by Sharon Owens
PENGUIN BOOKS
The Tavern on Maple Street
Praise for Sharon Owens:
‘Sharon Owens is an original and insightful new voice in Irish literature’
Sheila O'Flanagan
‘It made me refuse nights out in favour of curling up on the couch… dreaming of the mouth-watering delights the book so vividly describes’
Cecelia Ahern
‘Joanna Trollope meets Maeve Binchy… gives you a warm glow like a nice cup of tea’
Irish Independent
‘[A] heart-warming romantic novel in the spirit of Maeve Binchy’
Woman's Own
‘A top read for snuggling up with on a chilly Sunday afternoon’
Family Circle
‘A life-enhancing tale’
Woman & Home
‘By the time I finished this book, I felt rather disappointed that I couldn't step into The Tea House on Mulberry Street with its engaging, human characters and mouth-watering recipes. Sharon Owens has a talent for drawing the reader into her world. A book as warm and comforting as a really good afternoon tea’
Jo Jo Moyes
‘By entwining romance with food, Owens does for cakes and coffee what Joanna Harris did for chocolate’
Big Issue
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Owens was born in Omagh in 1968. She moved to Belfast in 1988, to study illustration at the Art College. She married husband Dermot in 1992 and they have one daughter, Alice. The Tavern on Maple Street is her third novel, following The Tea House on Mulberry Street and The Ballroom on Magnolia Street, both of which are published by Penguin.
The Tavern on
Maple Street
SHARON OWENS
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
Published by Penguin Books 2006
2
Copyright © Sharon Owens, 2006
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-192124-2
For Dermot
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to everyone at Poolbeg, especially Paula Campbell and Gaye Shortland. And to all the team at Penguin, including Aimee Taub, Clare Forster and Clare Ledingham: thank you for everything. To my agents Ros Edwards and Helenka Fuglewicz and to all the lovely people in the media around the world who have supported me: a major thank you.
And finally, my family and friends, especially my husband Dermot and daughter Alice, I love you both. And to all the readers who bought my first two books and sent me such lovely letters: a sincere thank you. I hope you enjoy this story.
1. The Tavern
The original name of the tavern on Maple Street had been lost to memory for many years. It was simply called Beaumont's Tavern. The owners were Jack Beaumont and his hauntingly beautiful wife, Lily, and they had lived there happily for all their adult lives.
The tavern was situated right in the heart of the city of Belfast, down at the end of a narrow, cobbled alley off Royal Avenue. This particular alley was closed to traffic because it was a dead end and there was not enough room to turn even a small car around. The buildings on either side were four storeys high and all the windows were caked in speckled black and grey dust. But that didn't matter because they were only the sides of big department stores anyway. Nothing much for the shoppers to see except the backs of clothes rails within and rows of large metal bins without.
There were no trees of any kind on Maple Street. It was far too dark and shadowy for anything but weeds to have a chance of growing. Few people ever paused to wonder why a street would be named after a maple tree when there were none at all in evidence. And if they did, they declared it a mystery.
The tavern was a small bar by city centre standards. It was long and rectangular in shape, with a row of eight mahogany booths down the right-hand side, the bar counter all along the left, and a cluster of small round tables and chairs in the middle. It was popular with students, and retired gentlemen with time on their hands. This was due mainly to the bar prices, which were the lowest in the city. And also because Jack and Lily didn't mind if some customers sat on the ladder-back chairs all day long, idling over a couple of pints of stout. The low ceilings and broad wooden beams overhead suggested that the bar had been built two centuries earlier. And it was true: a weather-beaten carving above the door said 1804, but the founder's name was now impossible to decipher. The thick stone walls, and heavy brocade curtains on the little amber-coloured windows, kept the noise of the traffic outside on Royal Avenue. Rush hour would come and go without a single car horn being heard inside the tavern's smoky depths.
There was a solid grandfather clock with a cracked yellow face, standing just inside the entrance, by the coat racks. It hadn't worked for years and that was the way people liked it. Time literally stood still in Beaumont's. There was no sense of urgency there. It was a quiet place, untouched by the modern world.
Lily Beaumont poured a glass of golden brandy and a cup of fresh orange juice over the small mountain of dried fruit in the saucepan. She set the cast-iron pan carefully on top of the old Victorian stove. Within minutes, the little kitchen was filled with the heady aroma of boiling alcohol. She dropped a sticky handful of chopped figs and dates into the mixture and gave it a thoughtful stir with a wooden spoon that was worn down to a flat edge after many years of faithful service. She smiled a gentle smile and sighed happily. Only six weeks to go until Christmas. The countdown to the big day had finally arrived. When it was time to bake the cake, Lily really felt that something magical was about to happen. Just a silly childish notion, she knew. But there was a sense of mystery in the dark afternoons and the chilly air, a hint of Santa Claus and wonderful surprises to come. And she remembered that long-ago Christmas when her husband had inherited the tavern, just when their circumstances were looking so bleak.
Jack was out of work then, and feeling very shaken after his close shave with a no-warning explosion. Lily had dropped out of college, and was so poor she couldn't even afford a new winter coat. They were desperate to rent a little place of their own so they could live together like a real couple. The passion between them had ignited like a forest fire, despite its unlikely beginnings. They'd met in the lunchtime queue for cut-price groceries at a market stall on Royal Avenue in the spring
of 1984, and by teatime they were kissing passionately on a wrought-iron bench beside the River Lagan. She thought she would die of frustration if they didn't sleep together, but they both still lived at home with their parents and there was never a moment when either house was empty of younger brothers and sisters, and neighbours calling in for a cup of tea and a gossip.
When they had known each other for six weeks, Lily knew that Jack was the man she wanted to marry. Her cheeks were red and flushed with all their romancing in the open air. She missed so many classes to be with Jack (she told him her classes had been cut) that she was suspended from her college course, and never went back to finish her degree. Her parents stopped speaking to her for months, over all the fuss and upheaval of dropping out. She could still remember her father's final words on the subject and what he had called Jack.
‘The government gave free schooling to your generation. And what did you do with it, madam? You threw it back in their faces, to mess about with a jobless waster. What's wrong with him anyway? He's too quiet by half. There's no chat in him at all. I'm ashamed of you both, and that's the truth.’
It was a cruel thing to say when every other young man in the city was also out of work in those days. The big factories were all closing down. It was the era of Thatcherism, and profit before community. She had never forgiven her father for his lack of generosity towards Jack. It wasn't Jack's fault she had left college, and he had tried hard to convince her to go back, but Lily said she was going to look for work instead, and that painting and drawing full-time was a luxury she couldn't afford any more. She got a few shifts cleaning in a nursing home for the terminally ill, but soon left that place to work in a shirt factory. Jack got a temporary stint on the bins. Both jobs made them miserable. They rented a basement room together, with damp running down the walls and a family of rats in the garden. It wasn't the most romantic of places to set up home. And it certainly wasn't a suitable setting for Lily and Jack to begin exploring one another's bodies. They decided to wait a little bit longer, and they slept side by side on the lumpy bed each night, wearing warm cardigans over their pyjamas.
And then, all their prayers were answered at once when kindly bachelor Ernest Pottinger went peacefully to his eternal reward, and left his beloved pub to his favourite sister's eldest grandson, Jack. There was terrific jealousy on all sides when the will was read out two days after the funeral by the family solicitor, but Jack moved into the pub right away and took Lily with him. They declined to answer the door to well-wishers hoping for a night of free drinks, and they refused to hand out jobs to all their unemployed cousins and acquaintances. It was hard, but they knew they would go bankrupt if they ran the pub in a sentimental way. There simply wasn't enough trade to support an entourage, and the frostiness between Lily and Jack and their many relations only deepened further.
When they suddenly ran away to Scotland, to get married without a grand wedding reception, the final nail was hammered into the coffin. The family members on both sides said, ‘What else would you expect, from a grey-haired bin-man and a college drop-out?’ And they never spoke to Lily and Jack again.
But Lily and Jack didn't care. They were so in love that the rest of the world had ceased to exist for them. They saw each other in brilliant colour, and everyone else in black and white. When they finally made love for the first time, on the huge brass bed that came with the tavern, Lily was glad they had waited. They were perfect together. As a lover, Jack was nothing like his usual quiet and reserved self. Lily was amazed by her new husband's passion in the bedroom. He was tender, strong, erotic, gentle, romantic, generous. He was everything that lonely or unhappy women everywhere dream about. He kept his arms around her afterwards, and slept with his nose buried in the back of her neck, smelling her perfume and breathing warm air onto her bare shoulders.
Of course, being a sensitive woman, Lily's happiness was tinged with fear that something might happen to split them up. Secretly, Jack felt the same way. And so the tavern became like a refuge for them, where they could hide themselves away from Belfast and the world. They decided not to hire staff or try to increase trade in any way. As soon as they became successful, the paramilitaries would come looking for a share of it, they decided. So they kept a low profile, and life went on.
The young couple spent Christmas Eve of that first year cleaning and polishing their new home, and celebrating their good fortune by decorating a small Christmas tree in the sitting room. Lily made some angels out of silver card and gold paper, and Jack found a Christmas star in the attic. With their first week's profits, Jack bought Lily a beautiful wool coat, and she still wore it when the weather was freezing.
Winter was a lucky time of the year for Lily and Jack.
Lily moved the pan of steaming fruit to the draining board to infuse for a few minutes, and dropped a soft stick of unsalted butter into a large ceramic mixing bowl. The dark brown sugar and sieved plain flour were all ready in their little glass bowls, as was the tiny measure of Christmas spice and the four large eggs. It was great fun, setting all the ingredients out like this beforehand, she thought. She could almost pretend she was cooking on a television programme. The noisy hand-whisk made short work of the mixing and then she stirred in the brandy-soaked fruit. All too soon it was time to spoon the glossy weight of the cake ingredients into a greased and lined baking tin. She made a wish as she opened the door of the oven with a thick towel and slid the heavy tin onto the hot shelf. The smell of melting butter was delicious. She could hardly wait until Christmas Eve, when she was going to ice the cake and try out a new design of peaked white icing and oven-dried oranges. She even had a length of orange organza ribbon, ready for tying around the edge.
The Christmas cake was a central part of the holiday festivities for the Beaumonts. Jack and Lily always walked hand in hand to Midnight Mass and lit a candle for Ernest, before sleeping late on Christmas morning. When they awoke, they would drink two huge mugs of tea and eat a generous slice of cake each for breakfast. After that, they would exchange gifts and watch videos of old movies, snuggled under the blankets until the turkey was ready. It's A Wonderful Life with James Stewart, for starters. Halfway through Miracle On 34th Street, Lily would nip out of bed to place a dish of vegetables into the oven to roast. If there was time they might watch a modern film too. Something funny, like Trapped in Paradise. Or they would make love, slowly and tenderly, luxuriating in the stillness and peacefulness of the day. Then, and only then, would they ease themselves out of bed and get dressed. It was usually after five in the evening by the time they sat at the little pine table in the warm kitchen for their festive feast. It was Lily's favourite moment of the entire year. They would drink sparkling white wine, take photographs of each other and dance around the apartment to the Christmas edition of Top of the Pops.
‘I wish that Jack and I can stay in our cosy little home for ever,’ Lily whispered softly as she took a last look at the uncooked cake. Then she closed the door with its familiar echoing rattle and began to tidy up.
Downstairs, behind the bar, Jack had heard the whirr of the whisk, and he felt a warm glow of pleasure. When Lily was baking her cakes, all seemed well with the world. Lily worked as a freelance illustrator occasionally, designing whimsical Christmas cards on the kitchen table with her big box of pastel chalks. And then posting the artwork off to Germany to be printed and sold by an avant-garde design company there. The pay was good enough for all the time it took her, but the best thing about running the tavern was that the two of them could be together all the time. Lily served in the bar alongside her husband, helping with the sandwiches and the lunchtime pints, and chatting to the regulars. The couple had not been blessed with children, and they had few very close friends, but they didn't mind about any of that. In fact, they preferred it that way. They lived for each other. Not a single day had gone by in their twenty-year marriage, when Jack and Lily hadn't said ‘I love you’ to one another. And they'd meant it sincerely, every time.
J
ack was only thirty-nine but his hair had been pure grey since the age of nineteen, when it lost its rich black colour overnight. Nobody knew why this had happened. Some people said it was because he was standing up against a dry-stone wall in December 1984, when a huge bomb exploded on the other side, and the shock made all the colour in his crowning glory fade away.
He'd been waiting for a bus and the blast made him fall into the road but he wasn't even scratched. He was partially deaf for a month afterwards but, apart from that, he was fine. Stress counselling hadn't been invented in those days, and the police told him how lucky he was, and to take himself straight home and forget all about it. Lily almost died of shock herself when she heard the bomb go off, because she knew her beloved Jack was in the affected area. She came running into the town to find him, and in the middle of the dust and panic they vowed to let nothing come between them ever again. That was the moment when Jack decided to ask Lily to marry him, even though they had been dating for only eight months, and they were both very young and living in a rented room. But Jack's miraculous escape from such a terrible incident convinced them both that they were destined to be together, and there was no point in embarking on a long engagement.
Not many women can boast that they received a proposal of marriage beside a bomb crater, and Lily said yes straight away.
But, anyway, Jack's hair was grey from that day onwards, and in a city where nicknames were commonplace, it was inevitable that he would go by the title of Badger Beaumont. Of course, Lily never called him Badger, but everyone else did. It would be a good name for a pub landlord, they said, and, by a strange twist of fate, Jack inherited the tavern a couple of weeks later.
Nowadays Jack kept his head shaved to disguise a receding hairline so the nickname was barely relevant, but it persisted among the city centre neighbourhoods and among the licensing trade in general. Despite his grey hair Jack was considered a handsome man. He was tall and well built, with serious-looking eyes so dark brown, and skin so naturally tanned, he could easily pass for an Italian. He had wide Slavic cheekbones and long black eyelashes. He had a neat square chin, and he wore denim shirts and faded blue jeans seven days a week. His eyes were usually half closed against the smoke from the fire and the smoke from the cigarettes and pipes of the drinkers, and this made him look older than his actual age. But still he was very good-looking. He wasn't a larger-than-life or even an interesting character, the sort of jovial landlord who could tell outrageous jokes and outlandish stories, or sing cheery songs at Christmas time. He was the original quiet man. He kept himself to himself, as the locals put it. And that was the exact reason why Lily loved him so much. She found his introverted nature very erotic and mysterious. He never raised his voice to her, and she knew things about him that nobody else knew. And because he was devoted to her, she didn't have to share him with a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.