The Tea House on Mulberry Street (27 page)

Brenda Brown often said she would give anything for one tender kiss with Nicolas Cage, and die happy afterwards. Penny didn’t feel like that about Richard. Maybe the kind of love she wanted only existed on the silver screen.

Sometimes Penny stayed the night at Richard’s place and sometimes she went home in a taxi, at midnight. She told lies to Daniel. It was the only way she could think of to lessen the hurt she was causing him. He had his suspicions, of course, but he couldn’t prove anything.

The taxi-drivers knew Penny and they assumed she was having an affair. But she was a nice reliable customer and she always gave a good tip. They asked no questions on the trips back and forth to the expensive apartments beside the river.

“Does your husband never wonder where you are?” Richard asked her, after they had been seeing each other for eight weeks.

“If he does, he never shows it.”

“Really? He doesn’t ask at all?”

“No. We rarely speak to each other these days. We’re more like business partners, to tell you the truth. I take what I need from our joint account and I just tell him I’m going out.”

“And he lets you spend the money?”

“He doesn’t like it. But he doesn’t stop me.”

“Are you going to leave him?” Richard was nervous.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. But don’t worry, darling. I’m not going to turn up on your doorstep with all my belongings in a bin-bag.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did. And I don’t blame you one bit. You’ve got a great set-up here, and the last thing you want is some hysterical housewife bringing her whole life in on top of you.” She touched his hand affectionately. They were eating a salmon pie from the supermarket, at a little bistro table in the dining-room.

“I’m not ready for a serious grown-up relationship, that’s all.”

“I’m here tonight because I love spending time with you, and talking to you, and going out for nice meals with you. I’m not trying to move in here, or manoeuvre you into a position where you’re afraid to finish with me.” She poured another glass of wine for them. “It will end between us, no doubt, when the time is right.”

“You’re a special woman, Penny,” said Richard, who had never known a female to be so calm and self-possessed.

“That’s certainly true,” said Penny with a smile.

“What does your husband do when you go out?”

“He works in the shop. He tries out new recipes…” Penny didn’t want to think about Daniel. She wanted to enjoy these lovely evenings with Richard. She planned to bring them to an end, soon. Richard was great fun to be with, but the feelings that Penny wanted to experience, the feelings that Brenda talked about, were not there. She thought she had felt it, the night she met Daniel, and look how that turned out.

“What did you say was the name of your business?” Richard was thoughtful.

“Muldoon’s Tea Rooms.”

“On Mulberry Street?” He had stopped eating and was scratching his head now.

“Yes. That’s it.”

“How long have you and him been living there?”

“Seventeen years. But, Richard, I don’t want to talk about –”

“Wait. This is so odd. I think I sold him a house.”

“You must be mistaken,” said Penny casually. “We live above the shop. Always have.”

“No. I am quite certain. Years and years ago, it was. Fourteen, fifteen? I sold him a little house on Magnolia Street. Wait now… Was it definitely Magnolia Street?”

“Well, it can’t have been him,” said Penny, taking another delicious forkful of salmon pie.

“It
was
him,” said Richard.

“Oh, come on, Richard! In any case, how can you possibly recall a sale that far back?”

“I remember, Penny, because he paid me in
cash
. Well over the asking price, too. Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have put the sale through without checking him out legally. But I was a bit short of money at the time. Very determined, he was, to have the place.”

Penny suddenly put her fork down, a strange feeling sweeping over her. She got up and walked over to the large window, where she could look down and see the lights shining on the river.

“Magnolia Street isn’t that far away from where we live now. You don’t happen to know the address of this house, do you?” she said, quietly.

“I can check the house number from my records. I’ve kept all my work diaries. They’re right here in the apartment. It was a real dump, as I recall. Hadn’t been renovated since the year dot. He could have got a new-build in the suburbs for the money he was spending. I did try to tell him…”

He went to his desk, to find the right diary. Penny sat down on the leather armchair and drained her glass of wine. If she found out that Daniel owned a house on Magnolia Street, after he wouldn’t even consider a new fitted kitchen for the cafe, then she really would leave him. She’d throw him out of the tea house, and phone the builders the very same day. Suddenly she was possessed by rage. It seethed like a boiling cauldron.

“Here it is,” said Richard, in a triumphant voice. “I never forget an easy sale.”

Chapter 35

S
ADIE
C
ANCELS
C
HRISTMAS

Sadie left the bungalow every morning, regular as clockwork. She had a track suit and sneakers in her basket. But she never went near the gym. She considered gyms to be dirty and uncomfortable places, full of stale air and aggressive people. She caught the bus into the city and wandered round the shops, treating herself to little things. New wool gloves, or a romantic paperback, or fancy packets of upmarket crisps. At lunch-time, she went to the tea house on Mulberry Street and ordered lunch. She sat, all by herself, at her usual table and enjoyed the delicious food with a clear conscience. Daniel had introduced a turkey-and-stuffing toasted sandwich for the run-up to Christmas, which was proving very popular. So was his Christmas Platter, which consisted of a mince pie, a slice of iced fruit cake and a large cup of coffee with fresh cream on the top.

Sadie went browsing in every shop in the city that sold candlesticks until she found Patricia. Arnold’s wicked temptress was serving customers at the counter, with a scowl on her painted face. They must be short-staffed, thought Sadie. She watched Patricia scolding a terrified young assistant who had stuck the wrong prices on a batch of pottery chickens. Sadie took a deep breath, put on a pair of sunglasses, picked up a glass bowl and went to stand in the queue.

“£39.99,” said Patricia, rudely. Not so much as a ‘please’.

“It’s a lovely bowl,” said Sadie.

“Indeed,” said Patricia.

“It’s the very thing I was looking for,” said Sadie.

Patricia thrust the bowl into a carrier-bag and held out her hand for the money.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. But would you mind wrapping it up in tissue paper? I’m afraid I might break it on the bus.” Sadie smiled apologetically.

“Right,” said Patricia, and she took the bag back, with a sigh.

“Thank you very much,” said Sadie. “I’m having a big party this Christmas, you see. Can you believe it’s November already? All my husband’s family are coming for the day. And I want the house to look just perfect. I’m going to fill the bowl with scented pine cones, and set it on the coffee-table. I just love Christmas, don’t you?”

Patricia seemed very irritated by this question. Her red lips disappeared into a thin line.

On the day that Maurice and Daisy were due to fly into Belfast Airport, Arnold took the day off work, and polished the car until it shone. He would pick them up at six o’clock in the evening. He hoped their gallivanting days would now be over.

“The sooner those two come home, and everything returns to normal in this house, the better,” he said, as he rubbed and rubbed the bonnet with a chamois.

“I think you’d better come inside, dear,” said Sadie, from the front porch. “Your father wants to speak to you on the telephone.”

Arnold’s face was a tonic when he heard the news. A proper tonic. Maurice and Daisy had spent their life savings, leasing a small apartment on the island. It was some deal they had cooked up with a local businessman, but it was all legal and above-board, Maurice assured his son. Arnold would live there with Daisy, for the ‘duration’ (as Maurice liked to refer to their natural life-span) and then the apartment could return to this local man. Of course, it was money they could never get back, but it was the only way they could get the splendid apartment with sea views on three sides. They couldn’t afford it, outright. Not to worry, they still had the proceeds of the sale of their old home to live on. Thank God, they hadn’t touched that money when they moved in with Arnold and Sadie, five years ago.

They could live very cheaply there, Maurice said. The food cost next to nothing. They had cashed in the policy on their life insurance, too. They had gone to the market on a shopping spree and bought lots of summer clothes. They had made some new friends, not just British and Irish ex-pats, but local people too. They were all getting on like a house on fire, not a bit of racial tension. They were not coming back to Belfast. Not ever.

Arnold had to kneel down on the hall carpet: not to beg Sadie to forgive him for his affair with Patricia Caldwell, but to get his breathing to return to normal. His inheritance faded away along with the colour in his cheeks.

“A lease! They’re spending their money on a lease! They’re going to die as paupers. This is all your fault!” he shouted, as Sadie set the table for supper. “You sent them on the blasted holiday in the first place. I can’t believe this is happening.”

“What about their life insurance?”

“They’ve cashed in the policy, for extra spending money!”

“Oh, isn’t Maurice clever?” said Sadie. And she meant it. She knew that Daisy and Maurice could look after themselves, perfectly well, given half a chance. “Of course, Maurice was a very successful accountant, before he retired.”

“Holy cow! I was going to retire on that money.” The full realisation hit Arnold, like a ton of bricks. A small fortune of a windfall, gone – on a whim of his dotty father. The lovely things Arnold could have spent that money on… Classy hotels abroad, with staff who knew how to treat guests with respect. Visions of Patricia, lying on various beaches around the world, in various bikinis. Maybe even other women.
Really
beautiful women. Eating out, in all the best places, rubbing shoulders with celebrities… he’d wear a cravat. Sadie Sponge’s voice reared up through his daydream like the Loch Ness Monster.

“I think it’s a lovely idea,” she soothed. “Isn’t it great they still have so much life in them? I shall miss them both dreadfully.”

“Don’t tell bare-faced lies! You hated the pair of them.”

“I did not. They were a sweet old couple!”

“They kept you on the go all day. You never got to sit down,” he ranted.

“Not at all. I was happy to help,” she said, innocently. But it was a kind of victory, getting him to admit it like that.

“Well, I’m not blinking-well standing for this! I’ll have them both sectioned under the Mental Health Act, and brought home, and their assets frozen. Hell’s bells! What’s the phone number of their doctor?”

“Arnold, dear. They are competent adults and they can do what they like. That’s why they went to Greece in the first place, because their assets
were
frozen.” She began to giggle. “And will you please stop swearing and calm down.”

“I won’t calm down!”

“You want to watch your blood pressure, at your age. You’ll work your way up into a heart attack. You’ve been looking dreadful, lately. You’re as pale as death. I hope you don’t mind me saying so.” She got up and patted him on the head.

“But – the money! The
money
they’ve spent. Wasted on a
lease
. I can’t bear to think of it… I wonder if there’s a get-out clause. I’m going to fly out there – today.”

“Well, I don’t think you should bother, my dear. After all, you don’t want people to think you’re a gold-digging parasite of a son, just waiting on them to die… Do you?”

But Arnold did not trust himself to say any more.

Patricia was not as passionate as she had been in the beginning of their relationship. She had forgiven him for ruining their Paris trip, she said, but her desire for him was on the wane. Arnold’s magazines had made her feel cheap and tawdry, not the glamorous and sultry mistress she once thought she was. She stopped wearing her lacy thongs and suspenders, and threw her PVC blindfold in the bin.

And then, there was this calamity of Arnold’s nest egg disappearing on a lease, in Greece. He went on and on about it. Life savings, life insurance policy, house-sale money, all gone. All neatly tied up forever. Apparently, the Greeks had very good lawyers; they weren’t all just waiters and shepherds, after all. It was very boring to listen to. And Patricia didn’t want to hear about it. She’d had a lot of plans for The Bitter Lemon Fund, as she liked to call it.

She began making excuses not to see him: a headache, a family occasion, a conference on time-management.

A little voice in the back of Arnold’s mind told him that Patricia was going off him because his inheritance was slowly seeping into the Greek economy, but he refused to believe it.