Page 109 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
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.’
