The Scrapper (3 page)

SPARROW AND EILEEN HAD A SHORT HONEYMOON of ten days in Galway city. Although Eileen still had fourteen weeks to go before the birth of the baby the couple did nothing over-energetic; instead they spent their days taking short walks, eating and talking. In the evenings they would have a couple of drinks and then eagerly look forward to going to bed together, not just for lovemaking but for the pleasure of being there with each other. Neither Sparrow nor Eileen had ever, as adults, experienced that feeling of falling into a deep sleep with somebody else’s arm around you, and then waking up every morning to have beside you the one person you wanted in life. It was a great honeymoon. But when they returned to Dublin at the end of the ten days the honeymoon was well and truly over. Tommy Molloy, Sparrow’s coach, saw to that.

Tommy had chosen The Star And Crescent Boxing Club as Sparrow’s training camp for the next two months. Although it was only thirty miles from Dublin, in Drogheda, Tommy had arranged digs there for the entire team, and for two months Sparrow would not see Eileen. They talked
every morning and every night on the telephone, but as the training went on these conversations became shorter and shorter and Eileen could tell that Sparrow was getting more and more focused on his fight. Tommy Molloy had arranged flights and accommodation for Macker, Rita and Eileen out to Madrid. But Sparrow would be travelling ten days beforehand for acclimatisation, training, and, of course, to meet the press. By the time the night of the fight arrived and Eileen, along with Macker and Rita, stepped from the cab into the entrance of the stadium, Eileen had not seen her husband for twelve weeks. And Sparrow had only seen the progress of her pregnancy in photographs sent to him by his mother. These are the sacrifices that have to be made for a thirty-minute grasp at glory.

In the dressing room Tommy Molloy taped Sparrow’s hands tightly, all the while speaking to him: ‘You are the champ. You will be the champ. This guy is no match for you. You want it more than he wants it.’ This last phrase sent Sparrow into a reverie. Sparrow had long ago realised that he was never going to be academically bright. His only route out of Snuggstown to fame and fortune and a secure future for his wife and child would come either through music or sport. Sparrow couldn’t sing or play an instrument, but he could box. This was his shot, his ticket out. In the ten days since he had arrived in Madrid he had read articles about Lorenzo Menendez. He could have been reading about himself – similar background, similar amateur fighting success. Similar. Similar. The winner would move on, probably to a world title chance, the loser would go back to Snuggstown, or Santa de la Snuggstown or whatever. Tommy Molloy slapped Sparrow hard across the face. Sparrow snapped out
of his reverie with anger.

‘That’s it, Sparrow, you want it more than he does,’ Molloy was screaming at him now.

As is traditional, everybody left the dressing room two minutes before the fight. Sparrow sat alone. Then slowly he stood up and walked to the end of the room to the full-length mirror. He was afraid, very afraid – not afraid of being hurt, he’d been hurt before, and wounds heal. He didn’t know what he was afraid of, but there was something, something … He looked at his body from top to bottom: he had never looked better, he had never felt better. He was ready. He spoke to his reflection.

‘I want it more than he does.’ He said it again and again, the last time screaming at himself. ‘I want it more than he does!!’ The dressing-room door opened. Tommy Molloy stuck his head in and announced, ‘It’s time, Sparrow.’

The Sanmartino stadium in Madrid was hot and heaving with bodies. As Macker, Rita and Eileen were led to their ringside seats the noise of the crowd was deafening. The two women sat quietly. Macker remained standing. Slowly Macker turned full circle to take in the huge crowd that seemed to sweep away from the ringside straight up to the roof of the massive building on all sides. Here and there he could see Irish flags, but the red and yellow of Spain was everywhere, and the crowd chanted ‘Men-en-dez’ in unison over and over again. Macker defiantly puffed out his chest and smiled as he slowly sat down. At the ringside the Irish radio commentator Jimmy Magee spotted Sparrow’s family. He waved and they acknowledged his wave, then he returned to his microphone to tell the folks listening back home that the family had arrived.

The MC stepped through the ropes and took his position in the centre of the ring. In his left hand he held some papers. He was dressed in a dinner suit and bow tie, with his hair slicked back. He looked like a head waiter about to read the contents of a menu rather than a man about to introduce two ‘pitbulls’ into the ring for a slaughter. Slowly, from above the MC, a microphone dropped out of the lights. When it reached his shoulder the MC took it in his right hand.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Sanmartino Stadium, in association with De La Cruz Fruits, are proud to present the sixth bout on your card this evening. The bout is to decide the European Lightweight Championship Title. Let me first introduce the challenger. Wearing white trunks and weighing one hundred and twenty-four pounds, from Ireland, Anthony “The Sparrow” McCabe.’

A spotlight came on from the back of the stadium, focusing on the dressing-room doors and directing everyone’s attention to them. The crowd stood up. Rita McCabe’s heart shuddered as she beheld the tiny figure of her only child, dressed for battle.

Macker screamed, ‘Yea, Sparrow!’ His scream was primeval and animal-like. It frightened Rita even more than she was already frightened. Rita looked at Eileen. Sparrow’s new wife did not stand or clap, but sat looking down at her knees. As Sparrow began to make his way to the ring the crowd booed and cat-called at this young man whom they had never met and had only barely seen before. Rita placed her hand on Macker’s arm. ‘They hate him,’ she said.

‘Of course they do, woman, they’re Spanish! What did you expect, for fuck’s sake?’ Macker roared back as he roughly shrugged away her hand.

‘Kill the bastard, Sparrow!’ he yelled as Sparrow stepped into the ring. This scream was even wilder than before. There was spit dribbling down his chin and his eyes were bulging.

Staring at her husband, Rita slowly sat down. She was sorry she’d come; she should have stayed at home and listened to it on the radio as usual. She felt Eileen’s hand on hers, and it was cold. She took it. The women’s fingers interlocked and their terrified eyes met.

If the derisory booing had unsettled Sparrow, he didn’t show it. As Tommy Molloy massaged his neck and shoulders, Sparrow had a perfectly calm look about him. His eyes were glazed as if he was in a trance. Every square inch of his body was ready for this fight. Were an artist to be given clay and asked to mould it into a Grecian Olympian model, the result would have resembled the tiny Irishman in the white trunks. His body was ready. All that mattered now was his mind. As he finished his massage, Tommy Molloy took Sparrow’s head firmly in his hands. He brought his face up to Sparrow’s until their noses touched. He locked eyes with Sparrow and spoke strongly but calmly, ‘You want it more than he does.’

Sparrow nodded.

‘If you weaken he’ll kill you.’

Sparrow nodded again.

Then, with a smile, Tommy said, ‘I love you.’

Sparrow hadn’t been expecting that! Nervously he began to laugh and Tommy joined in, their laughter drowned in the boom of the MC’s voice.

‘And now, Ladies and Gentleman, the defending champion.’

The crowd exploded into a deafening roar that really scared Rita and Eileen. It went on and on, so loud that the stadium actually shook, and so long that all that was heard from the MC was the final ‘… Lorenzo “The Village Boy” Menendez.’ And the roar took off again as the olive-skinned man appeared in the spotlight.

Lorenzo Menendez looked super-fit. His close-cropped, jet-black hair was shining, his skin was sleek and oiled, and as he walked down the aisle his long red satin trunks shimmered in such a way that they looked like a flame about his thighs. He moved like a ballet dancer. He looked class, and although just one pound heavier than Sparrow, to Sparrow’s mother he seemed to be twice the size of her son. Eileen didn’t even look.

‘Is this him?’ Bubbles Morgan asked his older brother.

‘No.’ Teddy replied without seeming to open his eyes. The two men were sitting in Simon Williams’s Ford Granada outside of the Fionn McCool pub. The public house had been closed for a couple of months while it was being renovated following a fire. Their boss Simon Williams was inside attending the official re-opening party. Simon had instructed his two henchmen to wait outside in the car. The last time the Morgan brothers had been in the pub was before the fire. In fact it was just seconds before the fire, which had broken out at 3am in mysterious circumstances. Tonight Simon was attending the opening by personal invitation of the owner, who coincidentally had now taken
out anti-fire insurance with Simon for a modest weekly sum. Bubbles was bored.

‘D’yeh know what, Teddy?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘If a train was travelling at a hundred miles an hour and a fly was coming the other way and they met head-on, the train would stop!’

Teddy slowly opened one eye and looked at his brother suspiciously.

Bubbles detected the doubt in his brother’s myopic gaze. ‘If the fly was going a hundred miles an hour too,’ Bubbles added as if to qualify his amazing statement.

Teddy now opened both eyes and sat up a little. ‘A fuckin’ fly can’t go a hundred miles an hour!’ There was a moment of silence before Teddy lay back again and closed his eyes.

‘He could if he was on a train,’ Bubbles said quietly.

‘Shut the fuck up, Bubbles, will yeh,’ Teddy grunted. Again, for a few moments, there was silence.

‘Teddy?’ Bubbles asked quietly.

‘Now what?’ Teddy snapped.

‘Can I turn on the radio?’

‘Yeh. Just so long as ye shut up!’

‘Okay.’ Bubbles switched on the car radio and Jimmy Magee’s voice blasted into the car, live from the Sanmartino Stadium in Madrid. Behind his voice the crowd was manic.

‘The Spaniard moves forward again, two quick left jabs, both have got through. McCabe counters with a jab and right-hand drive. He didn’t catch Menendez properly, but it hurt. The Village Boy felt that one
…
’

‘Hey Teddy, it’s Sparrow’s fight!’ Bubbles enthused.
Teddy did not move, but his eyes opened.

‘Menendez backs away, Sparrow goes after him. Oh! A three-punch combination from the Irish champion – one to the body, two to the head, lightning fast, and Menendez didn’t know where they came from. What a gutsy performance from the young man from Snuggstown. He’s not at all overawed by the champion.’

‘Go on, Sparrow!’ Bubbles cheered.

‘Shut up,’ Teddy snarled.

‘But he’s one of our own, Teddy,’ Bubbles countered.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Teddy snapped again.

Just then the rear door of the car opened and Simon Williams climbed in. Teddy quickly turned off the radio, and started the engine.

‘What are you two shouting about?’ Simon asked.

The two brothers looked at each other. ‘We were just listening to the fight, Mr Williams,’ Bubbles said.

Simon lit a cigar. ‘Oh yeh!’ he smiled. ‘Sparrow McCabe is fighting tonight, isn’t he? Turn it back on!’

Bubbles wore a big smile as he twisted the knob of the radio while looking at Teddy. Teddy scowled at him.

‘And from where I sit I can see Sparrow’s young wife, Eileen. She has her hands over her face, and well she might as the Spaniard had his best period in the fight so far. A big right hand from Menendez, and the Sparrow rocks again.’

Simon leaned forward and spoke to Teddy. ‘Eileen? Isn’t that your old flame, Teddy?’

Teddy didn’t reply. He fixed his gaze on the road ahead. Simon sat back. Teddy glanced in the rear-view mirror, and he could see the thin smile on Simon’s face. Barely audible and with hardly a movement of his lips Teddy mumbled, ‘Come on, Menendez.’

Kieran Clancy tripped lightly down the steps of the Connolly home. He was doing his impersonation of Gene Kelly. When he came to the bottom he leaped over the gate and spread his arms wide as he did a spin. Moya was standing on the porch watching him. She clapped gleefully and laughed.

‘Go home, you fool,’ she chided.

‘I’m a fool, all right, a fool for love!’ Kieran sang back.

From an upstairs window the deep voice of Moya’s father growled. ‘Quiet, down there.’

The two laughed. Then Kieran blew a silent kiss to Moya. She waved him away and went into the house giggling.

Kieran was a happy man. Just a couple of months a member of the Gardaí and already he was looking at an appointment to a Dublin station. He was currently stationed in Cootehill in County Cavan. He had a long drive ahead of him tonight. He had made the drive down to Dublin that evening; one hundred miles down and one hundred miles back, all to see Moya for just one hour. It was worth it. He climbed into his Ford Escort and as he turned the ignition the radio came on automatically.

‘Des Kelly Carpets – we buy by the mile, so you save by the yard!’
Then came a short burst of music identifying the sports programme, and Jimmy Magee’s voice crackled across the air.

‘Welcome back to Madrid. Well, what a humdinger this fight has turned out to be. The first two rounds were fairly even; if anything they could be shaded in favour of Sparrow McCabe. Then Champion Menendez went to town. He pulled out all the stops;
rounds three, four, and five all ending decisively in his favour. McCabe had taken a bucketful of punishment. But he was still there and came out of the sixth more determined than ever. He brought the fight to the champ and although McCabe has suffered a cut to the right eye, that I suspect came from a clash of heads, he has taken both the sixth and seventh rounds. We have three rounds to go and by my reckoning the scores are all even, but it’s McCabe who seems to be getting on top. From here I can see trainer Tommy Molloy and McCabe’s cut-man Johnny Brough working furiously on that cut now; if they can keep it closed the Irish boy could just about take this title, and he would certainly deserve it. There’s the bell for the eighth round.’