldom managed to get so much business, so easily.

“That will be fine, certainly. Thank you, sir. I hope you will have a pleasant stay with us, and take full advantage of our packed programme of seasonal events. Can I have your credit-card details, please?”

“I don’t have a credit card, I’m afraid. But I’ll send a letter of confirmation, and a cheque for the full amount, first thing in the morning. Could you tell me the address?”

She told him. “That will be fine, sir. Thank you very much. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

“Yes,” he said. “Can you put a Christmas tree in the suite, and decorations, and some chocolates, and champagne?”

“Certainly, sir. All those things come as standard in the bridal suite.”

“And some perfume. Something expensive,” he said. “That’s everything. Oh, my name is Daniel Stanley.”

“Thank you, Mr Stanley. I’ll phone to confirm, when I receive your letter.”

“Ah, I’ll phone you. I’m very busy at the moment. Always out and about…”

“Very well. Thank you. Goodnight.”

He replaced the receiver gently. He felt good. Spending money was not that difficult after all. It wasn’t so hard, once you put your mind to it. He did some quick calculations in his mind. He had a couple of hundred thousand pounds in the bank. His life savings. But half of it belonged to Penny. More than half, if he was honest. Penny had worked hard to earn that money. He would pay for the holiday, and give all the rest to Penny. He would beg her to stay, and tell her he would do anything she wanted. He could not bear to be alone again. The money would not keep him company when she was gone. He loved Penny. He was frightened to think how much he had loved her all this time, and not realised it. He hurried back to the little house.

He would give Penny tonight to cool off and he would go round in the morning. He would tell her everything. It was a lifetime too late, but she might still have some feelings for him. She might still forgive him, and give him one more chance.

Chapter 39

M
ILLIE
M
ORTIMER IS IN A
R
AGE

Millie Mortimer came tearing up Mulberry Street as if the hounds of hell were after her. Hurrying along in her wake was her bewildered husband, Jack. He carried his heavy toolbox with him, and he called out to Millie to slow down. He hated Millie meddling like this in other people’s affairs, but it was useless trying to tell her what to do. She was like a whirlwind when she got going. He was grateful, at least, that it wasn’t himself on the receiving end of Millie’s vicious temper. Jack Mortimer would never be stupid enough to have an affair behind Millie’s back.

Millie hammered on the door and when Penny turned the key, she burst into the shop like an explosion. The door nearly fell off its hinges.

“Where is the evil wretch?” she cried, standing in the middle of the floor. “I’ll kill him. Daniel Stanley, get down here and take what’s coming to you. Jack! Bate him up!”

“He’s gone,” said Penny. “I put him out and I told him not to come back. Not ever. He’s gone for good.”

Jack was giddy with relief. He had arm muscles as big as grapefruits. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight.

“You’re right about that,” said Millie. “Jack, get yourself in here.”

Jack was hovering by the door, not wanting to get involved in Penny’s marital problems. Why couldn’t women be less emotional about things, he wondered.

“Get out there to the kitchen and change the locks,” said Millie, “and put two bolts on the back door. And put shutters on all the windows.”

“That’ll cost a lot of money,” he said.

“Oh, men! Never mind about the money. Do you want that waster to break in here tonight and strangle poor Penny in her bed? There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to hang on to this place, I tell you! Get what you need from the hardware shop and tell Mr Cook that Penny will settle up with him in a couple of days.”

Jack took some measurements, and left the building without speaking to Penny. He simply nodded his sympathy to her as he was going out the door. She noticed that he seemed to have lost a fair bit of weight. Millie’s bathroom makeover must have been a success.

Millie made tea and paced up and down the kitchen, smoking furiously.

“I knew it. I knew it all along. I just knew there was something wrong with Mr Daniel-I’m-So-Perfect-Stanley. A bigamist! Well! The nerve of him! You, Penny, on your hands and knees all these years, working your poor fingers to the bone so that he could buy his other wife a house! And she’s not even in it, you say? She’s missing? Well, if that doesn’t prove he’s a headcase, I don’t know what will. I’ll reach for him the next time I see him, as God is my judge. I’ll turn him inside out and feed him to the dogs.”

Penny was too numb to stop Millie ranting.

“You tell all this to a lawyer, Penny. Do you hear me? I’ll be a witness to the fact that you gave that man only love and devotion. Have you got the letter he wrote to his other wife? Keep it safe, now. And don’t even think of letting him keep that money. You, that never had a decent stitch on your back since the day you got married. That penny-pinching slug! You’ll get that money back in court. And if they can’t get it back for you, I will. We have our own way of doing things in this part of the world. Oh, the weasel!”

Jack returned, laden down with locks and bolts and shutters, and got on with the business of turning the tea house into a fortress. It took him two hours.

When Jack and Millie left the shop that night, with a box of cakes and thirty pounds for their trouble, Penny sat in the tea house for a long time. She did not feel alone. It was her shop, and she had taken it back. She would divorce Daniel with as little delay as possible. She didn’t care about the money. She would borrow some money to redecorate the tea house and she would start all over again. Mary Soap, the cleaning lady, would help her, and she could employ some new staff. She would tell Richard all about it the next time she saw him. But tonight, she felt very tired.

There was a bottle of brandy in the cabinet upstairs, a gift from Millie the Christmas before. Penny went upstairs and opened it. She poured a generous amount into a glass, and she sat gazing through the window, at the strings of fairy-lights in the street outside. She was hungry but the very thought of having to prepare a meal for herself was just too much. She telephoned for an Indian takeaway.

Sometime after four o’clock in the morning, full of brandy and curry and tears that would not fall, Penny fell asleep on the sofa.

Chapter 40

T
HE
E
ND OF AN
E
RA

The room was deserted but the lights were still on. There were several wooden crates beside the door. There were jam-jars full of linseed oil and turpentine on the mantelpiece. There was a torn copy of the
Yellow Pages
on the floor and an empty bottle of gin on the coffee-table.