The Longest Fight (9 page)

J
ack pulled on his shirt and waistcoat, the arms threaded through from the night before. Pearl and Frank were talking in the kitchen. It was good to hear voices in the house; it drowned out the whispering echoes that had never left. He smoothed his thick hair into place with Brylcreem until it was black as pitch, pushed his chin out a little further. He swung the jacket over his shoulder as he went downstairs. ‘Get a move on. We’ve got work to do.’

Frank came out of the kitchen. Jack had a surprise for him; he couldn’t let his fighter look like a tramp. He undid the parcel on the coat-stand, brown paper and string drifting to the floor; he tossed the new jumper to Frank. Pearl stood in the doorway to watch, her fingers tugging and curling at a strand of dark hair. Jack knew the importance of warm, quality clothes even if she didn’t, but then she’d never really gone without.

Frank held up the pullover; the bright white wool glowed in the dim hallway. ‘It’ll fit perfect, Jack. Better than anything I’ve ever had.’

‘Make you stand out at the gym, won’t it? Put it on – you’ll get a chill in that old rag you’ve got on. I got you one too.’ Jack dropped another sweater into Pearl’s arms. ‘Man down the market was selling off his old winter stock cheap. I got a better price for two.’

‘Thanks, Jack.’ She smiled and came towards him. ‘Yellow’s my favourite.’

‘Enough fuss. Let’s get going.’ He sidestepped her, rapped his knuckle against the door to speed Frank up.

It was warmer outside than in the house; a buttery daylight covered the pavements and buildings. They headed up Lomond Grove past Mrs Bell’s, smell of mangy cat and flyblown bread; the hardware shop on the corner, sticky tar and chalky carbolic. Jack could find his way around by his nose alone. Bombs had stomped out the northeast corner of Addington Square, the top end of Medlar Street, and most of Hillingdon Street was flattened. But when Jack turned down Cowan Street flashes of light from broken glass and weathered rubble made it seem as though the old Watkins Bible Factory had risen again; hot ink and a dampened paper smell hung in the dusty air.
Wot no bibles
daubed with red paint on a heap of bleached bricks. The past always found a way of squirming back into your life like that, smacking you in the face. But there was Frank now, trotting beside him: something to work for.

‘Hey, Frank,’ someone called from the other side of the street.

‘Keep walking, Frank.’ Jack gave his shoulder a prod.

‘We not good enough for you, that it?’ Spider crossed the road.

‘Course you are. We’re late, that’s all.’

Frank shook hands with him. Spider was followed over by others, all dressed in slick suits, greased, sprouting hair at the sides of their faces – cosh boys. Too young for the war to have knocked any sense into them; too busy humping and snarling like a pack of dogs. They sprang from foot to foot, jostling each other; now seeming like four, then, with a shuffle and punching of arms, like six. He couldn’t keep track of them all. But the mouthy one was Spider and Jack thought he recognised the others, except the two girls hanging from Spider’s thick arms.

‘Good – thought what with your big win we heard about, you might have got yourself airs and graces. Looking after him, are you, Jack?’

‘Like he said, we’re late.’

Jack coughed and spat on to the street as he lit a cigarette.

A web of fine scars was etched on to Spider’s square face, the kinds of markings a boy got from having his head smashed through a window. Jack had heard talk about the kid, but most of it probably got spread around by Spider himself; he thought he was something big but the little rat didn’t have connections, didn’t even have a family. He always stuck his chin out as if he was proud of his face somehow. Jack just thought it was ugly.

Spider draped his arm around Frank. ‘Come on now, Frank. You forgot to tell us where you were moving to. How we supposed to keep tight if we don’t know where you’re at?’

‘I was going to tell you. I’ve been busy.’ Frank rubbed his head.

They carried on talking but Jack watched the two thin girls, arms tightly linked through Spider’s. They puckered their lips, pointed their hips towards him and then at Frank. But Frank smiled and his eyes slid on without even noticing the push of their breasts under tight woollen cardigans. Jack blew smoke at the one with narrow ankles and red knees; she didn’t even have the decency to blush. One of the other boys stepped up.

‘We got you something, Frank.’

He handed Frank a large heavy rectangle wrapped in a dust-sheet. The boy wiped his hand through his nest of brown hair, and the sheet was covered in greasy fingerprints. Frank lifted a corner and peeked at the package. ‘Chocolate!’

‘We done a delivery lorry at Blackfriars. Can get you stockings and smokes too if you need anything, Jack?’

Spider pulled out a small blue notepad, flicked it open with his stubby fingers, his knuckles grazing Jack’s wrist. Jack stepped out of reach of those white hands, blue veins running under the surface, cold as marble despite the warmth of the day. He patted Frank on the shoulder as he turned away. ‘Put the chocolate in your bag, Frank. A bloke could get lynched
with that much sugar. Don’t flash it around at the gym, neither.’

Spider called after him, ‘We’re not doing no harm, are we? I meant what I said, Jack. I can get you anything you want. Not kids’ stuff like chocolate. Any friend of Frank’s is a friend of ours.’ He kept his arm around Frank’s neck, elbowing, laughing, swatting the girls away from the chocolate, but not loosening his grip.

Jack lit another cigarette, shaking his head as he walked away. ‘I need you at training, Frank. Catch me up when you’re done.’

He didn’t need to get dragged down by that lot, and a banged-up boxer was no use to him. But it’d be a crime to let good chocolate go to waste. They were just boys really, all teeth and ears, nipping at ankles like pups. It was a good job Frank was living with Jack: it meant he could keep a tighter leash on him. Spider was always foraging for something, he’d be fat given enough time; but he wasn’t likely to make it through to comfortable old age. His sort never lasted long; they always ended up picking a bad fight, one they could never win.

Jack waited in a patch of sun that slithered across the bomb site between the factory rubble and the church. In the distance, wrecking balls hovered over Peckham like bluebottles. Jack could almost smell summer in the air, the Thames tide carrying it up from the coast: fish and chips in newspaper, sweet melting ice cream.

‘Sorry, Jack.’ Frank was back at his side.

‘Thought you said you were going to stay away from them lot.’ He stubbed out the cigarette on his sole, pocketed it for later.

‘They just wanted me to have this.’ He held up his prize.

‘Don’t go sharing it around with girls, Frank.’ Jack shook his head; those cheap pieces of skirt would drain Frank of energy.

‘Pearl likes chocolate, don’t she?’

Frank’s fingers were agile; he worked quickly, pulling and yanking the bag to make it fit. Another few years in the ring and Frank wouldn’t even be able to uncurl his fists. Jack helped him squeeze the slab away.

‘No distractions from training before a fight, remember that.’

‘No chocolate?’

Jack laughed. Frank slung the bag over his shoulder. ‘So we can eat some after tea tonight when we get home, can’t we?’

‘Just stay out of trouble.’

Frank would have to be out on his own one day. Jack couldn’t afford to keep waifs and strays the way Pearl used to. He picked up the pace and they were at the gym in no time. They were the first there, the front doors propped open, but only the lights over the ring were on. Jack rested his arms on top of the canvas.

‘Warm up. Bert’ll be here soon.’

He watched Frank put on his boots and climb over the ropes. Somewhere in the store room Newton was working his second caretaker job: moving boxes, shifting mats around, familiar noises and comforting. Newton banged through the door, heading for the washroom. His tin leg swung too far forward with each step, his body shuffling to catch it up.

‘Hello there, Jack.’

‘Your boy Jimmy not earning enough up at Pentonville to let you quit one of these jobs yet?’

‘He’s a good son, Jack. Chaplains earn a fair bit but I don’t want the boy’s money. Work keeps me out of trouble.’ He straightened his brown caretaker’s coat and kept going.

Jack turned his attention back to the ring, the vibration of the canvas throbbing through his arms. ‘That’s it, hold your guard up, feint with your right and follow up with a jab to the left.’

‘Coaching him yourself, are you?’ Bert came up beside him.

Jack had to stop himself from grinning like an idiot and pumping the little egg-shaped man’s hand; slam him down and he would bounce right back. Bert taught his fighters to do the same; that was why he was a name on the scene.

‘Just breaking him in for you. Got a couple of local fights coming up, but next real money-maker’s set for September.’

‘Better find out if he’s going to be ready, hadn’t we?’ Bert fitted his glasses into place.

Frank leaped and jumped. Energy buzzed through him. He was faster than the dust that he stirred up, moving through the light. Scouring shapes into the canvas with the pattern of his footwork: triangles, squares, circles. Jack always liked the order of boxing. He used to wish life were more like that, when a fighter was quick enough to second-guess his opponent’s next move. Bert leaned in closer.

‘Push off with your left toe when moving right. Push with the right to move left. Step into the pain. Everything in fighting is backwards. That’s the first thing you’ve to remember.’

He didn’t say anything more, but he did keep licking the end of a pencil and making notes in a brown book. Jack couldn’t make out what the scribbles meant.

‘I don’t need to tell you he’s good, Bert. I know people who’d kill to have a hand in training my boy. But I’m offering it to you first, out of respect.’

‘No one’s got proper respect for their elders these days, so says my wife. He’s got a good right hand, though, I’ll give you that.’ Bert rolled up his sleeves. ‘I like him enough to take half the money now, half when he wins.’ He slapped Jack on the back. ‘We’re on to something all right.’

Jack sat back on the bench to watch the rest of the session but he couldn’t get those words out of his head – a static pulse like the air before lightning. Good times were coming: Jack Munday the great boxing manager.

‘It’s not just the way he moves, is it?’ Bert tucked his pen and paper away.

‘No, he’s one of the few I’ve seen with
it
.’

Bert nodded. Most betters looked at the form, past defeats and glories; the scouts looked at technique and style. But Jack studied the eyes. Anyone could learn the tricks of the trade but no one could be taught to want to win; they had to need it more than breath itself. Jack could never tell the reasons why, and some of the most hard-done-by and toughest souls he had ever seen didn’t have it in them. It was just that one look, and sometimes it only appeared for a single fight, once in a life. But it was always the same: a glassy blackness like that strangled parrot’s eyes.

It was drizzling when they left the house. Pearl had been carrying on for days, baking and washing, but it was only the Coronation, another backside on the throne. The homes with television boxes were easy to spot: front doors thrown open to let in air, front windows full of bobbing heads. Other families sat huddled round radios ready to catch every description relayed to them. More good suits were scrunched up in those rooms than Jack had ever seen in one place before. All dark browns and greys, hats and headscarves perched on laps like paper flowers; it reminded him of funerals.

He turned up his collar and kept moving. The rain made his hair into a mass of wire and his socks soaked up puddle water until even his shins felt damp. Frank and Pearl were squashed under an umbrella like gnats above a puddle, never once colliding or jumping out of the way: hovering. Poor Frank, she must have woken him at the crack of dawn with her pacing and banging: ironing her dress twice, scraping fish paste on to bread, polishing shoes.

‘Why ain’t you wearing your support shoes? I paid good money for those.’

‘I don’t need them all the time, Jack. I can wear sandals.’

‘Won’t be saying that when you get toe curl or break an ankle. You know what the doctors said…’

Frank held up his elbow.

‘Here, take my arm. I’ll make sure you don’t trip.’

The closer they got to the Man of the World, the more people blocked up the street, joining the rainwater flooding through the gutters. Pearl and Frank trailed behind him. It would serve them right if they got lost in the push; so many people that the pavement disappeared under a stomping army of feet. The pub was closed but the lights were on in the flat above. Jack banged on the door; Cousin Alf came down to let them in. He wasn’t really family but that was what they’d all called him since they were kids hanging round the tap to collect their dad’s beer. Pearl pulled Frank into the hallway; Cousin Alf made room to let them through.

‘We’re staked out like garden fencing up there. So you’ll have to take the windowsill seats. But that shouldn’t matter to young things like yourselves.’

It would be as full as those front rooms they passed: no air to breathe. Jack stared at the narrow stairway, the peeling paint, the wet black footprints on the boards. ‘Think I’ll leave you to it, Pearl. The food’ll last longer. You’ve already moaned about me eating the last of the chocolate. Frank, you want to join me at the pub? I’m off to catch Georgie.’

‘Thanks, but I’m looking forward to them fish slices Pearl’s made.’

Cousin Alf shrugged. ‘You’ll miss the fireworks, Jack. Old Eli’s got some for later. He’s setting them up on the bridge over the Basin.’

‘No, I’m going to get off. And Pearl –’

‘I know, I know. Don’t go near the Basin or I’ll get hurt. We’ll see you later, then.’ She waved as she trotted up the stairs; Frank close behind.

‘Come and find me at the Anchor when it’s all over.’