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SING ME
HOME
The daughter of a Durham miner, Annie Wilkinson now lives in Hull.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster
under the title A Sovereign for a Song, 2004
An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK
A CBS company
This edition first published, 2013
Copyright © Annie Wilkinson, 2004
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Annie Wilkinson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47111-543-1
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-47111-545-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Acknowledgements
To all my family, and friends Rilba, Sue, Paula, Lisa, Elaine, Cynthia, Robin and Joanne for their help and encouragement; to Linda Acaster and everybody at Hornsea Writers for truly constructive criticism; to tutors Daphne Glazer and Ian Smith; to all writers on the history of coalmining in England, above all to Robert Colls for writing The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield, he will find many echoes of his work in mine; to a late unknown reporter for the Barnsley Chronicle; to Mary Lloyd, her family and her biographers for the inspiration of her life; to all at the RNA; and to those literary midwives Judith Murdoch and Kate Lyall Grant, without whom the book would never have seen the light of day.
Contents
Prologue
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
Prologue
‘She’s telling me she can’t go on. She’s over-wrought – I’ve never seen her like this. What have you been doing to her, Charlie? Calm her down, for God’s sake. She’s on in half an hour. You know how to talk to her. Make her right, or you get no more bookings here. She’s top of the bill. I can’t go out there and tell them all she’s not going on, I’d get lynched. They’ve paid for Ginny James; and some of them’ll tear the place apart if they don’t get her. I’m not paying her eighty quid a week for this.’
‘All right.’ Charlie put his bowler on the table and glanced in the mirror to smooth his thick red hair. His diamond cravat-pin glinted in the lamplight.
The manager’s black eyebrows met in a scowl. ‘I mean it. She goes on and gives them what they’ve come for, or I’ll have the law on the pair of you. Breach of contract.’ He raised a fist.
Charlie’s cold, pale blue eyes appraised him. ‘All right. Get out.’
The manager left, muttering curses. Charlie stretched out a beautifully manicured hand and picked up the half empty brandy bottle.
‘Not twenty years old, and a drunkard. Disgusting in a woman. How much of this have you had?’
‘Not enough to make me feel any better.’ She was slumped over the dressing table, slightly tipsy and very truculent.
‘Any better than what?’
She raised her head. ‘Any better than dirt. You’re driving me mad, Charlie.’ Their eyes met in the mirror. She looked away and saw the tremor of her hand as she lifted it to put on the greasepaint. ‘You’re the one who drove me to drink. You think I’m made of stone. You treat me as if I’m nothing but a lump of flesh. You’re not here because you want to be, you’re here because that bloody man sent somebody running to fetch you because I’m not fit to go on and keep the audience happy. How can I when I’m not happy myself?’
‘What nonsense. Joe Grimaldi was the most miserable man alive, but he could make an audience laugh more than anyone before or since.’
Her mouth twisted, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. Charlie changed tack, became placatory.
‘Come on, pull yourself together now. A good little trooper like you never lets her public down, and you love your audiences as much as they love you, Ginny,’ he soothed.
She brought her fist down hard upon the table. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up arguing me down and smoothing me down and shutting me up! Why won’t you ever listen? You don’t care a damn about me. I’m nothing but livestock to you. I’m something you trade, and if you weren’t trading me here, you’d be trading me on the streets.’ Her voice rose to a shriek before she turned back to the mirror and continued her agitated application of make-up with a hand she could not keep still.
‘Lower your voice, Ginny. Of course I care, and of course I’m listening.’ He stooped to kiss her neck.
She shied away. ‘No, you don’t care, and you’re not listening. You’re smoothing me down, and trying to tame me, but you can’t tame me this time, Charlie, I’m past being tamed.’ The hand slipped, and a red streak disfigured the side of her mouth. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do. It’ll all have to come off again. I’m past everything. I can’t bear any more. You’re murdering me inside.’ The tears began to flow in rivulets from her reddened eyes and nose, and she dabbed at them with a handkerchief, completing the ruin of the greasepaint.
He sighed. ‘All right. I am listening, truly. So tell me, what can’t you bear?’
‘Why are you asking me? You know what I can’t bear,’ she cried. ‘You know it, but you’ll still make me do it. I can’t. I can’t, Charlie. I’ll have to have this child. It’s too late for her to do anything now. If you loved me, you wouldn’t let her near me.’
‘Be quiet, Ginny. Do you want the whole theatre to know your business?’ He hesitated for what seemed an age, then said, ‘All right. All right then, I promise she won’t come near you. Honour bright. Come to Charlie.’ He held out his arms for her.
She made no move towards him, but lifted her hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘Honour bright. You always say that when you’re lying.’
‘I’m not lying.’ He shook out the folds of a monogrammed handkerchief and handed it to her. ‘Blow your nose, little hinny. I seem to recollect doing this once before, when yo
u were weeping for the onions in Helen’s kitchen. Do you remember?’
She blew her nose, and gave him a watery smile, but the tears still gushed from her inky black eyes. ‘And you wrapped it up and put it in your pocket, and you said I was cruel. But you’re the cruel one. I was happy then, in Annsdale, working at your sister’s and going home to me mam. I was proud, an’ all. I got mad sometimes, but I never cried, and look at me now. Look what you’ve done to me, Charlie.’
She dipped her fingers into a pot of cold cream then rubbed it into her face and he handed her wads of cotton to remove the ruined make-up. ‘You will marry me before the baby’s born, won’t you?’ she whispered. ‘Surely I’m earning enough now.’
Without hesitation this time he answered, ‘Of course I will. I shall take good care of you. I will listen to you, Ginny, I’ll listen very carefully, but we must leave it until we get home. You haven’t much time, and it’s very important for you to get ready to please your audience now. They’re looking forward to seeing their Ginny on top form, and you mustn’t disappoint them.’
He stayed with her while she washed her face in cold water and pinned her hair up into elaborate coils. Another application of greaspaint did something to disguise her swollen eyes and blotchy complexion. As she put on the finishing touch, a blue silk hat trimmed with sequins and feathers he said, ‘Remember what you rehearsed. Give them your best, and all will be well. Come and meet me in the bar after your turn and we’ll go home together. Promise me you’ll think no more about it until then.’
When she looked in the mirror, Ginny Wilde was gone. In her place was the second self, the zestful, devil-may-care Ginny James, star turn of the music halls, who had nothing to learn from Joe Grimaldi. After her last call, this lively and vivacious Ginny bounded on to the stage and delivered her goods with that dash and energy she had become famous for.
But after the act, when Ginny Wilde sat alone and afraid at the mirror with Leichner’s greasepaint all removed, the memory of Annsdale Colliery and all she loved there stole over her like a fog of grief. Oh, she thought, and Martin . . . and Martin. How willingly would I change places with Maria, and lie still and quiet in my grave, if I could know I’d been loved half so much.
Out came the hairpins, and a mass of thick, black hair fell on to her shoulders, as unlike Maria’s fine, blonde curls as could possibly be. Curls that had framed his poor wife’s pale face like a halo.
Ginny stared unseeing at her reflection. ‘Martin’s a good man, the best,’ she whispered, echoing her brother’s words. The days she had spent under Martin’s roof had been the happiest of her life. She picked up the brush, and pulled it swiftly through her hair, dismissing the thought. Useless, she told herself. Useless to think of that. She had fled Annsdale to protect them both from her father, and after three years of living with Charlie Parkinson, there was no going back. She was fastened to Charlie, cheat and liar that he was. She was stuck with him, and she meant to make damned sure he was stuck with her, and their child.
A fleeting, sardonic smile followed a frown. After all, it wasn’t all bad. Charlie could make himself very agreeable when it suited him, especially between the sheets, and that was some compensation. ‘I doubt if I’m fit to be a decent man’s wife, now,’ she murmured, pinning up her hair in a simpler style. A final smoothing down of her dress and she was ready to meet Charlie in the bar, determined, oh so determined to make the best of it.
But thoughts of Annsdale and happier days would keep intruding. Even the brutality had been no worse than what she faced now. The only difference was, it had all been on the surface there.
Chapter 1
Oh, the pitmen are not bonny lads,
The pitmen are not bonny O!
If they’re ever sae clean yet
They’re black about the een
And I like them the worst o’ ony O!
Fifteen-year-old Ginny stood outside on a little wooden cracket, cleaning the front room window with a bit of string tied round the bottom of her long skirts to prevent the wind blowing them up to give any passer-by an eyeful. She bawled lustily at the top of her lungs, trying to goad her brother John, who was sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and complaining to their mother about his sore sides after a shift of pony putting.
Little Sally was on the mend. The fever had broken at last, and the household was beginning to get back to normal. With Lizzie and young Arthur out of the way playing street games with other children, the two elder girls were helping their mother tear into the backlog of work. Thirteen-year-old Emma was black-leading the fireplace, and their mother was getting on with the polishing.
‘Sing on, Ginny, you’re safe enough. I’m too tired to rise to it,’ John shouted from the kitchen. She laughed, and changed the tune to ‘The Putter’s Lament’.
Aa cannet lift it, Aa cannet shift it,
Why it’s enough to mak’ ye cry.
Aa’ve chewed on till me arse is sair,
Now Aa can’t lift any mair.
Aa cannet lift it, Aa cannet shift it,
An Aa dinnet intend te try.
Aa’s ganna put me gear away,
An’ bugger off out bye.
‘I’d like to see you try it,’ shouted John, ‘you want to try getting the coal away for a couple of demon hewers in a good cavil, with a pony that’ll do nothing it’s told ’til it’s time to go back to the stable, and tubs that keep coming off the rails. You women! You don’t know you’re bloody born, man!’
She laughed again, and turned to see her father coming down the street dressed in his best suit, returning after an hour at the club. Black hair well brushed, suit pressed and shoes polished, he strode arrogantly along with his head up and shoulders back as if he owned the world. Save for the blackened scar that bisected one eyebrow, he might be taken for the owner of the pit rather than one of its hewers. He stopped to exchange a few words with one of his marrers who lived a couple of doors down the row, before walking on home, grim faced.
He slammed the gate hard enough to shake it off its hinges. Bad omen. The set of his jaw and the glint in his eyes turned Ginny’s entrails to ice. He passed her without a word and the door crashed shut behind him. She opened it again, and, picking up the stool and the bucket, followed him through the front room and into the kitchen.
He bent menacingly over John, who until he’d heard the door slam had been peacefully drinking his tea at the table. He looked up in alarm.
‘Where are they, then?’ Their father’s voice was soft, controlled, raising the hairs on the back of Ginny’s neck.
‘Where are what?’ John asked, all innocence.
‘Alf Jackson’s apples, that’s what. Where are they?’
‘I don’t know. I know nothing about Alf Jackson’s apples.’
‘Mr Jackson to you.’ Their father landed a blow on the side of John’s head. ‘What have you done with them?’
‘Nothing,’ protested John, voice now shrill, and face reddening at the accusation so that he looked a picture of guilt.
‘Liar! You’ve eaten them. It’s written all over your face. Why would he say you took them if you didn’t? Why were you hanging about his fence earlier?’
Silence, followed by another blow to the back of John’s head.
‘Well?’
‘I was taking a stone out of my boot.’
‘And you thought you’d help yourself to his apples while you were at it.’
They watched in terror, Ginny in both fear and loathing. Oh, how she hated her father. How she hated and despised herself for her powerlessness to stop him. She prayed to God to strike him dead and send him to Hell. Little Sally, still weak after pneumonia, began to cry and to cough. The interrogation continued regardless.
‘Well?’
‘What?’
‘What? What? What have you done with his apples?’ Her father’s fury was coming up to boiling point, along with his determination to overcome John’s resistance; to Break his Will, to Get to the Truth.
‘Arthur, for God’s sake, leave him alone.’ Face gaunt, their mother shielded her son with her own slender frame.
‘Get out of my road. Your favourite’s not going to get away with thieving.’ He hurled her roughly across the room to crash against the mantelpiece. Without sparing her a glance, he took John by the ears and pulled him out of the chair before pushing him forward and kicking him violently in the small of his back, sending him sprawling. The skinny youth was no match for their father at the best of times and certainly not when exhausted after a day’s putting.
‘Upstairs. Get upstairs before I knock your brains out.’
John scrambled up as fast as he could go. Their father deliberately and ceremoniously took off his jacket and waistcoat and hung them carefully in the front room before following John, unbuckling his belt as he went.
‘Don’t hurt him, Arthur, he’s never touched anything belonging to anybody else in his life,’ their mother begged, but neither she nor either of her older daughters dared try to stop him, not even hardy Ginny. They stood still and mute in the kitchen, staring at each other as they listened to scuffling and yelps from upstairs, and then to their father laying into John with the belt.
A furious knocking at the back door broke the trance, and Enid Jackson burst in. ‘Mary Ann, tell your man John never touched the apples. It was me that lifted them when I took a bit of washing in, only that fool of a man of mine never saw me stoop to pick them up.’ Enid, a fat and normally lethargic woman not built for running, clung breathlessly to the doorpost, and their mother was halfway up the stairs before she’d finished speaking. Enid gasped, ‘I know what a temper your dad’s got, so I came the minute Alf told me the mistake he’d made. He knew as soon as he came into the kitchen and saw the peel on the table. I was making a pie . . .’ Her voice trailed off as she caught Ginny’s eye.
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