The Ballroom on Magnolia Street Read online

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  The Ballroom on Magnolia Street

  Praise for The Tea House on Mulberry Street

  ‘[A] heart-warmingly romantic novel in the spirit of Maeve Binchy’ Woman’s Own

  ‘A top read for snuggling up with on a chilly Sunday afternoon’ Family Circle

  ‘A life-enhancing tale’ Woman & Home

  ‘By the time I finished this book, I felt rather disappointed that I couldn’t step into the Tea House on Mulberry Street, with its engaging, human characters and mouthwatering recipes. Sharon Owens has a talent for drawing the reader into her world. A book as warm and comforting as a really good afternoon tea’

  Jo Jo Moyes

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sharon Owens was born in Omagh in 1968. She moved to Belfast in 1988, to study illustration at the Art College. She married husband Dermot in 1992 and they have one daughter, Alice. The Ballroom on Magnolia Street is her second novel.

  The Ballroom on Magnolia Street

  SHARON OWENS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2006

  1

  Copyright © Sharon Owens, 2006

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192122-8

  For Dermot

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks go to my Irish publisher and dear friend, Paula Campbell, and to all the team at Poolbeg in Dublin. A big thank you also to my Irish editor, Gaye Shortland.

  Many thanks to my agents, Ros Edwards and Helenka Fuglewicz. And to everyone at Penguin, especially my American editor, Aimee Taub, and my American publisher, Carole Barron. Thanks also to my UK editor, Clare Ledingham, and all the team in London.

  And finally, a major thank you to my husband, Dermot, and daughter, Alice. You both make everything worthwhile. And to all the readers who said such lovely things about The Teahouse on Mulberry Street. I sincerely hope you enjoy this story.

  1. Hollywood Hogan

  ‘But, three months! Johnny, that’s not a holiday. That’s crazy altogether!’ Eileen might be eighty-four, but she wasn’t an idiot. ‘Nobody goes on holiday for three months, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘Gran, I told you I was only thinking about going. I need some time to myself. And I’ve always wanted to travel in America.’

  ‘Huh! My two uncles worked on the railroads for forty years and died penniless in a boarding house in Chicago.’

  ‘Gran, I know the story. You’ve told me it a million times.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said James, quietly, ‘don’t upset yourself, Eileen. Johnny is only thinking of taking a holiday. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘That’s right, Grandad. Thank you. I haven’t had a good long holiday in twenty years.’

  But Eileen had to have the last word. ‘Are you thinking of retiring? Is that it? Are you trying to break it to me gently?’

  God, but she was good, thought Johnny. She knew him too well.

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ he said quickly. But he was thinking of closing down the ballroom for good.

  ‘Johnny,’ said James, anxious to keep the conversation away from the proposed trip to America, ‘you should think of doing something for older folk like us. There’s nothing for retired people to do around here. What about proper ballroom-dancing, for example?’

  ‘James, if you had your way, the ballroom would be full of old-timers like us, and nothing on offer but tea and cucumber sandwiches every night of the week.’ Eileen laughed.

  ‘I’m sure there’s money in it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t do so well on the bar, Grandad.’

  ‘Even so. It might be very popular. And a lot less trouble.’

  Johnny and his grandparents stood sipping their drinks at the little office window, watching the crowd dancing far below. From time to time James and Eileen called in for a gin and tonic, just to see how things were going. They listened to the breathless, pot-bellied DJ Toni reading out some requests.

  ‘Johnny, don’t go to America,’ said Eileen, suddenly. ‘The ballroom is the best thing that ever happened around here. God knows we’ve had little enough excitement in this town.’

  Johnny knew she was trying to talk him out of retiring. He smiled. Eileen could be very manipulative when she wanted to be.

  ‘We’ll be going now,’ said James, interrupting Johnny’s thoughts.

  ‘Yes, pet. Goodnight,’ added Eileen. ‘Be careful, locking up.’

  ‘I’ll walk you down to the door,’ said Johnny.

  Johnny kissed Eileen on the cheek and saw her and James off in their car. On his way back in, he noticed Declan Greenwood coming in the main door, wearing a floor-length coat (army surplus) with what appeared to be several bullet-holes down one side. Anyone else’s money would have been refused straight away, but Declan was Marion’s boy so Johnny made an exception. He nodded his head in the direction of the cloakrooms, and Declan grinned and nodded, and slid the offending coat off his lean shoulders. Johnny would always allow the young fool admittance to his precious ballroom, because Declan’s mother looked like Marilyn Monroe and because Johnny had loved her for twenty-five years. The lad will never get a girlfriend, though, dressed like that, Johnny thought sadly, as he picked a speck of dust off his own white jacket and checked his hair in one of the many gilt mirrors.

  Johnny Hogan was a tall, powerful man, with thick black hair and dark brown eyes. He was handsome and sensual, and he could carry a tune and jive with the best of them. He had a dimple in his chin and, when he winked, girls forgot they had boyfriends. All the women of Belfast adored Johnny Hogan, but so far, Johnny had managed to remain single. The only woman he had ever loved had left him to marry another man, and Johnny had never recovered from the shock.

  He was born in 1939, into a close family circle with conservative values. His parents were well liked in the district and the birth was celebrated for several days. All the women in the street knitted clothes for him. It was the beginning of a lifetime of female devotion. It took people’s minds off the outbreak of war to fuss over such a handsome little fellow.

  Meanwhile, people hung blackout blinds on the windows and began to panic-buy cigarettes, stockings and chocolate. The young men were enlisting in the army, and talking about the amazing capabilities
of battleships and submarines; and the women only wanted to see the new baby on Magnolia Street. They all congratulated Johnny’s mother on having the good fortune to have her baby before her man got sent away to fight. Everyone spoilt Johnny because he was a good baby and almost never cried. He lay in the sturdy wooden cradle that his grandfather had made for him, and he smiled up at everyone and they smiled down at him.

  But the Hogan family was destined to become one of the countless casualties of that conflict. Johnny was only a year old when Magnolia Street was flattened in the Blitz and his devoted parents were found side by side in the rubble. They hadn’t had time to gather up their baby son and make their way to the shelter that James had built for them with such devotion. Johnny’s mother was clutching a bone-china teapot and his father was wearing his stiff, new soldier’s uniform. They were both dead. But Johnny was alive and well in his solid, wooden cradle and his survival made the national press. He was the only person on Magnolia Street to survive the bombing.

  Johnny moved to Eglantine Avenue where he was brought up by his paternal grandparents, Eileen and James, and he was a happy and contented child. He had never had a chance to get to know his parents, so he did not miss them very much, but he sometimes felt a kind of emptiness in his heart, especially at Christmas time. His grandparents understood this, and they were the most patient and considerate guardians that Johnny could have wished for.

  Johnny grew up fast. He was the first young person in Belfast to wear blue suede shoes, a boast he never tired of making. In another time and place he might have become an actor in the theatre or a singer like Elvis Presley. He had a certain quality about him, an aura of celebrity that made people look after him in the street and wonder if he was famous. When he was still a child, people knew that he would amount to something. The miracle boy from Magnolia Street could never be allowed to fade away into obscurity, like so many other Belfast boys before him.

  From the age of fourteen, he never missed a Saturday at the Odeon picture house on the Ormeau Road and the cinema staff soon began to call him Hollywood Hogan. The name stuck and Johnny kept it, even when he was grown up, on account of his big ideas and his outlandish dress-style. He combed his jet-black hair up into a steep wave and he wore tight trousers and long jackets long after they ceased to be fashionable. He cut a fine figure driving along the rain-washed streets in his imported pale blue Lincoln Continental.

  And so, buoyed up by his local-celebrity status, and by his own vague ambitions, Johnny set out to find a purpose in life. Various jobs came and went. Salesman, office clerk, barman. He was very frustrated, watching the minutes crawling by in old-fashioned shops and offices; and far too spoilt to labour on the building sites. And he longed for something glamorous, a little bit of Hollywood sparkle. That’s what he really wanted.

  When he was twenty-three, Johnny fell in love. He saw a pretty girl, one sunny day on Royal Avenue in 1962, as he waited for the lights to change. She had white-blonde hair and bright red lips, and Johnny waved her over to his car and asked her for her name and telephone number. She scribbled them down on the back of an old bus ticket and gave it to him, and he missed the green light and the other drivers beeped their horns at him. Johnny didn’t care. Marion Evans was worth it. Johnny called her the following day. They went out on several dates, mostly to the cinema, and fell madly in love in the back row of the Odeon. Marion had a tiny waist and a rounded bust, and as the months went by she allowed Johnny to do things with her that she had never allowed other boys to do. Not even her teenage sweetheart, Eddy Greenwood. She worried about it afterwards, of course. But she was sure that Johnny was working up the courage to propose to her. He kept saying things about having big plans for the future.

  The ballroom was the only one of his many business plans that ever made it off the ground. It was Eileen who had an idea about the big square of wasteland on Magnolia Street that had not been developed since the war. It was now up for sale. Eileen spent a few sleepless nights thinking about that piece of land. That was where Johnny’s parents, and so many other people, had died so tragically during the war. In the end, she decided they would buy it and build a ballroom on it. As a sort of memorial to Johnny’s parents, who had loved each other so much.

  When the ballroom was finally opened to the public on a winter’s night in 1967, it looked truly splendid. Multicoloured fairy lights twinkled on the huge Christmas tree in the foyer, and the rotating spotlights on the main ceiling turned the ballroom on Magnolia Street into an underwater paradise of blue and green floating circles. Several gas heaters had been running all day, to take the chill off the new building. The smell of drying plaster was barely detectable. All the staff wore velvet bow ties, red shirts and black trousers with a satin stripe down the side. The in-house DJ had just returned to live in Belfast following a very successful two-year stint in a Butlin’s holiday camp in the north of England, and he prided himself on his popularity with the ladies. James thought this might have had something to do with the man leaving Butlin’s in the first place, but Johnny said that DJ Toni had his own sound-system and disco-lights, and the gig was his, and that was the end of it. James muttered something about never trusting a person who spelt their name in a fancy way, but he knew when he was beaten. Johnny made a short speech at the main entrance and Eileen wore a fun-tiara and cut the ceremonial ribbon. There was a great turnout for the launch. The local press had a field day: MIRACLE BOY OPENS BALLROOM ON BLITZ SITE. Johnny told the spellbound crowd that the massive glitter-ball suspended on a chain from the ceiling was the largest of its kind in Western Europe. It was a lie.

  And Johnny knew that he had found his niche at last.

  2. The Sisters

  In a tiny house on Cairo Street, Kate and Shirley Winters, still in their pyjamas, were gearing up for their favourite day of the week. Kate was pouring tea from a shiny brown teapot. Her long black hair hung round her face like curtains and her big blue eyes were still half-closed with sleep. Shirley was carefully making toast under the gas grill, using the last two slices of bread from the packet. Her jaunty 1920s’ black bob was sticking out in all directions, and her eyes, large and blue like Kate’s, were streaked with yesterday’s mascara and eyeliner. Both girls were tall and slender, although Kate’s glamorous satin pyjamas were in stark contrast to Shirley’s homely flannelette ones. The morning sun was streaming through the net curtains at the kitchen window. Their parents had already gone to work in the hospital.

  ‘This grill has had it,’ said Shirley, as the dancing blue flame above the bread flickered and died. She relit the grill with a match, watching it burn down for a moment before she blew it out. But her elder sister wasn’t listening.

  ‘I don’t know whether to buy the pink leather jacket in Top Shop or the white sheepskin boots in Dolcis,’ sighed Kate, as she opened a fresh pot of strawberry preserve. ‘What do you think, Shirley?’

  ‘I think you should stop wearing animal skins,’ said Shirley, gravely.

  ‘Oh, good grief. Don’t start on me so early in the day. Just because you once bought a couple of albums by the Smiths, you think you’re going to save the world?’

  ‘Every little helps, Kate. How can you afford leather jackets, anyway?’

  ‘Never you mind.’ (Kate had a massive overdraft and a bank clerk who fancied her.)

  ‘I’m going to buy the new single by A Flock Of Seagulls,’ announced Shirley, as she munched her toast. ‘I absolutely love it.’

  ‘And you think I waste money? Why don’t you get yourself some new clothes instead?’

  ‘I was thinking I might buy a new oven, before this piece of scrap explodes in the middle of the night and kills all of us in our beds. Mum would love a new one.’

  Kate was quiet then for a few minutes. There was no possibility she might chip in for a new oven when there were pink leather jackets to be had in Top Shop.

  ‘Are we still going to stalk lover-boy in Quigley’s this morning?’ asked Kate suddenly.

 
‘No, I’ve changed my mind,’ said Shirley. ‘I’ll buy my record somewhere else. And I’m not stalking him. And he’s not my lover.’ Not yet, she thought.

  ‘Suit yourself. I’m away upstairs for a shower,’ reported Kate, as she set her plate and mug into the sink.

  ‘Righto, leave me some hot water,’ warned Shirley, and she reached for the mail-order catalogue, to check the prices of various household appliances. Kate always took at least an hour getting ready in the morning.

  They would spend until lunchtime trawling the shops for bargains, and in the afternoon they might have fish and chips in the city centre somewhere. Then they would return home – Kate to pamper herself in the bathroom, and Shirley might listen to a new record as she tried on her thrift-store discoveries. (In some stores, she could buy several outfits for less than ten pounds.) Then they would get ready for the Saturday-night disco in Hogan’s ballroom. It was the in-place to go, so unfashionable that it had recently acquired cult status.

  Shirley pottered around the house for a while, watched the news on TV, got dressed and then went to talk to Kate.

  ‘I think that the men around here actually enjoy a good riot,’ shouted Shirley above the noise of Kate’s top-of-the-line hairdryer. Shirley was cross because she’d had to endure yet another cold shower.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Kate, switching it off.

  ‘All that roaring and shouting. They’re throwing whole trees at the police! Pure naked rage. Don’t you think it’s very primitive?’

  ‘I never think about stupid riots. You think too much, Shirley. That’s always been your trouble.’

  ‘I was just watching the news. They burnt down a carpet shop.’

  ‘Ah, no, the lovely carpets! And by the way, you’re wearing outdoor shoes on my white carpet.’ She wagged an accusatory finger at her younger sister. ‘If there’s oil on your shoes, this floor’ll be ruined. And you can pay for a new one!’