Rita & Patsy
A Mirror Image
Refreshed after her bath and feeling as if all her dreams were coming together, Rita sat back in her chair in her bright office. It was painted yellow, with the walls adorned with photos of the so-called models she had on her books, and she thought the picture it presented was just right for her clients, who were mostly businessmen of an older age.
What she lacked was girls of quality. Some of the business gents were after a girl who was presentable enough to take out for an evening before going back to their hotel. She hoped the girl she was expecting would turn out to be just that.
Glancing at the clock, she realized she had time to repaint her nails before the girl arrived – and some thinking time, as it happened. She needed that. Her soak in the bath had eased the frustration at having received nothing back from Theresa, in a sexual way. The woman had taken all and not tried to give anything in return, but then Rita hadn’t gone there expecting anything, so it was all a bonus. It was just that feelings had reawakened in her – stuff she’d felt for Theresa and Terence. She couldn’t deny it. They’d both touched something in her all those years ago, and that something had leapt up and demanded attention the moment she was in Theresa’s presence.
Anyway, enough of that. It was time to try and put some plans together.
First, how to destroy that bastard Crompton? Her favoured method was by fire, for hadn’t he destroyed her by that means? Right. Fire it was. Now, the house or the stables? Oh, fuck it! I’ll do the bleedin’ lot. But I have to pick me time. No one must get hurt, not even Terence bleedin’ Crompton. No, that wasn’t in the plan. Not physically hurt, anyway.
Waving her hand of painted nails, Rita gave some thought to how she could achieve her plan. One thing she needed was information about the family’s comings and goings. And she needed to make sure that Terence Crompton wouldn’t be in a position to report her. Blackmail! For that, Theresa would play her role.
Evidence – that’s what I need. Evidence of her own and Theresa’s lesbian relationship. She would threaten to make it public, and prove she had been telling the truth about that at the trial. And just maybe she could get Theresa so dependent on her that she could get her to sign a confession, admitting incest with her brother. That’s it! I’ll have Terence bleedin’ Crompton by the balls at last!
‘I’m sorry if I’m early, only the train times didn’t fit with the interview time. I can sit down and wait, though.’
The voice made Rita jump. She hadn’t even heard the door opening. She’d had her back to it and had gone into a world of her own.
When she swivelled round, the sight that met her eyes more than shocked her. Her mouth gaped open. ‘Harriet! What’re you doing here? Wait a mo, it didn’t say I was expecting a Harriet in the diary. Oh, using another name, are we? Well, I don’t blame you, love, I can’t see that Dorothy letting you apply to work in the likes of this place!’
‘Me name ain’t Harriet. It’s Patsy. Who’s this Harriet and Dorothy you’re going on about?’
Rita couldn’t speak. It was as if a ghost had walked in on her and taken all that she had out of her.
‘You all right? Sorry if I’m not the right girl, but I do have an appointment. I saw your advert and thought I’d be just what you’re looking for. I can talk to anyone, so I would make a good companion. I’ve had a good education – a better one than most of me standing – and I’m not shy. Besides that, I can put on a very posh voice when called upon to do so.’
Her giggle as she mimicked the top-drawer lot with this last sentence relaxed Rita. She found she could speak again. ‘It’s bloody uncanny, but I’ve met your double, girl. She lives up north and could be your twin. How old are you? Were you born in 1940? Let me see . . .’ Doing a quick calculation from the time when Theresa had that Billy Armstrong, Harriet’s father, she asked, ‘August 1940?’
‘I was, but . . . Hey, what is this? You’re scaring me.’
Rita ignored this, her excitement growing as she pursued the idea further. ‘Do you know who your parents are?’
‘As it happens, I don’t, but what’s that to you? I don’t think I want to work here; you’re giving me the creeps.’
‘Well, I think I know who they are.’
‘What? You know me mam and dad? How? Who are you? How can you know that? You don’t know me. All right, I look like this Harriet, whoever she is, but that don’t give you the right to say you know who me mam and dad were.’
A sob on the last words pulled Rita out of the incredulous daze she’d been in. ‘Sit down, Patsy, there’s nothing to be scared of. Just give me a moment to think.’ Rita smiled kindly at the girl. I need to be careful, keep her on my side, as she could be useful, very useful. Because, as sure as day follows night, this girl is the daughter of Theresa and Billy Armitage – she has to be!
Everything fitted. Besides the girl strongly resembling that Harriet, whom Jack Fellam had told her was the daughter of Sarah and Billy Armitage, the timing was right. Theresa was definitely pregnant when she went away that time. I saw the evidence with my own eyes when we were naked together, and I witnessed her and Billy in that summerhouse. At this thought, Rita felt a pang of guilt at making off when Billy cut up rough with Theresa. Right, I’m to handle this with care.
‘Look, I’m sorry if I scared you. It’s just me – I have premonitions about things sometimes. They come of a sudden and leave me with a headache. Just forget it.’
‘No, I won’t. I’ve been looking for me mam and dad since as long as I can remember. One of the Sisters at the convent told me I come from rich stock, and that was the reason that I had to have a tutor and extra lessons, even after the others had done their schooling. It were paid for and checked up on, and it had to last until someone adopted me. She said as I were taken a couple of times by folk who could give me the standing I should have had, but they brought me back because I have a temper and disrupted their lives too much.’
‘That’ll be your red hair and a trait you got from your dad. He were a rough one. You’re better off not knowing anything about him.’
‘But I do want to know. You have to tell me. And if it’s his fault I were put in the convent, I’ll hunt him down and make him pay for the years of loneliness I went through.’
This one statement made up Rita’s mind. The passion put into it told her all she needed to know. Here, walking in off the street, was the answer to her prayers: someone who had just as much of a reason to seek revenge as she had, even if she didn’t know it yet. ‘Right, Patsy, me and you need to have a good talk. Sit down. I’ll get you a nice cup of Rosie Lee.’
‘Ta. I could do with one. At this moment I could commit murder, I’m that angry.’
Better by the minute . . .
After Rita had told Patsy as much as she wanted Patsy to know, Patsy’s reaction shocked her.
‘So, me mam’s still alive, but you know she won’t have anything to do with me, and me dad were a murderer?’
Rita watched the tear trickle down Patsy’s face and felt a moment’s apprehension. Had she read this girl wrong? One moment she seemed like a hard nut who could take anything on her shoulders, and the next she had crumbled into a vulnerable wreck.
‘Look, love, I’ve told you what I know, right?’
‘No, you haven’t. You haven’t told me who they are or where they live, only about them.’
No, and I’m not giving you that information. That’s something you have to work for, girl.
‘I want you to take me to me mam. Tell me her name, and where she lives.’
‘All in good time. There’s other stuff – a lot of it that I haven’t told you about. It involves me. And, like you, I have a reason to hate your mother and her brother, especially her brother. I need to get me revenge on them. Me need is like a scab that I can’t leave alone. It itches constantly and I have to rid meself of it.’
‘You scare me, but I know how you feel. I’d like to get me own back on them, too. They deserted me for no other reason than I’d be an embarrassment to them. If me mam had turned out to be poor and couldn’t have coped with me, or ill in her mind because of what happened to her, then I might have some forgiveness in me. But to give me away as if I were nothing to her, just because of her standing in society, that sticks in me throat. I hate her and everyone to do with her. But what about me dad’s family? What were they like and where are they? Wouldn’t they take me back and welcome me as one of them?’
‘You have a great-granny, your granny’s mam. And a couple of half-uncles, and, well, I’m not sure about this, but maybe a half-sister, and that’s it. But look, love. They know nothing about you. Don’t even know you exist. They’ve been through life’s grinder, them lot, especially your dad’s widow. She’s now married to one of your half-uncles, and her dad were married to your granny, so he’s your step-granddad.’
‘What? They’re all related!’
‘By marriage, yes. Oh, it all goes on up north, I can tell yer. But like I said, they’ve been through a lot, so it don’t seem fair to put more on them.’
‘Put more on them! I’m not a thing. I’m a human being, and nothing as they’ve been through has been my fault. Me being born wasn’t my fault, and yet I’ve been made to feel like a sinner, a lesser person than others, all me life. Don’t you think as I’ve been through enough? And how come the family is so complicated?’
As it happened, Rita did think the girl had been through enough, but she wasn’t about to say so. She needed to make Patsy feel anger against all of those who should be taking care of her, so a few lies were called for. ‘There’s a lot of that goes on in the country. Makes your hair curl, but I know one thing: they’d hate you, because of who your dad was. And that’s why I’m reluctant to put you through it. What your dad did made them all bitter and twisted. Even the girl I told you of – your half-sister, as is the image of you – has it rough. She’s pushed from one to the other. Her mam rejected her. She’s sometimes up north with your step-granddad – her granddad – and sometimes with a friend of the family, but she’s always in the way, according to my sources, like she’s a reminder to them of your dad and what he did. So I can’t see them wanting another reminder of him.’
‘But what about her? Me sister? We could look out for each other. At least we’d have someone of our own, and we could make our lives together.’
God, this is getting worse. It is as if everything I come up with digs me a deeper hole. Isn’t there a saying that lies build a tangled web, or something like that? The girl is all questions. She’s beginning to irritate me.
‘Look, with all this emotional stuff, you ain’t much bleedin’ use to me. I want revenge on your mother’s lot, and I thought as you’d be a useful tool to have by me side. But I’ve told you enough of me intentions to incriminate me, so I’m not happy about it all. I reckon as you need to tell me if you’re with me or not; and if you are, then we can sort all the rest out after we’ve done what has to be done. No one need know you’re involved. They need never realize you even know me. But you have to act out your part, right? No messing it up just because you want a bleedin’ family. If you can give me a promise on that, then I’ll tell you everything.’
The girl was quiet for a moment, a sullen silence that gave nothing away. When she spoke, it told of her calculating nature, and Rita liked that.
‘So if I agree to go along with you, I get to know who all my family are and where they are, and get to have me revenge on me mam’s lot, right? Well, I don’t care about them, they’re not worthy of me bothering about them, but I’m not getting involved in anything that’s dangerous to them. All I want is for them to feel the same pain I’m feeling, and for them to know it’s me, and I know who they are and what they did to me.’
‘That’s the deal. But if you don’t agree to help me, then you can sling your hook and good luck to you finding them; I reckon it’s impossible, seeing as you don’t know their names, and most of what happened was at the beginning of the war. So where are you going to start looking, eh? You might say “up north”, but up north is a big area, and I haven’t told you where, so you’ll not be much further forward than you are now.’
‘I’ll do it. But you have to keep your part.’
‘You agreeing to help will make me keep my part, won’t it? Because if you’re involved, you will need to know more about them. Right, here’s all you have to do. Contact your uncle, your mam’s brother. I have his telephone number – I got it from the exchange. You tell him that you want to meet him, as you have information for him about the past. Now he’s going to be as confused as hell and may come the high-’n’-mighty. If he does, say it’s to do with Rita and the trial, and his and his sister’s involvement with one another.’
‘What involvement? Can’t I tell him who I am?’
‘The least you know about that, the better. And no, you can’t tell him who you are. Not on the telephone. Out in the sticks, the bleedin’ operators listen in to everyone’s business, and what we have is for his ears only. What I told you will be enough to get a meeting with him. It’s then as you can tell him more.’
‘So when we meet, what do I tell him?’
‘You tell him that you’ve met me, and what you know of yourself being his niece. You tell him that I have other knowledge that will bring his life, as he knows it, to an end. I don’t care what it all sounds like: what I know is the bleedin’ truth, and I want him to admit to it. I want to blackmail him a bit, so when I carry out the ultimate act, he knows who is responsible, but can’t do anything about it.’
‘The ultimate act?’
‘Don’t worry yourself about that. It won’t involve you. Now, what do you think?’
‘I don’t think I have much choice. Me need to know where I come from, and any family I have, is too strong to turn this down. As long as you promise I won’t be hurting anyone, just making them face up to the truth about their past, and you also promise to tell me who me dad’s family are and where they live.’
‘I’ll say one thing for you, girl: you’re a mixture of the natures in your background. Both your dad’s mam and your mam’s parents, though classes apart, were a nice lot. I don’t know where your dad came from, though I did hear as his dad were a rough one. Your dad were more than rough: he were a psycho. But I can’t see them traits in you. In fact I can’t see much of him at all, except you saying you have a temper.’
‘I don’t know if I can trust you, Rita. You skirt around everything. I’ll not do anything unless you promise me you’ll tell me what I need to know. Don’t forget, I’ll know how to contact me uncle after this, so if you welsh on your part of the deal, I’ll let him know you’re planning more, and where he can find you.’
Blimey, this girl’s got more of her dad in her than I thought. A tremble went through Rita. She had to tread very carefully with this one. The only hold she had on Patsy was knowing who her family were, but once she met Terence Crompton, she’d be able to find out the rest. Christ, what if she tells him more? I’ve been a bloody fool to let her suspect what I have in mind. ‘You say I have to promise, what about you, eh? Well, I’m telling yer now, I’ve done fifteen bloody years for something that wasn’t all my fault, and your bleedin’ uncle got away with. If you turn on me, then yer’ll know of it. There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t find you. I have men in my employ that would kill you on my say so, and that’s what will happen. You’re in this now, and you play everything the way I’ve told yer to, or you’ll take the consequences.’
For a moment the girl looked terrified, but then she rallied. ‘All I want is your assurance that you don’t intend to physically hurt anyone. If you keep your half of the bargain, then I’ll keep mine, and you’ll have no need to worry.’
Patsy had spirit and cunning, aye, and courage too, Rita could see that. Damn and blast the girl; she had the upper hand. The ultimate plan would have to be abandoned. But none of that seemed important now. If I go through with this, I’ll have Terence and Theresa Crompton in me clutches again and I can do what I like with them – play them like puppets on a string. Destroy their peace of mind – that will be enough. It will have to be.