Page 111 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
‘So you won’t be coming back to Lime Terrace and sharing a room with me.’
‘Your parents were very kind to have me for as long as they did,’ said Adela. ‘I can’t expect them to keep me indefinitely. Anyway, Lexy offered, and I’ll help out at the café as much as I can.’
She wasn’t at all sure that Jane believed that she had been in Edinburgh all this time, but George didn’t question her story.
‘Good to see you back, lass,’ he said as he grinned. He picked her up and swung her around. ‘Newcastle’s been a dull dog without you.’
‘Don’t believe you.’ Adela laughed. ‘Are you still courting the gorgeous Joan?’
George winked, which Adela took to be a yes.
Within a week Adela had talked her way into a job at the new Essoldo cinema, working as an usherette and helping out in the circle lounge café. At Lexy’s encouragement, she decided to pay a visit to The People’s Theatre in Rye Hill. The keen amateur group ran a thriving theatre in an old converted chapel uphill from Herbert’s.
‘Don’t spend all your spare time helping out here,’ said Lexy. ‘Go and have a bit o’ fun with the players. See if you can do a bit o’ singin’ and dancin’.’
‘The People’s don’t do variety.’ Adela smiled. ‘They’re much more serious.’
‘Well, you can liven them up then.’
Calling round one early-summer’s evening, Adela found the stage door open and discovered Wilf, George’s cricketing friend, who had briefly been out with Nance, helping with carpentry behind the scenes.
‘Fancy finding you here!’ Adela exclaimed.
Wilf blushed. ‘Just filling in for a lad I work with.’ He quickly led her into the main hall where the players were rehearsing a satire about war, George Bernard Shaw’sArms and the Man. When they took a break, Wilf introduced her to a gaunt middle-aged man called Derek, who was producing the play. He eyed her suspiciously when he heard she’d done all her acting in Simla.
‘Not one of those prima donna memsahibs, are you?’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Adela sparked back. ‘I was usually the third spear carrier or a monk.’
Nearby, a round-faced woman blew out cigarette smoke and chuckled.
Derek frowned. ‘’Cause we don’t hold with imperialists here,’ he continued. ‘We have a proud socialist tradition of radical plays. If it’s singing and dancing you want, try the operatic society.’
‘I’ve done Shaw as well,’ Adela persisted. ‘Saint Joan. Was understudy for the main part at my boarding school.’
‘Boarding school.’ Derek gave a snort of derision.
‘Stop teasing her,’ the plump woman said, grinding out her cigarette in a saucer and stepping forward. ‘I’m Josey Lyons. We welcome anyone here who wants to help out; you don’t have to be a working-class warrior like Derek.’ She shook Adela by the hand and smiled. ‘In fact,’ she said in a loud whisper, ‘even Derek’s roots are suspect. His father was a station master, which makes him lower middle class.’
‘Signalman,’ Derek protested. ‘He was a signalman, and my grandfather was a miner.’
‘Helps if you have a miner in your family tree,’ Josey said with a wink.
Adela decided to keep quiet about her family of tea planters. ‘Farm workers a couple of generations back,’ Adela said. ‘Does that qualify me to help out behind the scenes? I’ll do anything.’
‘Of course it does,’ said Josey, offering her a cigarette. Adela hesitated, then took one; this was more nerve-racking than she’d anticipated.
Josey said to Derek, ‘Let’s try her out. If she auditions well, she can be my understudy for Louka.’
‘The saucy chambermaid?’ Adela exclaimed. ‘I’d love that.’
‘You know the play then?’ Derek said with a sceptical look.
‘Went to see the film three times,’ she replied. ‘Tried to style my hair like Anne Grey. She was wonderful as Raina. And I know it’s an anti-war play and that’s why you’re probably putting it on now, even though it’s a comedy.’
Derek raised his bushy grey eyebrows. ‘All right. You can sit here and prompt,’ he agreed. ‘Just no more mention of boarding school.’
Adela went to the theatre in Rye Hill whenever she had a free moment. She found keeping busy was the best remedy for her shattered emotions. By filling every waking minute, she didn’t have to dwell on the traumas of the past year, the grief for her father and the way she had messed up her life. Relief came from helping others and not brooding on her mistakes. Activity alleviated the gnawing emptiness inside.
