Page 8 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden
‘No, your daughter, Bonnie.’
Fleetingly, George looked regretful. ‘I’ve never really got to know the lass – and I’m just a stranger to her. Anyway,’ he said, regaining his bravado, ‘Joan’s planning to marry the man she’s courting now so Bonnie will have a new dad. He seems a canny lad. He’s head groom at some posh house up the Tyne valley. I wish them luck.’
After that, they made no more mention of Joan or Bonnie. They talked about trivial matters and swapped anecdotes about the War. He had her helpless with laughter describing his fellow crewmen and their escapades, and he seemed equally amused by her stories of being a Land Girl. He made her feel as if no one else in the room mattered. George took her on to a dance hall and they moved among the crush of dancers, Libby thrilling at George holding her close and intoxicated by the musky scent on his smooth chin. She could hardly believe her luck that George had come back into her life so unexpectedly. It had been too long since she had had such fun or been treated like a grown woman.
Living back at home, her mother Tilly made her feel juvenile, constantly fussing and criticising. It was as if the two years in the Land Army – living independently and working hard – had never been. Earlier that evening, she had rung to let her mother know she would be late home and luckily her brother Mungo had answered the telephone. She knew her mother would interrogate her with endless questions about where she had been and what George’s marital status was, but she didn’t care. This evening was worth it and she didn’t want it to end.
Just before midnight, George walked her home, arm in arm.
On the doorstep he disengaged and said, ‘I wish you well, lass.’
Libby’s insides tightened. She felt sudden panic that this magical evening was over. ‘Will I see you before you go?’
He hesitated. ‘I’ll call round if I can.’ He gave her a broad smile and touched her hot cheek. ‘Maybe we could meet up in Calcutta – if you get back to Assam one day.’
‘Yes, I’d like that.’ Libby brightened.
‘Then promise me, you will look me up.’ George fished out a calling card with his details on. ‘I’ll show you a good time.’ Leaning forward, he planted a kiss on her cheek.
Libby, heady from dancing and unaccustomed alcohol, gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘George, I’m not your sister.’
Grinning in surprise, George pulled her towards him and kissed her firmly on the lips. Libby’s heart thudded with excitement. She slipped her hands around his neck and kissed him back with enthusiasm. Too quickly he pulled away.
‘Come to Calcutta, bonny lass,’ he said, stepping back. ‘We’ll have some more fun.’ Then he was strolling off into the night, whistling and leaving Libby craving another embrace.
Libby hardly slept that night. It was hot in the small back bedroom but she preferred sleeping there than having to share a larger bedroom with their lodger and friend, Josey, who chain-smoked and snored. Her thoughts whirled round and round.
What had the evening with George meant? Had he really come to seek her out or had it just been good luck that she had been in the café that day? Maybe he had just asked her out on the spur of the moment, but he seemed to enjoy being with her. It had been his suggestion that they extend the evening by going to the dance hall. Just being with him made her feel fully alive and desired. But George was known for being a ladies’ man so she should be cautious. He was just being friendly. Yet that kiss ... How she wished it could have gone on longer. It was like licking delicious ice cream and then having it snatched away. He must have meant something by that kiss. It made her insides melt to think of it.
Libby threw off the bed covers and lay naked and perspiring in the stuffy room. She remembered India being as hot as this. But in her childhood bedroom at Cheviot View an electric fan on the high ceiling had stirred the soupy air. She remembered how her mother had insisted on the fans being installed.
‘James, thepunkah-wallahsare useless, they fall asleep on the job. We’ll all die in this heat.’As the long-ago words came back to Libby, she felt a rush of homesickness for Assam. She had never fully felt at home anywhere else – boarding school, Newcastle, the farm at Walton – none of them had been anything but temporary in her mind. So often, in her icy school dormitory, Libby had lulled herself to sleep with the memory of riding with her father through the jungle while he sang lustily about British Grenadiers, barking encouragement at her to keep her heels down. Everything about India had been more vivid and exciting than anything she had experienced since. She must redouble her efforts to persuade her mother to return there.
Libby resented the way her mother kept blaming her father for not taking leave and coming to England to see them. As Libby continually pointed out, it was much more difficult for her father to leave his job on the tea plantation than it was for Tilly to give up her charity work. Yet Libby was also secretly disappointed that her father hadn’t taken any leave; surely he wanted to see her again as keenly as she wanted to see him? He had worked so hard during the War to keep the Oxford Estates going, he was more than due a break. It was so typical of her father not to do so but to carry on working and shouldering his responsibilities.
Libby flung out her arms with a sigh of frustration. She was just as bad as they were at coming up with excuses. She knew that the main reason stopping her defying her mother and rushing off to India on her own was her concern over Lexy and the café. Warm-hearted Lexy had been a surrogate grandmother to her; Libby had never known any of her grandparents. But more than that, Lexy had been a good friend and confidante to her during her awkward years of growing up. She couldtell things to the down-to-earth Tynesider that she would never tell her mother in a million years. She couldn’t leave the poor woman to run the tearoom with just Doreen and a couple of part-time waitresses.
Libby not only helped out in her spare time but she did the bookkeeping and ordering of supplies, trying to make their rations stretch further. Lexy had told her how Jane Brewis, George’s sister, had been a competent manager before war-work had meant her moving to Yorkshire. Jane had never come back, settling and marrying there. Joan, George’s estranged wife, had briefly helped out in the last year of the War but Lexy said that Joan had been too unreliable.‘Got her head in the clouds, that one. Thinks she’s a cut above the rest of us but she’s just a lazy lass.’
On Libby’s return to Newcastle, Lexy had been pathetically grateful at her offer of help. Libby knew she would be stuck there unless she forced her cousin Adela and her family to take things in hand. After all, it wasn’t Libby’s branch of the Robson family who owned the business, it was Adela’s. She would definitely write to her cousin and tell her she would have to return to sort out Herbert’s. Perhaps it would be best if the café closed, as long as they took care of Lexy’s future.
But what if Adela and her husband Sam Jackman were happy in India and making a new life for themselves? Libby would feel guilty at forcing them to return to Newcastle against their wishes. Britain was a drab, war-weary country these days, with rationing worse than ever and families still living in prefabricated temporary huts because of a housing shortage. The situation for the British in India might be growing uncertain with the move towards greater independence for Indians but it was still a country full of opportunities and a good lifestyle – George was proof of that. However, Adela and her mother Clarrie needed to be aware of how run-down their business had become. Lexy shouldn’t have to carry the burden alone.
Libby closed her eyes and imagined meeting up with George in Calcutta. They would play tennis at his club and go dancing at one ofthe big hotels and he would take her in his arms and kiss her again, this time more lingeringly. Libby felt desire flood through her.
Libby’s determination returned: she would write to Adela and tell her she must decide whether to come back and save Herbert’s or to close it for good. Either way, Libby would then be free to make up her own mind. If her mother refused to go back to Assam and her father refused to come to England, should she, Libby, return on her own to the land of her birth, India?
