by Mary Wood
This rambling in a trembling, terrified voice helped Patsy to gather her own fear and think in a logical way. She had to, as Lizzie sounded on the verge of hysteria. In reality she could have screamed till the breath left her, but instead she kept things matter-of-fact. ‘Was it dark?’
‘No. I reckon it was about five-ish.’
‘So how did he get me out, and did he move Ken’s body?’
‘Yes, they did it the same way as I heard the wheels of me chair. Th-they laid yer in the middle next to . . .’
‘Don’t think about it, love. Do you know how long I’ve been unconscious?’
‘Yer came round in a sort of way, moaning and that, a few minutes after Rita hit yer with that lady ornament I have on me dresser. It’s a brass one. Then they forced some pills Rita had down yer throat. Yer still moaned for a while, but not for long. I screamed at them to stop, but . . . Oh, Patsy, I’m scared . . .’
‘I know. Where are Rita and your dad now?’
‘I heard them planning to dump Ken’s body in the river . . .’ A sob accompanied this.
‘Try to keep it together, Lizzie. I know it ain’t easy, love, but the more I know the more I can think if there’s anything we can do. How long have we been here?’ Patsy’s eyes tried to penetrate the dimness. The dank stench permeating her nostrils and the sensation that her body was rocking confirmed they were on a boat.
‘I don’t know, but not long. Oh, Patsy, what’re we going to do?’
‘Try not to get upset again. You’re not well. Are you warm enough? We seem to be on a bed of sorts. Can you move much?’
‘Yes, I’m warm, but I can only move one arm. I can’t get any leverage. We’re too close together. They’ve tied us to the bed.’
Patsy tried to move, but couldn’t against the restricting ropes. Every part of her cramped with pain. ‘It’s no use, I can’t budge. Look, we won’t help ourselves by panicking. Better that we lie still and wait. They can’t leave us here.’ She wished she felt as confident as she sounded, but she had to help Lizzie. If Lizzie went into shock again, she’d be powerless to do anything. ‘Tell me what you know of me mother, Lizzie. it’ll help to pass the time.’
Lizzie’s voice grew in strength as she talked. ‘She was an amazing woman in her younger days. She loved yer, yer know. She just didn’t feel like she had any choice . . . I mean, to us she could have, but she were living in a different time and in a different social class. It wasn’t easy for her, but she never stopped thinking about yer and it hurt her so much to give yer up.’
A tangible pain grasped Patsy’s heart. Me mother loved me! Had she got all of this wrong? ‘Did she write all of that, or are you surmising it from what you’ve read?’
‘Yes, she wrote it. It made me cry. You’re not going to hurt her, are yer, Patsy? Is that why yer came?’
‘No. Well, I did want some sort of settling of scores, something to help me live with it all, but I’d never physically hurt her. I can’t say as I won’t have me say. I want answers, but I’m not out for revenge.’ And she knew she wasn’t, not now – not after hearing that her mother had written that she’d loved her. ‘Anyway, that was only part of why I came, and part of the bait Rita used to get me here. She said she needed help, and she told me about you. She wanted me to take you out of there back to me family and to take care of you where you would be safe.’
‘You mean yer were really thinking of doing that? Or was it just an excuse to get Rita’s help with yer other plans?’
‘Look, it . . . well, it’s not simple. You must feel some of what I feel towards me mam. You must feel like you’d like to get back at your dad . . .’
‘No, I don’t. It hurts – it hurts a lot that he could do this to me, and I’ve cried buckets with the pain of it, but I never thought to get revenge and hurt him back.’
This shocked Patsy and woke in her the secret fear she held about herself. To her it seemed natural to hurt back and to make that hurt deeper than the one inflicted on herself. Not wanting to give thought to it, she turned the conversation back to her mother. ‘Maybe I’ll feel like that when I know more about me mam. You knew your dad before this happened. You probably had as many good times with him as you had bad ones. I had nothing and know very little about me mam. What I do know isn’t good. You have a different picture of her. Tell me some more.’
She drank in every word about how her mother had wanted to atone for everything and set out to do that by doing what she could in the war. She was enraptured by her mother’s courage during her training and her determination to see it through, and as she listened, some of the coldness seeped out of her heart. But nothing prepared her for what came after her mother landed in France.
‘This man met her – the head of the Resistance. His name was Pierre Rueben. They fell in love . . . You . . . you have a brother.’
‘What? A – a brother!’
‘Well, a half-brother . . .’
‘Where? God this is madness! I thought my mother was a lesbian. Rita told me . . .’
‘It sounds to me like Rita, and all of the people you’ve come in contact with, have only told yer the bad bits about your mum, and there were plenty of them up until you were on the way. She’s very honest in her memoirs; she don’t skip over anything. But what happened to her at yer dad’s hands, and having you, changed her. She seemed to wake up, and all she ever wanted to do was to make up for everything. I could tell yer it all, but it won’t be easy for yer to hear.’
‘Oh, never mind that. I’ve long known my mother is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill kind of woman. And it won’t hurt me. Nothing can hurt me more than I am already. And it’s not that I love her or anything – in fact, I hate her – so don’t worry about my feelings. Just tell me.’
A tear seeped out of the corner of Patsy’s eye as Lizzie came to the end of her telling. So, it was true, her dad hadn’t raped her mam, then, but had beaten her – and her a posh girl who’d never known such treatment. She had seduced him, though, and then turned on him. But she hadn’t wanted to give me up! Somehow the knowledge of this ground a pain into her.
They lay in silence. Lizzie broke it. ‘I know I haven’t got to the part where she actually does anything heroic, but I have skimmed a few pages and read some at the end and in the middle. From what I have gathered, she paid – and I mean really paid – for her wayward ways, and that’s what she set out to do.’
‘Would you like her for your mam?’
‘Yes, I’d be proud to have her. She has inspired me. She’s shown me that just because yer take one path, yer don’t have to keep going down it. Everyone can change things . . .’
‘But she still has a relationship with your aunt Rita . . .’
‘We don’t know that. I don’t believe anything that Rita says any more. If yer want to hate anyone, she’s a good candidate. She’s evil, I know that now.’ A shiver rippled through Lizzie’s body. ‘Yer know, despite me brother being what he was, I loved him. I can’t believe he’s dead . . .’
‘I’m sorry, love. Look, let’s get off these gloomy subjects. We need to think what we’re going to do. Don’t be afraid, Lizzie. You have a lot of courage – you must have to have coped with what you’ve been through. Rita told me what happened to you. Dig into that courage now, and into some of what my mother gave you, if you can, and let’s face our situation and see what can be done.’
‘I will, Patsy.’
‘Right. For one thing, if it’s as late as it feels and I haven’t rung home, then they are going to be alarmed and will do something – ring the hospital for one, which will tell them I haven’t been there. That will set up alarm bells and they will call the police. They know I have been contacted by Rita and they may think I was foolish enough to get in touch with her despite saying I wouldn’t. So that will—’
‘No! Oh God, Patsy, that can’t happen. If Rita and me dad get an inkling that it might, they’ll kill us! They’re both on the run – me dad for murdering me mum, and Rita . . .
well, she’s done a few things. The police don’t know of them yet, but they will connect her to them once they have her in the frame for this and they make the link to yer mum. She told yer: she’s a lifer and she’s desperate not to go back inside.’
A chill went to the very bones of Patsy as all the bravado she’d mustered ebbed away.
Eleven
Jacques’s Research Pays Off
London 1963
London was all he thought it would be – the excitement of it, and the feeling that everyone had somewhere they should be right now. He even enjoyed the noise of it all: traffic, hooters blowing, bells ringing and street vendors calling out their wares. All of it added to Jacques’s experience. Even the oppressive heat of August, which was very different to the humidity he was used to, added to the atmosphere. Listening in to people’s conversations, he found most discussed the weather and all had the foreboding that they were in for a bad storm later.
He had never known anything like it. Even his one visit to New York – which had been a cultural shock to him, someone who had spent their life in the Deep South – couldn’t compare to this. In New York the streets had a different feel. There wasn’t this sense of past mixing with, and steering, the present – no traditions that had to be followed, and everything had a glass or plastic appearance. Here, the buildings, the street names and even the people were steeped in history.
Standing outside Buckingham Palace that morning had made him feel he belonged somehow. The young Queen Elizabeth was his queen. After all, he was half British. That thought gave him a nice feeling, and it was this half that he hoped to find as he trawled through records in the family history section of Guildhall Library, a magnificent building that seemed to dwarf him.
The fact that his family were from the upper classes made researching them easier. A funny term that, ‘upper class’ . . . They didn’t have a class system in America . . . Well, he had to admit, that wasn’t quite right, especially in his own state. The need for Martin Luther King to have to fight for the rights of the black man belied the notion that his was a society of equals. This thought shamed him. Why should a man have to fight to see his people free to roam where they liked, to vote, and to enjoy what all white people enjoyed, in this day and age and in the United States! He’d seen nothing of this inequality here in England. So maybe their class system wasn’t so bad.
Taking his attention back to the family line of the Cromptons, he found that a Lord Crompton had lived in Breckton until his death a few years ago. He had been survived by a son, who had since also passed away, and by his wife, Lady Daphne Crompton and . . . oh, my God! His daughter, Theresa Crompton . . . My mother!
Swallowing hard, he peered again at the words. Nothing indicated that Theresa Crompton was dead. But how could that be? Grandfather had said she was shot at Dachau.
He peered at the words on the page, trying to read into them something that wasn’t there. He checked how up to date the record was. Everything was as it should be, the assistant assured him. Records were updated as events happened.
He read the piece about his mother, and found that she had married before the war, to the Hon. Raymond Hawthorn. Umm, didn’t last long! They were divorced within a year, and she had taken her maiden name back by deed poll. There had been no issue from the marriage. What did that mean? Again he sought the help of the assistant, and then felt silly when he was told it meant there had been no offspring. But then, why not say so? Issue . . . Ha, a silly word! But this word meant he had no siblings – part of him felt sorry about this, while another part of him struggled to come to terms with the fact that she was still alive! My mother is still alive!
Happiness at this revelation chased his shock away. And, to add to his joy, it seemed his grandmother was still living, too – though of course she may not know of his existence.
There was no mention of where they now lived, but surely that wouldn’t be difficult to find out? Maybe they lived together . . . yes, he’d try to find out where Lady Daphne lived, and visit her. He would most likely find his mother there. No, better that he sent a letter to his mother. He had no doubt she would welcome it. Even if she hadn’t told her mother about him, as his grandfather cautioned was possible, it wouldn’t matter. Whether she introduced him to her or not would be up to her. But she wouldn’t reject him, he was certain of that. She had loved him; she would still love him.
A warm feeling filled him. He couldn’t believe it. She was alive . . . Alive!
York – 1963
Lady Daphne looked at the post on the silver platter. It had been a long time since a letter had come to her house addressed to her daughter Theresa. Curious, she turned it over, to check the postmark again. London – strange, you would think anyone who knew her in London would know that she lived there, and yet this was a handwritten envelope, not a typed, business one. Should she open it?
Her mind went to the plight of her daughter, and as always she was attacked by the physical pain of the thought, and her heart seemed to fill with molten lead – burning, agonizing and heavy. How had it come to this? Her alone, and her daughter alone. Terence . . . darling Terence, no longer with them, and Charles, a husband in a million whom she’d adored, and . . . and her divine sister, Laura. Oh, how she mourned them all.
How often she had tried to get through to the traumatized Theresa, but her very presence seemed to take her further over the line of insanity. Why, why?
They had been so close when she was younger, before the war . . . God, the bloody war took away so much from everyone. But then, things weren’t that bad, not when she first came home, a fragile creature needing support. No, the real breakdown for Theresa came when Terence took his own life. Even thinking the words still hurt her, cutting deep into her like a razor, slashing her and inflicting wounds with jagged edges. Why . . . why did Terence do it? And what did it have to do with Theresa? Why did Theresa think herself responsible? Would she ever know? Was Theresa anything to do with it?
The envelope seemed to call to her. What would it matter if I opened it? Theresa would never know. She could reseal it and send it on.
Her fingers shook as she took the paper knife and carefully lifted the flap of the envelope. Never had she done anything like this – opening one of her children’s private letters. Though abhorrent to her, the thought didn’t deter her. The crisp, hotel-headed paper crackled as she eased it out. For a moment she hesitated, wondering what secret might be revealed. Then she laughed. Secret, indeed! Don’t be so stupid!
The words of the address, Dear Mother, shot her backwards. Her body sank onto the chair behind her. Good God! Someone had addressed Theresa as Dear Mother]
Her eyes travelled over the words again, and then further:
Dear Mother,
Yes, I feel I can take the liberty of calling you that, because I know that you loved me and were forced to give me up – that you had no choice but to do so. Yes, I am Jacques, the one you called ‘your precious son’.
My grandfather told me everything he can remember. He took me to America, which is what you and Father wanted, and I grew up there. I always thought you were dead, as does my grandfather, but I came to England and I have done some research and find that you are alive.
I cannot believe it that after all these years of thinking you are dead, you are not. I have only recently learned about your life and of my father’s and his family.
Now I find we are in the same country – we may even meet. I want that so much, and hope that you do.
Please telephone the hotel address as soon as you can. I intend to go to my father’s memorial in France soon. Maybe we can go together. Have you ever been?
I so want the days to speed by until I hear from you.
Tour loving son, Jacques x
After a moment of sitting quietly, trying to calm her inner self, Lady Daphne took a deep breath and reached for the bell sitting on the table next to her. Davidson appeared immediately. ‘Davidson, will you bring the telephone over her
e to me, please?’
‘Yes, m’lady. Are you feeling alright? Do you want me to send your maid through?’
‘No, I’m fine. I have had a shock. Yes, another one concerning Miss Theresa. I didn’t think my legs would carry me across the room to the telephone. Thank you, Davidson.’
‘Is there anything you require me to do?’
‘You can organize me a cup of tea. I know it isn’t my usual time, but I think I need one. Or will, once I have made my call. Will you leave me in private until I have?’
‘Of course, m’lady.’
As he brought the telephone over, Davidson picked up her rug from the sofa. ‘I’ll leave this near to you. You’re shivering, m’lady.’
Impatient for him to go before she lost her nerve, her voice held a sharp tone, ‘Don’t fuss, Davidson. I am perfectly alright. I just didn’t want to stand and try to walk for a moment.’
Bowing his most condescending bow, he turned and left the room. Annoying little man! No, that wasn’t fair. He cared about her and was a jolly good servant, especially in these days when such people were extremely hard to come by.
Impatience stayed with her as the operator took a moment to connect her. Her heart fluttered alarmingly when the hotel answered. This was incredible. This young man must be mistaken . . . Theresa couldn’t have given birth without her knowing, surely?
The American accent took her aback. ‘Jacques Rueben speaking.’
‘This is Lady Crompton.’
‘My grandmother? Gee, I can’t believe this! Hi. I’m Jacques . . . Oh, but do you know about me?’
‘I didn’t, young man. And I am sure you have the wrong people.’
‘No, I haven’t. You arc Theresa Crompton’s mother? The lady who worked as a Special Agent in France during the war?’
‘Yes . . .’
By the time he’d finished telling her how he came into being, her emotions had changed. She liked him. He had that open, honest quality that the Americans often showed – a bit too forward, perhaps, but then life was different to her younger days. People were different, and she had to accept that. ‘Well, you have taken the wind out of my sails. I don’t know what to say . . .’
