Page 29 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden

‘That could be true,’ sighed Johnny. ‘I never warmed to Telfer the way that Helena did. Rather outspoken and arrogant type, if you ask me.’

As he drove down wide Park Street with its shops and offices, they both looked out for the turning into Hamilton Road. The further east they travelled, the prestigious mansion blocks gave way to more down-at-heel housing.

‘I think this is it,’ said Johnny, turning into a narrow street on the north side. Tall blocks of flats with crumbling façades and bleached shutters faced each other over a dusty uneven lane. The car bumped up the side street.

‘Amelia Buildings,’ said Libby, pointing, ‘that’s where the Khans live.’

Johnny parked the car. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he insisted, climbing out.

They pushed at a heavy wooden door and went inside. Sitting at a small table in the dark hallway, a skinny man in a lungi and a faded military jacket stood to attention and asked if he could help. Behind him Libby could see a row of pigeonholes holding letters for the various flats.

‘I’d like to leave this for DrKhan, please.’ She handed over the envelope with her letter and calling card.

Johnny handed him a few annas. ‘Make sure the doctor gets it promptly.’

The man took it and bowed, assuring them that he would.

‘Thank you,’ said Libby as she turned and went back out into the bright sunshine.

‘What took you so long?’ Helena wanted to know. ‘Too much chatting on the church steps, I bet.’

‘We’ve had a lovely morning,’ said Libby, determined to be more patient with her aunt. ‘Will there be a chance of tennis later? I’ll go and get my whites and shoes just in case.’

Johnny drove them out to the Tollygunge Club, a substantial colonial building set in lush grounds. It was busy with British families tucking into lunch at tables in the open air, waited on by an army of smartly dressed servants.

To Libby’s dismay, the Percy-Barratts waved them over.

‘Come and join us!’ called Muriel, already ordering a waiter to set more places at their table.

They spent the next hour ploughing through a huge meal of lentil soup, fish in white sauce, mild chicken curry and chocolate sponge pudding with custard. Libby only half listened to the women gossiping about people she didn’t know – their ailments and family relations – and news of British friends retired back home and recent deaths. The men talked of cricket and horse racing.

Everyone was too full of lunch to want to play tennis. They dozed under newspapers or flicked through magazines in the shade.

Libby went for a walk, keen to escape. She strolled through a beautiful oasis of lawns and trees like an English garden on a hot summer’s day. She found it hard to believe that three or four miles to the north lay a teeming Indian city or that there had ever been violence and unrest in Calcutta. Nobody seemed to want to talk about it.

Libby wondered if there was any chance of her father coming to fetch her sooner than in March or whether she could make her way up to Assam alone. If there was no George in Calcutta, the thought of another three weeks of bumping into the Percy-Barratts and their kind made her heart sink.

Yet Libby felt a flicker of triumph at her attempt to contact DrFatima Khan. She wanted to get an Indian view on the upheavals of the past year since the post-war elections and the deepening splits between Hindus and Muslims over the future of India. She had found out more in Britain about the worsening political crisis in India than she had since arriving in the country.

She knew all about the Muslim League’s demand for a homeland called Pakistan and their fear that a united India under the Congress Party would result in perpetual Hindu domination. But Jinnah, the League’s leader, had been largely blamed for inflaming anti-Hindu feeling which had led to the killings in Calcutta the previous summer. The violence had spread into rural east Bengal and had only died down after the charismatic Congress leader, Ghandi, had gone to live among the terrified villagers and calmed the situation.

What did Muslims like the Khans think? The Watsons and their friends seldom mentioned the communal troubles. They only talked about the dwindling numbers of British filling the civil service posts and who among their acquaintances were applying for jobs in other parts of the Empire. Libby determined that she would break out of the British enclave and find out for herself what was going on.