Tell Me, Darling Read online

  Tell me, Darling

  Kate le Roux

  Copyright ©2019 Kate le Roux

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or other, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Bible quotations taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

  For Joanna

  Because one day you are going to write books way cooler than mine

  Part 1

  Near London, UK

  Chapter 1

  Sadie hugged her knees to her chest with excitement as the train hurtled through the English countryside. She was on her way at last to Camp Bellevue, to six weeks of new experiences and new people to meet, and she couldn’t wait. She had been almost resigned to spending the summer waitressing or babysitting when the call had come – she had got the job at the summer camp where foreign kids came for sports coaching, English lessons and fun, and she had almost given her flatmate Linda a heart attack with her whoops of excitement. “It sounds awful to me,” Linda had said. “Teenagers make me nervous.” But Sadie liked teenagers, and she was glad to be working with them rather than serving beer to old men or wiping baby’s bums. And besides – this felt as if it was an adventure. She was heading into unknown countryside to a place she had never been before, to a job that she had never tried before. She had been in England for five months already, but she hadn’t ventured very far past London yet.

  Sadie adjusted the earphones in her ears, moving her head to the beat of the music playing from her phone. She looked up and caught the eye of an older woman walking past, who gave her a glare. Sadie blushed and put her feet back down. Another thing that wasn’t done, she supposed, putting one’s feet up on the seat in a train. Although perhaps the glare wasn’t because of her feet. Sadie’s hair at the moment was more blue than its natural light brown, and she had done it up in two bunches on either side of her face as she often did. She often got funny looks from older people, and she knew that her granny at home in South Africa wasn’t the only one who disapproved of her hair. Her mom and dad didn’t mind – they were pretty cool parents when it came to self-expression and things like that – they hadn’t even minded when she had pierced her nose. Mom had even given her the little blue stud she wore.

  For Sadie the blue hair and the nose stud were reminders, every time she looked in the mirror, every time she caught a glimpse of herself in a shop window – that she was finally free to be herself. For years she had lived the way he wanted her to live. She had believed for so long that any little attempt to draw attention to herself was a sin and that she was vain and weak. What a difference a year had made. Now Sadie wore what she wanted to and did whatever she wanted with her hair. It was a small thing, but for her it was huge. Disapproving glances from strangers on the train didn’t bother her – quite the opposite – they were a reminder that she was no longer a mouse, a doormat, a victim.

  Sadie absent-mindedly took off her dark-rimmed glasses and polished them on her t-shirt as she looked out of the window again. She wondered to herself if she missed home, but soon forgot that thought as the train raced past some very quaint houses and a field of sheep. There was too much happening to be missing home. Cape Town was home, and she fully intended to return at the end of the year, but for now there were too many fun things happening to be feeling homesick. She was on her way to meet a bunch of brand new people and there were sure to be some new friends among them.

  She hadn’t made too many friends so far and she was itching for some new interaction. She had travelled to England with a friend from school. Linda was very dear to Sadie but if she was honest she was relieved to be parting ways with her old friend for a while. Linda had frizzy blonde hair that she disciplined into a tight ponytail every morning, and a long narrow face which always looked a little sad and worried even if Linda wasn’t. On the airplane, Sadie had been buzzing with excitement and had enjoyed every minute of her first international flight, whereas Linda, who was almost ridiculously tall, had suffered all squashed up in the economy seat and had spent all night looking as if she was about to throw up. When they had arrived at the hostel they had booked, Sadie had happily dropped her bag onto an empty bunk in the dormitory and giggled at the enormous black man who had been snoring on one of the bunks, while Linda had almost passed out in shock at her prospective roommate. Later, when they had found a room to share in a house full of Australians and New Zealanders with similar ambitions for work and travel, Linda had tired Sadie out with her obsessive neatness. Poor Sadie got into trouble for every sock she dropped or plate she left in their tiny sink.

  Sadie had taken the first job she had been offered, as a mother’s help with a family nearby, but Linda, who was very proud of her recently acquired music degree, had pored over the ads in TNT magazine and was almost on her last penny when she finally settled on a job playing piano accompaniments for a ballet teacher. Linda was an old friend, and she was comfortable; she knew why Sadie turned her hair funny colours and wore T-shirts with rainbows on them. They had some fun times cooking up messes on their little hotplate and doing each other’s hair, and going for weekend explorations to parks and museums. But she never wanted to talk to strangers, or do anything interesting in the evenings, and if it hadn’t been for the more adventurous Ozzie couple in the next room, Sadie would have had no one to go to shows and clubs with.

  That was another thing – Sadie knew Linda didn’t approve of her evening shenanigans. Sadie was loyal to Linda but there was no way she was going to live in London and not get a taste of the nightlife. She loved going out dancing, and although she did have a drink or two when she went out with the Ozzies she had no desire to get drunk at all, and she never had. Linda seemed to think that a glass of wine or a cider at a club was the first step on the road to drug addiction and delinquency, and kept nagging her to come along to the stuffy old church down the road on Sundays. Sadie had nothing against churches; she had grown up in church and she still had a Bible somewhere at the bottom of her bag, but going to church was something she had done with him, and so far, Sadie hadn’t found a way to think about how church could be part of her new life.

  “But Sadie,” said Linda, in one of their what-are-you-doing-with-your-life-Sadie conversations, “just because he turned out to be like that doesn’t mean that God isn’t there, that he doesn’t love you!”

  “I know,” Sadie admitted. “I still believe in God, Linda. I do know he loves me. I don’t think anything I believed before has changed. I’m just bruised, I suppose. Don’t worry about me, I’ll figure it out.”

  Linda didn’t look convinced, but Sadie knew that she wasn’t going to be sitting in a pew on a Sunday morning anytime soon. This was a time to be spreading her wings and doing something different and interesting. She had thought for years that she wasn’t worth much, but she didn’t believe that any more. It was good to be her blue-haired self, speeding through the English countryside on a train, on her way to a brand-new chapter, everything she owned in the world packed into two bags. Linda might be content with her mediocre life, drinking weak tea out of teacups in her stuffy church, but Sadie was not planning to settle for that.

  Sadie took out the sandwich she had bought at the station and was reminded for a second of the Smiths and the sandwiches she had made for
Mr Smith’s lunchbox every single day. She had been very glad to inform Mrs Smith, her employer, that she had another job and would not be returning to be what Mrs Smith had called a “Mother’s Help”. Sadie had preferred to call it a “Mother’s Emergency Rescue”. Poor Mrs Smith was a sweet lady, and her pale, nervous-looking husband was a nice man, but their six-year-old son was the real boss in their home. “He’s quite strong-willed,” they had said when Sadie had first met them. Lovely, Sadie had thought. A kid with some personality! How bad could it be? It turned out that “strong-willed” was just a euphemism for brat. Harrison, his name was, and not even his exhausted, overwhelmed parents had any control over him. Once Sadie had taken the car to fetch him from school and he had insisted that he was driving the car home. He sat in the driver’s seat for forty minutes, demanding that Sadie give him the keys, before he announced that he no longer wanted to drive home and climbed into the back. There was also a little girl who was three, but she was so painfully shy that she refused to let Sadie even speak to her for the first month. Sadie had spent the four months doing housework and ironing, shopping for groceries and mopping the floor after Harrison had tipped his lunch all over it. Again. And also refolding laundry that Harrison took out of the airing cupboard and threw at her, piece, by piece, while his mother was out. She felt sorry for Mrs Smith but now that she had found this other job she was done with that. I am done with doing other people’s dirty work, she thought. Working with foreign teenagers on a Summer Camp sounded way better.

  The train pulled into a station which Sadie recognised as the one before her stop. She started gathering her things together. She realised she had spread out a little in her seat – her book was open beside her, her puffy jacket which had been so essential in winter and was now mostly an encumbrance was on the opposite seat, and her small backpack was open on the floor in front of her. Maybe that’s why I got the glare, she thought, as she picked up the wrapping from her lunch and stuffed it into her backpack. She took her earphones out of her ears and put them away, glad to see that her passport and wallet were safely in the side pouch. Linda lived in fear of losing her passport and money and wore them in a bag across her body all the time. Sadie understood fully how important those things were, but every now and then she would misplace them. Once she had left her bag in a laundromat – Linda had nearly had an apoplexy, but Sadie had stayed calm and gone back, and sure enough it was still there, the precious passport and the five measly pounds still inside her wallet. That would never happen in South Africa, she had thought, as she had happily shouldered her bag and vowed to be more careful.

  She brushed crumbs off her lap and straightened her clothes. It was early June and finally warm enough to wear shorts some of the time. Sadie had decided not to dress too crazily for her first day at Camp Bellevue and had chosen her least ripped jeans and rolled them halfway up her calves. She hadn’t been able to resist a little something interesting and had put on her favourite T-shirt, the one that said: “Edgy Veggie” on the front. There was no harm in letting people know right from the start that she wasn’t a flesh eater. When it came to her footwear, she didn’t have much of a choice – Sadie travelled light and only had one pair of summer shoes, a pair of purple Birkenstock sandals. She loved them and they were super comfortable, even if Linda said she looked like a hippie grandmother in them.

  The train was slowing down at last. Sadie stood up to get her big bag. The luggage rack was high, and Sadie wasn’t tall, but as she was starting to expect in this country, no one offered to help her. In the end she had to stand on the seat and pull the strap until she could hoist it over the lip of the shelf and into her arms. She would have liked to have arrived with less stuff, but she had nowhere to leave anything. She and Linda had given up their room and Linda was moving into a tiny bedsitter in an elderly lady’s house. As it was, she had taken an armful of clothes to the Oxfam shop and kept only what she needed for the next few months. All she had in the world at the moment was in her two bags – some clothes and a sleeping bag in her big bag, and one or two books, a phone and a pencil case in her backpack. The puffy jacket didn’t fit in her bags, so she had to carry it, but she wasn’t going to be giving that away. When the weather turned again, she would need it.

  She stood near the door with her bags and her jacket, holding onto a pole and peering out to catch a glimpse of what would be the nearest station to her home for the next six weeks. Most of what she could see was green – green trees and fields as far as the horizon on both sides. The station was red brick and quaint, with white wrought iron detail and pretty benches. “INCHLING” it said on the signs. Sadie felt a thrill. Camp Bellevue at Sternwood school, here I come!

  Chapter 2

  Sadie could not have been more surprised to see what was at the station to meet her. She stepped out of the small station building and noticed him immediately – a young man with neatly cut thick blonde hair, probably a little older than Sadie herself, leaning against a bright red sportscar parked right outside the station. Except for the sign that said “Camp Bellevue” on it that was propped up against the windscreen, she would never have guessed that this was her ride from the station to the private school building where the camp was being held. The young man didn’t notice as Sadie and the others approached; he was looking at his phone, a deep frown on his face. He wore jeans, trainers (Sadie called them takkies at home, but she was in England now and trying to get the lingo) and a bright red camp T-shirt that Sadie recognised from the brochures and the staff at the interview she had gone to.

  She looked around her to see if there was anyone else waiting for a lift to camp. A slight dark-skinned young man and a tanned, stocky girl with long scruffy blonde hair (who Sadie felt sure, after her experience people-watching in London, had to be Australian) also carried bags and were looking curiously at the car. Sadie caught the blonde girl’s eyes and the two shared a grin. The young man was engrossed in his phone screen and still hadn’t seen them.

  “Whoa!” The guy from the train put down his bag and circled the sports car. “We’re going to the camp in this?”

  “Oh.” He stood up at pocketed his phone, glancing at the girls but hardly acknowledging them. His frown remained. It was more like a scowl, Sadie thought. Someone needed to tell the guy to lighten up. “Yeah I know. Belongs to the owner. The bus is at the airport picking up some other staff.”

  Ooh, overseas staff, thought Sadie. That was exciting! And wow, he was grumpy and rude. So far, she was unimpressed. He stared at their bags. “That’s a lot of luggage,” he said, looking at the sportscar. “How are we supposed to fit it all in here?”

  Sadie thought that was a stupid question. He hadn’t even asked their names or introduced himself. What did he expect, that they would arrive for a six weeks’ job with anything less? They could hardly have expected to be getting a lift in a car with a boot the size of a handbag. They all just stared at him. The Ozzie girl folded her arms and grinned.

  “I’ll sit on yer lap if you like,” she said, raising her eyebrows. He ignored her and picked up Sadie’s bag, which was the biggest, then opened the boot and stared at the tiny space, as if staring at it might make it magically expand. He shoved the bag in roughly.

  “Careful,” said Sadie. “That’s all my worldly goods in there!”

  “You’re South African!” said the guy from the train. “I love your accent. I knew a South African once and he knew the rudest jokes I have ever heard.” He came over to her and put out his hand. “I’m Raj,” he said, with a big smile.

  “Raj?” She had seen plenty of Indian people in London, but she had never met any personally, only the Pakstani greengrocer near where she had stayed with Linda.

  “Yeah, Raj,” he said. “I look Indian and I have an Indian name but really – I’m just from Birmingham.”

  “Okay,” said Sadie, grinning, glad that someone was friendly, at least. “I’m Sadie. I look English and I have an English name but really I’m from Africa.”

&
nbsp; Raj laughed.

  “I’m Sam,” said the Ozzie girl. “From Sydney, although I’ve been on this crazy island for two years already. And you are …” she said to their host, who was still shoving the corners of Sadie’s bag into the boot.

  “I’m …” He gave the bag one last shove and slammed the door. “I’m Joe Donovan. I’m the Camp Director.”

  “Wow,” said Raj, as Joe leant into the car to flip the seats forward. “You look young to be the Camp Director.”

  “Yeah well, I am,” said Joe, standing up. He looked flustered and irritated. “The Director, I mean. Someone get in.”

  “I will,” said Sadie, seeing that she was the smallest of the three. She bent over and climbed into the tiny back seat, holding her backpack on her lap. The car smelt expensive, like leather and polish. Sam climbed in beside her, and Joe shoved Sam’s big bag onto their laps. Then he flipped the seat down, narrowly missing Sam’s toes, and Raj got into the passenger seat, all his own luggage balanced on his lap.

  Joe said nothing at all as he drove along the winding roads towards the school buildings that would be their home for the summer. The road was beautiful, and Sadie wished she could see more of it from the tiny window next to her. It was lined with tall trees, and high stone walls. Again, everything was green as far as she could see, a green nothing like the duller, more sparse green of the landscapes at home. After about ten minutes they pulled up to enormous black gates, and then up to the building itself.

  Sternwood School was a red brick building, some of it over a hundred years old but most of it more modern. The complex seemed vast, with many-windowed buildings and fields. Joe parked the car and got out, a brief: “Follow me,” his only instructions to Sadie, Raj, and Sam, who grabbed their bags and hurried after him as he strode ahead of them towards a low building. Outside the building people were milling about, some carrying bags across an impossibly green lawn. So, this was home for the next six weeks, thought Sadie, smiling to herself. So far so good – except for Grumpy Joe. The three of them went up to a table under a veranda where Joe stood, bending down and talking in a low voice to another red-shirted staff member who sat behind the table, a pile of papers and a computer in front of her. Then he pulled out his phone again and disappeared into the building.