Page 66 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

A dela never mentioned anything about the bombing raids in letters to her mother.

The first one in July had been terrifying.

The sirens had wailed their warning on a late Tuesday afternoon just as she’d been in the middle of replenishing the tea from the urn in the voluntary canteen at the railway station.

She had put down the large metal teapot and hurried out with her fellow workers and customers to the underground passage between the platforms, which doubled as a temporary air-raid shelter.

A sailor had played his harmonica to keep their minds off what might be happening above.

Adela’s chest had tightened till she could barely breathe as they waited.

The first bombs had sounded like the thunder of a distant train.

In the dark somebody reached out for her hand.

She held on to it tightly, until her fingers were numb.

The bombing had grown louder and more intense, shaking the walls, while the sailor carried on playing.

Adela’s teeth had jarred as she clenched them shut to stop herself screaming.

She thought her end had come and prayed that Lexy and the others would survive, that the café was still standing and that her Brewis family and Tilly were safe.

When they had emerged, shaking and laughing with euphoria at having survived, fire engines and ambulances were hurtling along the street heading for the quayside.

Later she had discovered that the bombers had struck as close as the Spillers factory by the river, a split second away from the High Level Bridge.

The air had reeked with burning rubber and metal, and palls of black smoke had blocked out the sun.

Jarrow, the shipyard town on the south bank of the Tyne, had also been ablaze.

The death toll that day had been thirteen, and the injured well over a hundred.

The raids carried on over the summer and into September, but Adela learnt to mask her fear and make jokes like others did.

‘Hitler must have heard you’d put yourself forward as Henry Higgins in our play,’ she teased Derek.

‘And Josey must be performing in London then,’ Derek replied with dark humour.

They knew that however bad it was in Newcastle, it was worse in London, which was being hit night after night.

Adela hoped fervently that her friend was on tour and out of the capital.

She would be forever grateful to Josey for her caring attention of the previous summer, when life had never seemed so tough.

Adela’s body and emotions had still been in shock after childbirth and giving away her baby, and grief for her father had swamped her anew on the anniversary of his death.

Josey had not pried into her unhappiness or fussed over her, but her warmth and humour had helped her through the worst of it.

More children were evacuated to the countryside, and Libby’s school was relocated to a rambling stately home north of Alnwick.

She wrote impatient letters to Adela about how she wished she was in Newcastle being useful and vowed that once she turned sixteen, she was determined to leave school.

Tilly was renting a terrace house in South Gosforth to provide a home for the children and, at Libby’s insistence, had taken in two Polish refugees through the Red Cross.

Tilly had thrown herself enthusiastically into war work, volunteering with the Women’s Voluntary Service, helping at rest centres doling out clothes and food for those made homeless by the bombing.

Although the cinemas had reopened again after being closed at the beginning of the war, Adela had gone part-time at the Essoldo so that she could help out more at the services canteen and at Herbert’s.

The latter was staying open till late to provide a fuggy haven for the flood of new workers at the armaments factories.

Any spare time she had was spent at the theatre on Rye Hill.

Just before Christmas, as they were rehearsing Cinderella – Adela was playing Prince Charming– in walked Josey. Adela flew at her and they hugged tightly.

‘No, you can’t have my part,’ Adela said, laughing, ‘so don’t even ask.’

‘Love the long boots, Miss Robson.’ Josey grinned. ‘Derek never let me wear anything that fetching.’

‘You’d never fit those thighs in them, that’s why,’ Derek grunted, but couldn’t resist giving her a peck on the cheek.

They celebrated in the green room with a bottle of whisky Josey had been given by a grateful quartermaster at the barracks in Ripon, and she regaled them with stories of her touring.

‘It’s not all whisky and after-show parties in the sergeants’ mess you know,’ said Josey. ‘It’s damn hard work, and some of the places we’ve stayed in I don’t think they’d changed the sheets since the Napoleonic War.’

‘Remember it, do you?’ said Derek.

‘No, but I remember you talking about it,’ she said, sticking out her tongue.

Josey had two weeks off before her next contract.

‘Florence has let my room to two munitions workers,’ she said with a grimace. ‘I don’t blame her, and she’s been good about storing a trunk for me, but it means I’m homeless.’

‘Stay and have Christmas with us,’ Adela urged. ‘You can have the camp bed in my room.’

Lexy was as accommodating as ever, agreeing at once to Adela’s request that they take in a friend in need of a home.

The three of them got on well, Josey and Lexy sharing a sometimes bawdy sense of humour.

For Christmas, Lexy suggested cooking a meal at the café for the Brewises, as well as Tilly and her family.

‘Won’t you be expected at one of your sisters’ or nieces’ homes?’ asked Adela.

‘I can see them any day of the week,’ Lexy said, ‘and I’d only end up doing all the washing up. If I stay here, you and Josey can do that.’

Tilly accepted with alacrity. ‘Ros is going to Duncan’s parents in StAbb’s for Christmas. Strachan’s seem to be able to get hold of petrol without too much trouble. She invited us along, but the children would rather be in Newcastle.’

‘So you’re intent on staying and seeing the war out here?’ Adela asked her.

Tilly’s expression was pained. ‘I know James is hurt that I haven’t gone beetling back to him and India.

But I couldn’t do it. Not while all three children are here.

And I won’t risk a sea voyage.’ She put on a brave smile.

‘Besides, we’ve survived so far, haven’t we?

And the Nazis haven’t invaded. So this Christmas, at least, we have something to celebrate. ’

‘Yes, we do,’ Adela agreed. She wondered if Tilly woke each morning with the same queasy anxiety that she did.

Would today bring further bombing raids or news of another ship sunk?

For one day at least they could try and forget the ever-present dangers and join together to lift each other’s spirits.

Aunt Olive, however, took a strong dislike to Adela and Lexy’s plans and refused to leave Lime Terrace. Jane was apologetic but loyal.

‘Mam’s better where she feels safe, and that’s at home. It’s not really her fault. She can’t stop fretting that our George is going to volunteer– he’s been talking about wanting to join the Fleet Air Arm.’

‘No wonder she’s worried,’ Adela sympathised, dismayed to think of George going away. ‘But won’t he get called up soon anyway?’

‘That’s what George keeps saying,’ Jane replied. ‘And he wants to be able to choose where he goes.’

‘What does your dad think he should do?’

Jane sighed. ‘Father just says whatever he thinks will stop Mam worrying. He says George is needed to run the business, and he’ll say so in front of any tribunal. It’s causing a bit of friction at home I can tell you.’

‘What about Joan? She won’t want George joining up either, will she?’

Jane pulled a face. ‘Joan’s putting pressure on him to get wed– says all her friends are doing it– but I think that’s another reason he wants to up and off.’

On Christmas Eve a card came from Adela’s dear old guardian, Fluffy Hogg, with seasonal good wishes. Scrawled on the back was a message. Adela caught her breath at the familiar name.

I thought you’d want to know that your missionary friend, Sam Jackman, has left the Sarahan district.

I heard it from Fatima. He came to see her, but unfortunately she has been away in Lahore seeing to her sick mother so missed him, and he left no onward address.

We think that the mission might have given him a second chance and sent him somewhere else to start afresh at short notice .

Adela reread the tantalising short message several times with a thumping heart.

It told her so little. Why had Sam left?

Where had he gone? Had he taken Pema with him?

To hear of him in this way was upsetting.

He had disappeared from the Himalayas, and the chances of her ever seeing him again were even more remote than before.

Oh Sam! Where are you now? she wondered bleakly.

Adela couldn’t bear to have the card on display so slipped it into her bedside drawer under her nightie, alongside the photograph she had kept of her and Sam on the Narkanda veranda.

Briefly she gazed at the photo. How happy they looked together!

Her heart twisted to think of what might have been.

But it was a glimpse into a past life that would never be hers again.

On Christmas day, with the café decorated with homemade paper streamers and old Chinese lanterns (that Tilly remembered Clarrie using for her long-ago twenty-first birthday party), the Robsons, Lexy, Josey and Derek all came together to share a meal.

Tilly and Josey took to each other at once– Tilly remembered Josey as a lively child at a Christmas party of Clarrie’s during the Great War– and the café rang with their raucous laughter as they swapped anecdotes about their growing up in Newcastle among eccentric and bossy relations.

Later, as the short day waned and they pulled the blackout curtains, George and Jane turned up with a bottle of homemade ginger wine and a crate of beer that George had somehow got hold of in return for tea.

Adela and Josey played duets on the piano and they began a sing-song. Libby gazed at George with adoration and joined him in renditions of ‘Blaydon Races’ and ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, even though Tilly shrieked that it was like a cat’s chorus.

‘A very pretty cat,’ George said with a wink, throwing an arm around the girl and making Libby blush puce with pleasure.

They ended up with Josey getting George to carry her gramophone downstairs from the flat– they took so long that Lexy made lewd comments about what they might be doing– and the party went on long into the evening as they danced to Glenn Miller and Henry Hall and the BBC Dance Orchestra.

Mungo curled up and went to sleep under a table, and Adela, tipsy on unaccustomed beer, sang ‘Cheek to Cheek’, ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ and ‘The Nearness of You’, which reduced an emotional Tilly to tears.

‘How Clarrie would love to hear you, dear girl,’ she said and sniffed.

This made Adela tearful. How she wished they could all be together!

‘If only Daddy could be here too.’ Libby sighed. Adela reached over and pulled her into a hug.

Swiftly, George stood up and refilled their glasses. ‘Before we all go home and leave these lovely ladies in peace,’ he said, raising his glass, ‘let’s all drink to absent family and friends.’

‘To family and friends!’ they chorused.

Adela had a sudden image of Sam with his battered green hat pushed back on his untidy hair and his lean face grinning down at her, his look playful.

She felt anew the upset of the previous day, when she’d learned that Sam had disappeared once more.

My darling Sam, may you stay safe and happy, she wished silently as her eyes smarted.

George, mistaking her emotion for homesickness, gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Maybes next Christmas you’ll be with your mam.’

Adela forced a smile and nodded.

After that, in more sombre mood they all hugged each other as Jane and George went into the pitch-black night.

How Adela would miss George if he enlisted; he was a tonic for them all.

Adela persuaded Tilly to stay, not wanting her to risk a long walk home and getting into trouble with ARP wardens.

Together the women took Tilly and her children upstairs to sleep in Lexy’s small sitting room.

It had been a special day, a brief respite from the daily hardships and tensions of war, where they had joked and comforted each other. Proof, thought Adela as she bedded down, that what mattered most in these uneasy times was friendship and love.