Page 25 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

Adela stifled an amused gasp. Had the prim doctor been entertaining someone when she’d called unexpectedly?

No wonder Fatima had been flustered. If so, the man must be hiding in the back or have slipped out some other way.

It can’t have been Sundar, for he didn’t smoke.

Suddenly Adela had a jealous thought that it might be Sam.

She couldn’t bear it to be Sam. Adela jumped out of her seat and rushed to the far door; she had to see for herself.

They looked around, startled – three figures crammed into the tiny kitchen. Fatima, the dark-skinned Sitara, and a man. Adela stared back. It was the communist speaker she had last seen being chased by police.

The man was the first to speak. He came forward, his look assessing. He didn’t extend his hand in greeting but gave a fleeting smile.

‘I’m Ghulam, Fatima’s brother. You are Miss Robson, the Britisher she told me about who helps on the purdah ward.’

Adela nodded and blurted out, ‘You’re the man who spoke at the rally. I knew you were familiar. You look like Uncle Rafi.’

Fatima gasped, ‘You were at the demonstration?’

‘Yes, with Auntie.’

Sister and brother looked at each other and said something rapidly in Punjabi, which Adela didn’t understand. He shrugged.

‘Let’s go into the sitting room,’ Fatima said, taking charge again, ‘now that the cat is out of the bag.’

Adela couldn’t help glancing at Ghulam; this was the notorious younger brother who had been to prison for setting fire to the governor’s car in Lahore.

Like Rafi, he was an outcast from the rest of the family– apart from Fatima, who appeared to stand by her brothers whatever they did.

Ghulam was shorter and stockier than Rafi,and not as handsome – he was square-jawed and his nose was squint, as if it had been broken– yet he had the same startlingly green eyes as his brother.

He moved with a quick restlessness and pent-up energy.

‘Why do you call my brother, Uncle?’ Ghulam asked, squatting back down on the cushions. Adela joined him, tucking her legs and stockinged feet under her woollen skirt.

‘Because he’s married to my mother’s friend Sophie – she’s a pretend auntie.’

‘I’ve never met her,’ Ghulam said, ‘though my sister tells me she’s beautiful.’

‘Very. Like a film star.’ Adela smiled.

‘I admire her for defying her own kind to marry my brother. Especially as your days here are numbered.’

‘Ghulam,’ Fatima warned.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Adela bristled. ‘India is my country just as much as yours.’

‘No, Miss Robson, it is not. Your family may have been here for a couple of generations; mine have been here for centuries. Yours are imperialists who reap the benefits of India’s wealth– tea, I believe– while we Indians are supposed to be grateful for menial jobs as coolies and tea pickers.’

Adela wanted to shout out that her great-grandmother was Indian, but feared that he might be just as contemptuous of Anglo-Indians. Besides, it was none of his business.

‘My parents do their best to provide for their workers,’ Adela defended. ‘My mother grew up among them, as did I.’

‘Do you know how much they get paid? Or where they all come from?’

‘Well, not exactly—’

‘No, I didn’t think so. It’s not your fault, Miss Robson, it’s the system. People like your parents are no doubt kind in a patriarchal way, but their efforts are just tinkering at the edges. The whole colonial machine of oppression must be broken up. We have been crushed by it for far too long.’

‘Is that what you were saying at the demonstration?’

Ghulam gave a bitter smile. ‘They don’t need telling about their oppression– they experience it daily.

I was giving the workers heart to press ahead with the demands for social and political change in the princely states, where they are kept like medieval serfs.

But then you have been there with Fatima and know their conditions. ’

‘Enough, Brother,’ Fatima interrupted. ‘You are not on your soapbox now, and you say too much.’ She gave Adela an anxious look. ‘You mustn’t speak of this to anyone.’

‘Of course not,’ Adela said, affronted that she might think she would betray them.

‘Ghulam has done nothing wrong,’ Fatima insisted, ‘but there are those who would like to see him back behind bars. So far the police have not made the connection between my brother and me, but he cannot stay here long in case they do.’

They paused as Sitara brought in tea and gingerbread. Ghulam lit another cigarette. Adela tried to control her nervousness and act normally, as if she were not sharing afternoon tea with a hunted activist.

‘Oh, my favourite. Thank you, Sitara,’ said Adela, biting into the moist cake. ‘Delicious.’ The dark-skinned woman smiled.

‘Tea and cake,’ Ghulam said, his look mocking. ‘So very British.’

‘And Indian,’ Adela sparked back. ‘India’s consumption of tea is catching up with Britain’s– and as for cake, I bet your tooth is as sweet as mine.’

This made Fatima laugh. ‘You are right. Ghulam was always the plump one for eating too many sweets.’

Adela was pleased to see his face darken in a blush. He drew heavily on his cigarette.

‘So, Miss Robson, what brings you to my sister’s door?’

‘You do, MrKhan, in a sort of roundabout way.’ Ghulam’s eyes widened.

‘Your campaign to improve things for the hill people – it made me guilty that I’ve neglected the clinic these past few months.

I’ve had a job at the Forest Office, you see, and I’m very involved in the theatre here.

’ She turned to Fatima. ‘But I want to help out more this year– at least before I go to England.’

‘England?’ Fatima exclaimed.

‘Just for a holiday.’

Adela explained all about Tilly’s reluctance to take Mungo back to Britain for schooling and how she had seized on the idea of Adela and Clarrie accompanying her too.

‘She thinks it will soften the blow if we go with her, and Mother is keen to visit my Aunt Olive– she hasn’t seen her for fifteen years. And I suppose I’m quite looking forward to the adventure now it’s being planned, as long as we don’t stay away too long.’

‘Adventure indeed,’ Fatima said and smiled. ‘I’ll be happy to have as much help as you can give in the meantime.’

‘Perhaps,’ Ghulam mused, ‘you will fall in love with your homeland and not come back. Better that you get used to it now because one day you will have to leave here for good.’

‘Ghulam!’ Fatima remonstrated. ‘Don’t be unkind.’

‘I’m already in love with my homeland,’ Adela said with a defiant look, ‘and it’s India.’

‘Then you are in a minority of Britishers,’ snapped Ghulam, his eyes suddenly blazing.

‘The ones I have met talk of Britain as home– they are happy to take the best jobs here in India but send their children to school in England and retire there on their Indian pensions. They want, and get, the best of both worlds. But we Indians– millions of us– get no say in how we run our own country. Imagine for one minute what it would be like to be the other way around– if an elite few thousand Indians ruled in London over millions of Britishers.’

Adela tried to think what Fluffy might say. ‘Things are changing– maybe not as fast as you want, but there are provincial governments now run by Congress, aren’t there? And I see a lot of Indian administrators all over Simla these days.’

Ghulam gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘You sound just like Rafi– he was always telling me to be more patient.’

‘I’m not telling you to do anything,’ said Adela, ‘but I think you’re being unfair to brand all us British as the same. And Indians for that matter. I know Indian rajas who don’t in the least want what you want.’

‘Indian princes hardly represent the masses of India,’ protested Ghulam.

‘It’s true that we Indians have differing views on how India should be run after the Britishers leave– I want a socialist state without religious interference; my devout brother Amir has his heart set on a homeland for Moslems—’

‘I want democracy and women’s rights,’ Fatima added eagerly.

‘But we are all agreed on one thing,’ said Ghulam. ‘You Britishers must hand over power and soon.’

Adela was in awe of the passion that lit his heavy features and made him handsome, his flashing green eyes holding her gaze.

‘You’d be surprised,’ said Adela, ‘how many of us British think the same as you. The argument is just about when we hand over, not if.’

Her empathy seemed to disarm him; he relaxed back.

‘And what would you do, Miss Robson, in a free India?’

‘Become a film star,’ she said at once.

‘Adela is a wonderful singer,’ said Fatima.

‘And has the looks for the silver screen too.’ He gave a flash of a smile. ‘I promise to watch your films when we have swaraj .’

Adela flushed at the compliment. ‘And I promise to give you tickets to my premieres,’ she sparked back.

She left shortly afterwards; they told her nothing of Ghulam’s plans, and neither did she ask. ‘You must tell no one of this,’ Fatima warned, ‘not even MrsHogg. And don’t ask me about Ghulam when we meet. It’s safer for you if you know nothing of his whereabouts.’

Adela wanted to rush home and blurt out her encounter, but promised she wouldn’t.

It was a strain in the next few days to keep her secret to herself and not discuss it with either Fluffy or Boz.

The situation was made worse by an impromptu visit from Inspector Pollock.

Adela returned to find the tall bald police officer taking tea at Briar Rose Cottage.

Fluffy said with a warning look, ‘The inspector has kindly come to make sure we are all right.’

‘That’s kind, but why shouldn’t we be?’ She shook his hand.

‘You were seen at the Freedom Pledge demonstration,’ said Pollock, ‘and we were worried you might have been caught up in the fracas.’

‘I’ve told him we were perfectly fine,’ Fluffy interjected.

‘Perfectly.’ Adela smiled. ‘We just viewed it from afar.’

‘So why were you there, Miss Robson?’ he persisted. ‘Do you take an interest in politics?’