Page 131 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
Adela’s chest constricted as she nodded.
Joan put a protective hand on Bonnie’s head. ‘I can’t imagine doing that. I’m sorry for you, I really am. Would the lad not stand by you?’
‘No,’ Adela whispered.
‘George would never have left me in the lurch.’
‘No, George is a good man.’ Adela’s eyes stung with tears. ‘Take care of yourself and Bonnie.’ Adela managed a smile and, before Joan could ask anything more, fled from the stifling kitchen with its smell of milk and baby.
Josey took her for a walk. They sat on a park bench in the chilly dank November air while Adela poured out her heart. She told her friend everything about her affair, the pregnancy and giving away her baby– the pain that had not diminished over the years, but had grown into a hard knot of regret deep inside.
‘I’ve never told as much to anyone before,’ Adela said tearfully, drained after the telling. ‘The only people I thought knew were Lexy, Maggie, Aunt Olive and her cleaner, Myra. Jane might have guessed, but never asked. Yet all this time Joan knew as well. Why didn’t she say anything?’
‘Maybe she really did feel sorry for you,’ Josey said. ‘Joan is not the brightest penny in the till, but she’s not so stupid that she can’t imagine it happening to her. If it hadn’t been for George hastily marrying her, she would have been in the same boat.’
‘What is it that you know about her?’ Adela asked.
‘I saw her with another man at an after-show party last year. Sub lieutenant in the navy. Dancing cheek to cheek they were. One of his shipmates said his friend was head over heels, so I got the impression it wasn’t the first time she’d met him.’
‘And she recognised you too? Was she embarrassed?’
Josey gave a short laugh. ‘Not in the least. Came right up to me and said how much she’d enjoyed the show, and did I have news of you? There really isn’t much mental activity going on between her ears.’
‘Poor George,’ said Adela.
‘Maybe it’s what he wants,’ Josey said with a shrug, ‘an uncomplicated pretty wife at home to think about while he’s overseas.’
‘I hope so.’
On her last day in Newcastle, Adela chose to be alone. She took the train down to the coast and the row of cottages at Cullercoats, and stood in front of the old coastguard’s cottage where she had lived with Maggie and Ina– and given birth to her son. For the first time in nearly five years Adela allowed herself to remember–reallyremember– what it had been like to give birth. She had been so young and her feelings so confused; she’d been frightened, ashamed, resolute, shocked at the pain yet exhilarated to survive and to hold a new life in her arms. A baby boy: a warm, blood-pumping, heart-beating, squalling, bright-eyed boy with dark hair as soft as duck down and a trusting look. Her breasts tingled as she thought of his suckling. John Wesley. Her sweet son.
Only the sight of baby Bonnie, her cousin’s beautiful daughter, had finally brought home to her what she had given up. Bonnie had torn open the emotional wound that she had managed to cauterise the day she had abandoned her boy.
Adela stood on the cobbles in the raw sea air and allowed a gigantic wave of remorse and sorrow to engulf her. She had been so determined to put the pregnancy behind her and to dismiss her affair with Jay as a terrible, juvenile mistake. At the time she had considered the baby as a nuisance, a shameful secret to be hidden away.
Yet the boy had beenherstoo and not just a manifestation of a past lover for whom her feelings had long since vanished. Somewhere out in the world she had a son. Did he look like her or like Jay? Did he have his grandmother Clarrie’s nose or his grandfather Wesley’s eyes? Did he run like Harry or have long dextrous fingers like the Rajah’s? Adela would never know. As she turned from the cottage with tears stinging her cold cheeks, she prayed that he was safe and healthy and being loved. She hoped that, after all, he had been taken safely to Canada or America to a life of opportunity and the clean outdoors.
The beaches along the coast were fenced off and the promenades still restricted, despite the threat of imminent invasion having long passed. Adela took a back lane towards the station and found herself at the end of the street where Jackman’s Sewing Shop stood. She stopped outside. Was Sam’s mother equally remorseful for having turned her back on her only son? Was it ever too late to try and heal the wounds of betrayal that Sam felt so keenly? Perhaps it was within Adela’s power to attempt to mend the rift between him and his estranged mother.
There was a handwritten notice in the window advertising an alteration and mending service. There was no light on in the shop on this dull grey day, but she tried the door anyway. It opened with a tinkle of a bell. The same woman she had seen behind the counter several years ago was sitting in the pool of light from the shop window, round spectacles poised on the end of her nose, sewing the hem of a utility skirt. Less plump and a lot greyer than before but recognisably the same woman.
‘Can I help you, dear?’ She looked up and smiled. She didn’t look like the type of woman who would walk out on a husband and a small son. But then who was she to judge?
‘I’m Adela Robson. I was brought up in Assam on a tea estate. Belgooree. Did you used to live in Assam, MrsJackman?’
The woman looked at her in astonishment, her mouth falling open. After a moment she nodded. ‘A very long time ago.’
‘It’s just that I’m a friend of Sam Jackman’s,’ Adela ploughed on before her courage failed. ‘And I wondered if he was ... if he is your son.’
The woman half rose. Her sewing dropped to the floor. ‘Sam?’ she gasped. ‘You know my Sam?’
Adela nodded. MrsJackman burst into tears.
Later Adela talked it over with Tilly and Josey: the spur-of-the-moment encounter and Marjory Jackman’s emotional outpouring.
‘She insisted that she’d never meant to abandon Sam, wanted to take him with her,but old man Jackman wouldn’t hear of it. Marjory said she couldn’t stand another minute of India– the climate, the isolation, her husband taking her for granted.’
‘I can sympathise with that,’ Tilly murmured.
