The Longest Fight (13 page)

J
ackie rolls over in the grass and plucks a tall blade. He places it between his hands, as if he is ready to say a prayer, and blows hard. A screech breaks through the whistle of swifts, high up in the sky, and the distant thump of the funfair. The tree above him and Rosie branches into an umbrella of green, protecting them from the sun. Another beautiful day; he needs to call to it again, let the birds and the humming flies know he is here.

‘You’ll wake the devil.’

Rosie snatches the grass from him, shredding it until her fingers are mossy. She wipes the green stain off on his white shirt.

‘Rosie! My mum’s going to have me. Look at the state of it.’

‘Put your jacket on. No one’ll notice.’

‘She does the washing – she’ll notice all right.’ He tucks in the loose tails.

‘You’re old enough to do your own laundry.’ She tugs the shirt free again.

‘Never seen you do none. That’s the same frock you’ve been wearing all summer.’

Polka-dots of shade mark the blue flowered dress. Jackie lets his arm flop across her body, and it nestles against the cushion of her belly. She puffs and pushes his arm aside.

‘You seem to like my dress well enough. Can’t keep your hands off it.’

‘I love it.’

His arm doesn’t meet any resistance this time. Jackie loves the worn-thin feel of the cotton as if it is just another layer of
skin under his hand. He loves the tear in the hem at the back, the specks of mud on the sleeves from the day they nearly got caught raiding the apple stores in Dulwich and Rosie fell from the wall. She’d bounced, but the dress wasn’t so lucky. That evening they woke up under a tree and light rain had crystallised them as they were sleeping. The blue dress is love, for him, and he can’t remember any summer before this one. Jackie rolls closer towards her and stares into those grey eyes as she watches the birds in the sky; battleship grey, she calls them. He has never seen a battleship, but she lived some of last winter in Portsmouth so he trusts her. She grips his hand to her ribs.

‘We’ll be packing up the fair come the end of summer.’

‘Are you hungry? I could get some doughnuts?’

He sits up, draws his knees to his chest, one hand still attached to her. She tugs on his fingers.

‘I’ll be leaving London for the winter.’

‘Or fish and chips, if you fancy?’

‘Always was one for questions. Well, here’s another for you, Jackie. You ever been to Portsmouth?’

Her voice pinches him; bringing him back to the bald baked mud, the burnt bark of the tree that runs straight up and down behind them. Remains of a tramp’s fire and blackened tin cans lie scattered around: a place where people come and go and summers don’t last forever. He rubs a hand across his mouth.

‘Mitcham is the farthest I’ve been.’

‘I used to like the docks, but now it’s different. The navy’s taken over, there’s nothing else in the harbour, no coal or food to collect. They’re planning for something all right, my uncle says it.’

‘I know people can get you anything you want, just ask.’

He studies the clouds: a giant boot and a squat elephant float above him. She yawns as she stretches, folding her arms behind her head.

‘Fetch me a doughnut, then, Jackie.’

His released hand hangs limply in the dirt next to her body. He doesn’t want to think about anything but licking sugar from her fingers. He gets up and heads towards the fair. The laughing faces on the swing chairs and shouting mouths at the coconut shy don’t care about some war in Spain. How could something like that ever happen here?

Music dances over the Common: a tooting steam organ, lolloping laughter, and the squeal of wooden brakes. He turns for one more look at Rosie under the tree. Her body stands out like a flowerbed, skin darkened by summer and blended with the earth. To anyone else she is just a patch of shade under the branches. But all other eyes are trained on the fair. She is plump as a doughnut and Jackie likes to hold handfuls of her at a time. All the girls he knows, down his street, are thin and brittle with greasy plaits. But Rosie is different: sixteen already and her body fits her like a freshly made bed, smoothed and piled high. Long dark curls falling down her back that Jackie could lose his fingers in for hours. And he doesn’t want to leave yet. What if she is gone by the time he gets back, upped and disappeared like the white trailing clouds whizzing over his head, nothing left but an empty expanse of blue? He runs back to the trees and drops down on his knees beside her.

‘That wasn’t half quick.’ She shields her eyes.

He blocks out the sun as he kisses her. They have kissed before, every day since they met, but not like this. His tongue pushes deeper into her mouth, rubbing itself against the sharp points of her teeth, sliding over the ledge of her tongue. He wants to go so deep they can’t ever be pulled apart. The cotton of her dress catches against his legs; the underskirt wrinkles around her waist. And still they kiss. His legs either side of hers as she lies on the grass and wriggles up against him. It feels as if heated coals have been thrown down his back – nothing will cool it, not even if he stands with arms and legs wide and lets the breeze carry him away. She kicks off her boots. He rests on one arm as he slips his other hand
to her thigh. She breaks away for air, comes up panting like the first day they met.

He grips her socks and she grins at him, rolling them down under the palms of his hand until they pop off the end of her toes. He has never touched the smooth soles of someone else’s feet. His hands are hot, her skin cool. Then he tickles her, slowly tracing his fingers up and down the pink toes. Working faster, moving up to her exposed shins, he squeezes her kneecaps until she can’t hold back. Laughter cascades out of her. Biting his bottom lip, he concentrates on her feet, wants her to keep laughing, keep wanting him to touch her. Jackie nips at her waist as she twists in his hands. But he is afraid to stop for a second; like riding high up on the swings he wants to keep going, and the fear that he might fly over the top drives him harder. He smells the soap from last night in her hair and the fresh sweetness of peppermint on her breath.

Jackie joins in her laughter. His hands rub at the skin under her dress that is stuck to her like brown paper soaked in vinegar now; he wants to peel back the layers. The buttons above her waist pop open between his finger and his thumb with a twist, like shelling peas. A chicken pox scar sits next to her belly button, a small mirrored dent as if she was born twice. He presses his hand to his middle and thinks he must have one too. He blows warm air on her; she raises her head up off the ground to watch him. Soft pale hair runs in a line down under her dress; he traces it. His nails rub against the top of her thigh. Birds fall silent, insects hang in the air: his fingers are inside her.

She pushes herself up on to her elbows and tugs at the front of his trousers. She finds the buttons, rips through them; she has him in her fist. He is going to burst, loud and messy as an over-baked potato.
Breathe, breathe.
Together they push him into the hollow his fingers have just left. His hands are around her face but he is still moving in her. She wants to keep him there; her legs hook and pin him. He can’t keep his eyes open. Mumbles and moans as loud as shouting in
his ears. Her tongue squeezes itself past his lips. He wants to burrow inside her. It seems to last longer than six rounds but they aren’t fighting; they are struggling to find a balance, floating upwards towards the top of the trees. But he can’t hold on any longer. No pain, but he lies there KO.

‘Jackie, you’re a ton weight. Roll off.’

Rosie presses her knees together and touches the top of her thighs. He sinks down on to the grass next to her, slowly threads his buttons closed again.

‘Did I hurt you?’

She laughs, reaches across and brushes an eyelash from his cheek. Her chest moves slightly as she breathes. He feels the same: he isn’t asleep but he isn’t awake; he is made of heavy lead – malleable and rolled. He can share that feeling with Rosie as he never shared anything before.

‘You’re more beautiful than anything I’ve seen…’

‘Better stop looking at anything else but me now.’ She smiles as she sits up and presses her legs together. ‘I’m starving.’

He heaves himself up. He would get her anything she wanted. On his way he turns once more – she is a blue speck in the distance. Jackie has to stop himself from running back to check that she is still there.

The fair squats at one end of the Common, brightly painted wooden horses and swing chairs flying past him. Steam clogs up the sky. People everywhere but none of them knows that he is different now. Every time the sunshine comes out from behind a cloud the screams and shouts grow louder, but they can’t be as happy as him. Paper flags, curling doilies and brown bags flutter along the grass, twisting and bouncing in the breeze as if they are trying to pick up the trail of a procession. Just walking into the fair is like watching the world spin around him. The colours bleed into one another until there is only a white heat; the smell of toffee apples, doughnuts and cockles is so syrupy-thick that it makes his tongue quiver. Jackie loves the fair; he can forget the Bible
Factory, the stink of old-man sweat and burning paper. Rosie tastes of peppermints and spun sugar; he won’t ever forget that taste.

Jackie puts his penny for the doughnuts on the counter. They sit in a scrunched-up piece of yesterday’s newspaper, in a dark circle of grease. He takes the wrapped package and dodges through the crowds. He touches the dimpled skin and licks specks of sugar from his fingertips. He won’t eat any until he gets back to Rosie. She will be where he left her under the shelter of the tree, arms and legs waiting to hold him. Everything has changed between them, but then nothing is ever going to change again.

He runs all the way. She waits, standing up with her face tilted towards the sun, following it like a daisy. For a moment he thinks he has vanished because she doesn’t move; Jackie doesn’t exist if she isn’t looking. But she smiles; her eyelashes flutter and filter out the sunlight. The doughnuts roll free as she grabs his hand, leading him back under the tree. He lies on his back as she sits on his belly. High up in the branches, gnats bob and glint in the green light, but they don’t come any closer. A lifetime of summer before them.

F
rank was late for training. Jack sat on the benches, scratching an insect bite on his hand. He checked the time again: ten minutes overdue. It was a scorching afternoon outside, the tarmac sticky in places, and pigeons clustered in the shade. But Frank wasn’t supposed to be out running, so that couldn’t have held him up; he was resting.

Two other fighters sparred at the back wall by the bags, taking advantage of their extra time. The boy with the cropped blond hair couldn’t have been much more than sixteen; wearing a loose sweater but his muscles were planed into shape under the thin cloth. The boy’s feet skipped over the mat as he dodged blow after blow. His partner was older, bigger, which didn’t always mean much in a fight. But each time the boy came back with swift rabbit punches of two and four, and six. The older one finally caught on, threw out his fist and the blond boy hit leather. He clutched his chest, bent over and sucking at air; the boy needed to learn a few more tricks.

‘Jack… Jack.’

Frank dropped his kit to the floor in front of the benches, nodding like an excited dog. Jack stepped over the bag and went up to the ring.

‘Come past the pastille factory, did you? You stink of blackcurrants.’

‘The bus broke down. I’m here now.’ Frank pointed across the gym. ‘I’ve sparred with that boy before – he ain’t so good. Right hit, right hit. Same every time.’

‘A manager now, are you?’

‘No, course not, Jack. Just saying.’ Frank lifted off his shirt, tossed it on the bench.

‘Well, don’t jabber, get warmed up.’ Jack gave him a shove as he passed.

It was gooey as custard in the gym, too thick to move, and Jack sank back down on the bench. The punchbag took a beating as Frank set to work. Bert came out of the changing rooms to take the other side. Frank circled and bobbed, but something wasn’t right. Jack prodded the crumpled shirt with his foot. Frank always left his clothes in a neat pile; tidiness was part of his thing. Jack folded it into a square, slid it out of sight. But the white cotton flickered at the edge of his vision. The two boys sat on the floor to watch, soaking up any drops of training sweat that spun their way.

Bert rammed forward with his shoulders, bracing himself against the bag. Frank landed hits. Deep punches, hitting the same spot each time; enough force to break a rib or smash yesterday’s dinner down to the knees. Left, right, hit after hit as if he were ploughing his way through a brick wall. Frank punched with the confidence of a man who could lift his own weight in coal then crush the lot to dust. Bert grimaced against the impact, spectacles sliding down his nose, and the heavy bag quivered. Frank kept going, not even breaking to rest for the length of the round bell as he usually did. It wasn’t the fighting that Jack had expected. Excitable, that was what he was, and maybe Jack shouldn’t have told him about going to see Vincent. Sweat radiated out from Frank in a growing circle of splashes on the floorboards like rings on a tree. He looked older than those watching boys: his right ear blossoming into a cauliflower, a scar high on his cheek, fluid puffing up his eye sockets. Fighters didn’t need tattoos – they had their life drawn over their body. The boys got up to leave, rubbing at cramping calf muscles, and still Frank didn’t stop. The gym was theirs again, his and Frank’s.

Frank snapped his head up for a second. The bag caught him a glance on the forehead before he got back to it, and Bert
followed it up with a slap across the neck for his mistake. Jack checked to see what had distracted him; he hoped it was a fire, a ghost, anything to justify the break in concentration. But it was only Pearl, hair tied up in a scarf, as if she had turned into Mrs Bell.

She placed the heavy wicker basket next to Jack. ‘I’m too excited to wait. Tell me where we’re going this afternoon. I won’t ruin the surprise for Georgie, I promise.’

‘You’ll find out when we get there.’ Jack helped himself to bread and margarine from the paper; he wrinkled his nose as he bent over to eat. ‘Jesus, what you been up to, burning bacon?’

‘Georgie helped me do my hair.’

‘Do what to it? Cremate it?’

She unwrapped the red cloth from around her head. ‘Permanent wave. Look, I’ve got curls now.’

Pearl slipped her finger inside one and held it up. The bread crumbled in his fist. His eyes flickered and widened: it wasn’t Pearl standing there. The bread scratched his throat, swelled in his mouth. She shook out the new waves around her face, long, thick tendrils that looked darker and shinier than they ever had before. Jack felt sick at the sight of those curls, sick that he wanted to reach out and stroke them. He coughed.

‘What’s wrong?’ Pearl stepped closer.

He grabbed his throat, couldn’t breathe. Pearl slapped him on the back, banging her fist against his spine. He spat the chewed up muck on to the floor. She poured him some tea from the flask. ‘Better?’

‘It’s not you.’ The only words he could force out.

He rinsed the sting of bile from his mouth; tea dribbled over his chin and he swiped it away with the back of his hand. Pearl caught her reflection in the metallic flask. ‘I think it looks something. Georgie said it suited me.’

Jack held on to the cold edge of the bench. It was as if all those years hadn’t happened: Rosie was standing there. Jack
wanted to put his arms around her neck, bite down on the tight skin across her shoulders. He turned away, coughed up the last of the tea into his hand. He dropped the tin mug into the basket; it rattled against the sides. He kept his back to Pearl, stared straight ahead at Frank and Bert. Frank kept trying to step around the bag to face the benches; Bert pushed him away each time.

‘I like it. Anyway, what’s wrong with it? Georgie’s got her hair curled,’ Pearl defended herself with a high-pitched whine.

‘You’re not her.’

‘Jack, you all right?’

‘That chemical stink reminds me of the war.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t think.’ Pearl tied up her hair with the scarf.

Those thin arms and legs, so small, so breakable. She stood next to him, watching the training. Jack took up her hands and turned them over.

‘Didn’t get any of that muck on your skin, did you? Some chemicals can burn through bone. Check yourself, before we go out.’

No red marks, no broken cracks, just the threaded lacework of scars from other times.

‘You’ve taught me to be careful.’

He placed his elbows on his knees, shrank his limbs together as she moved around. He tried to concentrate on the hiss of the flask, the crackle of paper covering the sandwiches.

‘What should I wear? Will this do?’ Pearl held forward the edge of her blue skirt. ‘It’s too nice for these support shoes, they’re all clumpy. I’ve got them sandals…’

‘Stop prancing, men are trying to work here.’ He pushed her hand back. ‘Be ready for three.’

She stepped down, but turned to glance at Frank working at the bag before she reached the doors. The gym windows couldn’t keep out summer; rays pierced their way in straight lines along the scuffed floor and directly on to her round face.
Her eyelashes squeezed against the light and Jack held his breath until her footsteps faded away. No one reached out to take his hand and lead him into the shade.

Two buses, an hour later, and they were at Ackroydon Estate. Jack felt giddy from the ride but he couldn’t stop smiling. The sun tugged at the corners of his mouth, the smell of grass filled his lungs. Southfields was everything he’d expected: parade of shops, a pub, and trees, lots of trees. It didn’t matter that the journey took so long; it was like travelling to another land. Jack gripped Georgie’s hand in his.

She shook her head. ‘We’re out in the bloody country.’

‘Look at all this green.’ Frank reached up into the branches and gave them a shake.

Leaves pattered down on to their heads, sounding like rain. A tangy smell of sap hung in the air, vinegary as mint sauce, the sun baking everything and wafting scents like drying washing on the line.

‘It’s close to Wimbledon, not Everest.’ Jack hugged Georgie closer.

‘That building looks as high.’ Pearl pointed up between the branches.

‘I read about this new place in the paper. Thought we’d all come see what the fuss was about.’

Georgie fitted snugly beneath his shoulder, as if he were the paper-chain and she were the missing cut-out. Newly planted saplings lined the path, white buds forming as if the confusion of being uprooted made the branches believe it was spring again.

‘I’ll race you, Frank.’ Pearl darted off.

‘Don’t trip and break anything, either of you,’ Jack shouted to the corkscrew of dust they left behind.

‘What are we doing out here, Jack?’ Georgie picked her way along the dry bits of the path. Evaporating puddles sat at the edges of the grass.

He kicked a stone and watched it skid into a pile of leaves. ‘Taking some air.’

Frank and Pearl were too far ahead to see, their voices floating back on the breeze. No one else was on the straight path, and the street was nothing more than a fading buzz of traffic; just him and Georgie.

‘Feels like a family outing to me.’ She let out a small click with her tongue.

‘I only wanted to show you where I was heading. I’m not hanging round that dump of a pub and those rotten streets forever, no chance.’

Above the foaming line of blossom on the slope, the estate began to appear from the top down. White concrete gleamed and reflected the sun, still as a pond. Everything looked new, just unwrapped and placed on the shelf fresh. Pearl and Frank waited at the end of the path, cheeks red. The grass was trimmed flush to the building, the black-painted doors shone, windows sparkled, and electric street lamps hummed. Jack only ever imagined places like this existed, but now here he was standing on the edge of it. He looked up at the flats and it gave him vertigo; he counted eight storeys, and a flat roof that looked like a platform to the skies.

Frank shifted from foot to foot. ‘We can lend them bikes over there! Let’s have a ride around, Pearl.’

‘I suppose, as long as we return them. But you’ll have to teach me how first.’

‘You can’t ride?’ Frank laughed. ‘Everyone can ride.’

‘I suppose our mum thought there were plenty of ways I could break my bones without falling off a bike.’

‘The point is you’re not supposed to fall off.’ Frank tapped her forehead. ‘I’ll teach you. Don’t you want to take that off? It’s hotting up.’

She held on to her sleeves. ‘No.’

‘Can’t even tell they’re scars – bet they’ll fade in the sun. We’ll see you back at the bus stop, Jack.’ Frank touched her arm before he strode off towards the bikes. Pearl trotted
beside him, knotting her cardigan around her waist. They followed the angles of the path down the side of the estate. Jack crossed the grass towards the double doors.

‘Think this would be a good place to live?’ He wasn’t sure who he was asking.

Georgie followed him and put her hand on his shoulder, shaking mud from her heel. Vincent’s business card was good as any banker’s draft; he rubbed the softening corners under his thumb. He wanted to open those glass doors, go up in a lift, put a key in a lock, sit down in a chair: for that place to be home. Every room planned out in his head like the pictures he had seen in an advert for Courts Furniture Exhibition. A walnut dining room set for thirty-six guineas or only thirty-three shillings every month. A cosy three-piece, a settee and two easy chairs covered with hardwearing tapestry for nineteen and a half guineas. Everything would be new, not a smudge or scratch on it.

‘We’re having fun, ain’t we? Don’t go and get all sentimental on me, Jack.’

‘Don’t make me laugh. This is business. I’m thinking about opening a gym and it’d be cheaper and easier to take care of somewhere around here.’

His sagging trousers picked up pollen and blades of grass as they walked along. He tried not to think about all the potholes that Pearl could crash into; laughter and the squeak of wheels faded into the distance. The shadows from the trees created a patchwork of dark hollows around them.

Georgie took his arm. ‘Last place I worked, this girl said she got chased by a pack of stray dogs once. Are there animals in these woods?’

‘Doubt there are dogs in there – the wolves keep them away.’ He eased her along with a press of his hand.

‘Wolves? Shut up.’ She slapped him away.

‘I’ll see them off,’ he growled, and sucked his lips from his teeth.

‘You’re the worst beast of the lot.’

They stumbled backwards until he caught his balance against a thin trunk; it swayed and bounced him upright again. They stood like giants among the small budding trees. He sat down on the grass, pulled her with him. Dried leaves crackled under them and released the coming smell of autumn: deep puddles and damp wool. She nestled against his shoulder, staring up through the thin straggling branches. A song drifted over from the estate. Frankie Laine’s ‘I Believe’. And he wanted it to be true: the flat, the pushbikes, the furniture… some day it would be his. He had wished for lots of things in his life, and they rarely happened. But it worked once, a long time ago:
let him be dead, let him be stone dead.
No reason it couldn’t work again, one day.

The purple bruised edges of evening were creeping along Camberwell by the time they got back. Pearl and Frank had gone ahead to pick up some whelks from the barrel man.

‘Where are you going, Jack? I’m late. We’ll cut through the alley.’

Georgie steered him towards the Man of the World. The click-click of her heels on the cobbles made the hair on the back of his neck twitch. Damp licked his face, the warmth from Georgie’s body diluted in the darkness. The streaked pub windows barely let the yellow lamp-glow reach the pavement but the noise was loud enough to trouble hell. On top of that there was a tapping coming out of the shadows, a shuffling of feet. Jack’s grip tightened; he had to stop himself from breaking into a run. The footsteps were nearly on them.

‘Evening there, Jack. Georgie.’ Newton came alongside. ‘I just popped in for a swift half.’ He lurched off the pavement.