The Longest Fight (4 page)

Jack held his hand straight, fingers sealed together. ‘This means lie down and take the count.’

Frank stepped forward, glanced over at the bed.

‘Not now, you fool. When you’re in the ring.’

‘Why would I want to do that, Jack?’

‘When I start signalling, you stop thinking and start doing. Your trainer is going to have his own signs, but it’s important you understand mine first.’

‘Like secret messages?’

‘This means get up.’

He placed his fist under his chin and banged it against the bone. Frank touched the base of his chin as he nodded.

‘Finish it and get out quick smart.’ Jack squeezed his hand around the base of his neck. ‘I’m going to start throwing these signals out at you soon, so make sure you’ve got them.’

‘A lot to learn, ain’t there? But if you think I’m going to make it big then I believe you, Jack.’

‘Rub yourself down. I’ll see you out there in ten minutes.’ Jack picked a towel off the pile, swung it over.

‘Jack, can I –’

‘Nine and counting.’ Jack checked his watch.

He closed the store-room door on whatever question was lurking in the room. Champagne was up at the wall, replaying the bout: hook, upper cut, jab with the right; shadowboxing his demons. It was a dangerous practice: open an old wound and all that blood could stop a fight; Jack knew how easy it could happen. He rubbed the scarred pad of his right thumb where the nail used to be.

J
ack’s reflection stared up at him from the polished black leather. It seemed a shame to scuff up the soles by walking over the pub’s sticky floorboards. But Thursday night was Georgie’s night off; Jack always did his research. What with the shoes and taking her up town it was going to leave him a little short this month, but there would be plenty more flowing in soon enough. If he was going to be the big manager he couldn’t go around in old postman boots with cardboard filling in the holes and stitching hanging loose.

Heads bobbed up.
Get you a drink, Jack, got any tips for tonight, Jack, when’s the next fight, Jack?
The words bounced off him. But he greeted each face with a smile and a nod. They couldn’t help being the losers – well, they could, but it wasn’t up to Jack to give them a helping hand. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Cousin Alf and Newton were the only ones at the bar. Cousin Alf was a man who had seen too many fights, ears puffed up, all the features misplaced slightly to the left, but it had bought him the pub. Jack had bigger ideas than a corner boozer. He nodded at Newton, head drooping over a half-empty pint.

‘Evening, Jack. I was just telling Alf here about my boy Jimmy getting himself a new job up at Pentonville prison –’

‘Georgie about?’

Cousin Alf rubbed a glass on the corner of his apron. ‘Should still be out back with the delivery. I’ve just got myself a new Morris Oxford – she’s parked out there too. Second-hand, mind, but she’s got some go in her.’

His shattered nose shone with sweat, but the whole of his face was broken and scarred; the nose suited him. His car was probably clapped-out too; he should have saved for a new model. That was what Jack planned to do. But for tonight Georgie would have to settle for the bus.

‘I’ll pop and take a look, then.’

‘I’ll let you take a ride in her some time. But how about leaving the barmaid alone this time, Jack? She’s a good worker. I don’t want to have to replace her.’

‘Won’t be a minute, just want a quick word.’

Jack slipped under the counter and closed the door to the bar; propped behind it was a picture of Churchill, glass cracked, and in front beer-crates lined the wall leading straight to Georgie. Her buttocks strained against the seam of her skirt as she bent over and counted bottles. Jack tiptoed forward – one slap of the hand was all it would take. But her head was in bumping distance of the shelf, and she was humming softly under her breath. Jack hesitated; the floorboard creaked. She lifted another crate, placed it on top of the first.

‘Peeping Tom.’

‘You shouldn’t look so good on your knees.’ Jack wiped his shoes clean on the back of his trousers.

‘I’ll have you know I look good everywhere.’

Georgie smoothed a curl back into place; she turned to face him. His jaw dropped in mock surprise. ‘Oh, Georgie, it’s you. I thought it were someone else.’

‘Think you’re really something special, don’t you, Jack?’

She seemed to slide down the passageway towards him; didn’t quite reach his chin, even in her heels. But she stared into his face as if she thought they were the same height. He reached behind her for a bottle. She grabbed the neck.

‘Put that back unless you’ve got money.’

‘Ain’t you heard the talk? I’ll be rolling in it soon.’

The bottle clinked, settling back into place with the others. She folded her arms across her chest. ‘No tabs.’

‘You’d make a good boxer.’ He couldn’t help smiling.

‘I’ve seen my fair share of fights. Five brothers.’

‘Cleaned them up after a few scrapes, did you?’

‘I spent years scrapping for my share.’

Her toes touched the barricade of crates and her shoulders rested up against the staircase.

‘I don’t want to brawl with you, Georgie. I came to take you out for that drink you promised me the other night.’

‘I don’t remember promising nothing and besides, I’m working.’

‘You finish in…’ Jack checked the clock by the door ‘… five minutes.’ He didn’t expect the excuses to last long; she only wanted him to think it was her idea.

‘I don’t know. My landlady expects me in early.’

‘I’ll have you back in time.’

‘Hmm.’ She leaned forward, twisted the neck of a bottle until the label faced the same way as all the others. ‘Should have asked me before…’

‘What’s wrong with you? Most girls love a surprise, a bit of dashing
Gone with the Wind
stuff.’

‘I don’t expect fancy romance, Jack. But I’ve got rules. You’re a sporting man, you’ll understand that.’ She sighed and pulled out a cigarette from somewhere in the folds of her blouse.

‘Christ almighty, I ain’t asking you to lay down on the train tracks. A bite to eat. A drink or two. Home by ten. What do you say?’

She took a deep breath but didn’t answer, so he stepped around her and took a seat on the stairs. ‘Well, Georgie. Seems to me you’ve got some sort of speech prepared, so spit it out.’

Georgie peered at him through the bars as she lit the cigarette. Her parted legs stretched her skirt wide, feet firmly planted in an upright stance. He heard her voice somewhere inside him, but he was thinking about that cigarette on her lips. No money left in his pocket for a packet of Woodbines. He should have walked out; it really wasn’t worth the bother. Georgie smoothed the bottom line of lipstick into place with
her thumb, not even pausing to let the smoke escape as she spoke. The banisters divided her up: brown eyes, red mouth, flushed cheeks. She wasn’t really like a picture on the wall; if he reached through the bars to touch her skin it would burn his fingertips. But she would look good on his arm out on the circuit. He knew Frank was going to win his big fight next week, didn’t need anybody there to hold his hand, only nothing smacked of lonely old codger as much as celebrating on your own.

She finally puffed up smoke. ‘You listening, Jack?’

‘Ain’t no one else here chewing my ear off, is there?’

She was a bit like a Jack Russell Newton used to have; it sat under his stool at the bar, licking up the angel’s share. Yapping and taking on anything that walked past. She was talking about promises or something, laying down her laws. Jack never could resist a battler. Maybe that was why he hadn’t snuck up and slapped her on the buttocks; she would have bitten his bloody hand off. Georgie stabbed the cigarette through the banisters at him. ‘What you laughing at?’

‘I was thinking you’d make a good trainer for Frank. Come on, I’m taking you out.’

Georgie sniffed and tapped ash on to the floor. ‘Hand me my coat, then.’

Jack snatched the cigarette and sucked down the last rush of tobacco. He took her hat and coat off the rack, drew her closer as she inserted her arms. He put his lips to her neck, she moved her hair aside, and he kissed her. There it was again, that small soft spot. No one had come close to finding his, not since Rosie: lips coated with sugared doughnuts and toffee apples. Georgie was none of those things, but the trace of talcum powder and lavender was warming.

‘Do you bring all your girls up West, Jack?’

Georgie jumped off the bus, hopped forward as her heel caught in the grating. Jack bounced her up on to the
pavement. ‘South of the river can slump into the mud banks of the Thames for all I give a toss. I’m going places.’

‘So I’ve heard, and more.’

She held on to her hat, gazed up at the purple sky snared between the buildings, pivoting, as if she had never set foot north of the river. People began to turn, peering back at her. Jack took her arm. ‘Don’t believe half the rubbish you hear at the Man of the World.’

‘Apart from the chat about Jack Munday being on the up, I suppose.’

She let him lead her along, using the opportunity to check her lipstick in a gold compact mirror. They stepped out of one pool of lamplight into the next, weaving through the mass of swimming silhouettes. The sparkling glass circle lit up her face better than any star.

‘What about you, Georgie Smyth with a y? I figured you as someone with plans.’

‘Last year I shared a bed with two other girls – now I’ve got my own room with a sink in it. I’ll get wherever I’m going in my own sweet time.’ She snapped the mirror shut, slipped it away.

‘You’ve got flaps and traps all over the place. Ever forget where you’ve put stuff?’

‘A home for everything, and everything in its home.’

‘When do I get to have a look around in there?’

He slid his hand inside her coat pocket: warm and woollen, neat darning holding the lining together. She extracted him by the wrist, linked her arm back through his. ‘When I decide you won’t mess up my order, and your hands are clean enough.’

‘Don’t you sometimes wish you could empty it all out and start again?’ He thumbed the direction of the river over his shoulder. ‘Money can buy you as many pockets as you want.’

‘I wouldn’t say no, but it’s just as likely to run out as sugar is these days. I make what I make, and it’s all mine. But seeing as you’re so flush I presume the night’s on you.’

‘I’ll see you right.’

Jack squeezed her arm as they ran between two buses and crossed Piccadilly Circus. The smoking traffic filled the air with clouds, haloed by the neon lights: Schweppes, Votrix Vermouth. Pulsing yellows and reds sparkled in the puddles. Past the theatres, acting out their stupid lives on the stage, thinking they were so grand and noble. City noise: loud as the gym on a Saturday morning. One day Jack would be driving through there in a flash new car, not some battered old Morris Oxford; he wouldn’t even stop for the lights.

‘Where we going, Jack?’

‘The future.’ He moved in close against her damp coat until her hair tickled his neck. ‘Imagine it’s a year, maybe two, from now. We’ve stepped out of that cab.’ He pointed at one squealing away from the kerb. ‘Fresh from Frank’s middleweight title fight. I’m taking you –’

‘Or some blonde like me –’

‘– we’re off to Soho, drink in any pub we want –’

‘We want champagne.’

‘Best make it the Ritz, then. Now we’re walking off the pig of a hangover that’s setting in. Oysters is just the thing.’

‘I’ll chuck up over your new brogues and suit.’

‘I’ve got a wardrobe full of them. Wheeler’s, that’s where we’re heading.’

‘So, it’s a promise, is it, this fancy night out some time?’ Georgie wagged a finger under his nose.

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

They turned off Shaftesbury Avenue, into the belly of Soho. Every narrow alley and black-painted door was some private club that would be begging Jack to join soon enough. Rosie would have loved that: candles in red jars and real cloth on the tables. The smell of brine seeped out of a restaurant, washing over the steps, high as a Thames springtide. He paused by the door. ‘Put your iron gut into gear for me tonight, would you?’

‘I promise not to get sick, Jack.’ She tapped his cheek.

‘Lovely – let’s eat, then.’

They pushed their way into the restaurant. A man in a black suit and bow tie blocked the way. He held a menu in front of his chest as if he could drive them off with it.

‘Excuse me, sir, but unfortunately we are somewhat busy this evening.’

‘I see a table over there.’ Jack pointed through the smoke, towards the corner.

‘That one is reserved,’ the Stiff answered without even turning to look.

‘Maybe it’s reserved for us, mate.’

‘We are full this evening.’ The Stiff stared over Jack’s shoulder, pale stubble showing as he stuck out his chin.

‘Jack, come on. He means it’s full to people like us.’

‘What about them lot?’ Jack jerked his thumb at three tables pulled together against the wall. Diners glanced up from their white seafood sauces and shell collections to take in the scene. ‘No offence, fella, but you look like you’ve just done a full day’s graft down Spitalfields,’ he called across the room.

The drunk nodded and sploshed wine on to the white cloth. It left a dark stain. Jack would never do that.

‘Those are Mr Bacon’s guests. Mr Bacon always books ahead.’

The Stiff held in his breath, blinked slowly. Jack wanted to tell him to go blow smoke up his arse, but a puffy-faced bloke rocked to his feet; his court of men turned to face him. He flicked a napkin against the table, the linen cracked like a whip.

‘Find this gentleman and his fine lady a table, Johnson.’

‘Yes, Mr Bacon.’

The Stiff gripped the menus tighter, spine so straight it was a wonder his ribs didn’t crack as he moved. The man waved his hand and plopped down, dropping straight into conversation with the thin-black-tie-wearing bloke next to him. The Stiff seated them at a table near the back, behind a potted fern.

‘This is nice.’ Georgie leaned back in the chair. ‘I thought you were going to knock that bloke’s teeth down his throat.’

‘I’m starving.’

Jack picked up a menu. These people, their smart suits and thin ties, made him itch around the collar.
You’re good for nothing but a hiding.
Jack had heard those words often enough; they replayed in his head like a scratchy 78 record. But not tonight. He made himself stretch out in the low-backed chair.

‘Have anything you want, anything at all. I’m good for it.’

They ordered and ate their way through oysters, cod, crusty rolls and sweet gin, until there was nothing left. He watched Georgie mop up with a hunk of bread.

‘That were real butter, weren’t it? I can’t remember the last time I tasted it.’

‘Keep your voice down, they’ll think we’re animals.’ He loosened his tie.

‘We’re all animals, Jack. Pass us that bread roll if you ain’t going to finish it.’

She licked her lips, ran a finger down the knife to wipe up the last of the butter. The pink willow pattern of the china shone through, only small bones left to decorate the plate. Jack downed the last of his drink, gasped like a fish as his throat blazed. He was going to need something to keep the chill off on the journey back south.

‘Right, finish up. We’re all done.’

‘We’ve only just gone and ordered apple pie for afters, Jack.’

‘Couldn’t eat nothing more. Why don’t you get yourself to the stop and I’ll sort out here. Hold the bus for me when it turns up. I’m right behind you.’