Page 100 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden

CHAPTER 19

Newcastle, late June

Every conversation that Adela started with Sam seemed to end in an argument. She couldn’t forgive him for accusing her of still being in love with Sanjay – that man who had used her for his own gratification and had been the cause of her father’s traumatic death! She hated Sanjay and wished she’d never met him. Yet the accusation seeped into her mind like a poison and she found herself thinking about the handsome, selfish prince more and more.

Was there some truth in what Sam suspected? Was her single-minded pursuit of John Wesley partly to do with reclaiming a piece of her former lover? Perhaps, deep down, she still hankered after those heady days in Simla when she had been desired and courted by such a charismatic and wealthy Indian. Adela was aghast at the thought. She refused to believe it. Sam was cruel to even suggest it.

Yet a part of her yearned to be that carefree, fun-loving young woman she had been in India, when nothing had daunted her and everything seemed possible. Life in post-war Britain was so relentlessly drab and anti-climactic after the tumultuous times when she had toured with ENSA during the War. She and her fellow entertainers had encountered danger and hardship, but her time with the Toodle Pipshad been one of the happiest in her life, a time when she had looked forward to married life with Sam with such anticipation and joy.

But the reality of married life was proving to be an anti-climax too. Her life was reduced to a daily grind of dragging herself out of bed at dawn to go to the market, long hours supervising in the café, cooking, washing up and then wrestling with the accounts until late into the evening. She was surrounded by people but had never felt so lonely – and with each day, she and Sam seemed to be drifting further apart.

‘I think we should move out of Tilly’s house,’ Sam announced abruptly. It was the end of another tiring day at the café and Adela was looking forward to getting home, kicking off her shoes and helping herself to a drink.

Adela stretched her aching back. Sam had a smut of dry soil on his cheek and smelt of sweat and earth from the allotment. She resisted the urge to lick her finger and wipe his face clean.

‘And go where?’ she asked.

‘To Cullercoats – to my mother’s.’

Adela gave a cry of disbelief. ‘I’m not moving in with your mother.’

‘Well, I am,’ Sam said.

She stared at him, wondering if he was joking, but his expression was serious.

‘Come with me,’ Sam said, though there was no enthusiasm in his voice. ‘It’s time Tilly had her home back and Mungo shouldn’t have to be sleeping in the attic all summer – it’s like a furnace up there.’

‘Cullercoats is too far from the café,’ Adela said, alarmed by the idea. ‘I’m not going to spend my petrol ration and what little free time I have driving back and forth. We could move into the attic if you like.’

‘You know Mungo won’t let us do that,’ Sam said. ‘He’s far too polite. It’s time we gave up our room. Besides, Jamie has no bed of his own when he comes home for visits – just a camp bed in the box room.’ Sam gave her a look of appeal. ‘We never meant to stay this long.’

‘I know,’ said Adela, ‘but Tilly doesn’t mind.’

‘Well, I do,’ Sam said impatiently. ‘We shouldn’t be taking advantage of her good nature – we should be standing on our own two feet.’

‘We’ll hardly be doing that by living with your mother!’

‘It’ll just be temporary until we find a place of our own,’ Sam insisted.

‘We’re as far away from that as the day we set foot back in Britain,’ Adela exclaimed.

‘But at least we won’t be beholden to friends,’ he said.

‘They’re family,’ Adela pointed out. ‘More than MrsJackman is.’ She saw him wince at her words and immediately regretted them. ‘Sorry, what I mean is—’

‘Adela, I’m trying hard to make a go of our marriage,’ he said in exasperation, ‘and I don’t think it’s helping living there. We’re never alone together – you spend any free time with Tilly or drinking with Josey and avoiding me.’

‘And being at your mother’s is going to solve that?’ Adela cried. ‘She monopolises you as it is. I’ll be like a spare part.’

‘Mother has always been kind to you,’ Sam said, sounding hurt.

‘Only to humour you,’ she retorted. ‘What she really wants is you all to herself.’

Sam glowered. ‘Well, at least she wants me around – which is more than my wife does.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, I’m too tired to argue about it!’ She pulled off her apron and flung it over a chair. ‘You go running to mummy if you want.’

She watched him stalk out of the back door. She felt angry at his stubbornness and yet wretched that his feelings for her seemed to be shrivelling before her very eyes. Adela didn’t think he would really go to Cullercoats without her but, two days before Adela’s twenty-seventh birthday, Sam went to live with his mother.