Page 72 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden

‘Manzur?’ Libby cried in disbelief. He was a taller version of the boy she had liked in childhood, with the same large brown eyes and cheeks that dimpled when he smiled.

‘Missy sahib,’ he said with a grin.

‘Call me Libby, for heaven’s sake.’ Laughing, she introduced him to Flowers. ‘Manzur grew up at Cheviot View – my brother James and he were thick as thieves. I was always trying to join in their games but they used to make me hide and then they’d run away.’

‘I’m much more well behaved now,’ Manzur said.

Flowers smiled. ‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Manzur is my very able assistant manager at the Oxford,’ said James. ‘Now, all aboard.’

Manzur held open a rear passenger door for the women. Libby noticed the look of interest in Flowers’s eyes as she slipped into the seat and nodded her thanks to the young assistant. As they set off, Libby leant forward eagerly to speak to her father, trying not to stare at his changed appearance. When had his hair turned so white? But the conversation soon petered out.

‘Makes me carsick to keep turning round,’ James complained.

Libby sat back, her stomach knotting. She gazed at the back of his head and thick neck – so familiar and yet not. He was still the same man she remembered, just older. It was bound to be a little awkward at first. Once they were back at Cheviot View, they’d rekindle their old closeness.

Libby spent the morning hanging out of the window and gazing at the passing countryside: rice paddies criss-crossed by dusty tracks that wound their way into low forested hills, the occasional corrugated-iron-roofed bungalow and villages of bamboo huts shaded by palms. The sun pulsed in a hazy sky and dust blew up from the road but she refused to wind up the window.

She grinned. ‘I want to smell Assam.’

They stopped for tiffin at a dak bungalow. Libby insisted that Manzur join them, sensing too that her father felt more at ease with the young man in attendance. Libby encouraged Flowers to chatter with her father about the War and her time at the Burma Front as a nurse. To her relief, her father made an effort to be sociable to her friend. Libby began to hope that Clarrie had been over-anxious for no reason, though she did notice how her father kept swigging from a hip flask. Manzur was quiet, observing them. Libby engaged him in conversation.

‘How are your parents?’

‘They are well, thank you.’

‘Still both working at Cheviot View?’

Manzur nodded.

‘They must be very proud of you becoming a manager on the Oxford.’

‘Your father has been very good to me.’

An awkward silence ensued. She noticed him sliding glances at Flowers as he ate. Libby tried again.

‘And you’ve been tutor to my cousin Harry at Belgooree? Adela told me Harry much preferred you teaching him than going to school.’

Manzur smiled. ‘Robson chota-sahib is a quick learner, but he prefers to be outdoors riding or playing cricket.’

Libby laughed. ‘I think that’s the same for all of us tea planter children.’

Back on the road, James fell asleep in the front and Flowers dozed in the back. But Libby was far too excited for sleep as they approached the first of the tea plantations. Acres of green bushes stretched as far as the eye could see like an undulating emerald carpet, shaded by feathery trees and bounded by thickening jungle. They rattled over a narrow bridge. Below, elephants rolled in the mud of the almost dried-up riverbed. The smell of heat, vegetation and dung transported Libby back to her childhood.

As the familiar outlines of the hills around her old home came into view, her eyes prickled with emotion. Plantation gates appeared ahead, proclaiming the Oxford Tea Estates. James abruptly woke up.

‘Take us straight to the house,’ he ordered.

‘But, sahib, there is tea laid on at the clubhouse,’ Manzur said. ‘A welcome for—’

‘No,’ James snapped, ‘we can do that another time. My daughter wants to get home.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Libby. ‘It would be nice to show Flowers the clubhouse.’

‘Not today.’

Libby gave Flowers an apologetic look. Her father was obviously tired by the journey. He must have left Belgooree in the early hours to meet the steamer.