‘Can I help you?’
Adela felt her mouth dry and throat tighten. She couldn’t speak. Forcing a smile, she shook her head and hurried away. Maggie was concerned by her agitated state when she returned home out of breath and clutching her shopping. Later, after Adela questioned her about Jackman’s shop, Maggie told her that the woman had once lived abroad in a hot country, which hadn’t suited her. Adela was sure it must be Sam’s mother. She longed to go in and ask her, but what on earth would she say if the shopkeeper said yes? The woman might get upset or angry. Adela would be doing it for selfish reasons, to be able to talk about Sam and somehow feel closer to him by being with his mother. But it might also lead to awkward questions about her pregnancy and what she was doing there. So Adela stifled her curiosity and kept increasingly at home.
Adela grew fond of her mother’s old friends. Maggie had had a very hard life with a low-paid job in a laundry and a husband who regularly beat her. When the laundry had closed five years ago, a year after her husband’s death, she had been almost destitute. She’d gone to Lexy for help. Lexy had fixed her up with a job looking after their old friend Ina. Ina was struggling to manage the family house after the death of her bachelor son and was becoming increasingly confused. Three of Ina’s five children were now dead, and of the remaining two, daughter Sally had emigrated to Canada with her husband, while Grace was married to a lighthouse keeper and lived in a remote part of the Scottish Hebrides. Ina’s son had left enough modest savings for Maggie to keep house for them both.
Ina was sweet-natured and never complained of being housebound with a bad hip that had got worse over the years. She talked of her dead offspring as if they were still alive and frequently called Adela Clarrie.
‘She was widowed very young,’ Maggie told Adela, ‘but raised five bairns on her own. Wor Ina sold second-hand clothes all over Tyneside to feed ’em, and they all got on in life.’
Of them all, Adela grew closest to Lexy. No matter how many hours the extrovert manager worked in the café, she always found time to come two or three times a week to visit and make sure Adela was all right. With Lexy’s irrepressible optimism and bawdy humour, she lifted all their spirits.
The café was closed on Christmas Day and, despite Lexy having numerous sisters, nephews and nieces who had invited her to spend the day with them, Lexy chose to go to Cullercoats and share a meal with her friends. She brought a pudding and crackers to go with Maggie’s goose and roast vegetables. For Adela, there were letters from her mother and from Sophie and Tilly, along with small gifts of clothing, a brooch and more Belgooree tea, all of which Olive had handed over to Lexy. They had agreed with Olive to keep up the pretence to Clarrie that Adela was still living with the Brewises in Newcastle. Any letters Adela wrote home were posted by Lexy in the city. To pre-empt the likelihood of any Robsons trying to track her down, Adela had taken the precaution of writing to Tilly to say that she wouldn’t be able to see her children over the Christmas holidays, but hoped to see them at Easter.
Adela shared out the presents but said, ‘I’ll read the letters later, thanks,’ knowing how emotional they would make her. How would her mother and Harry be spending the first Christmas without her and her father? She had thought it would be easier to be so far away from home without the constant reminder that her father wasn’t there, but it was worse not to have the comfort of her mother and brother. Inside she carried a leaden weight of grief for her beloved father, and she felt on the verge of tears all day. She made a huge effort not to let it show.
They ate well and, encouraged by Lexy, Adela led them in a sing-song. For Ina she sang an old song popular in the Great War that her mother had taught her, ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’, which made the old lady cry. This sparked off a series of more cheerful hit songs: ‘Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries’, ‘Sally’ and ‘On the Sunny Side of the Street’. But when Maggie started a rendition of ‘Tea for Two’, it was Adela who burst into tears.
‘Reminds her of her da,’ Lexy explained, giving Adela a hug. ‘They used to sing it together.’
‘Eeh, sorry, hinny,’ Maggie gasped.
‘D-don’t be,’ Adela said weepily. ‘It’s comforting to be with people who knew him.’
‘Aye, he was a real gentleman, your father,’ Maggie said, squeezing Adela’s arm. ‘Wish I’d had a man half as good as him.’
Afterwards, they sat around the fire in the lamplight, peeling hot roast chestnuts, smoking cigarettes and reminiscing about the days when Lexy, Ina and Maggie had lived in the west end of Newcastle and patronised the Cherry Tree pub. It was there that they had befriended Clarrie, who was working all hours for her father’s cousin, Jared Belhaven, and his wife, Lily.
‘An old witch was Lily,’ Lexy said, ‘but Jared was canny enough.’
‘That’s ’cause he paid you lots of attention,’ Maggie cackled, ‘and swept you off your feet after old Lily died.’
‘He didn’t do much sweepin’.’ Lexy chuckled. ‘He was lazy that way. But I had a few happy years with your Belhaven cousin, Adela, before he died.’
‘And you made his last days happy an’ all,’ Maggie said.
Adela encouraged them to talk about the old days; she liked to hear how her mother had coped with coming to a strange land from India. From what the women told her, her mother had had a much tougher time than she had. It made her ashamed that she was so caught up in her own worries over the pregnancy when she had friends to help her. Whereas her mother and aunt had come to Newcastle not knowing a soul apart from a Belhaven cousin, whom they had never met and had been treated little better than slaves.
It was these women – poor, rowdy and big-hearted – who had helped her mother through the first frightening months, when she had still been mourning the death of her own father, Adela’s grandfather, Jock. It was these same friends who still had little material wealth, but were prepared to share with her what little they had, when her own aunt had turned her out.
‘What was Aunt Olive like in those days?’
‘Always frightened of her own shadow,’ Maggie said. ‘She would never have survived at the Cherry Tree if it hadn’t been for Clarrie protecting her from Lily and doing the brunt of the chores. It was Clarrie getting that job with the Stocks that saved them both and helped them up in the world.’
‘Not that Olive gave her any thanks for it,’ Lexy said. ‘For a while after your aunt married Jack, she didn’t even give Clarrie the time of day – cut her out of her life. Your mam was very hurt – not that she said so, but you could tell.’
‘Well, Olive was jealous of Clarrie, wasn’t she?’ said Maggie.
‘Jealous?’ puzzled Adela. ‘Why? Because she married the rich lawyer Herbert and got the café?’
‘No, ’cause Clarrie had been courted by Jack Brewis before your aunt was.’
‘Really?’ Adela gasped. ‘I never knew that.’
‘Aye,’ said Maggie. ‘Jack’s first choice was your mam.’
‘I think Olive has spent all her married life worried that Jack still liked your mam best.’
Adela was shocked by the thought – both that Uncle Jack had desired her mother and that Olive should have punished Clarrie for it. Was that why Olive had been so protective of Uncle Jack while she had stayed at Lime Terrace? Was it possible that her aunt resented her being there because of long-ago jealousy towards Clarrie over Jack? How sad to allow bad feelings to fester over the years; she was quite sure her mother was unaware of them. It made Adela think of her mother in a new light; she had once been a beautiful young woman whom other men had fallen in love with – Jack, the elderly Herbert Stock, and Wesley. But Adela was in no doubt that it was her father who had been the love of her mother’s life.
They carried on talking about Olive.
‘She’s still terrified of the world,’ Lexy said with a sigh. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for her. I just wish she wouldn’t be so hard on Jane. She used to be such a loving lass and bright as a button, but over the years Ol
ive has heaped all her cares on the lass’s shoulders. Course your aunt always favoured George, right from when they were bairns.’
‘Aunt Olive drinks sherry on her own every day,’ said Adela. ‘I suppose it’s to give her Dutch courage to go out and face the world.’
‘Aye, I know,’ said Lexy, ‘and she uses the profits from the café to buy it.’
‘It’s the tea rooms what prop up your uncle Jack’s business an’ all,’ said Maggie. ‘Isn’t that right, Lexy?’
‘Hush, Maggie man! I don’t want Adela to worry about that in her condition.’
‘Is the café in danger of closing?’ Adela asked in concern.
‘Not if I can help it,’ said Lexy. ‘I was hoping Clarrie would have come over with you and sorted things out with Olive and Jack. But with your da dying – well, I don’t like to bother her with any of it.’
‘But legally the café belongs to the Brewises, doesn’t it?’ Adela frowned. ‘Mother said she signed it over to Aunt Olive when she was last in Newcastle when I was little.’
‘Aye, but your mam and da were still investing in the café,’ said Lexy. ‘What they didn’t know was that since the Slump their money was going into the Tyneside Tea Company more often than not.’
‘Clarrie has a right to know.’ Maggie was indignant. She eyed Adela through a cloud of cigarette smoke. ‘Maybes you should be the one to tell her, hinny.’
Lexy said, ‘Adela’s got enough on her plate without worrying about the café. If I thought we were in real trouble, I’d write to Clarrie me’sel’.’ She smiled at Adela sitting cross-legged by the hearth, leaning against Ina’s chair. ‘Knowing your mam, she’d carry on paying to keep Jack’s business afloat – anything to help Olive and her children. It’s a crying shame Olive isn’t half as big-hearted.’
The year 1939 came in with a clatter of hailstones and anxious talk of military build-up on the Continent. The newspapers speculated whether Hitler would extend his occupation of the Sudetenland into the rest of Czechoslovakia. The government were compiling a register for war service, and an Auxiliary Territorial Service for women had been set up. On Ina’s crackling radio they talked about the manufacture of Anderson shelters for civilians.
‘What’s one of them when it’s at home?’ Maggie asked.
‘Some sort of shelter to stick in the garden,’ said Adela, ‘and protect you from bombs.’
To Adela it all seemed too far-fetched to be true. She was more interested in finding music on the radio. ‘Blue Skies Are Round the Corner’ became her favourite, and she clung on to it like a mantra as her belly swelled and the creature inside her squirmed restlessly and left her out of breath as she climbed the stairs to her tiny bedroom.
Lexy came at the beginning of February with news about the adoption. Through the minister at the seamen’s mission, Lexy had made contact with a church that arranged adoptions for unwanted babies.
‘Most of the bairns are sent abroad to the colonies – Canada and the like. They get a good, healthy outdoor life working on farms. That’s grand, isn’t it?’
Adela’s heart beat erratically and her palms sweated. ‘I suppose so.’ She didn’t really want to dwell on such things. To her, this baby was a deep source of shame. She didn’t want to think of it as a person who would have a future life somewhere else. Once it was born, it would no longer be her concern. She wanted rid of it as soon as she possibly could.
‘I don’t want to know anything about it after the birth,’ she said, ‘not even if it’s a girl or a boy.’
But as the time of birth drew nearer and the baby turned in the womb, Adela couldn’t help dwelling on what would become of it. Her mind was filled with images of street children in India abandoned to poverty with no parents to fend for them, at the mercy of disease and hunger, begging for food.
When Lexy next came, Adela said, ‘I want it to go to a good home. How will I know it will be cared for? Can’t a childless couple in Britain take it in? So it can get a good schooling and be more than just a farm labourer or housemaid.’
Lexy fixed her with a look. ‘I’m not a miracle worker, lass.’
‘Sorry.’ Adela looked away. ‘You’ve done more for me than I ever deserved. I know I’ve no right to ask.’
Lexy said, ‘I’ll put in a word. They’re good church people. It’s not all the bairns that gan abroad.’
A week later, as Adela was helping feed Ina some broth, she felt a gush between her legs. Mortified that she’d wet herself, Adela was reassured by Maggie.
‘It’s your waters breaking, hinny. Your time’s nearly come.’
She put Adela to bed, lining it with towels and brown paper. Nothing happened. Adela watched the first fat flakes of snow glide past the window as she waited. The sky darkened. Dread paralysed her. She had seen tea pickers go into labour among the tea bushes and be rushed to the compound, but she had always been bustled out of sight while her mother went to help with the births. She was ignorant of what she would experience next. How she longed at that moment for her mother! Even the lowliest tea worker had had Clarrie’s fussing attention, yet here she lay thousands of miles from home, without a mother’s love and reassurance at the birth of her firstborn. It was a moment that they would now never share, and she had only herself to blame. Feeling horribly alone, she got up again to help with the dishes, but Maggie chased her back upstairs.
‘I’m not in labour,’ Adela protested. ‘Let me help with Ina.’
Half an hour later she was twisting in agony and shouting for her mother. Lexy appeared as if by magic.
‘It’s snowing hard,’ she said, stamping her feet and bringing in a blast of icy air.
She coaxed Adela on to the bed and through the pain. ‘Breathe easy. That’s it, lass.’
But the pain grew unbearable; it was red-hot and came in ever-increasing waves. Is this what the Khassia hill women had had to endure? And the women on Fatima’s purdah ward? She had never appreciated the agony they must have gone through.
Adela shrieked, ‘I’m going to die!’
‘Stop being so dramatic.’ Lexy laughed. ‘I’ve helped ten nephews and nieces into this world, as well as me youngest sister. I’ve never lost any of ’em. So be me guest and scream the house down.’
It felt like for ever, but there was still a streak of light left in the sky when Adela’s baby came pushing out on to the lumpy bed. The labour was swift – no more than two hours – and the birth uncomplicated. Within minutes it was giving a lusty wail. Lexy saw to the umbilical cord and wrapped the baby in a clean sheet.
‘Do you want a hold?’ she asked.
Adela lay back, panting. ‘No.’
‘Want to know the sex?’
Adela shook her head. Her eyes felt hot and watery. She squeezed them shut.
‘Let me know if you change your mind. If we get snowed in, you’ll have to feed the bairn anyway.’
Adela dozed. She woke to hear the women below laughing and cooing over the baby. She turned on her side, tears stinging her eyes. Tears of relief. But once they started, she couldn’t stop them. She had a vivid memory of her mother holding newborn Harry in her arms, her tired face suffused with love, completely absorbed in the joy of cradling her son. It left her winded. Burying her face in the pillow, she muffled her sobbing and cried herself into exhausted sleep.
In the night she awoke and climbed out of bed on wobbly legs, needing to relieve herself. She used the chamber pot. There was an odd noise coming from below. Adela descended. In the firelight she could see Lexy asleep on the sofa. Within touching distance, the baby was lying in a scrubbed-out fish box, swaddled in blankets, making snuffling, whimpering noises that were growing louder.
Adela steeled herself to bend down and look. It had a crown of black hair and a dark pink face. She brushed it with a finger. It opened its eyes – dark pools in the dim light – and for an instant focused on her. She felt a jolt of alarm and withdrew her hand. A minute later the baby was crying loudly enough to wake Lexy.
>
‘You’ll have to feed him.’ She yawned.
‘Him?’
‘Aye, it’s a lad. Best you know, lass. You might spend the rest of your days wondering. Tak’ him back upstairs, and I’ll help get him latched on.’
‘I’d rather stay down here by the fire.’ Adela went back and fetched covers from her bed. She piled them by the hearth and lay down. With Lexy helping, Adela propped herself on her side and guided the infant to her breast. She winced at the first sharp tugs.
‘How does he know what to do?’
‘Just nature, isn’t it?’ Lexy smiled.
Adela watched the baby’s earnest face as his tiny rosebud mouth sucked rhythmically, his soft hair shiny in the firelight. He fascinated her. Soon he tired and loosened his hold, his eyes closing as he fell asleep. Adela closed hers. In that half-conscious state between being awake and oblivion, she was struck by the thought that her father, had he lived, would now have been a grandfather. This tiny creature, lying in a Cullercoats cottage, was the grandson of Wesley Robson. Part of her was thankful that her father would never know of the shameful birth, and yet she was filled with sorrow that the two would never know each other. Despite her regret that she had fallen pregnant with Jay’s child, she was sure that her father would not have rejected this baby, might even in different circumstances have grown to love him. Adela was overwhelmed with bittersweet regret. She bent to kiss the infant’s soft, downy head and was taken aback by a brief surge of longing – whether for her father or the baby she was too tired to fathom.
Adela refused to give the baby a name. ‘It’s not mine. Let the family he goes to give him a name.’
‘You have to register him, hinny,’ said Maggie. ‘Anything will do.’
In the end Lexy went to register the birth, saying that the mother was too ill with milk fever to do it herself. ‘I called him John Wesley, after your Belhaven grandda and your da.’
Adela’s heart squeezed at the mention of her father’s name. ‘What did you put for the father?’ she asked in panic.
The Girl From the Tea Garden Page 31
