The Tea House on Mulberry Street by Sharon Owens

well. She would stay in there all evening and let Daniel serve the last customers and tidy up on his own, if he liked the catering business so bloody much.
    “Honestly,” she told the bathroom mirror, “I can’t believe it! Now, he’s trying to convince me I don’t want a child, when a child is all I’ve ever really wanted. I didn’t even tell him I think it’s time we spent our savings on a proper home with a garden. I’m beginning to think Millie is right about that man! He’s not dealing with a full deck.”
    She arranged her glass of wine and a thick novel on a chair beside the bath, and stepped gently into the hot water, with ten inches of bubbles on the top of it. But she did not read that evening. She just stared at the ceiling, and sipped her wine and made her plans until the water went cold.
    Daniel sulked in the kitchen for a long time. He knew he’d said the wrong thing to Penny. As he had so many times before. When he had locked up the tea house for the night, he sat at one of the tables and contemplated his life, and the journey that had brought him to this crisis. For he sensed that it was a crisis. Penny had talked of starting a family for years, but he had always managed to convince her it was better to wait a while: until they had more savings in the bank, until the political situation was more stable, until they could train up a new person to take over Penny’s duties. But now he knew that the time for avoiding the issue had run out.
    Yes, it was a strange situation, and it had been a strange sort of life, too.
    The great reluctance of Daniel Stanley to part with his cash was legendary throughout the catering trade. In all the years he had worked as a chef in the Imperial Hotel in Belfast, he had never been known to buy a round of drinks, not even on special occasions.
    Once, the waiters glued a five-pound note to the floor, and laughed until their sides were sore as they watched Daniel trying to get it off. Their laughter faded, however, as he steamed it off with a kettle, dried it on the radiator, and put it carefully in his pocket. They knew then he was mad. But the staff of the hotel, all born and reared in the city, were familiar with madness of one sort or another, and after a while they accepted Daniel and his thrifty ways.
    Once a year, the staff hired a bus and went to the seaside. Usually, they made for Newcastle, with its spectacular view of the Mourne Mountains. They loved its gaudy amusement arcades, with the joyous sound of coins clattering loudly into pay-out slots. The jukebox played lively tunes that floated out to sea, over the heads of the happy crowds. The puppet fortune-teller in her little glass box always predicted good things.
    John Anderson, the head waiter, was responsible for booking the coach and collecting the money for the fares, and keeping the appointed driver sober, so that he could drive them safely home again. Everyone looked forward to the trip, and they sang songs all the way there and back again. It was easily the best day of the year.
    The party of twenty spent the day drinking pints of ale in the ancient bars that lined the promenade, and filling the fruit-machines with their wages. They ate fish and chips liberally doused with salt and vinegar; and every year wondered why a fish supper always tasted better with the smell of the sea in the nostrils. They consumed dozens of whipped ice creams and clouds of pink candy floss, and they bought glass trinkets and bars of sticky, seaside rock to take home to their families.
    To end the day, the men held a race along the shore, and the last one to finish was borne down to the water’s edge, and heaved into the glittering waves, fully dressed, with much cheering and shouting from the women.
    Daniel Stanley had never been on holiday in his life. Every year, John Anderson asked Daniel if he would be reserving his seat on the bus, and every year Daniel said no, thank you, he had other plans. He never revealed what