The Tea House on Mulberry Street (22 page)

At ten minutes past eight, a well-dressed man came into the bar and signalled to the barman that he wanted a drink. It was Richard. He smiled at Penny. She smiled back and continued to smile at him. He sat down beside her.

The bar was filling up and the music was turned up just a little.

“Hi,” he said. “You look beautiful. You’ve changed your hair – I almost didn’t recognise you. You look fabulous.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“I’m glad I came out tonight. Even if I don’t make a sale.”

Penny smiled. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” she said. But it was very nice, all the same.

The barman knew Richard well. When Richard went to the Gents at ten o’clock, the barman came over and told Penny to watch it. He told her that Richard was fond of the ladies, and unreliable. He was only after a bit of fun. Penny was delighted. That was just what she wanted, she said. A bit of fun.

She told Richard she was married. She wanted to lay her cards on the table, from the beginning. He didn’t seem to mind. He said he had sensed something in Penny’s voice, on the phone – that she wasn’t only interested in the price of the riverside apartments.

She reminded him that she owned a cafe, and he told her about a cafe he had once sold to a celebrity chef; and the way property prices were increasing in some parts of the city, and going down in other areas. They chatted about the general lack of celebrities living in Belfast; good and bad television programmes; the way the weather could suddenly change when you had gone out without an umbrella; the new types of cars that were becoming popular in the city; holidays they had been on, food they liked and what restaurants gave good value for money. They didn’t mention politics or religion. It was dangerous to talk about those two subjects with a person you had just met. Richard paid for all the drinks, and occasionally he rested his hand on Penny’s arm and she didn’t brush it away.

At eleven o’clock, Penny and Richard left the bar together. Richard had offered to show her his apartment. So that she could see one from the inside. To appreciate the view of the Lagan river. Neither of them commented that it was a bit late in the evening to go viewing apartments.

They hailed a taxi.

It seemed to Penny the most natural thing in the world, to go in through the heavy, front doors of the apartment building with Richard, and skip lightly up the steps to the second floor. He unlocked the door and stood back to let her go in ahead of him. From the lounge, they could see the lights of the Waterfront Hall shining out across the water. The people inside the huge, glass concert hall were talking and laughing and walking up and down the stairs to different levels. It was like a human ant-farm. They stood together, watching it for a while. Richard rubbed Penny’s back gently. Her stomach turned over, not with lust or love, but with nerves.

The apartment was very well co-ordinated, with all the furniture and the decor in matching shades of cream and chocolate. Penny asked him if he’d chosen the furniture himself.

“It was the show-home,” Richard explained. “I bought the furniture along with the flat.”

“Had you nothing of your own when you moved in?”

“Just the hi-fi, and my clothes. Typical bachelor, I’m afraid.”

The words tripped easily from his lips but she thought he said them with a trace of sadness. “Indeed.”

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said. He went in to the tiny, modern kitchen to make coffee. She heard him fiddling with the buttons of an expensive espresso machine, and she stifled an urge to laugh when he scalded himself slightly with the frothy, hot milk. Those machines were difficult to operate unless you used them every day.

Penny thought of Daniel, his lovely face, his ice-blue eyes and the way he danced with her on the night they met. She thought of their wedding day and how much she loved him then, and how much she had been looking forward to going to bed with him in the bridal suite. She stood beside the huge window and gazed down at the water. There were tears in her eyes.

“Kiss me,” she said, when Richard returned from the kitchen, with two glass cups of latte, and a plate of fancy German biscuits on a tray.

He set the tray down on a small table, took off his jacket, tossed it onto the sofa, and crossed the room in a matter of seconds. He brushed her arms gently with his fingertips and Penny closed her eyes. Then, he took her in his arms and kissed her expertly. Richard Allen was not nervous where women were concerned. In fact, he was full of confidence in his lovemaking abilities. It was only when engagement rings were mentioned that he began to get worried.

They kissed for a long time, and the coffee went cold and Penny did not think of Daniel any more.

Chapter 26

T
HE
L
OVERS

Daniel was eerily quiet the next day. Penny bathed and dressed at a leisurely pace and came down the stairs for breakfast, not at eight o’clock in the morning, but at one-thirty in the afternoon. He stared at her new hairstyle, and her newly made-up face, and said she looked lovely, but he asked her nothing else about the previous day. His main feeling seemed to be relief that she had come back at all, Penny thought. He brought her a cup of tea and a scone, as he always did. To her utter amazement, he did not ask her where she had been all night, or why she had come creeping into the tea house at six that morning, just as dawn was breaking.

As the day wore on, she began to believe that he just didn’t know what to say. He had married her for the business. Well, she’d known that for many years now, hadn’t she? At five thirty, she told Daniel she was going away for a couple of days, for a holiday, and that she would be splashing out a bit with the cheque book.

Daniel’s face turned very red, but still he said nothing.

“Aren’t you going to ask me where I’m going?” she asked him.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Daniel, we need to talk. Really talk. Please.”

“I’m going out, myself, actually, for an hour or so,” he said. He locked the door and closed the blinds. Penny could not recall one time in the last seventeen years when he had closed the shop before nine o’clock at night. Even on Christmas Eve, he stayed open to feed the flocks of people walking the streets with tinsel scarves, on their way to and from the celebrations.

“We need to talk, to save our marriage, Daniel. It can’t go on like this.”

“We’ll talk when you come back.”

“We can talk now. I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”

“It’s okay. You go, and have a good rest. You deserve it.”

He went out through the back door, and Penny didn’t try to stop him. She packed a few things in a small bag, locked up the shop and hailed a taxi to take her to Richard’s flat. He was taking her to the countryside for a couple of days. They were going to go for long walks, and have dinner in a gourmet restaurant, and share a bed in a small but expensive hotel. Penny was struck by that thought. She was a married woman, with a lover, but she still had very little sexual experience.

Millie Mortimer was delighted that Penny was having a little break. She said that Penny deserved to enjoy herself, after all her years of slavery in the cafe. She lent her friend a nice, warm coat and a fancy pair of bedroom slippers. Penny didn’t tell Millie about Richard. She only said that she going away for a couple of days to think about her marriage. Which was the truth, after all.

Richard was waiting for her, now. It was too late to undo their plans. Penny sat back in the taxi, clutched her overnight bag, and checked her new hairstyle in the driver’s mirror.

Chapter 27

T
HE
C
RAWLEYS
G
ET A
S
HOCK

Two weeks before the day of the Royal visit, Alice remembered the brooches. They still had to buy new brooches to complete their splendid outfits. They had some money put away, and were discussing whether or not to spend it on new jewellery, when Beatrice suddenly wanted a slice of chocolate gateau.

“Come on,” she said. “Daniel might know of a place that sells nice things that don’t cost too much, if you know what I mean.”

“If anyone does, he does,” agreed Alice. “You lock the back door and I’ll switch off the radio.”

Penny was out, which was very unusual, but Daniel had a great idea when he heard the problem.

“Why don’t you wear some of your late mother’s jewellery?” he said. “Preferably some pieces from the war years. You could show them to the Queen and tell her about them. Something for her to look at besides all those war photographs.”

Beatrice thought of her mother’s trunk in the attic. It was full of old clothes and shoes, and things they could not bear to give away when Mrs Crawley died. She was sure there was a box of costume jewellery in it.

“We’ll fetch it down from the roof-space and have a root through. You never know what we might find,” she said. “Thanks, Daniel.”

Daniel smiled. It was easy helping other people. The Crawleys ate their cake and went home to begin the search.

After much heaving and hauling and cries of “Look out!” the trunk was dragged down the ladder and into Beatrice’s bedroom. The two sisters sat on the bed to rest, and then they opened the ancient leather trunk. It was dusty and covered in cobwebs but inside time had stood still.

Their mother’s things were as clean and bright as they had ever been. There were dresses and coats, and slips and stockings.

“Wasn’t mother such a tiny little thing,” said Alice. “This jacket wouldn’t fit a fly.”

Beatrice found the box and lifted it out. “At least, jewellery fits all sizes. I hope there’s something we can use. Great idea of Daniel’s. ”

There were necklaces and bracelets and earrings, and right at the bottom of the box, two large brooches. One was shaped like a dragonfly, set with turquoise stones; and one was a posy of red tulips and golden leaves. Beatrice held them up to the light from the window. The glass stones glittered and shone.

“I think we’ve found our finishing touches,” said Beatrice. “I’ll have the red and you have the blue. We must show Penny, next time we’re in.”

“What’s that piece of paper in the bottom of the box? There’s a corner of it sticking out.”

Alice reached under the silk lining of the box. She drew out a piece of paper, yellowed with age. She unfolded it and smoothed it out on the bed. It was a birth certificate. William and Eliza Crawley were registered as the parents of twin girls, Beatrice and Alice, born at home, in Belfast, in 1941.

“But that is incorrect,” said Alice. “We were born in 1940. Six months after father went to fight. They must have made a mistake.”

Beatrice did not move. She coughed, nervously.

Mental arithmetic silenced the sisters. They looked at the date on the certificate, and neither one trusted themselves to utter the truth. Once spoken, it could never be taken back. They must have been conceived when William was away fighting in the war. So, that must mean their biological parents were not married. At least, not to one another. Beatrice thought of countless occasions when she had called some of the badly behaved children of Belfast ‘rotten little bastards’. And of how soul-destroying it must be for children to be condemned like that, when they were still trying to make sense of the world.

Alice was thinking of her first day at grammar school, fifty-five years earlier. Some of the other girls were giggling and elbowing each other, when the teacher called out the names on the register. Alice
Crawley
. Beatrice
Crawley
. Did the other girls know, even then? Had they heard their parents gossiping at the tea table?
Well, if that pair weren’t made on the wrong side of the blanket, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!
Some awful, cheap slur like that. Poor Eliza, how did she bear it, all those years? Everyone looking at them, every time they went out of the house. It was because of their different appearance, she knew that now. She had always known it, in her heart.

“We were quite small when we first went to school. Smaller than the others,” said Alice. “Although we soon caught up.”