Free The Tea House on Mulberry Street by Sharon Owens

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    “Isn’t life just full of surprises?” they said. “On the rob, for ages, he was. And got away with it, too. Old man Tweedy was too proud to go to the Peelers. No prison sentence for Daniel Stanley. Oh, no! And here he is, large as life, out romancing a real dish. Barely out of school, by the look of her. Lucky old dog!”
    Daniel and Penny went to sit at a tiny, marble table, and the conversation moved up a gear. Millie had to sit with some other girls she knew, and watch helplessly while Penny flirted and batted her eyelashes at the older man. Millie was dying to meet Daniel, and ask him a few searching questions. Belfast was a small city, in many ways, and it made sense to know what you were dealing with from the start. It wouldn’t take long to find out everything there was to know about this new man. Where he went to school; where he worked; if he had any money, jealous ex-wives, or dependent children. Or a criminal background, maybe? Some men forgot to mention certain details to new lovers. But Penny did not wave her friend over to the table once that night. She had met the man of her teenage fantasies and she was not going to let him get away. She would not be able to seduce him with Millie looking on. Penny sat up straight and squared her shoulders, in order to make the most of a small bust, and she twirled her hair round her fingers and made plenty of eye-contact.
    Daniel leaned over to hear what Penny was saying, and nodded a lot, and went to the bar for more drinks at regular intervals. Millie and the waiters watched, fascinated by the age-old courtship ritual taking place before them.
    Penny did most of the talking while Daniel kept his eye on the door, looking out for a better proposition. Penny was telling him she had once met a film-star in a chip-shop in Blackpool. The man was so drunk, she said, that he could not get the money out of his pocket to pay for his supper, so the owner of the chippy let him have the meal for nothing. Daniel was not interested but he smiled. He was thinking that perhaps he ought to join a golf club, or enrol in a night class at Queen’s University. Where did the rich go to pass the time these days, he wondered.
    Penny told him she did not usually approach strange men, but that she felt there was something special about him. Something dignified and old-fashioned. He was not interested, but he smiled. She told him that she was an only child, the daughter of elderly parents. And that she helped them to run the family business, a tea house on Mulberry Street. Muldoon’s Tea Rooms, it was called. Now he was interested. He knew the place. It was only a couple of streets away from his own humble bed-sit. A small, little place, it was. But well-placed in the middle of the student quarter; completely surrounded by young people away from home for the first time. Middle-class, most of them; they probably couldn’t even butter their own bread. Likely, the cafe was a proper goldmine. Daniel smiled his brightest smile and Penny’s heart turned over.
    The DJ played a record that Penny loved. ‘Spend How Ballay’, he thought she said, was the name of the band. But it was Spandau Ballet, with a Belfast accent, he later learned. Some people had made their way onto the dance-floor and were beginning to make strange jerking movements, their arms raised in the air, as if playing invisible drums. Daniel thought one of the men on the dance-floor was wearing eyeliner, but he couldn’t be sure. And he counted twelve buckles on each of his black suede boots. What a carry-on, thought Daniel, in the middle of dear old Belfast! Well, it hadn’t harmed the man’s chances with the women: he was dancing with a real stunner in a velvet dress. Daniel watched them for a few seconds. The girl wore lots of silver bracelets on her bare white arms. They reflected the flashing lights on the ceiling. The dance did not look too difficult, Daniel thought, as he studied the bohemian couple.
    His young