The Secrets of the Tea Garden

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Newcastle, July

  Adela existed in a strange state of numbness, going through the motions of her job and daily routines but feeling detached from it all. In her mind and heart, her life was suspended, waiting for a break-through in news about John Wesley’s whereabouts. Daily she expected Tilly to walk through the door waving some document to prove John Wesley – or Jacques Segal – was alive and still living in the area.

  But all Tilly’s enquiries had come to nothing so far. The resettlement of the homeless after bombing raids had been chaotic and much of the paperwork had been lost in a fire at the end of the War.

  At night Adela would toss in bed alone with her imaginings, which would become more fearful as the long dark hours dragged on. Her son had lost his happy home with the kind Segals and was now in an institution – her original nightmare – unloved and unhappy. She grieved for the Belgian couple and felt wretched at her former envy of them. She wished that they were still alive, for at least her son would then have been growing up in a loving home. Now what was happening to him? Had he been evacuated as an orphan to another part of the country? What if he had been adopted once more but his name had been changed so that she would never be able to find him?

  Adela had lost interest in eating. Increased smoking blunted her appetite but temporarily calmed her nerves. The face she glanced at in the bathroom mirror each morning was growing hollow-cheeked and wan. She knew she was drinking too much cheap sherry; she kept a bottle in the café pantry for small nips during the day.

  The only good development at the tearoom was that Lexy had persuaded Freda, one of her unmarried nieces, to come as cook for a trial period. Freda was slow but methodical and had a knack of being inventive with whatever random ingredients Adela managed to get hold of at the city market.

  Once Mrs Jackman stopped working for Herbert’s, Adela saw even less of Sam. She felt sore at heart when she thought of him. How was it possible to be so estranged from a man whom she had adored with a passion until a few weeks ago? She was a failure as a wife as well as a mother. Adela cauterised her feelings of uselessness with alcohol and clinging to the hope that she would find her son and at least make up for her past failure towards him.

  Occasionally Sam would appear with produce from the allotment and linger to try and speak to her but Adela didn’t want them to argue in front of the others.

  ‘I know you’re continuing to search for him,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘Josey told me.’

  Adela bristled to think her friend was going behind her back to tell Sam her business. ‘So?’ said Adela, bracing herself for his criticism.

  ‘We need to talk,’ said Sam.

  ‘Not now, Sam.’

  ‘Then when?’

  ‘Soon.’

  As she turned away, he caught her arm and steered her into the yard. His look was grim.

  ‘We can’t go on like this, Adela,’ he growled.

  She tensed. ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Living apart. This isn’t marriage.’

  ‘You’re the one living with your mother,’ Adela pointed out.

  The look he gave her was so desolate, Adela felt leaden inside. She saw him struggle to say something, and then think better of it. Dropping his hand, he turned from her and strode out of the yard without another word. Adela bit her inner cheek to stop herself crying. She felt confused and angry but more with herself than Sam. They were both hurting but she was too exhausted to work out what she should do about it.

  After nearly a month of fruitless searching through archives and making requests in council offices, Tilly had found out nothing about the small boy she had rescued from the bombed street in Heaton.

  Adela came back one evening to find Tilly and Josey sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her.

  ‘I thought you had a Mother’s Union meeting, Tilly?’ said Adela.

  ‘She cancelled,’ said Josey, ‘so we could speak to you while Mungo is out with friends.’

  ‘Speak to me?’ Adela’s pulse quickened. ‘Have you found out something?’

  ‘No, she hasn’t,’ Josey answered. ‘That’s what we want to talk about. You might as well sit down.’

  Adela clutched the table. ‘If it’s bad news please just tell me.’

  ‘Sit down, darling girl,’ said Tilly, pouring out a glass of milk and placing it in front of Adela as if she were a child.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Adela said, sitting down but not touching the drink.

  Josey offered her a cigarette. Adela shook her head, watching nervously as Josey lit up one for herself.

  ‘Adela, sweetheart,’ said Tilly, her eyes full of compassion. ‘You’re making yourself ill with this business about the baby. We can’t bear to see you like this.’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ Adela said, feeling suddenly agitated. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said Josey, blowing out smoke. ‘And neither is Sam.’

  ‘That’s got nothing to do with you,’ Adela snapped.

  ‘It has,’ Josey said bluntly. ‘He’s our friend too.’

  Adela gripped her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. She looked at Tilly for help.

  ‘Adela,’ said Tilly, ‘you know I love you like a daughter but I can’t stand by and see you suffer in this way. I’ve done what I can to trace the Segal boy – if it was the Segal boy that I rescued – but I’ve found nothing. It’s just the bloody awfulness of war.’

  ‘But you’ll keep trying?’ Adela asked, panic rising in her chest.

  Tilly shook her head. ‘If I thought it would do any good I would. But it’s not. It’s making you ill and it’s turning you into . . .’

  ‘What?’ Adela whispered.

  ‘Into someone you’re not,’ said Tilly gently. ‘You are the most generous, warm-hearted girl I know – you used to be so fun-loving. But this obsession with finding your baby has changed you. I wouldn’t have imagined you could be so callous to poor Sam.’

  ‘Sam?’ Adela croaked. A wave of anger and humiliation engulfed her.

  ‘Yes, Sam,’ Josey repeated. ‘There’s precious little hope of you ever finding your son – and even if you did, you’d never be prepared to see him live with anyone else but you, would you? No matter what his circumstances, you’d be prepared to barge into his life as if you were the only one entitled to have him.’

  ‘That’s Sam talking,’ said Adela, her eyes stinging.

  ‘And he’s right,’ said Josey, not denying it. ‘But you risk losing your husband over this too. Can’t you see that?’

  Adela was going to protest but bit back the denial. She knew in her heart that Josey might be right.

  ‘I’ll work things out with Sam,’ Adela insisted, ‘just as soon as he comes back from his mother’s.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with Mrs Jackman,’ Josey said with impatience. ‘It’s you who is pushing Sam away.’ Josey ground out her cigarette and leant across the table. ‘He’s thinking of going back to India, Adela.’

  ‘India?’ Adela gasped. ‘He’s never said anything—’

  ‘He’s tried to but you’re not listening,’ Josey replied. ‘Wake up, Adela. Sam’s prepared to go back to India without you because he thinks you don’t love him any more.’

  ‘But that’s not true,’ Adela protested, her heart pounding like it would burst.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Josey, ‘but that’s how it seems to Sam.’

  Adela could see that Josey was angry but it was the look of disappointment on Tilly’s face that upset her the most.

  ‘You seemed such a happy couple,’ said Tilly. ‘I thought you had a real love-match. But it’s no good just being in love with someone – that doesn’t always last. The real test comes when things get tough; that’s when you find out if you really care for each other.’ A look of regret flitted across her face. ‘Not that James and I have been very successful at that.’

  Adela thought she might be sick. Had she really been
so awful to Sam? Was this single-minded pursuit of finding John Wesley purely selfish indulgence on her part? It couldn’t be! She was doing this for her son’s sake, trying to make up for abandoning him at birth.

  ‘Do you really love Sam?’ Tilly asked gently.

  Adela’s eyes flooded with tears. She bowed her head, unable to speak.

  Josey gave a sigh of impatience. ‘Stop chasing an impossible dream of being a mother to John Wesley and go and talk to Sam before it’s too late.’

  Adela pushed back her chair and rose on shaky legs. ‘I’m sorry—’ Her throat was too tight to utter another word. Unable to stand another moment in that kitchen, she hurried blindly from the room.

  That night Adela didn’t sleep, her mind in turmoil. She rose just before dawn, dressed and went out. She would not be needed at the café for several hours. She set off walking with no particular direction in mind, hoping that the mindless repetition of putting one foot in front of the other might relieve her fevered thoughts.

  As dawn broke she found herself walking along the banks of the River Ouseburn through leafy Jesmond Dene to a chorus of birdsong. For a fleeting moment she was reminded of Belgooree and her heart ached with sudden longing. She had to stop to catch her breath. Homesickness engulfed her – stronger than any she had felt since returning to Newcastle – and the strength of her sudden yearning for India and her mother left her winded. Was this how Sam was feeling? Was he bitterly regretting leaving the only country he had known as home to come to Britain with her? Was he feeling lost and lonely and wondering if all the upheaval had been worth it? How would she know when she hadn’t asked him anything personal in weeks?

  Adela put a hand to her thumping chest, as dizziness blurred her vision. Her legs gave way and she crumpled on to a patch of damp grass. Sam! She had tried to keep painful thoughts of her husband at bay but now memories assaulted her. Sam appearing at her seventeenth birthday party in an ill-fitting dinner jacket and grinning as he handed over cherries; Sam rugged in an old work shirt, riding beside her at dawn in the Himalayan foothills; Sam in his pilot’s uniform searching for her through a crowded hotel in Calcutta and his face breaking into a huge smile on catching sight of her. Sam’s smile that could both melt her heart and weaken her knees at the same time.

  Adela thought back to the time, long ago, when she had stowed away in the back of his car to escape from boarding school. She had fallen in love with him the very moment he had discovered her; the young Sam with the battered green pork-pie hat pushed back on his brush-like hair, with the sportsman’s hands and lanky gait.

  The day they had married – a swift wartime ceremony in Calcutta – and the wedding night they had spent making love in Sophie and Rafi’s small flat had been the happiest in her life. That was less than three years ago and yet it seemed so remote, as if it had happened in another lifetime.

  Was there any going back to that intense happiness they had shared? She didn’t know. Adela put her face in her hands and wept. Cold seeped up from the dew-soaked grass. She got to her feet, feeling utterly drained. She couldn’t think straight; lack of sleep and fits of crying had left her mind fuzzy with fatigue. For so long now, she had been so completely focused on finding her baby that she’d had no energy for thinking about any other aspect of her life. Her days were fraught with running the café and her spare time was filled with the quest for John Wesley.

  As she dragged her footsteps towards the city and Herbert’s Café, Adela was struck by sudden clarity: she was still searching for the tiny baby that she had given up before the War. But her son was no longer that baby; he was a boy of over eight years old. For all of his young life he had been experiencing the world without her; she had been no part of it. He had known the love of the Segals and maybe at this very moment he was being cared for by another family who loved him. Yet, at no point would he be thinking of her – or his blood father, Sanjay. Sam and Josey were right; she had been determined to find him and claim him, no matter what his circumstances, without any thought for who might have adopted him. She didn’t just want to know where he was or if he was happy; she’d wanted him for herself.

  Adela felt sick with shame. How would that be helping her beloved son? She had assumed that the best thing for her would be the best thing for him too. But that wasn’t necessarily the case. Her impulse had been selfish. She was trying to assuage her guilt at having had him adopted in the first place. But she couldn’t change the past. All the remorse she felt would not wipe out the painful truth; she had given up her baby willingly and she would have to live with that.

  Somehow, Adela got through another day at the café. She went through the motions of supervising Freda and Doreen, and of chivvying Joan to try and concentrate on one more week of work before she left to marry Tommy. Adela kept glancing at the back door, waiting for Sam to appear with some contribution from the allotment. This time she would not brush off his attempts to talk to her; she’d make an arrangement for them to meet after work and have a heart to heart. It was the one thought that kept her going through the day.

  Yet, towards closing time, Sam still hadn’t come. Adela asked Doreen to finish off and lock up while she went to check on the allotment. But there was no sign of Sam there. His tools were locked in the shed and a man in the neighbouring plot said that he hadn’t been there for two days.

  Adela felt the first twinges of alarm. Was he ill? Perhaps he was away on a photographic assignment that he hadn’t told her about. She hadn’t asked him about his photography business for ages. Josey’s warning echoed in her mind: ‘Wake up Adela. Sam’s prepared to go back to India without you because he doesn’t think you love him any more.’

  Surely he wouldn’t have done anything so drastic without telling her first? It was unthinkable. But then Sam had acted on impulse before when life had got too difficult. Long ago, he had forfeited his steamboat in a card game and disappeared from Assam, only to be rescued from vagrancy and drink in Delhi by the kind missionary, Dr Black. Adela would never forgive herself if her neglect of Sam had pushed him back towards liquor and depression.

  Adela had a sudden craving for a drink herself. She stood clenching her fists, fighting the urge to go back to the café and help herself to a tumblerful of sherry. Instead, she hurried into town and caught a bus to the coast.

  Alighting in Cullercoats, Adela was assailed by salty sea air and a stab of memory of when she had been pregnant and living with kind Maggie and Ina. She pushed the thought away. She had come to see Sam, to apologise and make up. She would even take a reproof from Mrs Jackman if it helped repair her strained relationship with Sam.

  Adela knocked several times before the door was opened. She tried to hide her dismay that it was Mrs Jackman who stood there and not Sam.

  ‘I thought you would have come here before now,’ Sam’s mother said with a frosty look.

  Adela swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Jackman. I’m not going to make any excuses but I’m here now. Can I come in and see Sam?’

  She shook her head. Adela tensed. ‘Please, I need to speak to him – to try and explain—’

  ‘He’s not here,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Oh, when will he be back? Perhaps I could wait upstairs with you?’

  A look of pity crossed Mrs Jackman’s face. ‘No, dear, he’s gone away for a few days.’

  Adela’s heart began to thump. ‘Gone where?’

  ‘To Edinburgh to see some tea planters about getting a job. I thought he might have told you.’

  Adela felt her panic rise. ‘No, he hasn’t. Is he really planning to go back to India?’

  Mrs Jackman nodded. ‘Out East anyway. He’s talking about the tea plantations in Ceylon.’

  ‘Ceylon?’ Adela cried in disbelief. ‘Why would he . . . ?’

  ‘He’s not happy here. It’ll break my heart if he goes away but I’ll bear it if it makes him happy.’ Sam’s mother shook her head in sorrow. ‘I hoped you would have made him happy, Adela, but I was wrong.’

&nbs
p; The accusation winded Adela. ‘I’m sorry, really I am,’ she said, trying not to break down on the doorstep. ‘Please tell him I need to see him when he comes back – not to do anything rash till we’ve spoken. Please tell him that, Mrs Jackman, I beg you!’

  The older woman relented. ‘I’ll tell him – but I think you might be wasting your breath. When my Sam gets a notion in his head, it’s very hard to stop him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Adela managed to say. In distress, she walked away from the closing door, her heart sore with yearning for Sam. How could she bear it if she were to lose not only her son, but Sam too?

  CHAPTER 24

  The days of waiting to hear from Sam were some of the most painful Adela could remember. She was still beset with anxious thoughts about John Wesley’s fate, though she tried hard to put them from her mind. This mental struggle – and desperate worry over Sam – left her in turmoil. Josey and Tilly tried to distract her with a trip to the theatre and a game of tennis with Mungo and some of his university friends. But Adela found the only relief came from working hard in the café and distracting her mind from thoughts of her collapsing marriage.

  It was Lexy who she confided in the most about her innermost feelings, dear Lexy who had been her anchor in her times of trouble. And it was while talking to Lexy, late one evening after work, that Adela began to formulate a plan.

  At the end of the week, Tilly took a call from Sam to say that he was back in Cullercoats and wished to speak to Adela. Rather than ringing him back, Adela sent a note asking him to meet her at the café after closing on Saturday evening.

  With Doreen and Freda’s help, and Lexy giving out instructions from a chair, Adela prepared a mutton curry and set a table behind a screen of potted plants with a fresh tablecloth and sweet peas from the allotment. Adela carried down the old gramophone player from Lexy’s flat and borrowed a selection of Josey’s records with songs that her old trio, the Toodle Pips, had once sung. Then Adela changed into a red evening dress that she’d bought in Calcutta and applied rouge to her sallow cheeks and lipstick to her pale lips.