Page 84 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
James protested that he could do this for her. Clarrie was firm. ‘Thank you, but this is my garden and my responsibility. I know you are all trying to be kind and helpful– I couldn’t be more grateful– but this is the only way I know how to cope. So please let me just go to work.’
By the end of the week Clarrie insisted on her friends going home and carrying on with their lives.
‘James, I know how much you are needed at the Oxford Estates at this time of year. You really should go back. And Rafi, the Raja has been generous to spare you for this long, but Adela and I can manage.’
‘But what are you going to do about Belgooree?’ Tilly said. ‘James can advise you. You can’t make such decisions on your own.’
‘I need time to think it through,’ said Clarrie. ‘When I’m ready to talk, I’ll ask for help.’
‘But you need help now,’ James pointed out. ‘Who is going to keep an eye on the coolies and do all the jobs my cousin did?’
‘I will,’ Clarrie said, ‘and I have good undermanagers: Daleep in the factory, and Banu, Ama’s grandson, as overseer in the gardens.’
‘Dear Clarrie, I hate the thought of leaving you alone,’ Tilly cried. ‘Wouldn’t you like one of us to stay with you?’
Clarrie squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘That’s kind, but I have Adela and Harry for company.’
‘Promise you will call on us whenever you need us,’ said Sophie, ‘and that goes for Adela too.’ She turned with a smile of concern to Adela.
‘Of course we will,’ Clarrie agreed.
Adela felt panic tighten her chest at the thought of her aunties and uncles leaving. She felt safe with them around; hearing their voices around the house and their tread on the stairs was comforting, as if life could one day be normal again. At night, when she hardly slept, their presence kept the frightening shadows at bay.
But she bottled up her fears and told them she would be fine. She wanted to ask Sophie to write and tell her what was happening at Gulgat and with Jay, but she did not dare utter his name. Her feelings about him were so terribly mixed. His recklessness had led to the wounded man-eater mauling her father in a frenzied attack from which he could never have recovered. Only someone with her father’s strength and bravery could have lasted the long hours of agony that he did. Yet Jay had been the one to finally shoot the tigress and had done all he could to try and keep her father alive. What was Jay thinking now? Did he regret his life becoming entangled with hers in the same way that she regretted ever becoming involved in his? But however much she railed against Jay’s pleasure-seeking selfishness, she knew she would never blame him as much as she blamed herself for her father’s death.
The days crept slowly by; the temperatures continued to rise. Adela’s only release was to saddle up before dawn and ride out through the dewy tea bushes, watching the haze of smoke hanging over the village from early-morning fires and the pickers stream in a colourful wave, baskets strapped to their heads, up the plantation tracks. Her heart ached that her father would never again ride with her, or be by her side to wave to the women, as they had done together countless times before. She had lost the nerve to ride further into the forest.
Mainly Adela confined herself to the compound, trying to entertain a grieving Harry. Her brother wandered around like a lost puppy looking for its missing master.
‘Delly, when is Daddy coming back?’
‘He’s not, Harry. I’m sorry.’
‘Will he be here when I’m five?’
‘No, he won’t. You know he won’t.’
‘But he said he’d teach me how to fish when I’m five. He has to if he said he would.’
Each time he asked her, it opened up her raw grief anew. But worse was when he wanted to know about the tiger.
‘Did you see it, Delly? Did it eat Daddy?’
‘Of course it didn’t!’
Harry’s lip trembled at her cross tone.
‘Mungo said it did.’
‘Well, Mungo’s a silly boy for saying so,’ Adela snapped. ‘He wasn’t there.’
‘Did the tiger just eat a bit of Daddy then?’
‘Stop asking! It’s a horrid thing to talk about.’
After that, Harry stopped pestering her with morbid questions. He stopped speaking to her at all. The unhappy boy became withdrawn and started wetting the bed at night. Adela felt consumed with guilt for being impatient towards him, but she couldn’t smother her growing jealousy towards her brother for being able to comfort their mother when she could not.
Daily Clarrie seemed to grow more dependent on Harry. She allowed her son to clamber into her bed at night– he never seemed to wet hers– and yet when Adela asked one night if she could sleep with them, Clarrie had teased, ‘I can’t be coping with two babies. And darling, it’s far too hot for us all to sleep together.’
