Daniel stood there, for a moment, completely speechless. The old Penny had gone away in the night, it seemed, and the new Penny was not afraid of standing up to him any more. It was already a quarter to seven, and there was nothing in the oven, a pile of dishes from last night to wash, the whole place to clean…
“Have you gone on strike?” he asked.
“Yes, I bloody have.”
“But you can’t, Penny. It’s your own shop…”
“Aha!”
“This doesn’t make any sense –”
“And another thing, you can sleep in the spare room from now on. There’s no point in you lying in here, reading cookery books half the night, keeping me awake!”
Daniel went out and closed the door quietly, as if someone had died in the house. Penny waited for him to explode; to shout at her, strike her, even. She imagined a passionate struggle on the stairs as he tried to drag her down to clean the cafe, an erotic tangle of limbs in the dark hallway. But he went downstairs quietly and started the baking on his own. She listened for the early-morning sounds of the equipment starting up, the milk bottles being brought in. She could hardly believe what she had done.
When she heard the lonesome scrape of the mop bucket in the yard, she almost ran down the stairs to help him, but then she thought of Jack and Millie Mortimer. If someone had told her, on her wedding day, that she would ever be jealous of the love life of that pair, she’d have laughed until her face ached. No, she was going to get her own way or die in the attempt. She closed her eyes. Her whole life had taken on a fragile quality. Every moment was stretched and full of tension.
But even though she was a nervous wreck, she knew she would not change her mind. Daniel was not used to her doing things on her own initiative, that was all. He would get used to it, he would have to, she fumed. She would say how tired she was, over and over, every time he asked her to do anything. He would have to leave his precious cakes and roll up his sleeves and do the donkey-work himself. She was not giving in this time. She would make life so difficult for him, he would be a broken man in a couple of months. All she had to do was stay calm, and keep gently pushing her husband round to her way of thinking. Gradually, very gradually. That was the way to do it. The balance of power was shifting, slowly but surely, to Penny’s side.
That afternoon, a wealthy-looking woman came into the cafe and approached Penny to ask if a magazine had been handed in. An interiors magazine, it was, with a picture of an antique armoire on the front, she explained, with real worry in her big grey eyes. Penny was startled by the woman’s beauty, and only half-listened to the details of her question. Her make-up was perfectly applied, smoky eye-shadow tapering into a neat point beneath exquisitely waxed eyebrows. Penny noticed little things like that, and she just knew it was the expensive make-up that came in fancy packaging, from big department stores. The waft of designer perfume was almost overpowering. Some feminine instinct in Penny made her glance around the cafe to make sure Daniel was not in the room.
The woman was dressed in layers of plum velvet: a floor-length coat with beading on the hem, a large, floppy hat and an embroidered scarf.
“So, did you find it, I wonder?”
Penny had, of course but she didn’t want to give it back.
It was very precious to her, the woman explained, that particular edition. It was the only copy she had of the first magazine she had edited single-handedly. Ten years old, it was. Penny hadn’t even noticed the date on the cover.
“Is that a fact?” she said. She wanted to keep the luxurious magazine. “I can’t say I’ve found an old magazine.”
“Oh, it doesn’t look out-of-date. That’s because the rooms featured have a timeless beauty,” said the woman, tucking a stray strand of hair behind one of her small, perfect ears. “Oh, it must be here! A nice-looking man served me. Maybe he has it? Maybe I should speak to him?”
Well, Penny wasn’t having that.
“Wait a minute.” Penny made a half-hearted show of looking under the counter. “Oh, here it is…” She reluctantly handed it over. She knew when she was beaten.
“Oh, thank you so much! I’m always losing things,” said the woman, and she ordered a cup of herbal tea.
Penny watched her from the kitchen, wondering if Daniel had found her attractive. He hadn’t mentioned anything about her.
Very well-dressed, she was. Much wealthier-looking than the regular clientele in Muldoon’s. And she had a strange accent that was a mixture of Belfast and New York. Well, she was in the publishing business, after all, thought Penny. Jet-setting around the globe, living here and there, staying in fabulous hotels like the one with the red sitting-room. She wondered what the woman was doing in her back-street cafe. Hopefully not writing a feature on Belfast eateries.
Penny and Daniel did not speak to each other for a week. When they did communicate, it was only to confirm orders in the shop.
Daniel slaved for a month, doing most of the work himself. Then, he gave in and hired a cleaner in the middle of February. She was called Mary Little, but she told him her friends called her Mary Soap. She came in every day at one o’clock and had the whole place spotless in less than an hour. Penny was amazed by her efficiency and the way she mopped the floor with strong, rhythmic stokes, never going over the same bit twice. And it looked much cleaner than it ever did when Penny cleaned it. The tiredness began to leave Penny’s face and she began to smile again, and look forward to Mary arriving each day. She paid Mary out of the cash register, and tried not to notice the hurt in her husband’s eyes.
Mary knew that something was not right with the Stanley marriage, but she was not in the counselling business. She was only paid to clean the shop, and that’s what she did. She knew the stories that went about the hotel trade, about Daniel Stanley and his peculiar ways. They said he was reared by a mad aunt who wore the same coat for fifty years; and that he wasn’t the full shilling himself.
But Mary wasn’t the sort of woman to carry gossip.
Chapter 8
BRENDA HAS AN EXHIBITION
Brenda Brown was in great spirits. Her pale face was shining with hope when she came into Muldoon’s at five o’clock, for a cheese and pickle toasted sandwich, tortilla chips and a large cola with ice and lemon. She wrote a letter with her gold pen, as she ate.
28 February, 1999.
Dear Nicolas Cage,
Did you get my last letter?
I’m still waiting on a signed photo. I have a little silver frame, all ready for it.
Did I tell you? I’m a painter, and I’m holding an exhibition of my most recent paintings in a local gallery. Myself and a few other graduates have rented the gallery between us, for a fortnight, and we are each exhibiting five pieces. There were endless discussions about who would hang what, where. Everybody wanted the big wall opposite the window. Tom Reilly-Dunseith got it, in the end. He said he had to have that space, as the light coming in from the outside was an essential part of his sculptural forms. Pretentious old fish, that he is. Basically, he makes big question marks out of car-exhausts.
The rest of them are in the gallery now, fussing and fretting with their cans of white emulsion. There was a hole in the stretch of wall that I got, but I patched it up with masking tape and paint.
I enclose a postcard of one of my paintings, called Waiting For The Cortège. It’s about the funeral of a teenage boy who died during a riot. Tom Reilly-Dunseith said it was, and I quote: “Boring, unimaginative and passé.”
I told him he was only welding pieces of junk together, and trying to pass it off as modern art, because he can’t actually draw very well. In fact, he failed his life drawing unit in second year, but I wouldn’t embarrass him by telling people that.
Do you like the painting? You see, the crowd is full of pretty girls who fancied him. (The dead boy.) It’s about all the things he could have done, and experienced, if he’d lived in another time and place. It’s a comment on the futility of violence.
I�
�m thinking of changing my name to something more mysterious than Brenda Brown. Something Irish that reminds a person of old money and a pioneering spirit.
Maybe Aoife Fitzgerald-Conway?
Maybe Geraldine Murphy-Maguire.
Maybe I’m being daft.
We’ll be having a few jars later, at my place, before the off – I mean, we’ll be having a few drinks at my apartment, before the exhibition begins.
I’ll probably wear my black trouser suit and white shirt, as usual, and slick my hair back with gel. Androgynous and timeless. Lots of dark eye-shadow, nothing on the lips. I’m not the sexy type. But I have a kind of spiritual beauty, I like to think. Something above and beyond the merely physical. (I hope.)
Anyway, must dash. Wish me luck,
Yours sincerely,
Brenda Brown.
PS. I am a genuine fan. Please send me a signed photo.
Brenda savoured every bite of her toasted sandwich and tortilla chips. She decided to spend some of her meagre budget on a bottle of gin, some tonic water, and a bag of ice-cubes at the off-licence, before going home to change into her good suit. She would need a couple of drinks to steady her nerves before the show.
She made a mental note to hide the gin before the other artists turned up. Penniless, the lot of them. They would have all the gin down their throats in a heartbeat. Some cheap lager, she would buy, to offer round. They weren’t real friends, Brenda reasoned. They were just gathering at her flat because it was close to the gallery. In fact, she would have to hide her paints, her spare canvases, her Radiohead CD and even her jar of good coffee, before they arrived. Some of those art-graduates were so desperate for money, they would steal the eye out of your head. Except for Tom Reilly-Dunseith, of course: he couldn’t make enough of his sculptures to meet demand, even though he was charging £800 for the useless piles of junk. It was only because of his fancy name that people were interested in him, Brenda thought, bitterly.
And then she remembered that Emily Shadwick had also been invited. Brenda wondered how she could avoid being dragged into any discussion of Emily’s love life. She decided to turn the music up really loud, and pretend that she had wax in her ears. She didn’t want Emily to bring her mood down, just before a show.
Some local journalists had been invited, and they might want a quote or two from the artists. Brenda rehearsed what she would say to them, and she decided not to smile if anyone was taking pictures.
She looked out at the old red postbox that would take her letter on the first stage of its journey to America. She smiled at Penny, and waved the letter in the air, and Penny nodded and gave her a thumbs-up.
Chapter 9
AURORA SIGNS ON THE DOTTED LINE
Henry Blackstaff was at home. He stood at the kitchen window, waiting for the kettle to boil. His cunning plan to outsmart Aurora had backfired spectacularly. When he told her that she could have the conservatory, if that was what she really wanted, Aurora wept with joy. She telephoned all the members of the society to share the good news, and even ran in her bare feet to tell the neighbours.
Arnold Smith was all over the house with his electronic measuring-device, and planning applications were submitted with frightening speed.
Soon, Henry’s beloved garden would be no more. Uncle Bertie’s monkey-puzzle would have to go to make room for the foundations. So would Henry’s makeshift greenhouse. Aurora had chosen the most expensive model in the range: hardwood frame as high as the house, stained-glass windows, under-floor heating, and wrought-iron roof-supports. Arnold Smith’s flashy pen totted it all up as he panted with breathless greed.
The telephone rang in the hall. Henry answered it.
“It’s for you,” he called. “Someone called David Cropper, from the BBC.”
Aurora was ecstatic all evening. David Cropper turned out to be a producer, who had read about Aurora in a newspaper, and was thinking of making a television documentary about The Brontë Bunch. Aurora told him that she was having a Victorian conservatory built, in which to hold the meetings. The members of the society were going to dress up in period costume and listen to Aurora as she read aloud from famous works of fiction. The producer, David Cropper, said he would call back in a few weeks to see how the building was going, and that the whole project sounded fascinating. Henry sighed. If there was even a chance that his wife was going to be on television, there would be no reasoning with her. She seemed to have forgotten her contempt for all things modern.
The next morning, at nine o’clock on the dot, Arnold Smith stood on the doorstep of the Blackstaff residence, with his greedy face only millimetres away from the brass doorknocker. In his hand he held the quotation for the conservatory. The amount was outrageous. Six figures, his biggest ever sale. Even Head Office were phoning him about it. He would have to use every last one of his salesman tricks to secure the contract. He hoped the husband was out. Mr Blackstaff did not appear to share his wife’s enthusiasm for the project. But Arnold Smith was lucky that day. Aurora answered the door and ushered him into the sitting-room. She barely glanced at the figure before signing a cheque for the deposit with an old-fashioned fountain-pen. Then, she guided him back to the front door, without offering him a cup of tea.
“Now, you will use reclaimed bricks, won’t you?” she said. “That is of paramount importance. The entire structure must look as if it has been there since the day the house was built. And don’t forget to leave enough room on the left-hand side for my bookcases. I just adore the smell of old books. So romantic! A breaking heart on every page! Unrequited love: the cruel sword plunged through the soul of Everyman. That’s how I met my husband, you know.”
What? Dotty old bat, thought Arnold Smith.
“You have exquisite taste,” he purred, as Aurora closed the door in his face. He made a mental note to clear the cheque before he ordered the materials. Maybe the woman was a lunatic.
When Henry came back with the morning paper, he and Aurora had another row.
“How much? You must be joking! We could buy a second home in France for less! I can’t believe you went ahead without me. You should have booked that room in the museum, as I suggested. That’s where most of your friends belong.”
“Well, that’s just typical! You know your trouble, Henry? You’ve sat in that shop, gathering dust, for too long. When was the last time you even sold a book?”
“What has that got to do with anything? It’s my shop, and I’ll run it my way.”
“You inherited that shop, and you’d have closed down years ago without Bertie’s money to keep you going.” She was breathless with fury. “I’m using my own savings for this. Why can’t you be happy for me? It will not cost you a farthing.”
“It’s costing me my garden, isn’t it? What am I supposed to do now on my days off? And that’s another thing: you’ve only got savings because I pay for everything in this marriage. Every last cup of over-priced tea those stuck-up fools pour down their necks was paid for by me.”
“Well, I’m sorry you begrudge my friends some light refreshment. They are very cultured people, if you would only get to know them. Don’t you see what an opportunity this is for me?”
“No, I don’t, if you want the truth.”
“I’m going to be on television, for heaven’s sake! Maybe more than once. Maybe they’ll make a series. And they’re bound to make me head teacher at school.”
“Pie in the sky. Dreams.”
“Well, at least I’ve got a dream! You have no imagination. That’s why no-one ever wants to publish your damn novels, you ridiculous little man!”
“That was cruel, Aurora. I don’t know what’s come over you. You know how much I love that monkey-puzzle. Uncle Bertie planted that tree himself!”
“And I don’t know what’s come over you! Making such a production out of a few old trees. When I met you, I thought you were different from other men, sitting there amid your lovely books. Not like the typical male with his endless talk of football matches. You
were from another era. You were my Mr Rochester. My hero.” She held out her arms to him, in a heartbroken kind of way.
“And you were my Jane Eyre,” he said, fondly. “My pale fragile governess. But now, with this conservatory business –”
“Now, I see you’re just like the rest, trying to stop me from making something of myself.” She went to the window and looked out at the spot where the great conservatory would eventually stand.
“I don’t want to hold you back. I just want to save my garden. Couldn’t you make the conservatory smaller, so that the monkey-puzzle won’t have to come out?”
“No, I can’t. There has to be enough room for sixty chairs, two thousand books and a small area for performing,” she said firmly. “Mr Smith has made the calculations and I have given them my approval.”
“I could stop this, you know. The property is joint-owned. I could go to court and have it stopped.”
“Well, well, well! So. The gloves are off. Let me tell you, Henry Blackstaff, that you have left it too late to discover that you have a spine! The masterful husband routine simply will not work. I won’t let you stop me. I’ll chop that tree down myself, if I have to.”
“I could tell all your precious friends that your real name is Gertie Leech, and that you changed it by deed poll in 1974. And that your father was a cross-dressing poker-addict, with a criminal record for fraud. That would have the freeloading snobs scuttling out of my home, all right. They’d all get stuck in the French windows!”
“If you do that, I swear by Almighty God that you’ll be joining your Uncle Bertie in the next world a lot sooner than you think! I’m sure there are plenty of monkey-puzzle trees in Paradise!” And with that, she swept up the stairs and into the master bedroom, slamming the door so hard that the banisters shook.
Henry sat down on a spoon-back chair, feeling suddenly weak. Aurora was furious with him. She would not forgive him for weeks. And why should she? He had just threatened his own wife with the loss of what she valued more than anything: her reputation. He really was becoming a textbook villain. He should have given the project his blessing at the start. It was going to happen anyway.
The Tea House on Mulberry Street Page 7