The Tea House on Mulberry Street Read Online Free PDF

Liam’s good fortune and charisma might rub off on her. She was a superstitious kind of person, full of strange notions.
    And so, she persisted with the conviction that it was her boring name and birthplace that were holding her back. Any artist born in a cool place, with an elegant family name, had a head start on the likes of Brenda Brown. Two years it was, since her graduation; two years painting great works on the subjects of love and loss, and peace and war, and life and death. Mostly death, actually. She spent weeks on every painting, fussing over every detail, mixing hundreds of different shades of blue on her artist’s palette. And whole days thinking up poignant titles for them, when they were finished. And not a glimmer of interest from the galleries. Every single gallery in the north had rejected her. There was no justice in the world.
    Brenda didn’t notice the dabs of oil paint on her clothes any more, and she whispered softly to herself when she was thinking of her next canvas.
    It was a lonely business, being an artist. Other girls her age were only interested in marrying eligible men or having affairs with unsuitable men, going on foreign holidays, buying trendy cars and getting onto the property ladder. They weren’t remotely bothered by the kinds of things that Brenda was obsessed with. She spent hours just sitting alone in her flat and thinking about the complexity of the world, and its people. For example: if Vincent van Gogh were alive today, she wondered, would he be doing well on anti-depressants and making a fortune? Or, were his paintings only valuable now, because he’d shot himself in the chest, in a cornfield full of crows? Brenda didn’t want fame that badly.
    Or, if poets and painters were in charge of the world, instead of politicians, would they make a better job of things? Or a worse job? Or was the whole planet simply doomed to stagger between war and famine forever?
    Was there a God? And if there was a God, why did He tolerate so much suffering? And why wasn’t God a woman , anyway?
    Strangely, none of Brenda’s contemporaries shared her sadness about the weird and self-destructive nature of the human race. Sometimes, people she knew from her college days avoided her in the street. They usually disappeared into the nearest shop when they saw her coming.
    Only last week, she saw Emily Shadwick diving into the optician’s – Emily, who had perfect eyesight. Brenda knew this but she wasn’t really hurt by it. After all, she didn’t want to talk to Emily either – about that loser from her workplace, most likely. Emily was making a doormat of herself over him; she was living with him, sleeping with him, paying the rent, waiting on him hand and foot, and he still wouldn’t get married. The lazy scoundrel! If Brenda had to listen to the dreary saga of their non-romance one more time, she’d end up chewing blankets in a psychiatric ward. (Poor Emily was delighted if her boyfriend occasionally gave her a bunch of flowers that cost £2.99.) That was the trouble with most girls: no imagination at all. They had wedding dresses on the brain. Brenda was better off on her own.
    She had no-one like-minded to talk to, so she talked to herself quite a lot. She was fond of a wee nip of gin and tonic and sometimes she looked hung over and haggard when she came into the tea house, counting out loose change in the palm of her hand. Daniel thought Brenda was unpredictable and he kept an eye on the cash-register when she was around, but Penny liked her. Brenda seemed to be searching for beauty in this rain-soaked grey city; and Penny could identify with that. Sometimes, when Daniel was not looking, Penny gave Brenda a free sandwich or a second cup of tea, and she smiled at her when she was writing her letters. Penny was the nearest thing Brenda had to a friend.
    Penny had often wondered who the recipient of the mysterious red letters might be, but she was too well-mannered to ask directly. Then one