Page 72 of The Girl from the Tea Garden (The India Tea #3)

The sitting room was still painted in its bright colours and the sombre furniture had been covered over with gaudy blankets and pushed back to allow baby paraphernalia.

Joan, her blonde hair swept up in a loose bun and her figure voluptuous in a loose shift and long cardigan, looked up from kneeling on a baby blanket, and smiled.

‘Hello, Joan,’ said Adela, stepping nearer. ‘I hear double congratulations are in order.’

As Joan shifted to one side, Adela saw the baby wriggling on the blanket. She was dressed in a yellow woollen suit, and her starlike hands were waving. She gave out tiny popping noises from her pink bud lips. Adela stopped in her tracks.

‘Hello, Adela. This is Bonnie.’ Joan swept the baby from the blanket and into her arms and stood up.

She kissed her daughter’s fluff of fair hair and lapsed into a babyish voice.

‘You’re Mammy’s good little lass, aren’t you, bonny Bonnie?

Yes you are ! Come and say hello to your cousin Adela. She’s a famous actress. Yes she is .’

Beaming with pride, Joan advanced towards Adela and held out her baby. Adela froze. She couldn’t look at it. Her eyes met Joan’s. The young woman’s look was bashful, expectant. Adela knew she was longing for her approval. As Adela made no move to take the infant, Joan’s blissful look faltered.

‘Go on, she won’t bite.’

‘Yes, go on,’ encouraged Olive. ‘She’s a little jewel – my first grandchild. I’ve beaten Clarrie there, haven’t I?’ Her aunt gave a small triumphant laugh. It was as if Olive had wiped from her memory that Adela had ever been pregnant or given birth.

Adela felt sick; her pulse began to race. She couldn’t bear to touch the baby. Her heart would shatter into tiny pieces. She took a step backwards.

‘Sorry, I’m hopeless with babies.’ She forced a laugh. ‘Don’t want to drop it ... her.’

Josey intervened. ‘Here, let me. I never get the chance.’ She almost snatched Bonnie from Joan’s arms. The baby wailed at the sudden movement, but Josey walked to the window, joggling her in her arms and singing, ‘I’m Just Wild About Harry’, adapted to Bonnie’s name.

It gave Adela long enough to recover her poise.

They stayed half an hour– to Adela each minute was purgatory, as Olive and Joan talked endlessly of the baby– until Bonnie needed feeding.

Joan took her baby to the kitchen so Bonnie could suckle in the warmth of the back room.

As Josey said goodbye to Olive at the door, Adela braced herself to nip into the kitchen to apologise to Joan.

She felt awful for disappointing George’s wife and didn’t want her to think she didn’t like her baby.

Joan was sitting in a low chair, the baby snuffling but hidden under a shawl.

‘We’re off now. She’s gorgeous, your Bonnie. Suits the name. Sorry about before.’

Joan eyed her. ‘I know what you’re thinking. That I’m not good enough for George.’

Adela was taken aback. ‘I never thought—’

‘You think I’m too common for your cousin. But now we’re married and everything’s canny.’

‘I’m glad for you.’

‘And it doesn’t matter if the bairn came three months after we were wed. At least Bonnie was born in wedlock and I’ve got a ring on me finger. That’s what matters, isn’t it?’

Adela felt her heart begin to pound. ‘Yes, that’s good.’

Joan gave a pitying look. ‘Not like you.’

For a moment Adela couldn’t breathe. She gripped on to the door frame.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Aye, you do,’ said Joan. ‘I saw you in Cullercoats walking along the cliff when you were supposed to be in Edinburgh. I was on a bus. It was dark, but I could still tell it was you. You were big enough to burst. I never said anything to your family. I felt sorry for you.’

Adela swallowed hard. ‘Thank you.’

‘And I won’t ever,’ said Joan. ‘Just as long as your friend doesn’t go telling tales about me.’

‘Josey?’

‘Aye, her.’ Joan blushed. ‘I was being friendly, that’s all. It’s what us lasses do to help the war effort, isn’t it? We have to bring comfort to the lads.’

Adela was baffled. ‘She won’t say anything against you, I promise.’

‘Did you give your bairn away?’ Joan asked.

Adela’s chest constricted as she nodded.

Joan put a protective hand on Bonnie’s head. ‘I can’t imagine doing that. I’m sorry for you, I really am. Would the lad not stand by you?’

‘No,’ Adela whispered.

‘George would never have left me in the lurch.’

‘No, George is a good man.’ Adela’s eyes stung with tears. ‘Take care of yourself and Bonnie.’ Adela managed a smile and, before Joan could ask anything more, fled from the stifling kitchen with its smell of milk and baby.

Josey took her for a walk. They sat on a park bench in the chilly dank November air while Adela poured out her heart.

She told her friend everything about her affair, the pregnancy and giving away her baby– the pain that had not diminished over the years, but had grown into a hard knot of regret deep inside.

‘I’ve never told as much to anyone before,’ Adela said tearfully, drained after the telling. ‘The only people I thought knew were Lexy, Maggie, Aunt Olive and her cleaner, Myra. Jane might have guessed, but never asked. Yet all this time Joan knew as well. Why didn’t she say anything?’

‘Maybe she really did feel sorry for you,’ Josey said. ‘Joan is not the brightest penny in the till, but she’s not so stupid that she can’t imagine it happening to her. If it hadn’t been for George hastily marrying her, she would have been in the same boat.’

‘What is it that you know about her?’ Adela asked.

‘I saw her with another man at an after-show party last year. Sub lieutenant in the navy. Dancing cheek to cheek they were. One of his shipmates said his friend was head over heels, so I got the impression it wasn’t the first time she’d met him.’

‘And she recognised you too? Was she embarrassed?’

Josey gave a short laugh. ‘Not in the least. Came right up to me and said how much she’d enjoyed the show, and did I have news of you? There really isn’t much mental activity going on between her ears.’

‘Poor George,’ said Adela.

‘Maybe it’s what he wants,’ Josey said with a shrug, ‘an uncomplicated pretty wife at home to think about while he’s overseas.’

‘I hope so.’

On her last day in Newcastle, Adela chose to be alone.

She took the train down to the coast and the row of cottages at Cullercoats, and stood in front of the old coastguard’s cottage where she had lived with Maggie and Ina– and given birth to her son.

For the first time in nearly five years Adela allowed herself to remember– really remember– what it had been like to give birth.

She had been so young and her feelings so confused; she’d been frightened, ashamed, resolute, shocked at the pain yet exhilarated to survive and to hold a new life in her arms. A baby boy: a warm, blood-pumping, heart-beating, squalling, bright-eyed boy with dark hair as soft as duck down and a trusting look.

Her breasts tingled as she thought of his suckling. John Wesley. Her sweet son.

Only the sight of baby Bonnie, her cousin’s beautiful daughter, had finally brought home to her what she had given up. Bonnie had torn open the emotional wound that she had managed to cauterise the day she had abandoned her boy.

Adela stood on the cobbles in the raw sea air and allowed a gigantic wave of remorse and sorrow to engulf her.

She had been so determined to put the pregnancy behind her and to dismiss her affair with Jay as a terrible, juvenile mistake.

At the time she had considered the baby as a nuisance, a shameful secret to be hidden away.

Yet the boy had been hers too and not just a manifestation of a past lover for whom her feelings had long since vanished.

Somewhere out in the world she had a son.

Did he look like her or like Jay? Did he have his grandmother Clarrie’s nose or his grandfather Wesley’s eyes?

Did he run like Harry or have long dextrous fingers like the Rajah’s?

Adela would never know. As she turned from the cottage with tears stinging her cold cheeks, she prayed that he was safe and healthy and being loved.

She hoped that, after all, he had been taken safely to Canada or America to a life of opportunity and the clean outdoors.

The beaches along the coast were fenced off and the promenades still restricted, despite the threat of imminent invasion having long passed.

Adela took a back lane towards the station and found herself at the end of the street where Jackman’s Sewing Shop stood.

She stopped outside. Was Sam’s mother equally remorseful for having turned her back on her only son?

Was it ever too late to try and heal the wounds of betrayal that Sam felt so keenly?

Perhaps it was within Adela’s power to attempt to mend the rift between him and his estranged mother.

There was a handwritten notice in the window advertising an alteration and mending service.

There was no light on in the shop on this dull grey day, but she tried the door anyway.

It opened with a tinkle of a bell. The same woman she had seen behind the counter several years ago was sitting in the pool of light from the shop window, round spectacles poised on the end of her nose, sewing the hem of a utility skirt.

Less plump and a lot greyer than before but recognisably the same woman.

‘Can I help you, dear?’ She looked up and smiled. She didn’t look like the type of woman who would walk out on a husband and a small son. But then who was she to judge?

‘I’m Adela Robson. I was brought up in Assam on a tea estate. Belgooree. Did you used to live in Assam, MrsJackman?’

The woman looked at her in astonishment, her mouth falling open. After a moment she nodded. ‘A very long time ago.’

‘It’s just that I’m a friend of Sam Jackman’s,’ Adela ploughed on before her courage failed. ‘And I wondered if he was ... if he is your son.’

The woman half rose. Her sewing dropped to the floor. ‘Sam?’ she gasped. ‘You know my Sam?’

Adela nodded. MrsJackman burst into tears.

Later Adela talked it over with Tilly and Josey: the spur-of-the-moment encounter and Marjory Jackman’s emotional outpouring.

‘She insisted that she’d never meant to abandon Sam, wanted to take him with her,but old man Jackman wouldn’t hear of it. Marjory said she couldn’t stand another minute of India– the climate, the isolation, her husband taking her for granted.’

‘I can sympathise with that,’ Tilly murmured.

‘She said they had terrible rows. She told him he should just as well have hired a housekeeper rather than married her. And why had he dragged her all the way out there just to ignore her and live on his blessed boat all the time? Marjory said she’d have gone back to England sooner if it hadn’t been for Sam. ’

‘But she did desert Sam, didn’t she?’ Josey pointed out.

‘She claimed her husband threatened her with the police. She made arrangements to take Sam anyway, but Jackman took him on the boat and wouldn’t let her see him, so she knew her husband would never let Sam go.’

‘What a terrible dilemma,’ said Josey.

‘I’d still have stayed,’ said Tilly. ‘At least I think I would have– for Sam’s sake. He was only very young, wasn’t he?’

‘About seven I think,’ said Adela, feeling a stab of pain. Not a lot older than her lost son was now.

‘So why didn’t she fight harder for poor Sam?’ asked Josey.

Adela sighed. ‘Marjory was pretty hard on herself. Said that her husband, for all his faults towards her, was a good father to their boy. A better parent than she was.’ Adela swallowed, feeling tearful. ‘She gave up Sam because she thought he’d be better off with his father.’

‘What sort of mother does that?’ Tilly exclaimed.

Josey gave Adela a sympathetic glance. ‘A brave one.’

They lapsed into silence. Tilly broke it. ‘So did she give you a message for Sam?’

‘She wanted his address so she could write to him, but I’ve no idea where Sam is.’ Adela felt her heart squeeze. ‘So I gave her Mother’s address at Belgooree. Said we’d try and find out through DrBlack; send on any letters if and when we know Sam’s whereabouts.’

‘That was kind of you,’ said Tilly. ‘Though from what you’ve said of Sam, he might not thank you.’

‘No,’ Adela admitted, ‘he’ll probably be mad at me for interfering. But isn’t it better that he knows that his mother cared for him and didn’t want to leave him?’ Her throat tightened with emotion.

‘Yes, of course it is,’ agreed Josey.

‘I hope you manage to track Sam down.’ Tilly gave an encouraging smile. ‘Just think: in a few weeks’ time you’ll be back in India.’

Excitement fizzed inside Adela at the sudden thought. After the emotional turmoil of the last few days, she clung to the thought with hope. How she longed at that moment for her mother and home! For the first time in over five years, she knew she was ready to return to the land of her birth.