The Tea House on Mulberry Street (37 page)

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ICOLAS

August 01, 2000

Dear Mrs Stanley,

I hope you can help me. I’m trying to get in touch with an artist called Brenda Brown. I don’t know if she is a personal friend of yours, but she mentioned to me, in her letters, that she often ate in your restaurant. Her home got burned down and I do not know where she lives now. Even her mother doesn’t seem to know where she is. She sent me a bunch of letters at Christmas but she has not written to me for some time.

I would be really grateful if you could ask her to contact me.

I do not usually reply to fan mail, but now that her letters have stopped, I miss them.

I would like to meet Brenda and thank her for the cool painting that she sent me. I’m coming over to Belfast soon, to make a film, and I’d like to arrange a meeting.

Thank you for your help,

Best wishes,

Nicolas Cage.

PS. I’d be real grateful if you could give Brenda this snakeskin jacket. I wore it in a movie once, and she said that she liked it. Tell her it is to say thank you for the painting that she sent me. I’ve had the picture valued and my art dealer says it is real good. He says he would like to arrange to show Brenda’s work in his gallery in Beverly Hills some day. If I can find her.

20 August, 2000

Dear Mr Cage,

I hope you are well. I am sorry to tell you that I have not been able to find Brenda. She was in the shop a few months ago, before the fire, but none of her friends or family members have seen her since. She seems to have disappeared completely. I will take good care of your jacket until she comes back. I hope you find her
.

Best wishes,

Penny Stanley.

29 August, 2000

To: Mr Raymond Moriarty, Director.

The Weather Centre, RTE.

Dublin.

Dear Mr Moriarty,

I enclose the recent rainfall readings for the area. I hope I have filled out the sheets correctly this time. I really love this job, and find the solitude exhilarating. I used to really hate rain, but now I find the whole subject absolutely fascinating. I am reading and walking and enjoying the scenery, so your fears that I would find the location too lonely were unfounded. I never want to leave. This little cottage is more than adequate for my needs and the turf fire is very cosy in the evenings. I am managing very well without electricity or a telephone, and I have mended the back door, which was broken. I am reading by candlelight in the evenings, and have bought myself a bicycle, and a little dog for company. I hope you will find my work satisfactory and offer me the position on a permanent basis, when my period of probation is up. Thank you very much for all your help.

Yours sincerely,

Tatiana Cobalt-Clearwater.

30 August, 2000

Dear Mum,

I hope you are well. I am having a fantastic time here. I feel so healthy and refreshed. My cheeks are pink all the time. The scenery is breathtaking, far nicer than any painting I could ever paint. In fact, I haven’t even made a sketch since I got here and I don’t miss it one bit. The cottage is very cosy and warm when the fire is lit, and don’t worry, I am using a fireguard and I have bought three smoke alarms. My wee dog is the sweetest thing. I’ve called him Nick and he goes everywhere with me and he’s really good. He sleeps in a little basket on the floor beside my bed.

I am really enjoying the work, and I feel like I’m doing something useful, for the first time in my life. I’ve met this nice fella called Sean, who lives a couple of miles away. He works for the government and he’s carrying out research into coastal pollution, and he’s explained to me all about the weather and the environment, and how everything we do affects the future, and it’s fascinating. And how lucky we are in Ireland to have all the water we need. And he’s quite dishy as well. We’re going out for a meal on Saturday night. You never know, we might end up going out together. I think he likes me. He gave me his best anorak to keep me warm while I collect the rainwater data on my bicycle. Wasn’t that lovely of him? I’m so glad I got over that thing I had for Nicolas Cage. At least when I talk to Sean, he talks back to me.

Thanks for not telling anyone where I am, and thanks for dealing with the bank for me. I will send some money to you every month, and you can pay my bills for me when you’re in town. I’m really grateful to you for everything.

Hope you and the girls from the dancing club are getting on well, and that you all enjoyed your trip to Nashville. I won’t ask you if you bought a cowboy hat because I know rightly you did. Take care of yourself and hope to see you soon.

All my love,

Brenda.

PS. Here is a wee watercolour of Connemara I bought for you in a craft shop. It’s for your sitting-room wall. I don’t think I will paint again, myself. Although I have been making picture-frames out of driftwood and things like that.

Mrs Brown held the letter from Brenda up to her face. She closed her eyes and sighed with relief. Brenda had never sounded so happy. At long last, she seemed to have found her niche in life.

Mrs Brown lifted the letter from Nicolas Cage from the hall table and the one from Clare Fitzgerald forwarded by the landlord, and she put them gently in the sitting-room fire. In a few months, they would both have forgotten all about Brenda Brown, and that would be an end to the art career that had almost driven her youngest daughter off the rails. Let her enjoy the peace she’s found, thought Mrs Brown. She deserves it more than anyone.

Chapter 51

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Penny and Daniel were delighted with how well the business was doing. Daniel handed over control of the finances to Penny, and said he would try not to worry about it any more. Penny paid the staff well, and took out more insurance, and bought only the best quality ingredients for the restaurant. She bought some pretty blue gingham tablecloths, to give the tables a cosy French look.

Daniel sold the house on Magnolia Street and accepted that his mother was never coming back. They decided to keep her Welsh dresser to remember her by, and they put it in the cafe and displayed some pretty plates on it. He brought Penny to see his Aunt Kathleen’s grave, and they left a bouquet of flowers on it, and arranged for a headstone to be placed there. Daniel told Penny everything about his mother and her disappearance, and the penny-pinching upbringing by his aunt. Penny held him close to her in the windblown cemetery and they cried together for the lost years.

Daniel found it hard to leave his thrifty ways behind him completely but he was trying hard not to save every last crumb. And as Penny reminded him, even with the increased overheads, they were still doing very nicely. Daniel was forty-eight by now, and Penny was thirty-six, and they knew that spending time together and getting to know each other again was far more important than making money. They went for another holiday in the Lawson Lodge and in December, 2000, Penny discovered that she was pregnant.

Beatrice and Alice continued with the charity work, but they didn’t boast about it any more. They spent most of their spare time planning holidays, and enjoying themselves, instead. Yes, it was important to do good things and live a pure life; but it was also important to enjoy life. They spoke of Leo sometimes, but it was William they still called their ‘Dear Father’.

They wore Eliza’s glass brooches to Sunday service each week, and they felt a kind of secret pride that they had such melodrama in their family history.

Sadie Sponge enjoyed her job at the tea house so much that she gave up eating family-sized bags of tortilla chips, and began to lose weight. She was soon back down to twelve stone, and thought she might even aim for eleven. Maurice and Daisy were in love with their Greek island and sent her a postcard saying they were now going to language classes so that they could learn to be real Greeks instead of just ex-pats. Maurice’s arthritis was practically gone and Daisy had joined a chess club.

Patricia Caldwell had burst into tears, that fateful Christmas morning in 1999, when she opened Arnold’s pile of gifts and discovered that he had given her a bread-maker and a vacuum-cleaner. Did he seriously think she was going to bake her own bread? And she already had a vacuum-cleaner. Arnold pointed out that Patricia had said, many times, that she wanted to be his proper partner, not just his
bit on the side
. Well, now she could be his proper partner, and that involved a lot of cooking and home-making. But that thought just seemed to depress her even more.

Even the black underwear and the set of massage-oils were somehow annoying to Patty-Pat. They were really presents for Arnold himself, she wept. Weren’t they? After all, wouldn’t she be doing most of the massaging? How could he be so selfish? After she had generously allowed him to move in with her, and even keep his hideous mahogany desk in her lovely all-white apartment.

She was still crying when two carloads of Arnold’s relatives landed on her doorstep at lunch-time, expecting a big turkey dinner. They all trooped in, walking muddy slush onto her pristine white carpets, and announced they were starving. As if it was somehow her fault. Patricia was starving herself, as she had missed her Christmas Eve dinner in a fancy restaurant, thanks to Sadie Sponge turning up at the flat and taking nude photographs of her.

She had to give Arnold’s greedy relations microwave dinners from the freezer, and they didn’t mind telling her they were very disappointed, as Sadie had told them all that Patricia was a proper whizz in the kitchen. They were so disappointed, in fact, that they drank Arnold’s entire crate of champagne from Walley Windows and Conservatories of Distinction, to console themselves. They got very drunk, and made some derogatory remarks about Patricia’s virtue.

Patricia had asked them all to leave, and Arnold had asked them to stay, and so they had stayed and eaten everything in the flat, like a plague of locusts. An entire Christmas cake, several boxes of nuts and chocolates, and all the cheese and biscuits. Arnold and Patricia ended up having a blazing row in the bedroom, and missed the
EastEnders Christmas Special
.

EastEnders
was Patricia’s favourite programme. And after that, their relationship was in the water, and sinking fast. A few weeks later, Patricia broke down and rang Jason Maxwell and he came straight round in his Rolls Royce and Arnold was politely asked to leave.

He spent a few weeks sleeping in his office, phoning Patricia constantly. She refused to return his calls, telling him firmly that she had met someone else – a man who wasn’t married, and who didn’t buy her bread-makers and vacuum-cleaners for Christmas. Jason Maxwell knew how to treat a lady. Eventually, she changed her number altogether.

Arnold decided to move to the other side of the country and he set up a little double-glazing business in Enniskillen town. He decided to let Sadie keep the bungalow in Carryduff. He felt, in his heart of hearts, that she had earned it, and anyway he was very taken with the Fermanagh countryside. He bought a derelict pig-shed beside the lake and turned it into a dream bachelor-pad, with a lovely hexagon-shaped conservatory at the back, looking right onto the water. The local people were very friendly, and there was more rain there than there was in Belfast. The demand for new windows was high and Arnold was soon back to his old self. He had great fun flirting with the women of Fermanagh, and he became a familiar figure about the town of Enniskillen, with his blue Jaguar, his collection of designer suits and his award for Salesperson of the Year.

Aurora Blackstaff and David Cropper became an item and a regular fixture on the Belfast theatre scene. The Brontë Bunch became an international model for literary societies, and Aurora lost count of its imitators. Sometimes, when they were sure that they wouldn’t be interrupted, Aurora and David dressed up in their Victorian costumes and waltzed round and round the conservatory. Afterwards, David would carry Aurora up the stairs to the master bedroom, and ravish her with her petticoats still on.