East End Angel
Two sisters living in London’s tough East End … will Jennifer and Kathy be tough enough to survive?Katherine and Jennifer Finch are like chalk and cheese: Katherine is a midwife, dedicating her life to helping others – and Jennifer is a prostitute.Leaving home age 15, Jennifer must learn to live on her wits in London’s notorious East End. Soon, however, she is battling drink and drugs, and is pregnant with a child. Her labour is nearly fatal, but her sister steps in to save the day.Kathy continues to tend to the poor of the East End and help her sister – and she of all people knows that the society that Jennifer keeps is damaging her. Despite her best intentions, however, she begins to fall for an East End wide boy. She knows that he is no good, but her heart will not listen to her head – and what’s more, he has promised to change for her …
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East End Angel
Kay Brellend
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2014
Copyright © Kay Brellend 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014
Cover photographs © Colin Thomas (woman); Culver Pictures/Superstock (girl); Topfoto (children).
Kay Brellend 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: 9780007464197
Ebook Edition © February 2014 ISBN: 9780007464203
Version: 2015-07-10
For Mum and Dad, with everlasting love and gratitude for your hard work and sacrifice.
Contents
Q&A with the Author, Kay Brellend
Read on for an extract from The Street
February 1936
‘Have you killed her?’
‘Don’t care if I have,’ the big man growled. ‘The slag deserves to be six feet under for what she’s done.’
‘What could she have done to deserve this?’ the young woman bellowed.
Kathy Finch weighed seven and a half stone and stood five foot three in her shoes, but she was trying to wrestle the brute away from the prone bloodied body of his young wife. He swatted her aside as easily as he would an irritating moth.
Kathy regained her breath and balance, then launched herself at the stevedore again. This time when she grabbed his hairy forearm he allowed her to pull him back, having delivered a final lazy stamp to the figure on the floor.
Ruby Potter had curled into a foetal position in a vain attempt to protect herself and her unborn baby from her husband’s boots. But whereas moments ago she had been gamely fighting back – punching and slapping at his thick shins – now she was motionless, her face fallen away to the wall.
Satisfied with the punishment he’d inflicted, Charlie Potter sauntered off to get his donkey jacket from a filthy armchair. The child sitting on it barely flinched as the coat was whipped from under her.
‘I think you know right enough what she’s done, miss,’ Charlie finally answered Kathy. ‘Don’t come the innocent with me. Ruby talks to you about all sorts of stuff. I’ve heard her.’
‘She talks to me ’cos I’m her midwife!’ Kathy yelled. She’d dropped down beside Ruby and was feeling her limp wrist for a pulse. She swivelled on her knees, aware that at any time the vicious bastard could again let loose his temper and she might be on the receiving end. She felt ire well up inside. She’d go down fighting, like Ruby had.
She’d no idea what had led up to this beating, having arrived after it had started. At the sound of the blood-curdling commotion, she had raced down the passageway and burst into the room, but by then her patient was already on her knees. The punch she’d seen Charlie deliver had looked savage enough to fell a horse. It had certainly put Ruby out like a light.
Kathy’s eyes slewed to the chalk-faced child sucking her thumb and watching everything with unblinking intensity. She knew she herself was relatively safe, but a maniac such as Potter, who believed his family were his chattels to do with as he liked, wouldn’t think twice about laying into his small daughter if he thought she was being insolent.
‘You’d better get out of here! I’m warning you … I’m calling for an ambulance and then I’m getting the police.’ Kathy’s fear was subdued by fury.
Charlie Potter swooped on Kathy, pinching her chin between his calloused fingers. Her neck strained as he hauled her up using just those remorseless digits until she was on her feet and gritting her teeth in agony. When standing in front of him she tried to jerk back from his leery gaze but the pain increased so she settled for despising him with china-blue eyes.
