Cathy Sharp - An Orphan’s Courage

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

The News Building

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper 2018

Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2018

Cover photograph © Emma Kim/plainpicture (child); Lee Avison/Trevillion Images (street scene); Shutterstock (suitcase)

Cathy Sharp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008211639

Ebook Edition © February 2017 ISBN: 9780008211646

Version 2018-02-20

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

A Q&A With Cathy Sharp

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Cathy Sharp

About the Publisher

‘Want some pocket money?’ the drunken voice asked, and a large hand waved a pound note at Jinny Hollis enticingly. He leered at her in a way that sent chills down Jinny’s spine and she shook her head as he rose to his feet and stumbled across her mother’s kitchen towards her. ‘Come on, it isn’t hard to be nice to me, is it?’

Jinny drew back, feeling the vomit rise in her throat as she saw the lascivious gleam in his eyes. She kept her gaze fixed on the face of the latest of her mother’s punters, backing away, moving towards the door and freedom. He was good-looking in a dark, brutish way with black hair slicked back with hair oil and unshaven chin. Jake wasn’t the first to offer her money in order to be allowed to fumble beneath her skirts, and his approach was the same as that of all the others. When her mother was in the room they played the nice uncle, but as soon as Jinny was alone with them, they tried to molest her. Some offered enticements, money, small gifts and food but others just made a grab for her. She’d been forced to endure rough hands up her skirt and under her blouse more times than she cared to remember, and once, one of them had got her down and tried to force himself on her. Her screams had brought Nellie from next door running in at the kitchen door and her irate neighbour had batted the unfortunate uncle with her rolling pin until he swore at her, got to his feet and bolted.

Jinny would have screamed for Nellie now but she knew it would be useless; her friend had gone shopping down the market and wouldn’t be back for ages. Jinny’s back was against the door now. She wrenched at it, pulled it open and tried to escape into the back yard, but Jake lunged at her, pinning her against the doorpost so that she could feel its sharp edges cutting into her flesh.

‘Got you at last,’ he muttered as he pressed his slack wet mouth against hers and the stink of his breath made the gorge rise in her throat. In desperation she brought her knee up and went for his groin with every ounce of her strength. He gave a yell of shock mixed with pain and staggered back, his eyes filled with a vicious rage that terrified her. Yet her action had saved her, because as he drew back, stunned and winded, she made her escape into the yard and ran for her life.

Tears stung Jinny’s eyes as she ran, her chest heaving; she fought for breath and against the storm of emotion overtaking her now that she was – for the moment – out of danger. Forced at last to stop running because her chest hurt and she couldn’t go any further, Jinny leaned against the wall of a derelict factory and closed her eyes, letting the tears flow.

Why did everything have to be so horrible at home?

Jinny’s mother was almost always drunk when she came back from the pub where she worked behind the bar until late at night. There was usually a man in tow, sometimes known to Jinny and, at other times, a complete stranger. Mabel Hollis just didn’t seem to be able to manage without a man about the place, even though several of them had treated her badly. Some of them beat her and she often had black eyes when she finally got up in the morning, others simply sponged off her, expecting her to provide food and lodgings, as well as the other comforts Mabel offered. Quite a few considered that Jinny should be a part of the bargain, and she’d been fighting them off since she was twelve and was always in trouble at school for turning up late, because if she didn’t do a few chores in the house no one did, and the safest time to do them was in the morning before Jake and her mother got out of bed.

Jinny’s mother seemed to have money for drink and for having her hair bleached and set in the deep waves that men seemed to find so sensual, but she seldom remembered to go shopping for food, and often ended up shoving a few pennies in Jinny’s hand and telling her to get some chips. Mabel dressed and behaved like a tart, and Jinny was ashamed of her. Now that she was coming up to her fifteenth birthday and preparing to leave school Jinny thought desperately of getting away somewhere – anywhere she could live by herself or with friends, away from her mother’s sluttish ways and her men. She couldn’t really call them customers, because most of them didn’t pay a penny towards their keep and some lived off Mabel for as long as she was willing to provide them with whatever they needed.

‘What’s up then, Jinny?’

Her eyes flew open as she heard the voice close by. Micky Smith was three years older and had left school at fifteen to work on the Docks. At school he’d never noticed her, except once when she’d been at the centre of a group of vindictive classmates who were jeering at her, pulling her dark hair and calling her mother a whore and a drunken tart. Even though Jinny knew the accusations were true, she’d tried to defend her mother against their insults and given one of her tormentors a black eye. Several of the others had charged at her, knocking her to the ground, and she’d been struggling to throw them off when suddenly she’d found herself free and a grinning Micky Smith had been looking down at her. He’d offered her his hand, pulled her to her feet and then turned to the gang of sullen girls watching.