Page 91 of The Girl from the Tea Garden
Trying to think of something else, she gazed at the scene as they rattled over cobbles, noticing the fashions. The young women wore their hair shorter than in India, styled in waves, and many of the men wore large flat caps. There wasn’t a brown face in sight, nor the dazzling colours of saris or gaudily painted rickshaws that would brighten up an Indian city. There were far more motor cars here and less horse traffic.
The sides of buildings bore huge advertisements for hot drinks or cleaning powders. They passed a theatre showing J.B.Priestley’s playTime and the Conways.
‘Oh, I’d love to go and see that,’ cried Adela. ‘Have you been yet?’
‘Not into serious stuff,’ said George. ‘Prefer a good sing-song.’
‘Well, you and I will have to go then,’ Adela said, nudging Jane.
‘My sister doesn’t go to the theatre,’ George answered. ‘She gets nervy in crowded places.’
Adela looked quizzically at Jane, but her cousin glanced away and stared out of the window. Adela thought how different she seemed from the person who had written long newsy letters for the last ten years.
‘Okay, Jane,’ said Adela, ‘we’ll choose a very quiet matinée to go to.’
Jane’s mouth twitched in a fleeting smile, but George snorted. ‘Well, you can try.’
At the top of a steep hill he turned right and then left into a quiet terraced street and pulled up outside a house with a dark green front door.
‘Number 10 Lime Terrace. Home sweet home,’ George declared. ‘You’ll find the old girl indoors, but the old man won’t be back till late. See you at teatime.’
He jumped out, retrieved the cases from among the packets of tea, opened the front door and dumped them in the hall.
‘The maharani has arrived!’ he bellowed, and then with a wink at Adela he sprinted back to the van and drove off, with it belching smoke and the horn blaring loudly.
Adela peered up a gloomy hallway, trying to adjust to the dimness after the sunshine outside. There was a smell of carbolic soap and disinfectant. A dark red narrow carpet runner disappeared up a black-painted staircase straight ahead, while three doors led off the hallway. It was colder inside than out.
‘In here!’ a voice called from behind the door to the right.
‘Go ahead,’ Jane said. ‘Mam’s in there.’
Adela quickly unpinned her hat and hung it on a high peg on the wall next to a man’s coat, opened the door and stepped into a sitting room. It was crowded with solid dark furniture– two sofas, three armchairs, several nests of tables and a radiogram on a sideboard– with glimpses of a dark-blue-patterned carpet beneath. A strange-looking unlit fire was surrounded by brown tiles, and a large mirror hung on a chain above it. Adela wondered where her aunt was.
‘Over here, lass. I’ve been watching from the window.’
Adela jumped. Turning towards the bay window, which was shrouded in net curtains and obscured by planters stuffed with ferns, she saw a thin woman stand up. She looked pale as a ghost in the filtered light, her oval face like delicately chiselled alabaster and reddish hair pulled away in a tight bun. She was dressed in a thick tweed suit despite it being the height of summer.
‘Aunt Olive?’
‘Of course it is. Come here, lass, and let me take a look at you.’
Adela rushed forward to kiss her aunt, but Olive stuck out her hands and held her at arm’s length, surveying her. Her touch was cold and bony. Adela clutched her hands awkwardly, smiling.
‘Eeh, just look at you, so like our Clarrie!’ Olive cried. ‘You’re even bonnier mind. You’ve got your father’s eyes; that’s what it is. Your mam must be that proud of you. I wish I’d had a lass that took after me.’
Adela gave an awkward glance at Jane, but she remained impassive.
‘And how pretty you look in that frock. Is that the fashion in India? Chintzy flowers and sweetheart neckline?’
‘It’s a couple of years old,’ Adela admitted. ‘MrsHogg’s durzi copied it from a French magazine.’
‘What’s a durzi?’ asked Olive.
‘A tailor,’ Jane answered.
‘How on earth do you know that?’ Olive exclaimed.
‘Adela told me in a letter. MrRoy, a durzi from Delhi, used to visit Simla during the cold season and go around all the British homes making clothes.’
