The Tea House on Mulberry Street

by The Tea House on Mulberry Street (epub)

  “In fact,” said Patricia, one evening, as they were having dinner in a pub near Saint Anne’s Cathedral, “you’re starting to look positively dishevelled.”

  Arnold thought he caught her smiling at another man when he came back from the Gents.

  When December arrived, the Christmas decorations had already been up for weeks. Shop windows all over the city were filled with gifts and goodies and little Santas with long white beards and round wire spectacles. The supermarkets played compilations of carols and classical music. A huge Christmas tree was erected in front of the City Hall, and decked out with red and yellow lights and tinsel. The members of the city council managed to put their various squabbles behind them for long enough to organise a lavish Christmas banquet. And the divided communities of the city were finally united in their begrudgery of it all. Millennium or not, those boys were getting away with far too much.

  Arnold had a deluge of phone calls from housewives who wanted a new conservatory, after they saw Aurora Blackstaff’s on the front cover of Ireland’s Homes and Interiors, with a gorgeous ten-foot spruce tree inside it, absolutely dripping with barley sugar canes and strings of fresh cranberries. That was the way things were going in suburbia, Arnold noted. The women wanted a traditionally decorated tree in the sitting-room for the family to enjoy and another whimsical, one in the conservatory. Just for themselves.

  They should feature a Christmas tree in the next Walley brochure, he decided. He faxed the idea to Head Office and they were delighted with him. They sent him a crate of champagne by return of post, and got to work on a new brochure straightaway. The flood of new orders cheered Arnold up and gave him the motivation to sort out his personal life.

  He wanted Sadie to revert to the superb housewife she used to be and Patricia to return to her role as his willing sex-slave, on permanent standby to attend to his manly needs. It was frustrating for Arnold when the two women in his life were not behaving properly. He went shopping for lavish gifts for the two of them, to sweeten them up. He bought Sadie a bread-maker, a fancy see-through vacuum-cleaner, an electric hedge-trimmer and some electronic scales for the bathroom. He bought Patricia a bottle of expensive perfume, the naughtiest black bra and suspenders he could find, a set of massage oils and a black, leather dress. He wrapped the gifts in his office and stashed them neatly beside the door, ready for Christmas Eve.

  He arranged to spend Christmas Eve with Patricia and he booked a romantic meal for two in a little restaurant on Botanic Avenue, for four o’clock in the afternoon. If things went well, he would be home with Sadie by seven-thirty, ready for a big family get-together on Christmas Day itself.

  He thought Christmas would be a good opportunity to get Sadie back to work around the house. Arnold’s relations were always invited for Christmas day and Sadie usually spent weeks polishing the house from top to bottom, and baking cakes, pies and pastries for the freezer. She always filled the house with fresh greenery from the garden, and home-made salt-dough angels and stars. He would speak to her that evening, he decided, as he stuck a big pink bow on the bread-maker. Pink was Sadie’s colour, he thought. Pink, like a cartoon elephant. Like marshmallows and candy floss. Patricia’s colour was black, like the black of a wicked witch’s cloak.

  Sadie was watching a drama on television when Arnold came home, and did not even look at him when he asked how the Christmas preparations were coming along.

  “I can’t be bothered with all that stuff any. more,” said Sadie. She was sitting on the sofa, with her feet up on a cushion.

  “You what?” he said. “The turkey, the goose, the fruit cake –”

  “Well, nobody really appreciates it, do they? It takes a whole day to bake a cake, and another day to decorate the damn thing. No. I’ll get some sausage rolls and party nibbles from the supermarket and heat it all up in the oven. Ready-made pasta salads. Potato croquettes from the freezer.”

  “Tell me you’re jesting!”

  “A buffet. That’ll do. As long as there’s plenty of booze, they’ll be happy. You know your relations are a bunch of old soaks. Now, hush, I’m watching Midsomer Murders. You know it’s my favourite.”

  “Sadie, I must insist –”

  “Oh, here comes the murderer now, and she doesn’t know it’s him. Oh, you stupid girl, he’s got the knife in his pocket! Look out!”

  “Sadie. Switch that rubbish off. You can’t mean you’re not doing the traditional turkey lunch? Have you gone insane?”

  “Oh, Arnold. You are old-fashioned. Nobody in the street is cooking a turkey any more. Mrs Kelly next door is having a dressed salmon delivered from the deli. And her friend, Jessica, has booked the entire family into the golf club for lunch.”

  “I don’t care. I want a turkey.”

  “Honestly, you should loosen up a bit. You’re turning into an old man before your time. You know your trouble? You’ve no imagination.”

  “I want a turkey dinner.”

  “I want to be a size ten, Arnold. But it’s not gonna happen.”

  “This is outrageous –”

  “Now, shush, I want to hear this. Isn’t John Nettles just divine? Oh, I wouldn’t mind finding him under the tree on Christmas morning. I’d soon get the wrapping paper off him!”

  “Don’t be smutty, Sadie. You wouldn’t know what to do with him.”

  “I certainly would. I’d have a good go, anyway.”

  “Oh, Sadie! What about all the decorations?” he asked feebly. “The little biscuit-angels?”

  “I’m having a few scented candles and pine cones in a big glass bowl. Minimal and restrained. That’s the fashion, nowadays. I’m not killing myself any more.”

  Arnold went out to the shed and sat on a deckchair, beside the plastic Christmas tree. Sadie had no time for either him or the tree. She had dismissed them both as old-fashioned. She had bought some willow twigs in a big pot, and was planning to hang five stars made of crystal beads on them. That was their Christmas tree now. Some twigs and stars! And a bowl of candles! That was the full extent of the Christmas decorations.

  Everything was going wrong. Just that morning, Patricia had told him she thought they should take a break. She wasn’t getting any younger, she said. She was tired of being the mistress. She wanted to be the wife for a change. She wanted a big house to decorate for Christmas, and fill with family and friends. She was tired of living on her own in a bed-sit, waiting for the phone to ring. Her lovely apartment had suddenly become a bed-sit.

  Maurice and Daisy were staying in Greece for Christmas. Arnold wanted them to come back to Belfast for the holidays but they told him they couldn’t face the crowds in the airport. They were meeting some friends in a local restaurant for lunch, and then hosting a small cocktail party in their apartment. Maurice was going to play a selection of songs from the 1950s. Daisy had bought a new dress for the occasion. She said it would be lovely to spend the day with people their own age; people with the same interests. Arnold was devastated.

  His sons sent a big card and said they were staying in Australia, and going to a pool party with their girlfriends. Arnold peered at the enclosed photo of some near-naked girls lying on a sunny beach with his two sons. It would simply be a waste of his dwindling energy, telling them to come home.

  Never mind, he consoled himself, there was still the office party to look forward to. And the presentation of his award for Employee Of The Year.

  Sadie was delighted that her campaign of subversion was going so well but she wasn’t finished yet. Arnold’s confidence was waning. He was deflating slowly, like an old balloon. The next part of her plan involved the public face of Arnold Smith. The crisp, white invitation to his office party was tucked in a corner of the hall mirror.

  WALLEY WINDOWS AND CONSERVATORIES OF DISTINCTION

  INVITE Mr Arnold Smith and guest TO THEIR CHRISTMAS PARTY.

  TO BE HELD: 21st December 1999

  8PM AT THE EUROPA HOTEL

  FORMAL DRESS.

  Sadie was going to w
ear a pink trouser suit and a pair of sandals with diamonds on the toe-straps. She was having some red streaks put in her hair, and had bought a new handbag with embroidered roses on it. She was going to wait until Arnold went up to the microphone to accept his prize, and then she was going to make her big announcement.

  Chapter 36

  MERRY CHRISTMAS, NICOLAS CAGE

  Brenda was enjoying one of Daniel’s Christmas Platters, a blob of cream still on her top lip as she wrote the letter.

  14 December, 1999

  Dear Nicolas,

  How are you? Have you decorated your mansion for Christmas yet? Have you got white fairy-lights strung around your swimming-pool? I bet you have.

  My mother bought me a lovely frame for my exhibition. I haven’t decided what to put in it yet.

  I’m feeling really happy today. The gallery in Galway got in touch, first thing this morning. The Blue Donkey Gallery. They said they are all ready to stage my show tomorrow. They have the walls freshly painted, and a stack of promotional postcards printed up. Everyone who was invited has said they will attend.

  Maybe Belfast artists are becoming fashionable at last. If you ever received the painting I sent you, hang onto it. It could be worth money some day!

  I have sixty-nine canvases ready for the exhibition. I have used canvases with deep sides, and painted the sides as well, so they won’t need to be framed. That’s very contemporary, you know. And cost-effective.

  There’ll be local musicians to play soft Irish ballads, and there will be designer nibbles as well. I’ve got a new dress and high-heel shoes for the occasion. All I have to do now is pack the paintings into crates, ready for the journey.

  Wish me luck. Merry Christmas,

  Love, Brenda.

  PS. Please send me a signed photo.

  I am a genuine fan.

  Brenda posted the letter right away. She was sure that Nicolas would reply to her soon. Even a movie-star of Nicolas’ magnitude could find the time to send a postcard, surely? Should she have written Love, Brenda at the end of the letter? Oh, never mind! It was Christmas! She spent the rest of the morning packing her precious paintings into wooden crates, and filling the spaces between them with polystyrene balls.

  Her beautiful dress from Monsoon, with the blue and silver bugle-beads on it, she hung on a padded hanger from the picture rail. A fortune, it had cost her, even though she had found it on the sale-rail. She checked her new shoes for SALE stickers, and set them on the floor, beside the dress. She didn’t want to turn up at the exhibition with a big yellow sticker on each sole, declaring ONLY £4.99; that had happened before. Twice. She dyed her dark hair raven-black, in honour of Nicolas Cage, when he played the part of Sailor Ripley, in Wild At Heart. The blue-black sheen of it made her look paler than ever. Pale and interesting, she hoped. Finally, she was ready. She sat down on the tattered sofa, with a celebratory gin and tonic, and wondered how she would spend the afternoon.

  She had one large piece of canvas left. She would do another painting, maybe one of Nicolas himself? Strange, but she had never painted him before. That was it! She would stretch a piece of canvas across the back of the golden frame, and staple it in place! She had plenty of staples left, thank God. Why had she not thought of that, the moment her mother pulled her surprise gift out of the carrier-bag? It was the perfect, perfect thing to do. She would paint a string of fairy-lights around the edge of the picture and call it, Merry Christmas, Nicolas Cage. Sure, she had a really nice tree right here in the flat, this year, for inspiration. (Mrs Brown had supplied the decorations.)

  She had a scrapbook full of magazine-pictures, postcards and reviews. She chose one of him wearing his snakeskin jacket, in Wild At Heart, staring at the camera with his big, poetic eyes. She sketched it out on the canvas with a long piece of charcoal. She poured herself a large gin and tonic when she was finished the drawing and sat back to contemplate the canvas. She decided to paint it in full colour, not in her usual palette of blues and greys. She got her jar of paint-brushes from the kitchen and selected the tubes of colour she needed for the painting, from the big toolbox she kept them in on the sitting-room floor. She laid everything out neatly on the coffee table, and studied the exquisite contours of Nicolas’ face for a while. When she was ready to begin, she poured herself another drink.

  “We’ll show, them, Nicolas,” she told the canvas. “You and me, together. We’ll save the world with our joint talent, and show them that the only important things are art and music and films and love. And they’ll all stop fighting and arguing over trivial things, and everything will be perfect.” She smiled then, already tipsy, with four gin and tonics inside her. She topped up the glass again, from the big green bottle of gin on the mantelpiece, and reached for a brand-new paintbrush.

  “God bless those auld credit cards,” she said, as she began to paint.

  At five o’clock, the painting was finished, and it was very good. Maybe it was the best painting Brenda had ever done. An excellent likeness. She collapsed onto the sofa to admire it. She was tempted to put it in the show but, sadly, the paint would still be wet in the morning.

  But, never mind, she told herself. On the day of the show, the world would know what a huge talent Brenda Brown was. Then, all the galleries who had turned her down would be killing themselves with regret. They would be begging her for pieces of work, and she would take great satisfaction in telling them that, sorry, she was moving to the Irish Republic, and would no longer be exhibiting in the north.

  Almost without thinking about it, she pulled the phone, by its cable, across the carpet towards her and began to flick through the Yellow Pages. Art Galleries. Art Galleries. She found the page and dialled the number of the first gallery she recognised.

  “Hello,” she said. “It’s me, Brenda Brown from Belfast Town, here. I just wanted to tell you that I am having a major show in Galway tomorrow and I will also be moving there to live. So I won’t be able to show my work in your gallery in the future. Unfortunately. I’m sorry about that, now.”

  “Oh, dear! Thanks for letting us know,” said an amused voice. “Goodbye.”

  “Just a minute! Are you familiar with Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait Of Doctor Rey, painted on wood, in 1889?”

  “I am.” A sigh.

  “Did you know that Vincent gave that painting to Doctor Rey, as a gift? And that the good doctor nailed that painting over a hole in his chicken-shed? And that it was rescued years afterwards, when Vincent was recognised for the true genius that he was. And it was sold for millions of dollars?”

  “Have you been drinking, Miss Brown?”

  “Well, in my humble opinion, all the paintings in your gallery should be nailed onto a chicken-shed without further ado. But they won’t be worth anything in a few years. They’ll still be on the side of a shed and you’ll still be a back-street gallery in a one-horse town, and I’ll be famous. And married to a movie-star. Goodbye.” And she slammed down the phone.

  Brenda wasn’t sure how much of this speech the gallery-owner heard before he hung up the phone, because she was quite drunk, but she felt exhilarated. She put her Placebo CD in the stereo, and turned the volume up as high as it would go. She replenished her glass of gin, saw that she was out of tonic water, and plonked a few ice cubes in, instead. She ran her finger down the list of galleries in the directory, and found another one that had rejected her, and she dialled the number and took a deep breath. Why not burn a few bridges, she thought. I don’t need this town any more. I’m finished with Belfast. She had to shout over the level of the music, but she managed to call seven galleries before she gave up and replaced the receiver with a shaky hand.

  At six o’clock, she carried her painting of Nicolas Cage to her little bedroom, and hid it carefully under the bed, beside her shoebox of letters.

  “I’m sorry about this indignity, Nicolas,” she told the picture. “It’s a little dusty in there, and I’d rather you were in the bed, not under it, if you know what I mean. But the
re are thieves everywhere these days. You’ll be safe in here, from burglars, till I get back. If I come back.”

  Finally, she lay down on the sitting-room floor, beside her lovely Christmas tree, and sang along to the music, drinking the last bit of gin, neat, out of the bottle, watching the room spinning and the fairy-lights twinkling off and on, off and on, in a delicious drunken haze. She slept for half an hour before waking suddenly with severe hunger pains. A rummage in the kitchen cupboards proved futile. She phoned her mother and invited herself over for supper. Mrs Brown had just made a nice pot of Irish stew, and some pink and green meringues with vanilla butter-cream.

  “Get a taxi over, love, and I’ll pay the fare when you get here. You might as well stay over.”

  Bliss.

  Brenda drank some strong black coffee, and combed her blue-black hair. She suddenly felt gloriously certain he would turn up at her exhibition.

  At nine o’clock, she phoned a taxi and staggered down the stairs to spend the night at her mother’s house.

  “Goodbye, Belfast,” she announced, as the front door closed behind her. “I’m finished with you! Hello, Galway! Hello, Nicolas Cage!”

  Well, Brenda might have been finished with Belfast, but Belfast wasn’t finished with Brenda.

  Chapter 37

  THE OTHER MRS STANLEY

  Penny got out of the taxi and paid the driver. She waited until the blue Mercedes reached the end of the street before she moved a muscle. Then, she turned and looked up at Daniel’s house. It was not a palace. Richard was right about that. A little Victorian terraced house, covered with decades of coal dust. There was a narrow passageway leading to the back garden. The tiny patch of grass at the back was neatly clipped, though, and there was a single lilac tree in the centre of it.