The Tea House on Mulberry Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

day, when she was cleaning the tables, she saw the address and Brenda told her everything. They had quite a long chat about it, over two lattes and a slice of pecan pie. Penny’s treat. A wiser woman would have told Brenda to have a titter of wit, or to get real, as they said nowadays. Or, get a life. But Penny was a bit of a dreamer, herself.
    Brenda was in love with Nicolas Cage, the actor. She had been writing love letters to him for years, but she hadn’t posted any of them. They were simply bits of romantic nonsense: things like wanting to walk through the streets of Paris with him, in the wintertime, kissing him softly amid the swirling snowflakes (they would both wear long black overcoats). Or describing how she wanted to take a black and white photograph of him in Pere Lachaise cemetery (he would be looking up at the sky, thinking something profound). And afterwards they would drink strong coffee in some run-down little bar in the back-streets (hiding from the paparazzi) and hold hands on the table. Stuff like that. She kept the letters in her little flat, under the bed, in a shoebox. There were ninety-two letters in the box now, all stamped and ready to go.
    The letters formed part of Brenda’s Fine Art degree show in 1997, although by that stage there were only fifty-four of the red envelopes. Brenda had tied them in a bundle with fine wire, and placed them on a cushion made out of razor-blades. She called the piece The Fragile Heart , and her tutor was very impressed. Brenda got a double first in her degree and lots of praise from the Dean, but unfortunately, no commissions.
    Now, sitting in the tea house, her cup of tea within reach, Brenda took a deep breath, flexed her writing hand, and began.
    5 January, 1999
    Dear Nicolas Cage,
    I hope this letter finds you well.
    I just want you to know that I saw you in Wild At Heart in the Nicolas Cage Season at Queen’s Film Theatre, and it was the most thrilling experience of my life. That snakeskin jacket really suited you, as did smoking two cigarettes at once.
    I’ve never been abroad but my parents used to own a caravan in Donegal. We used to spend entire summers in it, just looking out at the Atlantic Ocean, while eating cooked ham and tomatoes off a fold-down table. And all the time you were living over there on the other side, in America.
    Anyway, I knew, when I saw you in Wild At Heart that you were just born to become an international star. The way you killed that would-be assassin in the opening scene, with your bare hands. Oh, it was so STYLISH. Normally, I’m a pacifist, you understand? Coming from Belfast, as I do, I feel I should make that clear from the outset. I cannot bear violence of any kind, unless it’s very tastefully done, in a film.
    Laura Dern was good, too – driving you across the state line in that old convertible, playing loud rock music on the car stereo; helping you to break parole. Dancing in the desert. Oh, what a film!
    My family car was a rust-covered second-hand Vauxhall Cavalier. Mum and Dad and me and my two sisters used to go to Bundoran, in it. Listening to rock-and-roll, all the way there and back again. Elvis, usually. It would have been fantastic in an open-top, with the sun blazing down on us as we sang along to ‘In The Ghetto’ by the King. But the truth is, it was usually overcast. Or raining. We spent most of the time in the Bon Tuck restaurant, in Bundoran town, eating burgers the size of dinner plates. (Word has it, the burgers in Bundoran aren’t as big as they used to be.)
    I loved Moonstruck, with you in a tuxedo, and only one hand – going to the opera with Cher. I loved you in the role of the brokenhearted baker. Suffering as you worked. A bit like me. (I’m a painter.) You can roll me in flour any time you like. (Just my little joke.)
    Please send me a signed photograph. I’m sorry my name is so dull.
    I’m writing to you from Muldoon’s Tea Rooms on Mulberry Street. It’s a peaceful place, and