Read Online Based on a True Story by Elizabeth Renzetti - Free Book Online

to the off-licence. Alma had scrawled, “Meet the Dynamic Duo of Canals!” on a piece of paper and affixed it to the front of the table. In its heyday, Canals had been the best loved of night-time soaps, its popularity due in large part to the rapport between Alma’s shrewish pub landlady, Doris, and Augusta’s dim barmaid, Kit. A few nostalgic autograph hunters wandered over. For the most part, though, they lost business to a set of Hungarian twins who had once nearly murdered James Bond under a circus tent.
    A familiar tide of self-pity washed over Augusta. Was this the sum of her life, this fetid ballroom in Leeds, which smelled of old carpet and Boots perfume? Her only stage the world’s largest autograph show? She’d told the American girl from the Advance that she had two meaty roles lined up, and the girl had printed it. Maybe she’d even wanted to believe it.
    Grudgingly, Augusta admitted to herself once again that the article hadn’t been badly done, and was not nearly as vicious as it might have been in more waspish hands. The girl — Frances, that was her name — had some flair.
    With Alma’s help, she had looked up Frances’s past writing. The articles in the Advance were lively, sometimes silly, but told with dash. A long story about a Russian spy who’d been poisoned at a London hotel had moved Augusta to unexpected tears. But there had been no stories for the past month, which seemed to indicate the girl and the newspaper had gone separate ways.
    A dark thought had begun to take shape in Augusta’s mind. The girl would be a most useful tool; she seemed to know something about the idiots in California who were publishing Deller’s book.
    The mere thought was an irritant. Augusta said, “Did you know Deller’s writing a book about me?” There was no answer from Alma, and she looked over to see that her friend had fallen asleep, her sparse eyelashes gummed together. To think that one spent one’s life in pursuit of pleasure and acclaim, only to have it end in a relentless trudge from nap to tea. It hardly seemed worth it. She jammed her elbow into Alma’s ribs and the old woman jumped. “I said, did you know Deller’s writing a book about me?”
    Alma rubbed a paper-white hand across her mouth. “Kenneth Deller,” she said finally. “Is he still carrying a torch for you? You’d think he’d have burned his arm to a stump by now.” She sat up straight, yawned. “He was always so lovely to me.” At the look in Augusta’s eyes, she added hastily, “Though he’s a complete shit, of course. By all known measures.”
    “He intends to spread lies about me, Alma. About a past that exists only in his twisted imagination.” Augusta picked up the coffee cup, drained the last few drops. “But I’m not going to let it happen. I have a plan.”
    Alma shook her head, her lips drawn tight. “I don’t know, my dear. I once heard Reggie Kray say ‘I have a plan’ in exactly that tone. Sometimes it’s best to let — Oh, hello.”
    A woman had approached their table, carrying a canvas shopping bag loaded with books and magazines. She was in the canyon of middle age, suspended somewhere between Augusta and Alma, and she wore a dark-purple beret pulled flirtatiously over one eye. Her broad smile took in both of them.
    “My two favourites,” she said, setting her bag on the table. “You don’t know how happy I was to read you’d be here. Canals hasn’t been the same with Kit and Doris gone.”
    “You are too kind,” murmured Alma.
    “And you, Mrs. Partridge, oh how I’d looked forward —”
    “Miss,” said Alma.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “It’s Miss, not Mrs. Like ‘Miss Havisham.’”
    “Ah-ha, yes, that’s good,” said the woman, but she seemed momentarily thrown. She fished in her bag and brought out an ancient, plastic-wrapped copy of the Yorkshire Evening Post , its pages the colour of weak tea. She pulled the newspaper out of its wrapper, carefully opened it, and slid