Behind Bars:
Part One
by Kevin Crowe
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: Lots of strong ones.
Description: Kathleen and Brendan begin to prosper in their new location. No longer on the game, Kathleen is making a name for herself as a folk singer, while Brendan has a steady job and income. Life couldn’t be better for the pair – for now, at least.
Swearwords: Lots of strong ones.
Description: Kathleen and Brendan begin to prosper in their new location. No longer on the game, Kathleen is making a name for herself as a folk singer, while Brendan has a steady job and income. Life couldn’t be better for the pair – for now, at least.
Chapter Nine: Brendan
1
It was the early hours of the morning when I finally got home. A busy night had ended with a lock-in and I was expected to stay and serve the scum we called customers until the last one finally left. When I first started working at the George & Dragon I must admit to being scared: everyone looked like a thug, including the landlord, and they probably were. But I soon realised it was probably one of the safest places in the area for me to be, that is providing no-one knew I was queer and of Irish origin, and as long as I bit my tongue and didn't express my opinions. The pub was frequented by racists of the worst sort and the National Front regularly met in the upstairs room. Sometimes people would ask me my views on niggers, pakis, chinks, paddies, tinkers, queers, tarts and others they thought were sub-human. I wanted to keep my job, without which I wouldn't be able to afford driving lessons; more than that I didn't want a beating by upsetting any of these thugs, so I just made non-committal remarks and nodded and shook my head in the right places. Most of the time though nobody took much notice of me as long as I provided them with the right drinks, gave them the right change and didn't make them wait too long.
When I got home that night – or rather, in the early hours of the morning – Kathleen was in bed, so I made as little noise as possible in order not to disturb her. She was still in bed when I got up later in the morning.
I'd had some breakfast and was nursing a cup of tea when she came out of her room. Despite the careful application of make-up, her bruises were visible. The skin around one eye was an angry purple, the swelling such that she could hardly open the eye. Her broken nose was also swollen and no amount of slap could hide her split lip. There were red blotches around her neck, as if someone had tried to strangle her.
She sat down, poured herself a cup of tea. “I know how bad I look, so you'd better not say a word. Understand?”
I nodded. She switched on the radio, and we both sat in silence, listening to the inane chatter on Radio 1. After a few minutes, she switched it off, saying “God! I don't know where they get those people from. Perhaps I'm just getting old” She slumped back into her chair.
I guffawed. “You? Old?”
“Well, I feel old this morning. And sore.” I poured her some tea. She took a sip and yelled. “Fuck! That stings.”
“You'd better get that seen to, better go to the doctor.”
“Oh yeah. And how would I explain what happened?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “The truth, perhaps?”
“Fuck that!”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Isn't it fucking obvious?” I didn't respond. She took another, careful sip of tea. “Just my fucking luck. Got this punter who couldn't get it up. I tried everything to get him hard but he stayed as soft as a baby's arse. He blamed me, told me it was my fault, that he'd never had this problem before. He demanded his money back. At first I refused, but when he threatened me and was clearly serious I agreed. But it was too fucking late by then. He kicked me in the cunt, thumped me in the stomach and on the face and grabbed me by the throat. I thought I was going to fucking die, right there in an alleyway off a backstreet. I've never been more scared in my life. He only stopped when I gave him everything I'd earned last night, every last fucking penny – and I can tell you it was a lot. Once he'd taken all I had, he knocked me to the ground and pissed on me! The fucking bastard pissed on me, and went off laughing. Christ, I'm glad you weren't in when I got back, I'm glad I didn't meet anyone who recognised me. The first thing I did was to have a bath. I still feel dirty, still fucking scared. The bastard!” She burst into tears.
I tried to comfort her, but she pushed my arm away, so I let her cry herself out. After a while I asked her if she was going to go to the police.
“What the fuck do you think?” she yelled. “They'll just tell me it was my own fault then probably arrest me again for soliciting.” She was silent for a while before saying: “We can't go on like this, can we? What're we going to do?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know. I just know I don't want to be a barman here for the rest of my life.”
“And I don't want to end up as some middle aged toothless hag, giving blow jobs for the price of a drink.”
“You've got your guitar. And your voice. There are lots of folk clubs about. And pubs sometimes have live music. And you could busk. I know I've said this before...”
“Yes, you have many times, like a fucking broken record. Look, I enjoy playing, but I'm not that good, you know, just an amateur who does it for fun.”
“How do you know? How do you know, if you don't give it a try? Why not go to one of the singers' nights that clubs have? You've got nothing to lose.”
She took another swig of tea. “Yuk! It's cold.”
I got up to brew some more. When I returned I said: “It'll be Christmas in a week's time.”
“Oh God! I hate Christmas.”
“Yeah, I'm not exactly overjoyed by it either. But over the next couple of weeks the pub'll be really busy and there'll be as many hours as I want, so I can earn enough to pay the rent. We can discuss what we're going to do in the new year. And there'll be no need for you to hustle for punters meanwhile.”
A sarcastic laugh escaped from her mouth. “Ha! I couldn't work anyway, not looking like this. It'll take 'till next year for my face to look normal.” She lowered her face. “Sorry. You don't deserve that.” She took my hand. “You know, you're still the only person who's ever tried to help me without having an agenda, the only person I've ever been able to call a friend.”
I smiled. “Same here.”
2
Christmas: the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men. What a load of bollocks. I may have left the church behind years ago, but I still find it sickening that we celebrate the birth of the man who urged us all to share all we had and keep just enough for our own needs, by eating and drinking to excess. These days Christmas has about as much to do with the birth of Christ as Ian Paisley has to do with Blessed are the Meek! At least that's the way I felt over most of the last week of December.
Perhaps my jaundiced unseasonal view was just because of how fucking hard I had to work. I volunteered for any extra shifts that were going and the boss took me at my word. I was working most days and nights for two weeks, right up to New Year’s Day. Like most pubs, it didn't open on Christmas night, but the rest of the time I was there pulling pints, pouring shorts, opening mixers, washing glasses and being nice to some of the nastiest wankers I had ever met. I certainly earned my money!
Each day was the same. I would get to the George & Dragon in time to open up at 11 in the morning, close at 2.30, clear up, go back home for a couple of hours, then back to open up again at 6 in the evening and finally get home, exhausted, somewhere between midnight and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I was so knackered I didn't even have the energy to get undressed before collapsing and falling asleep.
Oh, and those wankers thought themselves so funny. You should have heard them singing new, racist words to “White Christmas” and then get all sentimental singing “Silent Night”. Didn't any of these idiots actually know what the words meant? For fuck's sake! And their jokes: a laugh a minute. They all tried to outdo the others in telling the most offensive, ridiculous and unfunny gags about black people, women, gays, disabled people, Jews.
Meanwhile, Kathleen's body was recovering. I was worried about any internal injuries, but she refused to go to the doctor. She said she'd been looking after herself for years, and wasn't about to let some pervert of a GP manhandle her for free. She got some strong pain killers from a dealer and various creams and ointments from the chemist. The break in her nose never did heal fully and she was left with a little bump, but unless you knew you wouldn't have thought her nose looked any different from the way it always had.
The mental scars took longer to heal. She stayed in a lot more than previously, and when she did go out she was always nervous, looking over her shoulder, jumping at the slightest noise. There was no way she was even thinking about going back to her old trade: the very mention of it sent her into a deep gloom. I did what I could, but there were times I couldn't reach her.
Her only consolation was her guitar. She spent more and more time playing it and singing. Sometimes it was old favourites of hers, sometimes songs she had only recently learned, and other times melodies she had composed out of thin air. On the way home one afternoon I got her a cheap tape recorder from a junk shop nearby, so she could record her own compositions before they were lost.
I got some inexpensive decorations and a small plastic tree. She smiled and thanked me, but her eyes were staring into the distance, focussing on something only she could see.
Christmas Day I got back from the lunchtime shift to find Kathleen had cooked dinner: a chicken with all the trimmings. After eating, we slumped in front of the TV and for long periods never said a word. All the false bonhomie was depressing, even more so than those Christmases I had spent alone. That year there wasn't even the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show. We both drank too much, smoked too much dope and ended up going to bed early. The next day it was back on the treadmill, but with a hangover.
3
Kathleen saw in the new year on her own: inevitably I was working, and the party at the pub went on and on. If I never hear another drunken, tuneless chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” again, it'll be too soon. I was almost falling asleep on my feet. The landlord went to bed in the early hours, telling me to lock up and giving me New Year’s Day off. Fucking generous of him!
Eventually, the last person left and I was able to go home, but only after doing all the washing up and cleaning the tables. I walked back along icy pavements, careful not slip. The incessant drizzle of the past week had been replaced by a cold snap. Not cold enough to snow, but enough to make the roads and pavements treacherous. If anyone had seen me, sliding from side to side while trying to hang on to any wall or lamppost that gave even a smidgen of balance, they would have assumed I was drunk. But no-one was on the streets in that weather at that time in the morning. Except me, of course. A fucking great start to the new year!
When I got home, Kathleen was asleep in front of the TV test card. As I switched it off, she woke up. For a moment she looked confused, then yawned, followed by a smile. “I thought I'd wait up for you, so I could wish you happy new year.”
“Happy new year.” I gave her a peck on the cheek. “I'm dead tired. I'm off to bed. Sorry to be so boring.”
She waved me away.
A few hours later, still tired but unable to sleep with the winter sun, low in the sky, streaming through the window, I got up. The smell of bacon frying might also have had something to do with it. When I entered the kitchen I saw Kathleen busy cooking. She waved a spatula at me. “I decided you'd earned a decent breakfast.”
I didn't demur. There was a pot of tea brewing on the table, so I poured myself a cup. While she was busying herself with what looked like a massive fry up she asked: “Were you busy last night?”
“Yeah. It was fucking crazy. But I've got the whole day off today and I'm going to do nothing.”
She put a plate in front of me: bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs, tomatoes, fried potatoes and fried bread. She had a second similar plateful for herself. As she sat down she said: “Ha! You don't get off that easily.” I stared at her, mouth open. “For fuck's sake close that thing: I don't want to see you chewing your food.”
I swallowed. “Sorry. What do you mean, I don't get off that easily?”
“You're doing the washing up.”
“Do you realise how many glasses I washed up last night?”
“Well, a few plates and stuff won't make much difference then.”
I groaned. “Oh, okay then.”
“And then we need to talk about the future.”
“Please, not today,” I pleaded. “Can't I just have a lazy day, a few smokes and a few drinks?”
Chapter Ten: Kathleen
1
There was one thing for certain: I wasn't going back on the street, not after the beating I'd got last time. Next time I might be dead. You read of lots of tarts getting killed by punters, and the police do fuck all about it. One less girl on the street is a result for them, and I've heard some of them talking, saying girls like us deserve all we get.
But we couldn't afford for just Brendan to be working. Now Christmas was over, there wasn't that much work for him, only a few shifts a week. We had the rip off rent to pay on this place, he had his driving lessons and there just wasn't enough coming in. I didn't want to touch what was in my post office account which, following all the hours Brendan worked over Christmas, had a fair bit in it. It was good of him to pay any extra he earned into the account, but if we weren't careful it would soon begin to dwindle.
All I'd done all my life, the only way I'd earned any money, was selling my body. I was lucky to have managed to get away with it for so long, but now after beatings and arrests and with the effects on my body of being fucked several times a night in every orifice, I knew it was time to stop.
I hated to admit it, but perhaps Brendan was right. After all, you see lots of people in the city centre busking, and wasn't there a busker who had a couple of chart hits a few years ago? What was his name? That's right, Don Partridge. I decided there was no harm in trying.
When I told Brendan, he was relieved, though he did ask if busking was legal. I just shrugged my shoulders and said I didn't know. And then I started giggling. He looked puzzled. “Sorry,” I said, between giggles, “I've spent years soliciting, you go cottaging, we both smoke a bit of dope, and we're worrying about whether busking is legal or not! For fuck's sake.”
He guffawed. “Yeah, I take your point. Still, might as well wait until the weather's a bit warmer.”
That got me going again, this time it was ages before I could stop giggling. A hurt expression crossed his face. “What's so funny?”
“I've been selling myself on the streets in all sorts of weather from blizzards to heatwaves, and that mainly at night. I really don't think a bit of rain or wind is going to be a problem, do you?”
“Yeah, but Frankie won't like getting wet, will she?”
“Fair point, still you are funny sometimes.” I'd been giggling so much, I'd given myself the hiccups. Once I'd got over them I said: “The truth is we need more money coming in. I don't suppose I'll earn a lot busking, but every little bit helps and it will give me a chance to see how I get on in public. And there's folk clubs, and there might be pubs that will let me play for tips.”
“When are you going to start?” he asked.
“No time like the present. I'll go down the town tomorrow and give it a try.”
“Have you decided on a spot?”
“Thought I might try somewhere along New street, perhaps near the Golden Egg. I'll just play it by ear, so to speak.”
Next morning I took Frankie on the bus. I put the open guitar case on the pavement and began playing. It was a cold day with a biting wind, but it was dry and I was well wrapped up. One good thing about busking: I didn't have to show my tits and legs in cold weather. I was nervous to start with, but once I'd got past the first verse of “The Crafty Maid” I was okay. No-one bothered me, most people just walked past, but some people threw coins in the guitar case and a few even stopped to listen. I played some traditional stuff as well as popular modern songs by Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel and the like. I soon discovered the more familiar the songs were to people, the more money got thrown into the guitar case, so I included more of those in my repertoire.
I began to treat it like a job, and busked regularly, normally about the same time and in the same place or nearby, making sure I wasn't interfering with other buskers. Occasionally I was moved on by police with nothing better to do. The first time it happened I almost offered one of them a blow job, but stopped myself in time. I extended my repertoire, including some of my own songs once I became more confident. I also added songs from different genres. I don't think I had ever been happier in my life.
I even began to recognise the same faces: it seemed there were those who came to listen on a regular basis. One of these regulars was a tall thin young man with long ginger hair and an unkempt beard. Two or three times a week he would stop and listen for a while. One day, after I'd finished a song, he told me he was called David, said how much he admired my singing and playing and asked me if I'd like to play at the folk club he ran. He said there was a “singers night” coming up, and I was welcome. He could guarantee me half an hour, if I was interested. When I asked if I'd be paid, he laughed and said no, but if I was popular enough there might be other opportunities.
Life wasn't all plain sailing, of course. In January our court cases came up. We both pled guilty. It wasn't the first time I'd been in court, but it never gets any easier: these people can take away your freedom. Of course I knew I would only be getting a fine, but these places are built to make you feel intimidated, with their high ceilings, dark brown furnishings and general air of power. When I was asked, I was able to genuinely say I was no longer on the game, though I doubt anyone in the courtroom believed me. I was given a fine and time to pay.
A week later it was Brendan's turn, and just as he had accompanied me to court, so I went along to support him. It was his first time and he was clearly nervous, very nervous, and was shaking. As expected he was also fined. Neither of us were really sure how we were going to afford to pay the fines, particularly as we had other priorities for our still very limited resources. But we decided to worry about that later.
One of those priorities was transport. Brendan's lessons were going well and shortly after his court case he passed his test, but unless we could afford a car, the license was just a bit of paper. We'd managed all this time without a car, as most people did, but it was becoming increasingly clear that we needed one if we were going to move forward. A lot of what I earned busking went in bus travel and occasionally taxis, and it wasn't practical for Brendan to work very far away without a car, particularly if he was going to be working late.
We talked about this a lot, asking ourselves if we could afford even the cheapest second hand car. We needed one that was reliable but wasn't too expensive. Most of what I earned busking and most of Brendan's wages went into my post office account in order to save up for one, but all the cars we saw for sale were beyond our means.
2
Brendan got the night off work so we could both go to the Wild Rover Folk Club. I was nervous, to say the least: this would be my first time in front of a paying audience. I spent days practising, working out what songs to play then changing my mind, trying to get the balance right between new and traditional stuff. Brendan got exasperated with me, and I lost my temper with him: yet another of our regular rows.
It took two buses to get there. It was in a modern suburban pub, one of those estate pubs that all look the same and lack any character: near identical furnishings and decoration selling exactly the same range of drinks as dozens of other pubs, staffed by anonymous clone-like workers. The folk club was in a plain and merely functional upstairs room. Wooden chairs were arranged in rows facing a makeshift stage, and people had to go downstairs to the bar to get drinks. Austere and without any atmosphere, it was hardly the ideal location for a folk club, but it was already filling up when we got there. I introduced Brendan to David, who was also a musician and was the compère. We sat near the back, next to the door and listened to a variety of musicians performing a range of material from traditional ballads to blues to bluegrass to contemporary protest songs. I realised I needn't have worried about my repertoire not fitting in. I was told I would be the first act in the second half.
David introduced me and I was shaking with nerves as I made my way to the stage. I began by introducing my guitar, telling everyone I had named it after my favourite singer, Frankie Armstrong. That got me a round of applause before I had even begun playing, and that helped relax me. I began by playing a couple of my favourites learned from her record, followed by some more traditional material and even one of my own songs. I finished by singing something I'd only recently learned: Peggy Seeger's “I'm Gonna Be An Engineer”. Even though I made some mistakes, it had the audience whooping, and the applause was so sustained, I was asked to do an encore. I was worried because I hadn't prepared anything else. But a while ago I had heard a recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing a song about prostitution and, because it spoke to me, I had learned it, never expecting to sing it in public. I wasn't sure how “Love For Sale” would be received in a folk club, but I gave it a go and the applause was even more rapturous. I was stunned. I was in tears at the reception.
On my way back to my seat, people patted my back or shook my hand in congratulation. Brendan was beaming, his eyes sparkling. As I sat down he whispered: “See, I told you you were good.”
At the end of the evening, David approached me and said: “A few of us formed a folk music collective a couple of years ago. We work together, help each other and get paid gigs. Do you fancy joining us?”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
“Great,” he said. “You know, that was a very special performance, and that encore! It was like you were living the words as you sang them: never heard anything like it.” He probably thought I was blushing because of the compliment; I wonder how he would react if he knew the extent to which I had been “living the words”.
Over the next few months I began to make a bit of a name for myself on the West Midlands folk scene and even began to make a bit of money. Not a lot, but enough to be able to pay for my own driving lessons. We had managed to afford a cheap second hand Mini and I looked forward to the day when I too could drive it.
Although David had told me I would be joining a collective, it was really no such thing: he took most of the decisions. He paid lip service to the idea of a collective and always asked us what we thought, but I soon found out he hated it when people disagreed with him and seemed to take it personally. One thing life had taught me was to not take shit from anyone, but I had also learned the value of patience and of choosing what battles to fight. Although not the greatest musician in the collective, he was an excellent organiser and got us gigs we would not otherwise have had a chance of getting. He never interfered with our individual repertoires and he ensured all money was shared out equally, but he was definitely the boss.
He liked us to go to gigs together, even when it would have been easier for people to make their own way there, he thought it made us look more like a group. So most of the time we drove there in his beat up rust-bucket of a van. One time the van broke down just a couple of miles from the venue we were booked to play. Rather than taking our advice to leave the van, walk to the gig and then arrange for the van to be collected and fixed by a local garage, David decided he could fix it himself. Half an hour later he was still attempting to get the van to start. I was getting ever more irritated until eventually I told him I was walking so that at least one of us would be there in time to play and without giving him an opportunity to respond stormed off, with Frankie and her case swinging from my hand. I was used to moving fast: it's a skill all tarts need, so by the time he caught up with me he was red faced and sweating.
He was also angry. He accused me of undermining him in front of the others, of making him look foolish. I turned and stared at him, my nostrils flaring. I told him if anyone had made him look foolish, it was himself by his insistence on attempting to repair the van even though he knew fuck all about engines. I turned away and continued walking. He yelled after me, but I ignored him. When I got to the venue I told the organiser our van had broken down and the others were stranded. He sent out a taxi to collect them, and that annoyed David even more. During and after the concert he refused to speak to me, and at our next rehearsals he told me we were a collective, not a bunch of individuals who could do what they wanted and ignore the rest.
Hands on hips, I said: “You know, you should take your own fucking advice before dishing it out to the rest of us.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Did you manage to fix that rust-bucket of yours? Did you?”
“What's that got to do with it? I'm talking about the principle.”
“Oh yeah, and where was that fucking principle when you ignored what some of us said and almost made us miss a gig? If I hadn't walked and arranged for you to be picked up, you'd probably still be at the side of the road, with the van in bits.”
David called me an ungrateful bitch, told me if it hadn't been for him, I'd still be busking and earning pennies for singing popular covers. I thought about leaving the collective, but realised I didn't have the connections to get regular gigs, so I left it at telling the wanker to fuck off. He reminded me of all those men who thought they had the right to control me, to tell me what to do. Okay, he never touched me, never hit me, but in insisting on doing as he said, he was still abusing me. As in the past, most of the others looked away. With one exception: Catriona.
3
Catriona was from a village in the Scottish highlands. She'd left to go to university in Birmingham and had stayed in the city after graduating, got a teaching qualification and taught music in a comprehensive school. Before joining the collective, I wasn't aware of ever knowing anyone from the middle classes, though I suppose some of my punters were. Apart from her red hair, she was very different from me. She had an ethereal soprano, a contrast to my contralto which had been described as sultry. She was taller and slimmer than me and dressed more conservatively. She spoke with that slow musical accent I later discovered to be common in parts of the Highlands, in contrast to my nasal Midlands accent. She was also calmer, more patient and laid back than me. She rarely spoke in a group, but when she did she was worth listening to. Despite being so quiet, she was fun and had a mischievous sense of humour. When she smiled, which was often, her whole face lit up, her eyes sparkled and her cheeks dimpled.
We became close friends soon after I joined the collective, spent a lot of time together and we even began to sing harmonies sometimes on each other’s songs, though her teaching commitments meant she wasn't able to take part in all the collective's performances. David and I were the only members who didn't have a day job. Catriona could read music and knew a lot about the theory of music, much of which she passed on to me.
She was the only person in the collective who knew about my past as a prostitute. I didn't have any intention of telling her, it just came out when we were talking one evening. She told me her name meant 'pure'.
“So the opposite of mine,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“Oh no,” she said. “Your name also means 'pure'. Catriona and Kathleen have the same origin, except one of them is Scottish and the other Irish.”
“Ha! I don't feel very pure. Never have felt pure, to be honest.”
She looked me in the eyes and gently took hold of my hands. “And why would that be?”
I pulled away from her and looked away. “I just don't.”
She didn't say anything, she just took my hands again. We stayed like that for what seemed like hours but was probably no more than a few seconds. Then it all spilled out as, speaking through tears, I told her what had happened to me. I was scared she would be disgusted and would turn away from me, but I needn't have worried. She held me close, allowing me to cry on her breast. She said: “What's been done to you isn't you. You are pure, just like your name. You're a loving, caring woman, and that you've remained so after all the crap that's been thrown at you shows just how strong a person you are. I'm not sure I could have managed that.” Then she kissed me.
I'd never really kissed anyone before: tarts don't. It felt so good. It took some time for me to relax and really enjoy the physical contact: all my experience of sex was either abuse or earning a living. Emotionally, I was a virgin, but Catriona was patient. We became lovers.
I'd never thought of myself as queer, as a lesbian. I'd heard of tarts who performed together for voyeuristic punters, but I'd never done that myself. I was glad, because if I had it might have soiled what we and Catriona felt for each other. I didn't know whether I was born a lesbian or whether it was a result of all that happened to me, and I didn't care. All that mattered was that, for the first time in my life, I knew what love, real love, felt like.
I told Brendan about her, though I was nervous in case he was jealous. I needn't have worried: he was overjoyed. He insisted the three of us go out together to celebrate. When we did, Brendan and Catriona hit it off, and she became surprisingly talkative. After a few drinks they began discussing me, sharing with each other all my little peculiarities and laughing about them.
I said: “Hey, I'm still here, you know.”
They both stared at me then burst out giggling. Their laughter was infectious, and soon I was joining in. I was so happy: I was with the only two people who had ever shown any real interest in me, the only two people who cared about me. I couldn't imagine life being any better and the past was well and truly buried, or so we thought. Brendan was still working at the George & Dragon. He kept talking about looking for a job elsewhere, but he never got round to it. Perhaps if he had... But if wishes were rainbows we'd all have a pot of gold.
1
It was the early hours of the morning when I finally got home. A busy night had ended with a lock-in and I was expected to stay and serve the scum we called customers until the last one finally left. When I first started working at the George & Dragon I must admit to being scared: everyone looked like a thug, including the landlord, and they probably were. But I soon realised it was probably one of the safest places in the area for me to be, that is providing no-one knew I was queer and of Irish origin, and as long as I bit my tongue and didn't express my opinions. The pub was frequented by racists of the worst sort and the National Front regularly met in the upstairs room. Sometimes people would ask me my views on niggers, pakis, chinks, paddies, tinkers, queers, tarts and others they thought were sub-human. I wanted to keep my job, without which I wouldn't be able to afford driving lessons; more than that I didn't want a beating by upsetting any of these thugs, so I just made non-committal remarks and nodded and shook my head in the right places. Most of the time though nobody took much notice of me as long as I provided them with the right drinks, gave them the right change and didn't make them wait too long.
When I got home that night – or rather, in the early hours of the morning – Kathleen was in bed, so I made as little noise as possible in order not to disturb her. She was still in bed when I got up later in the morning.
I'd had some breakfast and was nursing a cup of tea when she came out of her room. Despite the careful application of make-up, her bruises were visible. The skin around one eye was an angry purple, the swelling such that she could hardly open the eye. Her broken nose was also swollen and no amount of slap could hide her split lip. There were red blotches around her neck, as if someone had tried to strangle her.
She sat down, poured herself a cup of tea. “I know how bad I look, so you'd better not say a word. Understand?”
I nodded. She switched on the radio, and we both sat in silence, listening to the inane chatter on Radio 1. After a few minutes, she switched it off, saying “God! I don't know where they get those people from. Perhaps I'm just getting old” She slumped back into her chair.
I guffawed. “You? Old?”
“Well, I feel old this morning. And sore.” I poured her some tea. She took a sip and yelled. “Fuck! That stings.”
“You'd better get that seen to, better go to the doctor.”
“Oh yeah. And how would I explain what happened?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “The truth, perhaps?”
“Fuck that!”
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“Isn't it fucking obvious?” I didn't respond. She took another, careful sip of tea. “Just my fucking luck. Got this punter who couldn't get it up. I tried everything to get him hard but he stayed as soft as a baby's arse. He blamed me, told me it was my fault, that he'd never had this problem before. He demanded his money back. At first I refused, but when he threatened me and was clearly serious I agreed. But it was too fucking late by then. He kicked me in the cunt, thumped me in the stomach and on the face and grabbed me by the throat. I thought I was going to fucking die, right there in an alleyway off a backstreet. I've never been more scared in my life. He only stopped when I gave him everything I'd earned last night, every last fucking penny – and I can tell you it was a lot. Once he'd taken all I had, he knocked me to the ground and pissed on me! The fucking bastard pissed on me, and went off laughing. Christ, I'm glad you weren't in when I got back, I'm glad I didn't meet anyone who recognised me. The first thing I did was to have a bath. I still feel dirty, still fucking scared. The bastard!” She burst into tears.
I tried to comfort her, but she pushed my arm away, so I let her cry herself out. After a while I asked her if she was going to go to the police.
“What the fuck do you think?” she yelled. “They'll just tell me it was my own fault then probably arrest me again for soliciting.” She was silent for a while before saying: “We can't go on like this, can we? What're we going to do?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know. I just know I don't want to be a barman here for the rest of my life.”
“And I don't want to end up as some middle aged toothless hag, giving blow jobs for the price of a drink.”
“You've got your guitar. And your voice. There are lots of folk clubs about. And pubs sometimes have live music. And you could busk. I know I've said this before...”
“Yes, you have many times, like a fucking broken record. Look, I enjoy playing, but I'm not that good, you know, just an amateur who does it for fun.”
“How do you know? How do you know, if you don't give it a try? Why not go to one of the singers' nights that clubs have? You've got nothing to lose.”
She took another swig of tea. “Yuk! It's cold.”
I got up to brew some more. When I returned I said: “It'll be Christmas in a week's time.”
“Oh God! I hate Christmas.”
“Yeah, I'm not exactly overjoyed by it either. But over the next couple of weeks the pub'll be really busy and there'll be as many hours as I want, so I can earn enough to pay the rent. We can discuss what we're going to do in the new year. And there'll be no need for you to hustle for punters meanwhile.”
A sarcastic laugh escaped from her mouth. “Ha! I couldn't work anyway, not looking like this. It'll take 'till next year for my face to look normal.” She lowered her face. “Sorry. You don't deserve that.” She took my hand. “You know, you're still the only person who's ever tried to help me without having an agenda, the only person I've ever been able to call a friend.”
I smiled. “Same here.”
2
Christmas: the season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men. What a load of bollocks. I may have left the church behind years ago, but I still find it sickening that we celebrate the birth of the man who urged us all to share all we had and keep just enough for our own needs, by eating and drinking to excess. These days Christmas has about as much to do with the birth of Christ as Ian Paisley has to do with Blessed are the Meek! At least that's the way I felt over most of the last week of December.
Perhaps my jaundiced unseasonal view was just because of how fucking hard I had to work. I volunteered for any extra shifts that were going and the boss took me at my word. I was working most days and nights for two weeks, right up to New Year’s Day. Like most pubs, it didn't open on Christmas night, but the rest of the time I was there pulling pints, pouring shorts, opening mixers, washing glasses and being nice to some of the nastiest wankers I had ever met. I certainly earned my money!
Each day was the same. I would get to the George & Dragon in time to open up at 11 in the morning, close at 2.30, clear up, go back home for a couple of hours, then back to open up again at 6 in the evening and finally get home, exhausted, somewhere between midnight and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I was so knackered I didn't even have the energy to get undressed before collapsing and falling asleep.
Oh, and those wankers thought themselves so funny. You should have heard them singing new, racist words to “White Christmas” and then get all sentimental singing “Silent Night”. Didn't any of these idiots actually know what the words meant? For fuck's sake! And their jokes: a laugh a minute. They all tried to outdo the others in telling the most offensive, ridiculous and unfunny gags about black people, women, gays, disabled people, Jews.
Meanwhile, Kathleen's body was recovering. I was worried about any internal injuries, but she refused to go to the doctor. She said she'd been looking after herself for years, and wasn't about to let some pervert of a GP manhandle her for free. She got some strong pain killers from a dealer and various creams and ointments from the chemist. The break in her nose never did heal fully and she was left with a little bump, but unless you knew you wouldn't have thought her nose looked any different from the way it always had.
The mental scars took longer to heal. She stayed in a lot more than previously, and when she did go out she was always nervous, looking over her shoulder, jumping at the slightest noise. There was no way she was even thinking about going back to her old trade: the very mention of it sent her into a deep gloom. I did what I could, but there were times I couldn't reach her.
Her only consolation was her guitar. She spent more and more time playing it and singing. Sometimes it was old favourites of hers, sometimes songs she had only recently learned, and other times melodies she had composed out of thin air. On the way home one afternoon I got her a cheap tape recorder from a junk shop nearby, so she could record her own compositions before they were lost.
I got some inexpensive decorations and a small plastic tree. She smiled and thanked me, but her eyes were staring into the distance, focussing on something only she could see.
Christmas Day I got back from the lunchtime shift to find Kathleen had cooked dinner: a chicken with all the trimmings. After eating, we slumped in front of the TV and for long periods never said a word. All the false bonhomie was depressing, even more so than those Christmases I had spent alone. That year there wasn't even the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show. We both drank too much, smoked too much dope and ended up going to bed early. The next day it was back on the treadmill, but with a hangover.
3
Kathleen saw in the new year on her own: inevitably I was working, and the party at the pub went on and on. If I never hear another drunken, tuneless chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” again, it'll be too soon. I was almost falling asleep on my feet. The landlord went to bed in the early hours, telling me to lock up and giving me New Year’s Day off. Fucking generous of him!
Eventually, the last person left and I was able to go home, but only after doing all the washing up and cleaning the tables. I walked back along icy pavements, careful not slip. The incessant drizzle of the past week had been replaced by a cold snap. Not cold enough to snow, but enough to make the roads and pavements treacherous. If anyone had seen me, sliding from side to side while trying to hang on to any wall or lamppost that gave even a smidgen of balance, they would have assumed I was drunk. But no-one was on the streets in that weather at that time in the morning. Except me, of course. A fucking great start to the new year!
When I got home, Kathleen was asleep in front of the TV test card. As I switched it off, she woke up. For a moment she looked confused, then yawned, followed by a smile. “I thought I'd wait up for you, so I could wish you happy new year.”
“Happy new year.” I gave her a peck on the cheek. “I'm dead tired. I'm off to bed. Sorry to be so boring.”
She waved me away.
A few hours later, still tired but unable to sleep with the winter sun, low in the sky, streaming through the window, I got up. The smell of bacon frying might also have had something to do with it. When I entered the kitchen I saw Kathleen busy cooking. She waved a spatula at me. “I decided you'd earned a decent breakfast.”
I didn't demur. There was a pot of tea brewing on the table, so I poured myself a cup. While she was busying herself with what looked like a massive fry up she asked: “Were you busy last night?”
“Yeah. It was fucking crazy. But I've got the whole day off today and I'm going to do nothing.”
She put a plate in front of me: bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs, tomatoes, fried potatoes and fried bread. She had a second similar plateful for herself. As she sat down she said: “Ha! You don't get off that easily.” I stared at her, mouth open. “For fuck's sake close that thing: I don't want to see you chewing your food.”
I swallowed. “Sorry. What do you mean, I don't get off that easily?”
“You're doing the washing up.”
“Do you realise how many glasses I washed up last night?”
“Well, a few plates and stuff won't make much difference then.”
I groaned. “Oh, okay then.”
“And then we need to talk about the future.”
“Please, not today,” I pleaded. “Can't I just have a lazy day, a few smokes and a few drinks?”
Chapter Ten: Kathleen
1
There was one thing for certain: I wasn't going back on the street, not after the beating I'd got last time. Next time I might be dead. You read of lots of tarts getting killed by punters, and the police do fuck all about it. One less girl on the street is a result for them, and I've heard some of them talking, saying girls like us deserve all we get.
But we couldn't afford for just Brendan to be working. Now Christmas was over, there wasn't that much work for him, only a few shifts a week. We had the rip off rent to pay on this place, he had his driving lessons and there just wasn't enough coming in. I didn't want to touch what was in my post office account which, following all the hours Brendan worked over Christmas, had a fair bit in it. It was good of him to pay any extra he earned into the account, but if we weren't careful it would soon begin to dwindle.
All I'd done all my life, the only way I'd earned any money, was selling my body. I was lucky to have managed to get away with it for so long, but now after beatings and arrests and with the effects on my body of being fucked several times a night in every orifice, I knew it was time to stop.
I hated to admit it, but perhaps Brendan was right. After all, you see lots of people in the city centre busking, and wasn't there a busker who had a couple of chart hits a few years ago? What was his name? That's right, Don Partridge. I decided there was no harm in trying.
When I told Brendan, he was relieved, though he did ask if busking was legal. I just shrugged my shoulders and said I didn't know. And then I started giggling. He looked puzzled. “Sorry,” I said, between giggles, “I've spent years soliciting, you go cottaging, we both smoke a bit of dope, and we're worrying about whether busking is legal or not! For fuck's sake.”
He guffawed. “Yeah, I take your point. Still, might as well wait until the weather's a bit warmer.”
That got me going again, this time it was ages before I could stop giggling. A hurt expression crossed his face. “What's so funny?”
“I've been selling myself on the streets in all sorts of weather from blizzards to heatwaves, and that mainly at night. I really don't think a bit of rain or wind is going to be a problem, do you?”
“Yeah, but Frankie won't like getting wet, will she?”
“Fair point, still you are funny sometimes.” I'd been giggling so much, I'd given myself the hiccups. Once I'd got over them I said: “The truth is we need more money coming in. I don't suppose I'll earn a lot busking, but every little bit helps and it will give me a chance to see how I get on in public. And there's folk clubs, and there might be pubs that will let me play for tips.”
“When are you going to start?” he asked.
“No time like the present. I'll go down the town tomorrow and give it a try.”
“Have you decided on a spot?”
“Thought I might try somewhere along New street, perhaps near the Golden Egg. I'll just play it by ear, so to speak.”
Next morning I took Frankie on the bus. I put the open guitar case on the pavement and began playing. It was a cold day with a biting wind, but it was dry and I was well wrapped up. One good thing about busking: I didn't have to show my tits and legs in cold weather. I was nervous to start with, but once I'd got past the first verse of “The Crafty Maid” I was okay. No-one bothered me, most people just walked past, but some people threw coins in the guitar case and a few even stopped to listen. I played some traditional stuff as well as popular modern songs by Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel and the like. I soon discovered the more familiar the songs were to people, the more money got thrown into the guitar case, so I included more of those in my repertoire.
I began to treat it like a job, and busked regularly, normally about the same time and in the same place or nearby, making sure I wasn't interfering with other buskers. Occasionally I was moved on by police with nothing better to do. The first time it happened I almost offered one of them a blow job, but stopped myself in time. I extended my repertoire, including some of my own songs once I became more confident. I also added songs from different genres. I don't think I had ever been happier in my life.
I even began to recognise the same faces: it seemed there were those who came to listen on a regular basis. One of these regulars was a tall thin young man with long ginger hair and an unkempt beard. Two or three times a week he would stop and listen for a while. One day, after I'd finished a song, he told me he was called David, said how much he admired my singing and playing and asked me if I'd like to play at the folk club he ran. He said there was a “singers night” coming up, and I was welcome. He could guarantee me half an hour, if I was interested. When I asked if I'd be paid, he laughed and said no, but if I was popular enough there might be other opportunities.
Life wasn't all plain sailing, of course. In January our court cases came up. We both pled guilty. It wasn't the first time I'd been in court, but it never gets any easier: these people can take away your freedom. Of course I knew I would only be getting a fine, but these places are built to make you feel intimidated, with their high ceilings, dark brown furnishings and general air of power. When I was asked, I was able to genuinely say I was no longer on the game, though I doubt anyone in the courtroom believed me. I was given a fine and time to pay.
A week later it was Brendan's turn, and just as he had accompanied me to court, so I went along to support him. It was his first time and he was clearly nervous, very nervous, and was shaking. As expected he was also fined. Neither of us were really sure how we were going to afford to pay the fines, particularly as we had other priorities for our still very limited resources. But we decided to worry about that later.
One of those priorities was transport. Brendan's lessons were going well and shortly after his court case he passed his test, but unless we could afford a car, the license was just a bit of paper. We'd managed all this time without a car, as most people did, but it was becoming increasingly clear that we needed one if we were going to move forward. A lot of what I earned busking went in bus travel and occasionally taxis, and it wasn't practical for Brendan to work very far away without a car, particularly if he was going to be working late.
We talked about this a lot, asking ourselves if we could afford even the cheapest second hand car. We needed one that was reliable but wasn't too expensive. Most of what I earned busking and most of Brendan's wages went into my post office account in order to save up for one, but all the cars we saw for sale were beyond our means.
2
Brendan got the night off work so we could both go to the Wild Rover Folk Club. I was nervous, to say the least: this would be my first time in front of a paying audience. I spent days practising, working out what songs to play then changing my mind, trying to get the balance right between new and traditional stuff. Brendan got exasperated with me, and I lost my temper with him: yet another of our regular rows.
It took two buses to get there. It was in a modern suburban pub, one of those estate pubs that all look the same and lack any character: near identical furnishings and decoration selling exactly the same range of drinks as dozens of other pubs, staffed by anonymous clone-like workers. The folk club was in a plain and merely functional upstairs room. Wooden chairs were arranged in rows facing a makeshift stage, and people had to go downstairs to the bar to get drinks. Austere and without any atmosphere, it was hardly the ideal location for a folk club, but it was already filling up when we got there. I introduced Brendan to David, who was also a musician and was the compère. We sat near the back, next to the door and listened to a variety of musicians performing a range of material from traditional ballads to blues to bluegrass to contemporary protest songs. I realised I needn't have worried about my repertoire not fitting in. I was told I would be the first act in the second half.
David introduced me and I was shaking with nerves as I made my way to the stage. I began by introducing my guitar, telling everyone I had named it after my favourite singer, Frankie Armstrong. That got me a round of applause before I had even begun playing, and that helped relax me. I began by playing a couple of my favourites learned from her record, followed by some more traditional material and even one of my own songs. I finished by singing something I'd only recently learned: Peggy Seeger's “I'm Gonna Be An Engineer”. Even though I made some mistakes, it had the audience whooping, and the applause was so sustained, I was asked to do an encore. I was worried because I hadn't prepared anything else. But a while ago I had heard a recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing a song about prostitution and, because it spoke to me, I had learned it, never expecting to sing it in public. I wasn't sure how “Love For Sale” would be received in a folk club, but I gave it a go and the applause was even more rapturous. I was stunned. I was in tears at the reception.
On my way back to my seat, people patted my back or shook my hand in congratulation. Brendan was beaming, his eyes sparkling. As I sat down he whispered: “See, I told you you were good.”
At the end of the evening, David approached me and said: “A few of us formed a folk music collective a couple of years ago. We work together, help each other and get paid gigs. Do you fancy joining us?”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just nodded, grinning from ear to ear.
“Great,” he said. “You know, that was a very special performance, and that encore! It was like you were living the words as you sang them: never heard anything like it.” He probably thought I was blushing because of the compliment; I wonder how he would react if he knew the extent to which I had been “living the words”.
Over the next few months I began to make a bit of a name for myself on the West Midlands folk scene and even began to make a bit of money. Not a lot, but enough to be able to pay for my own driving lessons. We had managed to afford a cheap second hand Mini and I looked forward to the day when I too could drive it.
Although David had told me I would be joining a collective, it was really no such thing: he took most of the decisions. He paid lip service to the idea of a collective and always asked us what we thought, but I soon found out he hated it when people disagreed with him and seemed to take it personally. One thing life had taught me was to not take shit from anyone, but I had also learned the value of patience and of choosing what battles to fight. Although not the greatest musician in the collective, he was an excellent organiser and got us gigs we would not otherwise have had a chance of getting. He never interfered with our individual repertoires and he ensured all money was shared out equally, but he was definitely the boss.
He liked us to go to gigs together, even when it would have been easier for people to make their own way there, he thought it made us look more like a group. So most of the time we drove there in his beat up rust-bucket of a van. One time the van broke down just a couple of miles from the venue we were booked to play. Rather than taking our advice to leave the van, walk to the gig and then arrange for the van to be collected and fixed by a local garage, David decided he could fix it himself. Half an hour later he was still attempting to get the van to start. I was getting ever more irritated until eventually I told him I was walking so that at least one of us would be there in time to play and without giving him an opportunity to respond stormed off, with Frankie and her case swinging from my hand. I was used to moving fast: it's a skill all tarts need, so by the time he caught up with me he was red faced and sweating.
He was also angry. He accused me of undermining him in front of the others, of making him look foolish. I turned and stared at him, my nostrils flaring. I told him if anyone had made him look foolish, it was himself by his insistence on attempting to repair the van even though he knew fuck all about engines. I turned away and continued walking. He yelled after me, but I ignored him. When I got to the venue I told the organiser our van had broken down and the others were stranded. He sent out a taxi to collect them, and that annoyed David even more. During and after the concert he refused to speak to me, and at our next rehearsals he told me we were a collective, not a bunch of individuals who could do what they wanted and ignore the rest.
Hands on hips, I said: “You know, you should take your own fucking advice before dishing it out to the rest of us.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Did you manage to fix that rust-bucket of yours? Did you?”
“What's that got to do with it? I'm talking about the principle.”
“Oh yeah, and where was that fucking principle when you ignored what some of us said and almost made us miss a gig? If I hadn't walked and arranged for you to be picked up, you'd probably still be at the side of the road, with the van in bits.”
David called me an ungrateful bitch, told me if it hadn't been for him, I'd still be busking and earning pennies for singing popular covers. I thought about leaving the collective, but realised I didn't have the connections to get regular gigs, so I left it at telling the wanker to fuck off. He reminded me of all those men who thought they had the right to control me, to tell me what to do. Okay, he never touched me, never hit me, but in insisting on doing as he said, he was still abusing me. As in the past, most of the others looked away. With one exception: Catriona.
3
Catriona was from a village in the Scottish highlands. She'd left to go to university in Birmingham and had stayed in the city after graduating, got a teaching qualification and taught music in a comprehensive school. Before joining the collective, I wasn't aware of ever knowing anyone from the middle classes, though I suppose some of my punters were. Apart from her red hair, she was very different from me. She had an ethereal soprano, a contrast to my contralto which had been described as sultry. She was taller and slimmer than me and dressed more conservatively. She spoke with that slow musical accent I later discovered to be common in parts of the Highlands, in contrast to my nasal Midlands accent. She was also calmer, more patient and laid back than me. She rarely spoke in a group, but when she did she was worth listening to. Despite being so quiet, she was fun and had a mischievous sense of humour. When she smiled, which was often, her whole face lit up, her eyes sparkled and her cheeks dimpled.
We became close friends soon after I joined the collective, spent a lot of time together and we even began to sing harmonies sometimes on each other’s songs, though her teaching commitments meant she wasn't able to take part in all the collective's performances. David and I were the only members who didn't have a day job. Catriona could read music and knew a lot about the theory of music, much of which she passed on to me.
She was the only person in the collective who knew about my past as a prostitute. I didn't have any intention of telling her, it just came out when we were talking one evening. She told me her name meant 'pure'.
“So the opposite of mine,” I said, trying to keep my voice light.
“Oh no,” she said. “Your name also means 'pure'. Catriona and Kathleen have the same origin, except one of them is Scottish and the other Irish.”
“Ha! I don't feel very pure. Never have felt pure, to be honest.”
She looked me in the eyes and gently took hold of my hands. “And why would that be?”
I pulled away from her and looked away. “I just don't.”
She didn't say anything, she just took my hands again. We stayed like that for what seemed like hours but was probably no more than a few seconds. Then it all spilled out as, speaking through tears, I told her what had happened to me. I was scared she would be disgusted and would turn away from me, but I needn't have worried. She held me close, allowing me to cry on her breast. She said: “What's been done to you isn't you. You are pure, just like your name. You're a loving, caring woman, and that you've remained so after all the crap that's been thrown at you shows just how strong a person you are. I'm not sure I could have managed that.” Then she kissed me.
I'd never really kissed anyone before: tarts don't. It felt so good. It took some time for me to relax and really enjoy the physical contact: all my experience of sex was either abuse or earning a living. Emotionally, I was a virgin, but Catriona was patient. We became lovers.
I'd never thought of myself as queer, as a lesbian. I'd heard of tarts who performed together for voyeuristic punters, but I'd never done that myself. I was glad, because if I had it might have soiled what we and Catriona felt for each other. I didn't know whether I was born a lesbian or whether it was a result of all that happened to me, and I didn't care. All that mattered was that, for the first time in my life, I knew what love, real love, felt like.
I told Brendan about her, though I was nervous in case he was jealous. I needn't have worried: he was overjoyed. He insisted the three of us go out together to celebrate. When we did, Brendan and Catriona hit it off, and she became surprisingly talkative. After a few drinks they began discussing me, sharing with each other all my little peculiarities and laughing about them.
I said: “Hey, I'm still here, you know.”
They both stared at me then burst out giggling. Their laughter was infectious, and soon I was joining in. I was so happy: I was with the only two people who had ever shown any real interest in me, the only two people who cared about me. I couldn't imagine life being any better and the past was well and truly buried, or so we thought. Brendan was still working at the George & Dragon. He kept talking about looking for a job elsewhere, but he never got round to it. Perhaps if he had... But if wishes were rainbows we'd all have a pot of gold.
About the Author
Born in Manchester in 1951, Kevin Crowe has lived in the Highlands since 1999. A writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, he has had his work published in various magazines, journals and websites. He also writes regularly for the Highland monthly community magazine Am Bratach and for the Highland LGBT magazine UnDividing Lines.