Tommo & Hawk (60 page)

Hawk's eyes drop to his hands what rest in his lap, his hands what used to do all his talking. Then he looks up slowly and asks quietly, 'What if I do?'

'Nothin',' I shrugs. 'Me brother loves a whore, that's all. Nothin' wrong with that, I suppose.' I raises an eyebrow. 'After all, our mama were a whore, weren't she!' I don't know whether what I'm saying is good or bad, comforting to him or an insult, it's all mixed up in me head. But I'm shocked more than I can say.

I likes Maggie, it's true, but always in the back o' me mind is the thought that she's a gold digger. If ever she hears of Hawk's prospects at home she'll dig her claws in, she'll suck him dry.

'You hasn't told Maggie about Mary and the brewery, has ya?' I asks.

Hawk looks up at me and I see a tear run down his cheek. 'I haven't told her anything, Tommo. She doesn't know that I love her, nor does she know about Mary's brewery!'

'Hawk, you remembers what Ikey says about whores, don't you? Once a whore, always a whore. There ain't no good ones, no matter what.'

'Ikey!' Hawk yells, banging his fist down on the table. 'Ikey's dead, why must we always kowtow to Ikey Solomon?'

'Because he were a first-class villain what got most things right,' I says. 'Ikey knew more whores than you've had hot dinners!'

Hawk clenches his fists for a moment, then sighs. 'Look at me, Tommo. I'm a nigger. You know what white people think of a big nigger? They think I'm going to rape their wives or harm their children. They think I must be stupid or inferior and when they find out I'm not, they like it even less. Now here's a white woman who loves me for myself!'

'Hawk, if women knew about Mary's money they'd be linin' up for ya.'

'That may be, but it's not enough. I want someone to love me, someone I can love back!'

'And so you think only a whore could love you for yourself, is that it?'

'I think this one loves me, Tommo!'

'But you won't let her help you?'

Hawk glares at me. 'Do you know what it took for Maggie to buy her home and the eatery? Most of the brats she grew up with are dead from violence or drink or opium. She's survived, to get her own place, own a small business, make things nice. That was done the hard way, but she did it!'

'The hard way? She done it on her back!'

'How else could she do it? Our society doesn't educate Maggie's kind. How many parlour or kitchen maids do you know who own their own rooms and business? None, that's how many! Whoring was Maggie's only way out of the gutter.'

'So why don't she stop, now she's a person o' property? She's still a whore, ain't she?' says I.

Hawk shrugs. 'Maggie has the right to choose how she lives, Tommo. This is a good time for a young and pretty woman like her, providing she doesn't go to her ruin on gin or the poppy. The gold diggings has made many a poor cove rich and generous and many a rich man very indulgent. Maggie's taking advantage while she can, knowing it won't last forever. I understand this of someone who's had her difficulties in life. She wants to give up one day, though.'

'What then? After she's done her share o' gold digging, she'll retire the magpie off her hat and marry a squatter, or even become Mrs Hawk Solomon?'

'I haven't asked her, Tommo. I don't expect she would if I did.'

'Hawk, ask her. Garn, ask her to marry you!'

There's a method in me madness here. If Maggie hears the true story of Hawk and me before he asks her, we'll never know if she's said yes because of the money. If she says yes before she finds out, that be quite another matter.

'I can't,' Hawk says in a low voice.

'Why not? You just said you loves her.'

'It isn't possible right now.'

'Why? Because of me? What's you trying to say, Hawk? You won't marry Maggie because of me?'

Hawk folds his arms across his chest. 'Tommo, when you came back from the wilderness I swore I'd never leave you again, that we'd be together no matter what. If I married, I'd need to settle down and that would mean returning to Tasmania for good. No more adventures, not even a shop in the goldfields. It would break Mary's heart all over again if I were to stay away once I married.'

I look at my brother and think how much I love him. 'You know what your problem is, Hawk?'

'Yes, you just told me. I think men are mostly intelligent when they're mostly not.'

'And you are the stupidest of 'em all! You try to please everyone when it can't be done.'

Hawk smiles. Tommo, I won't leave you.'

'You're talking rubbish, Hawk! Ask her! Ask Maggie to marry you! If she says she will, then I'll go back to Hobart Town with you both!' I stares at him, furious.

Hawk stretches out his hand to me. 'Tommo, will you?'

I realise what I've just said, and stops short. 'You cunning bastard.' I grin. 'But I'll go back on me own terms, understand? I'll give it one more go, one year in the brewery. But if it's no good with mama, that's it. I'm off, and you stays with Maggie, that's the deal!'

The whole thing's bloody stupid. Hawk's fighting the Irishman to get even with Mr Sparrow for what he believes he's done to me. He thinks this will get the bad bit of Ikey's inheritance out of our lives. But Mr Sparrow didn't put the opium pipe in me mouth and Ikey didn't give me a thirst for brandy. Yet Hawk believes that what's happened to me is evil what started with Ikey and got carried on by Mr Sparrow. If he destroys Mr Sparrow, he thinks that somehow I'll be safe, that the bad stuff in me life will all somehow go away.

I want to tell Hawk here and now that I don't want him to fight the Irishman. Mr Sparrow does own me, Tang Wing Hung's opium owns me and the poppy is stronger than me love for him, stronger than anything. I'll go back to Mary like I promised, but it won't last, even if I can get opium in Hobart Town. I can't be trusted to do the right thing, not even by meself.

I wants Hawk to marry Maggie Pye so he'll leave me alone. Yours truly never was no good, never will be. But I knows Hawk. Once he gets an idea there ain't no shaking it loose. Deep inside me, I knows Hawk has to fight the Irishman, has to try to destroy Mr Sparrow. It's like a sign that all ain't lost with his twin, that I can yet be saved. If he don't go through with the fight, he'll never be able to live with himself, thinking forever that he's let me down. Why has I got to have such a big, dumb, stupid, wonderful nigger bastard for my twin?

'Tommo,' Hawk says, 'thank you for agreeing to come home. But you are not ready to go back to the brewery and nor am I. If we win the fight, we'll go to the goldfields - you to gamble and me to open a Johnny-all-sorts. Caleb Soul from Tucker & Co. says to be a shopkeeper at the diggings is where all the real gold is. I've always fancied being a shopkeeper. We could do it on our own - not with Mary's money and not with Ikey's. You and me, Tommo!'

'And what about Maggie?'

'Maggie wants to come with us.'

'Oh, I see, Hawk the shopkeeper, Tommo the gambler and Maggie the whore!'

'No, Tommo. As I said, Maggie wants to give up the game.'

'She does, eh? What about the chophouse?'

'Flo's family will take care of it. Maggie thinks maybe she could open an eating-house at the diggings. Caleb Soul says miners will pay good money for a simple meal.'

'Christ Jesus, Hawk, how long's it been since Maggie done a day's work o' that sort? She's like me, a creature o' the night. Can she cook?'

'Flo's mother will teach her.'

Hawk must be in love to be thinking such foolish things. Maggie a respectable woman, cooking dinners! He's a dreamer, that's all, and always will be. 'Hawk, we ain't even got the stake for the fight yet, and then, if we gets it, we still has to win it! You could lose your bloody shirt. Mine too!'

Hawk laughs. 'You're right, Tommo, but we could also make a go of it together, what do you say?'

I am silent a while. 'What do you say, Tommo?' Hawk asks again.

'You forgets one thing,' I says softly. 'Me head.'

Hawk sighs. 'Tommo, there is opium at the diggings. The place is swarming with celestials. The Angel's Kiss will be there for you.'

I don't say nothing. What Hawk doesn't know is that Mr Tang Wing Hung controls all the opium in the New South Wales diggings. If Mr Sparrow has a word to the Chinaman, that's the end o' yours truly. Without me pipe, I'll die. I know it.

'Now,' says Hawk, full of hope, 'let's think how we might find the remainder of the stake money.'

Well, if he wants to go on with it, I've got to help him. I've already thought of how we might get the money ourselves without Mary's help. But it's not certain that we will and, if we do, it will only be enough to make the stake. Hawk will have to win for real.

'Do you think Caleb Soul would let me go with him next time he travels to the goldfields?' I asks.

'Why?' says Hawk.

'I think I could win the difference at cards, playing on the diggings. There's plenty o' patsy-marks waiting to be fleeced there, so they say.'

'Would Mr Sparrow let you go?' Hawk wonders.

I shrug. 'He'll have no choice. Come the time, I'll just scarper and be back soon enough. He needs me at the card table, so it'll be all right.'

'And the poppy for your head?' Hawk asks slowly, like it hurts him, but he knows I've got to have it.

'As you say, there's opium to be found there. Or else I could try and take some with me.'

'Maybe you'd be safer that way,' says Hawk. 'Caleb Soul worked as a chemist when he were in the old country. He'll know how to get opium for medical supplies - he sometimes helps out in the dispensary at the hospital in Macquarie Street.' Hawk thinks for a moment and smiles. 'Tell you what, Tommo. I'll come with you. I feel sure Captain Tucker will allow me the leave.'

'That's it, ain't it?' says I. 'I'll tell Mr Sparrow we's going to the diggings at Lambing Flat to drum up interest in the fight! That be where he wants to hold it anyhow, or somewhere near. The place is full of Irishmen. I'll tell him it's a chance for the fossickers to see ya for themselves. That'll suit his plans. It'll encourage the proddie miners to bet big on you, come the day o' the fight. How long will it take to get there and back?'

'About a week and the same back if we take the two-horse trap. Then you'll need at least three or four days there to get the lay of the land and set up a game. Three weeks in all, near enough,' Hawk replies.

'How soon can we go?'

'There isn't much work at Tucker's this time of year. Captain Tucker might even let me go with Caleb when he makes his next trip. That's only a couple of weeks away.'

I'm worried, o' course, that Mary might come to Sydney while we's away. It's over a week since I've written to her, but there ain't nothing I can say to Hawk. I went to the Hero last night to see if there were a message from her, but so far nothing's come. Perhaps she won't help. If she don't come to Sydney or send the money, Hawk and me must be off to Lambing Flat and get back to Sydney in time for him to train with Bungarrabbee Jack, Johnny Heki and Ho Kwong Choi. We'll need another thirty pounds to pay for them lot, plus premises for training.

Next day, Hawk tells me that Captain Tucker said that he may go with Caleb Soul and he's given me the nod to go as well. As the time draws near and there's still no news from Mary, I decides I has no choice. I has to tell Maggie what's happening.

I've thought a lot about her and Hawk and if he should marry her. I reckon that if she's a gold digger and not truly in love with me twin, it'd be better to flush her out now, rather than be sorry later.

*

I makes a time mid-afternoon to see Maggie at her chophouse, The Cut Below - there being another chophouse above the Argyle Cut called The Cut Above.

Hawk gets home from work at six o'clock, what gives me enough time to see Maggie and be back in me bed for him to wake me up later. Like me, Maggie don't start work 'til late at night. We meet at three, with the sun still shining bright as a new silver shillin' on the harbour.

'Gawd!' she says, coming into the eatery where I'm already waiting. 'I ain't seen a Tuesday arvo this bright since I were a brat begging ha'pennies in Hyde Park. You hungry, Tommo?'

'Nah, Hawk'll cook me something when he comes home from work. If I don't eat he'll fret. By the way, I don't want him to know we're meeting.'

'Oh?' Maggie says, suspicious.

'I'll explain soon enough.'

Maggie pulls back a chair and sits down opposite me at the small table. 'Yer know something, Tommo, yer brother's too bloody good fer the likes o' you.' She stabs a finger at me. 'Ya knows that, don'tcha? He's too bloody good fer me too - fer the both of us.'

Maggie smiles to herself as though she is remembering. 'The bleedin' Virgin must 'ave smiled on me the day we met at Mr Smith's eating house. Jesus, he were beautiful! Sitting there, diggin' into his grub like it were the first tucker he'd had in a week. Him in rags and split boots and no hose! But bloody beautiful with all them lovely circle marks on his face, like a savage what wants to eat you up! "Crikey! That's for me," I says to meself, "and it'll not cost the nigger a penny. Stay as long as he bloomin' likes!"' Maggie giggles. '"See if I care if he eats me up!" That's what I said.'

I laugh with her. 'You done Hawk the world o' good, Maggie.'

'Yeah, maybe,' says she. 'But it won't last.' Her pretty mouth turns sad and her eyes are downcast. She's a lovely little bird, all right, that I can see.

'Hawk be most fond of you, Maggie. Why d'ya reckon it ain't gunna go on? You ain't planning to leave him, is ya?' I asks, against me own self.

'Nah, I loves him with all me heart, Tommo. But sooner or later I'm gunna do somethin' stupid, chase him away, say somethin' he can't forgive.' She looks at me fit to break my heart. 'We's the same, Tommo, you and me. Hawk ain't like us, that's all. What's bad in us ain't in him. Two of a kind, whores the both of us.'

I nod. Suddenly a picture of Maggie in her bed chamber comes into me mind, and I wonders what her punters see. Then I put it quickly to the back of me mind. She's Hawk's woman, I remind meself. I clear me throat. 'Hawk don't give up easy, Maggie. He's stuck with me come what may. If you do something to hurt him, he's got a lot o' forgiveness in his heart. I should know!'