The Secrets of the Tea Garden

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  One of the cats – a thin tabby – padded in and distracted her mistress.

  ‘Come here, Polly!’ Doris picked up the cat and began to stroke her. Polly purred and kneaded Doris’s lap with her paws.

  Adela feared the woman would change the subject back to cats. ‘Mrs Singer said that the Frenchman was swarthy so they found a baby that was suitable.’

  Suddenly, Mrs Kelly’s eyes widened. ‘The ones who took the coloured baby?’

  Adela felt herself flushing but nodded agreement.

  ‘Oh, I remember them!’ said Doris. ‘Yes, they were foreign. Such a nice woman. But they weren’t French – though they spoke it.’

  ‘Oh, so what were they?’

  ‘Belgian. He worked on the railways – or built engines – something mechanical – over Birtley way. Now what were they called?’ She frowned in concentration and stroked Polly. ‘Segal. That’s it. Elene Segal was the wife. Can’t remember if I ever knew her husband’s Christian name.’

  ‘Ah, yes, Segal,’ Adela murmured, as if recalling the name too. ‘But they don’t come to church any more?’

  Doris shook her head. ‘No, dear, they haven’t been for years. Unfortunately, once the original church was bombed we didn’t have anywhere to meet so the membership dropped off. And then some got drafted and others moved away. We lost touch with a lot of folk. And the dear chaplain from the Seamen’s Mission who used to come and preach – he was killed at sea.’

  The woman’s eyes welled with tears.

  Adela touched her arm in sympathy. ‘Yes, I heard he was a kind man,’ she said. ‘I am sorry.’

  A tear dropped on to Polly. The cat leapt down and hurried back outside.

  ‘Did the Segals move too?’

  Doris sighed. ‘I can’t recall. Yes, I think so. I think Elene might have been evacuated with the baby – well he was a little boy by then.’

  Adela’s heart thumped. ‘Do you remember him?’

  Doris smiled. ‘He was a cheery thing – always smiling and babbling away trying to talk. And his mam was devoted. You would think she was his real flesh-and-blood mother the fuss she made over him.’

  Adela’s heart ached with a mixture of pride and jealousy.

  ‘But it’s possible they might still live in Birtley?’ Adela pressed.

  ‘Oh, they didn’t live in Birtley,’ said Doris. ‘That was just where Mr Segal worked. No, they lived in Newcastle.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’ asked Adela, trying not to sound too eager.

  Doris gave her a look of surprise. ‘Why are you so interested in the Segals? Did you know them?’

  ‘No,’ Adela admitted, ‘but I’m interested in the adoption society. I’d like to do something worthwhile like that.’

  ‘You should ask the pastor about it, dear.’

  ‘Yes, but it would also be useful to talk to mothers who know about these things.’

  Adela held her breath, hoping Mrs Kelly would believe her. Or was the organist growing suspicious of her string of questions? Adela felt bad about lying to the woman but it wasn’t far from the truth. She did want to talk to this Elene Segal – or at least find out where she lived.

  Doris pursed her lips in thought. ‘Heaton,’ she said. ‘They lived in Heaton. Now where was it? Railway Terrace, I think. Yes, Railway Terrace near the goods yard. But there’s no knowing whether they’re still there. In fact, I’d be very surprised if they were.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Adela asked.

  ‘Because she would still have been coming to church, wouldn’t she?’ Doris shook her head. ‘No, I think it more likely they were evacuated – or moved with his job. I was away in Yorkshire a lot of the War looking after Wilfred’s young ones but the Segals had gone by the time I came back. I’ve never seen or heard of them since.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Adela agreed, trying not to show disappointment.

  ‘Or there’s the other possibility,’ Doris mused. ‘They might have gone back to Belgium when the War ended.’

  Adela’s chest tightened at the painful thought. If that was the case, it would be almost impossible to find her son.

  Doris pressed her to stay for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Adela realised that there was no Sam at home to nag her about staying out late, so she accepted. They talked about other things; Doris was interested to hear about her growing up in India.

  As she got ready to go, Adela turned the conversation to the Segals one last time. She was plagued by one question in particular.

  ‘What did the Segals call their baby?’ she asked.

  Doris frowned in thought. ‘Let me think.’

  Adela went very still, even though her heart was hammering. She thought it unlikely they would have kept his real name, yet she hoped unrealistically that they had.

  ‘Jacques, I think it was,’ said Doris. ‘Maybe it was Mr Segal’s name.’

  Adela nodded, her throat suddenly too tight to speak. It may have been the adoptive father’s name but it was also the French name for John. Adela’s eyes prickled with emotion and she made a hurried departure, afraid that she would break down crying in front of Mrs Kelly.

  It was after nine o’clock but still light when Adela left Mrs Kelly’s flat. Full of a restless energy, she began walking in the direction of Heaton and the railway line. She couldn’t wait another day to discover if the Segals still lived in Railway Terrace. She wouldn’t knock on anyone’s door; she would just walk the street and casually look around. What if she were to spot John Wesley playing in the street?

  Adela’s heart pumped and her stomach churned with nervous excitement. She had gone to Mrs Kelly’s expecting to find out little about a nameless French couple, not wanting to raise her hopes too much. But the friendly organist had given her a precious gift. Not only did Doris remember John Wesley as a cheerful, engaging baby called Jacques, but she had told her where he lived.

  As Adela walked briskly in the soft twilight, she felt a clash of emotions about the Segals. She was grateful that such a caring couple were bringing up her son. Both Lily and Doris had had nothing but warm words for the Belgian couple. She tried to imagine what they looked like. Perhaps Elene was dark-haired like she was. Would Mr Segal be as handsome as Sanjay? Adela thought that was unlikely.

  It was unsettling thinking of her former lover. The only good thing that had come out of their brief, intense affair had been their beautiful baby. But now another couple would spend a lifetime bringing him up. A sharp stab of envy made Adela stop and clutch her stomach as if she’d been winded.

  Two women standing gossiping on a nearby doorstep stopped and stared.

  ‘You all right, hinny?’ one called out.

  Adela gulped for breath. ‘I’m fine,’ she gasped, trying to control the palpitations in her chest. ‘Just walking too quickly.’

  ‘I’ll fetch you a cup o’ water,’ the woman said and dived into the house before Adela could refuse.

  A minute later, Adela was gulping at the tepid water the kind woman had brought her. ‘Thank you.’ She gave her a grateful smile.

  ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ the older neighbour asked.

  ‘No,’ said Adela. ‘I’m looking for Railway Terrace.’

  ‘You’re the wrong end of Heaton, hinny,’ said the bearer of the water. She gave Adela directions.

  Adela set off, annoyed at herself for not asking the way sooner. She had been in such a state after her visit to Doris Kelly that she hadn’t been thinking straight and had headed in the vague direction of the railway line.

  Perhaps she should give up and come back in full daylight when there would be people about and children playing in the street. Yet she was so close now that she couldn’t give up the hunt.

  Twenty minutes later, Adela was standing at the end of a street proclaiming itself as Railway Terrace. It was identical to the streets on either side: soot-blackened red-brick rows with neat lace-curtained windows and uniform doors. Pulse quickening, she set off down it, looking eagerly from s
ide to side, though she wasn’t sure what clues would tell her where the Belgians might be living.

  Halfway down the street, the houses came to an abrupt stop and open waste ground took over. In the half-light, she could see the earth was pock-marked with craters and strewn with piles of brick and rubble like crude temples. A large part of the street had been bombed and not rebuilt. At the far end, factory sheds clustered around a railway siding.

  Doris’s words came to her clearly: ‘Railway Terrace near the goods yard.’

  Adela realised in horror that this was the end of Railway Terrace where the Segals had lived with John Wesley. She gasped aloud. ‘Please don’t say he’s dead!’

  She picked her way across the bomb site, scouring the ground, as if she would suddenly come across some evidence that they had been here. Perhaps she would find the precious pink swami’s stone that she had bundled into the baby’s blanket as a good luck charm when they’d come to take her son away. Her mother had given it to her as a talisman: ‘I want you to wear it and always be under the swami’s protection and my love.’ Adela had treasured the stone and it had been all she could think of to give John Wesley as a token of her love.

  As Adela searched fruitlessly, she knew how ridiculous she was being. She made herself stop and take deep breaths. She didn’t know for sure if the Segals’ house had been bombed and even if it had, that didn’t mean anyone had died in the raid. They might have been rehoused nearby. Or they might have moved away from Railway Terrace before the bombing. An hour ago, she had felt jealous of the Belgians who were raising her child. Now she prayed fervently that they were alive and well and looking after her son somewhere safe.

  Her emotions in shreds, Adela turned for home. She would return another day and make enquiries about them. She had to believe John Wesley was alive – the alternative was too unbearable to contemplate.

  It was the following week before Adela was able to get away from the café and return to search Railway Terrace. She told no one what she was planning to do – least of all Sam. They only spoke to each other about the running of the café and allotment: mundane arrangements as if they were merely business partners and not husband and wife. He brought in the baking that his mother did, muttering that his mother was tiring of the travelling and preferred to stay at home.

  On the day she was planning to slip off early to go to Heaton, Sam caught her attention.

  ‘You might have to find someone else to make the pies,’ he said, glancing warily at Adela. ‘Mother is finding it’s getting too much for her.’

  ‘That’s all we need!’ Adela said in exasperation.

  ‘You’d be better off finding someone younger and more local anyway,’ Sam suggested, before leaving swiftly for the allotment.

  Adela felt overwhelmed by responsibility for the café; when would it ever stop?

  ‘It’s always me who has to sort out the problems,’ Adela complained to Doreen. ‘Mother must have had the patience of a saint to run this place.’

  ‘He’s right, you know,’ said Doreen forthrightly. ‘Mrs Jackman’s not reliable – she comes in when it suits her and you’ve never got on with her in the kitchen. We need a proper cook who can do the whole menu.’

  Adela sighed, knowing Lexy’s grand-niece was speaking sense.

  ‘You’re the only one I can rely on around here,’ said Adela, swinging an arm around Doreen’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you go leaving me for some office job too soon, will you?’

  ‘Shan’t promise,’ Doreen said with a teasing smile. ‘Would you like me to have a word with Lexy and Mam? I bet they can find a suitable lass.’

  ‘Would you?’ Adela asked in relief.

  ‘Aye, of course,’ the waitress agreed. ‘Then maybe’s you and Sam will have one less thing to argue over.’

  Adela blushed with guilt. Was it so obvious to everyone that she and Sam were not getting on? She dismissed the thought. She had too much else to think about. Sam would soon tire of living at Cullercoats and once she had tracked down the Segals, she would have more time to repair her unravelling marriage.

  Adela approached a group of boys playing football with a tin can on the bomb site in Railway Terrace. Pulse racing, she searched their faces for any similarity to her or Sanjay but found none. They paused in their game, eying her in curiosity.

  ‘What d’yer want, Missus?’ demanded a red-haired youth who looked older than the others.

  ‘Do any of you know a boy called Jacques?’ she asked. She hadn’t meant to come straight out with such a direct question but the boy had asked and he looked old enough to have remembered people who had lived round there before the War.

  ‘Jack who?’

  ‘Jacques Segal.’

  The boy laughed. ‘Jack Seagull? Na, there’s neebody here called that!’

  Another boy made a squawking bird noise and the others started laughing too.

  Adela smiled. ‘It’s a Belgian name. He’d be eight years old. I know they lived in this street in the early part of the War.’

  ‘Sorry, Missus, never heard o’ him.’ The red-headed boy turned away.

  Adela’s heart sank. Perhaps Doris Kelly had remembered the street incorrectly.

  ‘There were them people who talked foreign, remember, Micky?’ said the squawking boy. ‘Lived at number twenty-eight. Me mam used to speak to the wife.’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said his friend, ‘they were Frenchies or some’at.’

  ‘That could be them,’ Adela said, hope flaring. ‘Which is twenty-eight?’

  The older youth, Micky, pointed at one of the piles of rubble. ‘Right there, Missus.’

  Adela’s worst fears were confirmed. ‘Do you know if they survived the bombing?’

  ‘Divn’t kna,’ said Micky with a shrug. ‘But Billy’s mam might remember.’

  ‘Aye,’ his friend agreed. ‘Me mam knew everyone in the street before the War.’

  ‘Would she speak to me?’ Adela asked.

  ‘If you give me a tanner,’ intervened Micky, ‘I’ll tak’ you to Billy’s mam’s.’

  ‘She’s my mam not yours,’ Billy protested. ‘I should get the tanner.’

  ‘It’s my can,’ said Micky, picking up the battered tin they were using as a football. ‘And I say who gets to play wi’ it.’

  Swiftly, Adela fished out a coin each for Billy and Micky. ‘You can both take me, please.’

  The other boys whooped and hollered behind the two leaders as they led Adela back up the street to Billy’s house. Adela was ushered into a dark passageway as Billy called out, ‘Mam! Someone to see yer!’

  ‘Well, bring them in,’ a voice replied. ‘Unless it’s the Grim Reaper.’

  Adela found herself in a narrow galley kitchen that smelt of boiling vegetables, facing a wiry woman in a faded apron. She gaped at Adela.

  ‘You didn’t tell me it was Vivien Leigh!’

  Adela laughed, despite her nervousness. ‘I did used to work for ENSA,’ she joked. ‘But my name’s Adela.’

  ‘Eeh, hinny, has our Billy gone and smashed yer car window or owt? He’s that clumsy. He’ll have to pay for it with odd jobs, ’cause I haven’t got the money—’

  ‘Mam!’ Billy protested. ‘I’ve done nowt wrong.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ Adela reassured her. ‘Billy’s just trying to help me track down some people who used to live in the street. He thought you might know them.’

  ‘Try me,’ said the woman, wiping her hands on her apron.

  Adela explained who she was looking for.

  ‘Oh, aye, the Belgians,’ she said with a nod. ‘Canny couple. He worked over the river. Terrible thing, the bombing. I was on nightshift and Billy was evacuated up Alnwick way, thank heaven.’

  Adela forced herself to ask. ‘So were the Segals caught in the bombing or did they escape it too?’ She could hardly breathe as she waited for the answer.

  The woman gave her a pitying look and shook her head. ‘House took a direct hit. Caught in the shelter so I hea
rd. Didn’t stand a chance of getting out.’

  Adela felt nauseated. She put her hand to her mouth to smother a sob.

  ‘Eeh, hinny, you’ve lost all your colour,’ said Billy’s mother. ‘Sit yersel’ doon.’

  She pulled out a stool. Adela sank on to it, trembling.

  ‘I’m sorry if it’s a shock. Were they friends of yours, hinny?’

  Adela felt completely numb. All she could think about was the randomness of a bomb falling on the very place where her son was living. Her mind filled with horrific images: the Segals grabbing John Wesley and hurrying to the shelter – fearful, praying, clutching each other tight – while the small boy wailed in fright. Would they have felt anything as the blast ripped them to pieces? Did they all die at the same time or did her son linger on, terrified and consumed with pain and completely alone?

  ‘They would have died instantly,’ said Billy’s mother, as if reading her dark thoughts. ‘No time to suffer.’ She patted Adela’s hand. ‘A crying shame. And such a bonny bairn they had an’ all.’

  Adela let out a howl and doubled over, clutching her sides. Nothing the woman said could comfort her. As quickly as she could, Adela left, mumbling her thanks, and fled from the house, the gang of boys staring at her in astonished alarm as she ran up the street.

  ‘Wherever have you been?’ Tilly asked when Adela finally returned home late that night. It was dark but Tilly and Josey were in the sitting room waiting up for her.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Adela said, numb and weary. ‘Just wandering . . .’

  Josey steered her into an armchair. ‘You look terrible. What’s happened? Have you had another row with Sam?’

  ‘Sam?’ Adela said in confusion. It occurred to her that she hadn’t thought about her husband for hours – not since she’d learnt the shocking news of John Wesley’s death. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t think about Sam – couldn’t contemplate the idea that he might be relieved her relentless search was over.

  ‘So you haven’t been to Cullercoats?’ prompted Tilly.

  Adela shook her head.