Page 192 of The Secrets of the Tea Garden
‘I’m sorry now that I discouraged your friendship with my brother,’ Fatima confessed to Libby. ‘I didn’t realise how very much he meant to you.’ She squeezed Libby’s hand. ‘Thank you for looking after me and being my friend. We will keep each other strong until he comes back to us.’
Libby wished with all her heart that this would come true. With Fatima around she could almost believe that Ghulam might return. She had to force herself not to beg Fatima to stay on at the Roys’. Libbyberated herself for her dark thoughts. If brave Fatima refused to give up hope that Ghulam was still alive, then so should she.
Once Fatima had moved back to the hospital, Sophie, who had delayed joining Rafi while his sister was ill, made swift plans to go to Rawalpindi. Libby had to brace herself to say goodbye to the Scotswoman – one of the few people who really understood about her love for Ghulam and who, unlike most others, had encouraged her relationship with Rafi’s brother.
On Sophie’s final evening she asked Libby, ‘What will you do?’
Libby answered, ‘I’m going to stay till after Flowers gets married. Apart from being at the wedding, I want to see Adela and Sam before I go home. I can’t deny that I’m sad they won’t be in England when I return.’
‘I long to see them too,’ said Sophie. ‘But with all that’s happened, I just want to be with Rafi as soon as possible.’
‘Sam will understand,’ Libby assured her.
‘You know you are welcome any time to stay with me and Rafi,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s so hard to say goodbye to you, lassie. We’ve been through such a lot together in a short time.’
‘I know,’ said Libby, growing teary. ‘I’ll miss you so very much too.’
Sophie said, ‘Don’t give up hope of finding Ghulam. Fatima hasn’t. We’ll keep making enquiries in the Punjab in case he made it that far. Someday we’ll find out what’s happened to him.’
Libby could only nod in agreement; her heart was too full and her throat too constricted to speak.
After Sophie left, Libby renewed her determination to fill her every hour. Putting the word around that she was teaching typing, Libby gained another couple of students from among the congregation at the Duff Church: young Anglo-Indian women who were eager to findgood jobs in the city. Although the Roys said they were happy for her to use their home for teaching, Libby preferred to visit her new pupils at home. That way she quickly learnt more about them and their needs. They were willing students and when two of them swiftly secured jobs, word soon spread about Libby’s success and her number of pupils grew.
As October wore on, Libby got caught up in the excitement of Flowers’s impending marriage. She had resumed the occasional evening out with Flowers and George and their circle of young friends, though not as often as they asked her. Libby went with Flowers and her mother on shopping trips to buy her wedding trousseau. The gown was being made by a dressmaker friend of the Dunlops, but Flowers wanted clothes for her honeymoon.
‘I’m not supposed to know,’ Flowers said, ‘but I overheard George telling Eddy that it’s Ceylon. George was stationed there during the War and I know he wants to go back and see it properly.’
Libby knew that George had been posted to Ceylon during his time in the Fleet Air Arm. Yet it was only as an adult that Libby had discovered that during this time George’s sweetheart Joan had had a fling and become pregnant. It was while on leave from Ceylon that George had done the decent thing and swiftly married Joan. Seeing how happy Flowers was – and how besotted George was about his new love – Libby had to admit that she may have judged George too harshly over his behaviour in the past year.
He had never truly loved Joan and never had the chance to form an attachment with baby Bonnie, who wasn’t his own. Freed from his obligations to wife and child, George had been almost frantic in his attempts to make up for lost time and enjoy himself. Perhaps he had been more hurt by Joan’s infidelity than Libby had realised. George was naturally gregarious and flirtatious – but apart from the one enthusiastic kiss in the Botanical Gardens he had never led Libby to expect anything more than friendship.
When she thought back to six months ago and the various dances and dinners she had attended, it struck her that it was always the attractive, independently minded nurse that George was trying to pursue. He danced with Flowers more than anyone and made sure she was the last to be dropped off home. Flowers had been wary of George, not wanting either herself or Libby to catch him on the rebound after his divorce. Somehow George had finally convinced Flowers how serious he was about her.
Perhaps the upheaval and uncertainty of Independence had concentrated Flowers’s mind on what she wanted out of life – and she had chosen George. No doubt the Dunlop parents were relieved to see their only daughter settled, and with a young Englishman too. If George ever decided to return to live and work in Britain with his new wife, then the Dunlops would be able to follow. Danny Dunlop no longer needed his unproven connections to some tea planter; he was soon to have a son-in-law with a British passport.
While Libby buried her grief over Ghulam with as much activity as possible, she could not avoid the signs of distress on the streets around her. Even in the main shopping thoroughfares, the numbers of homeless and destitute people begging seemed to grow weekly. At night they would huddle in doorways and scavenge what was left in the gutters from street stalls. Libby’s spirits weighed heavily at the sight of them but what could she do that would make the slightest difference? The numbers were too overwhelming. Then she would think of Ghulam and how he would have chided her for her defeatist attitude.
It prompted Libby to ask Fatima where Sanjeev lived. Of all Ghulam’s comrades, the cheerful Sanjeev had always been the most optimistic. She wondered if he still was. Perhaps he would have some suggestion as to how she could help. Libby knew he could shed no lighton Ghulam’s whereabouts as he had been the first person Fatima had contacted when she had heard no word of Ghulam arriving in Pakistan and had begun to grow worried.
A few days before Flowers’s wedding, Libby tracked down Sanjeev to a flat behind Hogg’s Market in Lindsay Street, close to where the Dunlops lived. Sanjeev welcomed her in, not showing as much surprise to see her as Libby had expected. The tiny spartan flat had little furniture, save for an old desk piled with books and acharpoyin the corner. It reminded Libby of Ghulam’s bedroom in Amelia Buildings. The thought brought her pain.
Sanjeev brewed up tea and they sat on rugs, swapping news and discussing everything that had happened since they had last met at the refugee centre outside Calcutta. She told him about her teaching young women to type but that she was seeking to do more to help the destitute too.
Finally, Libby asked, ‘Tell me about when Ghulam lived here.’ They had been skirting the subject of their mutual friend, apart from Sanjeev’s initial words of sorrow about Ghulam’s disappearance. ‘Was he in good spirits or depressed about what was happening after Partition?’
‘He was full of hope that things would get better,’ said Sanjeev, rubbing his temples. ‘We both were. Despite the hostility of some towards him, Ghulam was going to stand for the city council for the Communist Party and he was working on a series of articles about how Calcutta could be improved.’
‘Had he given up working forThe Statesman?’ asked Libby. ‘I hadn’t seen anything by him for a while.’
‘No, he was still there part-time. His editor was very good about giving him as much leave as he needed to travel to Lahore to see his father. In fact, he gave Ghulam enough for the airfare from Delhi and told him not to take the train.’
Libby’s insides twisted. Ghulam had so much to live for. She forced herself to ask what she had been unable to ask Fatima.
‘Do you think he might have got as far as Delhi and then stayed for some reason? For some person ...?’
Libby glanced up and saw Sanjeev regarding her intently. She reddened.
‘Why do you think that?’
