Tommo & Hawk (55 page)

'You will be a hero, and me on yer arm!' she laughs happily.

'More likely a lamb led to the slaughter and you ashamed of me,' I reply.

'No, no!' she protests. 'I has it on the best authority you will be the champion o' the whole world!'

It is useless to try to put reason into her magpie head. Maggie has become quite famous after the fight at Parramatta, as well making a large amount of cash from my win against Dunn. She collected nearly fifty pounds in total from those who honoured their bets. A great many made themselves scarce, melting into the jubilant crowd as soon as she climbed into the ring to be with me after the fight. Thank God I was fortunate enough to win. At ten to one odds to all takers, had I lost, Maggie would have been on her back ten hours a day for the next ten years paying off her debts.

She has spent some of her winnings on a new outfit from Farmer's in Pitt Street. A great deal more went on a spectacular bonnet from Mr Israel Myer's emporium in George Street. She has had this hat fitted with a newly stuffed magpie, which sits resplendent amongst ribbons, bows and artificial flowers of every colour of the rainbow. But much the better part of her winnings was spent on me. She paid to have a solid eighteen carat-gold ring made for me, of the signet style. On the face is a magpie and inside is inscribed Maggie Pye loves Hawk Solomon, Champion of the World. It is the most beautiful gift I have ever received and I shall cherish it all the days of my life.

Maggie, who can scarcely read or write, does not see why I should wish to work eight hours a day at Tucker & Co. when I could earn fifty times my weekly wage with one fight. Of course she doesn't know about Mary and the brewery and how it is in my best interest to learn all I can of the liquor business before we return to Hobart Town. But although I haven't told her of my plans, I find myself hoping she may even accompany Tommo and me.

Meanwhile, Maggie weeps in my arms and begs me to take up prize-fighting. I'm afraid it will come between us if I cannot resolve the matter soon. Now, seven weeks after the fight, she plain refuses to make love to me and bursts into copious tears.

We have fed the brats their Sunday roast and have gone up to her rooms where it is our custom, after taking a meal downstairs, to make love. But she pushes me away when I would take her in my arms.

'No!' she says, her mouth turned down.

I have learned something of women and so ask her gently if it is her time of the month.

'No!' she says again, and a tear runs down her pretty cheek.

'Maggie, what is it? What have I done?'

'The girls mock me!' she wails.

'About me?'

She nods, unable to speak.

'Why? Because I'm big? A nigger? What is it, Maggie?'

'They say you're a coward!' Maggie wails. She flings herself onto the bed and begins to howl in earnest.

'A coward? How so?' I ask.

Maggie's eyes glisten with tears and she catches a sob in her throat. 'Cause you won't fight!' Then she buries her face in her arms and sobs fit to break a man's heart.

I sit down on the side of the bed and put my hand on her shoulder, but she shakes it off. 'Maggie, beating another man senseless won't make a man a hero. You should know that!'

Maggie sniffs. 'It be 'umiliating. The girls say you're a big black cock with a chicken's heart! Oh, oh, oh!' she cries, burying her head in a red satin cushion.

'A big black cock with a chicken's heart, eh?' I laugh. 'That is amusing. Maggie! Maggie! Come along sweetheart, you know better than that! It's obvious, isn't it? Mr Sparrow and Fat Fred have put this about. They've put all the tarts up to it, trying to get me to fight!'

'Johnny Sullivan says it, too!' she replies, looking up quickly.

'Maggie, surely you haven't been hanging about Johnny Sullivan's Sparring Rooms again?'

'Only the once, to see the Lightning Bolt, the heavyweight champion of all Ireland what's been landed a week from Belfast.'

'And that's when Johnny Sullivan called me a coward?' I shake her softly again. 'Look at me, Maggie!'

Maggie lifts her head from the pillow, then props herself on one elbow. 'Well no, he never said you were a coward.'

'What, then?'

'He says he could train you up to beat the Bolt, but he don't know if you've got what it takes.'

'What's that, then?'

'Internal fort-e-tood, he called it!' Maggie gazes up at me, her big blue eyes still wet with tears. 'Oh Hawk, you has got it, hasn't ya?'

I am forced to laugh again. '"Internal fortitude", I think, comes straight from the vocabulary of our friend Mr Sparrow, and not from the likes of Johnny Sullivan.' I look at Maggie, thinking how much I love her.

'Maggie, I'm no coward, but I'm no animal, either. Beating a man with your bare fists until he is half-dead, what does that make you?'

'Rich!' Maggie yells, jumping up on the bed and grabbing me around the neck. 'Stinkin' bloody rich! Oh, Hawk, you could take me to England to meet Queen Vic, or Lola Montez!'

I stifle a laugh. 'A hundred pounds to be beaten senseless? That's not rich, that's plain foolish! Anyway, what if I should lose? I'd be beaten stupid with nothing in my pocket!'

'No! Not a hundred pound! Johnny says there's five hundred pounds to be won. He reckons there's plenty o' folks what'll cover your stake, what's half of the prize money, with all the Papists betting on the Irishman and all the Protestants on you!'

'Maggie, I'm a Jew!'

'Them too,' Maggie answers, quick as a flash. 'Mr Israel Myer and them lot in George Street, they'll back ya.'

'To the tune of two hundred and fifty pounds, eh? That's a lot of money, Maggie. A lot of gelt to wager on a bloke who's had just one lucky fight!'

'Johnny says yiz a natural!' She pauses then adds, 'If ya has the internal…'

'Internal fortitude?'

'Yeah, that. He says you're fast for a big bloke and ya uses your noggin. He says your ploy with the sunset in Dunn's eyes were a stroke o' genius.'

'That comes straight from Bell's Life in Sydney. I read it to you myself, Maggie!'

'No, it's the truth, Johnny said it too.'

'The only sunset I'm likely to see against the Irishman is the sunset of my life,' I say. 'Mr Lightning Bolt is not only the Irish champion but the English as well. If you leave out the Americas that makes him practically the world champion.' I shrug. 'Maggie, can't you see? He's come out here to clean up the locals, to fight Ben Dunn and the like and take home a pretty penny, because the stupid colonials think their man can win!'

That's right! That's what Johnny said, and Barney Isaacs . . .'

'And, no doubt, Mr Sparrow!' I interject.

'I dunno about him.'

'Maggie, you know there isn't a sporting venture goes on in the colony that he and Fat Fred don't have a finger in.'

'No, listen, Hawk, listen to me! It ain't like that,' she pleads, then jumps off the bed so she's standing up and has her face close to mine. 'The Irishman's gunna fight all comers. Ben Dunn and Fred Woods, Jack Robbins o' Victoria, Jimmy Shanks o' Queensland and whatsisname, you know, that bloke in South Australia what beat Jericho Joe, the darkie? 'Scusin' me. They's all coming here to fight him. The punters, them what's Church of England, will bet on the locals. And o' course the Tipperary men will bet on their man and be most chuffed at the sight of their own Catholic champion from the Emerald Isle beating the livin' daylights out o' the local proddie lads.'

'But wait a minute. Maggie, aren't you Irish too?'

'Yeah, I am an' all, a fat lot o' good it's done me!' she shoots back. Then without drawing breath she continues, 'When the Bolt's cleaned up, like, and thinks he's fancy-free, that's it, ain't it?'

'That's what?'

'That's when we challenges the bugger to fight for a prize of five hundred pounds. That's more than he's made beating the living daylights out o' the local lads. It's five hundred pounds to win against someone what's had only one fight. He can't say no!'

'So all the smart money bets on the Irishman and I get my brains boxed!'

Maggie draws back. 'Maybe Johnny's right, you are scared.'

'Damn right I'm scared!' I snort.

'Well if all the smart punters are gunna bet on the Irishman, how come there's some like Johnny what's willing to wager on you? Answer me that, Hawk Solomon?'

'Maggie, it's called a sting.'

'A sting?'

I explain. 'See, Mr Sparrow has most likely arranged a consortium of sporting gentlemen who are well known to the punters, a few toffs, merchants, squatters, to put the word about that I can take the Irishman.' I pause. 'By the way, where do they plan to hold this fight?'

'Johnny reckons one of the gold diggings, they can't say exactly where as yet, 'cause of the police.'

'Yes, the goldfields makes sense, somewhere where there's lots of money and stupidity, all of it available at short notice. It's perfect for a sting. What are the chances that the only bookmakers allowed to take bets are in the employ of Mr Sparrow and Fat Fred? The odds given on the Lightning Bolt would be,' I think for a moment, remembering what I've heard around the pubs, 'four to five on - short odds, so as to discourage your ordinary punter and to make sure the Irish don't win too much. Then on me it's ten to one!'

Maggie looks a little puzzled by all of this, but I continue. 'If I'm not mistaken, there will be a great deal of secret hullabaloo stirred up about me. You know, whispers into hot ears in pubs about my secret training - how I'm punching tall trees to the ground. An incident is reported where some man swears he's seen me lift a dray cart single-handed to rescue a child in Pitt Street and then wander away into the crowd so I can't be given the credit. I've been spotted pulling a four-in-hand drag down the street and all for a wager of a sovereign. It's said I can arm-wrestle six men, two at a time, all in a row. A punch thrown in training near kills my sparring opponent who, as a consequence, lies unconscious for a week.

'There'll even be a tale that when I was a brat some Irishman, believing me to be the very devil, put me in a sugar bag, tied the top, said a brace of Hail Marys and threw me into the river to drown. And to back all this up, there'll be the famous Parramatta fight, which by now will have me lifting Ben Dunn ten feet off the ground with a single punch that lands fifteen feet outside the ring!'

Maggie giggles. 'I've already heard some o' that sort o' thing!'

I chuckle too at my imaginings and at Maggie's smile. 'Well, anyway, enough of that nonsense. But what will happen is that all the miners and the little punters will be taken in by such stories and will bet heavily on me as a result. And there you have it: the sting is in.' I take Maggie into my arms so her head is tucked snug into the crook of my neck. It feels wonderful. 'Will you be there, Maggie Pye, to sweep up all the broken feathers of the dead Hawk and to watch the Sparrow fly away, with his fortune made?'

Maggie struggles away from me. 'Hawk, yiz wrong! It ain't like that at all! I trust Johnny Sullivan. We was brats together, he wouldn't do no wrong by me!'

'Not by you, my darling, by me, the big, stupid nigger.'

'But he knows I loves ya!' Maggie protests, most perplexed.

'Of course!' I say. 'Who better?'

'Who better what?' she asks.

'Who better to help set up the sting?' I say gently.

'You know somethin', Hawk Solomon, I'm glad I ain't got no brains. There's five hundred pounds going beggin' and you're full o' bullshit about a bee sting! Listen t' me, ya stupid bastard! I thinks ya can win!' She looks about her room, her precious home, and waves her arms to include everything in it. 'See this, it's took me four years on me back to get this. Four years to sleep in a decent blanket what's got no bugs and fleas, in a room where you don't wake up with rats running over yiz! It cost me two 'undred pound to make this place beautiful.'

'Maggie, two hundred pounds! Why, you could own your own house for a hundred.'

Maggie clicks her tongue at me. 'I ain't completely daft, ya know! I do, don't I? I owns this building and the chophouse below. How else d'you reckon I got jobs fer Flo and her folks?' She bounces on the bed. 'This bed once belonged to William Charles bleedin' Wentworth, or at least his fam'ly, one of his sisters. Now it's mine.' She knocks on the headboard with her fist. 'Pure cedar, that is!' She smiles at me and I am taken by the lovingness of her expression. 'I'd sell it all tomorrow and put every penny I gets fer it on yiz beating the Lightning Bolt. I means it, Hawk, every sodding penny!'

I hug her tight. 'Maggie, Maggie, you haven't even seen the Irishman fight. You'd bet on me without even seeing his form?'

Maggie grins. 'I seen your form, Hawk, and not only against Ben Dunn!' And she begins to pluck at the buttons of my blouse.

Later, when we're lying there together, I am reminded again of how big I am and how careful I must be holding her. But Maggie seems happy enough, content to be loved and in my arms. I know little of the fairer sex, but what I'm learning is that they need to be held and cherished, stroked and kissed long after you are empty of passion. This is when kissing has no other purpose but to tell them you love them. I have discovered that in the business of passion, a man's arms are just as important as what's between his legs.

'Hawk,' Maggie says suddenly, 'the Irish didn't really put you in a sugar bag and throw you in the river, did they?'

'No more than I pulled a four-in-hand dray quicker than a team of four thoroughbreds,' I laugh.

Maggie laughs too. She has a lovely laugh - a sort of tinkle, like a silver bell ringing. It's the kind of laugh you'd expect from the governor's wife, a toffy-nosed tinkle, soft as a sunlit morning.

'Hawk, how does ya know? I mean, that it be a sting an' all?' Maggie asks.

'Maggie, I took on Ben Dunn because I overheard you and Tommo talking. I was so furious at what he'd done to you, I don't believe he could have brought me down no matter what he did. He'd have had to kill me standing upright.'

Maggie kisses me, her lips soft against the silver scar around my neck. 'Ain't nobody done that for me nor will again. I ain't worth it, but I loves ya, Hawk Solomon.'