Chrissie's Children (22 page)

Sarah had not been prepared for that but guessed that Sophie had told Peter she worked there to keep her true identity secret. Sarah had tactfully replied, ‘Yes, I work at the
Ballantyne.’

Joe Nolan was pleased with Peter’s progress and spent a lot of time with him. One night after a training session he told Peter, ‘You’ve got the makings of a champion, lad, if
you want to go that way.’

Peter, sweating and breathing hard, stared at him in surprise. ‘Me? A champion?’

Joe nodded. ‘I reckon so. O’ course, you’ve got a long way to go. You’ve only put the gloves on with the lads in here so we don’t know how you’d get on in a
competitive bout against a stranger, but those same lads have performed against some stiff competition. I think you’ve got the ability and the strength, all you need now is a bit more of the
know-how. And the hunger.’

‘Hunger?’ Peter rubbed at his face with a towel and grinned wrily. ‘I’ve had some of that.’

‘I mean the hunger to win, to be the best. If you haven’t got that you’ll never be a champion, because it gets harder the further you go. So I’m not going to push you
into anything. Make up your own mind, then let me know how you feel about it.’

‘Righto, Joe.’ But Peter’s attention was elsewhere now. The door of the gym had opened to admit two more of Joe’s ‘lads’ and Peter looked past them. Sarah
Tennant happened to walk by in the passage outside at that point and Peter finally decided to act. ‘I’ll be seeing you, then, Joe,’ he said, and he changed into his street clothes
and hurried out.

He found Sarah in the little room behind the bar, busily sawing bread into slices for sandwiches. He said, ‘Hello. Busy?’

‘Always busy in here,’ Sarah laughed.

‘Aye.’ He hesitated a moment, shy, then blurted out, ‘I wondered if Sophie was all right, wondered if mebbe she was poorly, because I haven’t seen her for a
while.’

‘Oh.’ Sarah sawed at the bread, thinking quickly. Should she tell him the truth as far as she knew it, that Sophie was the daughter of the owner of the Ballantyne Hotel? But then she
answered, ‘She’s gone away, must have been a month or two ago. I heard Mrs Ballantyne telling somebody.’ That last was true enough: Chrissie had publicly said that Sophie had gone
away to work, though she had not gone into details. Sarah said, ‘I don’t know where she’s gone.’

Peter repeated numbly, ‘Gone away.’

Sarah saw his despondency and tried to cheer him. ‘I expect she was upset at leaving, and she didn’t want to hurt you so she couldn’t bear to tell you . . . Or maybe she
didn’t have your address.’

Peter said miserably, ‘She hadn’t. She’d never been there.’ She had left him without a word. In his heart he had hoped that they would meet again and take up where they
had left off, that the break-up had been no more than a quarrel along the way, but now it seemed there was a finality about it. She had gone away.

He left the club and wandered about the streets, alone and unhappy, crossing the bridge into the town. He paused outside the Ballantyne Hotel out of habit, then mentally shook himself and
slouched on. There was no point in waiting there because she had gone.

That week there was a travelling fair on the Garrison Field at the end of the High Street. He walked in past the huge steam-traction engine that pounded away, driving the generator that supplied
the power for the strings of coloured lights, the whirling, dipping and soaring merry-go-rounds. He meandered among the stalls and amusements until he came to the crowd surrounding the boxing
booth. He stood on the fringe, watching and listening.

There were three boxers on the stage outside the booth, robes knotted over their boxing kit: a heavyweight, middleweight and lightweight. The proprietor of the booth stood at the front, shouting
into a megaphone, touting for contenders. He had already found a heavyweight and a lightweight. They stood up there, too, blinking under the lights and grinning uneasily. The voice sounded metallic
through the megaphone: ‘Five pounds for anybody who can go the distance with Dave Bolger here! Five pounds!’ The voice was becoming impatient, irritated. ‘You don’t have to
lay him out or win on points, for Gawd’s sake! Just
stay
with him!’

A man in front of Peter muttered, ‘The feller that got in with him last night is still in hospital,’ and heads nodded around him.

The man with the megaphone must have guessed at the crowd’s thoughts. He taunted desperately, ‘I thought you were a game lot here! Surely one o’ you has the guts to have a
go!’

Another voice spoke behind Peter, jeering, ‘Are you thinking of having a go, kid?’

Peter turned and saw McNally, scarred and head cropped, grinning at him; Gallagher, the red-faced, narrow-eyed foreman stood by his side. Both of them smelt of beer, and had obviously been going
the round of the pubs. Peter had soon managed to swop from Gallagher’s to another gang, but they all still worked in Ballantyne’s shipyard, and saw each other several times a day.
Gallagher’s and McNally’s hatred was also still obvious. Their grins now were not friendly but sneering.

Peter demanded curtly, ‘Why don’t you take him on?’

McNally shook his bullet head then nodded it at the stage. ‘He wouldn’t have me. I’m a light heavyweight, a bit too big for his boy. That’s not why he wouldn’t let
me in with his boy, but it’s the reason he’d use.’

Gallagher grumbled, ‘The fact is that he knows McNally, so he won’t take him on. Wouldn’t have him last night. Took a mug instead, that wound up wi’ a broken jaw and
concussion.’

McNally said, ‘It’s a pity. I could do with a fiver.’ Then, ‘Tell you what, kidder, I’ll bet you a quid you couldn’t last the first round wi’
him.’

Gallagher chuckled. ‘I’ll lay a quid he daren’t get in the ring with him.’

All Peter’s misery and frustration was now transmuted into anger and he snapped back, ‘You’re on, both o’ you!’ He swung back to face the stage and shouted against
the blaring megaphone, ‘Here! I’ll fight him!’

He started to shove his way through the crowd and the megaphone voice ceased its tinny clamour for a moment as its holder peered at the young man prepared to chance his arm against Dave Bolger.
Then it bellowed, ‘This looks a likely lad! Come on up here, my son!’

Peter clambered up on to the stage and stood by Dave Bolger. He eyed Peter and grinned confidently. The proprietor glanced from one to the other, weighing up both, and nodded. He lifted the
megaphone again: ‘It looks like a right good match to me! Let’s get on wi’ it!’

Peter had time to cool off. The megaphone man was something of a psychologist, as he had to be, and suspected that if Bolger destroyed Peter as he had the man on the previous night, then his
other two volunteers might change their minds. So he put them on first and Peter saw the lightweight retire after two rounds and the heavyweight knocked out in the first.

‘Two to them so far.’ The jeering voice again. ‘You’ll make it three – if you get in.’ Gallagher had worked his way through the audience in the packed booth
with the help of McNally’s elbowing and now stood behind Peter.

Peter shut his ears to the taunts, swallowed his nervousness and climbed into the ring as the proprietor beckoned. He stripped to the waist and listened as an elderly ‘second’ shoved
gloves on to his hands and tied their laces. The megaphone brayed, ‘This next bout is at middleweight, three rounds of three minutes each round . . .’ The megaphone was lowered for the
question, ‘What’s your name, lad?’

‘Peter Robinson.’ Now he was watching Bolger and trying to remember all Joe Nolan had taught him, but failing to recall any of that instruction.

The voice was announcing, ‘. . . and the local champion, battling Peter Robinson!’

Peter knew that was rubbish. He wasn’t a champion. Bolger knew it and was laughing behind his gloves so the crowd could not see, but Peter could. Gallagher and McNally guffawed, mouths
wide to show yellow teeth. They were all laughing at him.

He fought with a cold rage and a skill that first startled Bolger, then frustrated and finally subdued him. In the last minute of the last round Peter could have finished him but hesitated,
reluctant to hit a man who could no longer defend himself. The booth proprietor did not hesitate and the round finished some twenty seconds early to save Bolger.

Peter collected his five pounds from the proprietor and two more from Gallagher and McNally. McNally did not speak and neither did Peter, but Gallagher asked, ‘Does anybody else know you
can fight like that?’

Peter answered curtly, ‘Only Joe Nolan and the lads down at the club.’

He set off for home seven pounds richer but no happier.

As they watched his departing back with rage and hatred, Gallagher said to McNally, ‘We could use him.’

‘He won’t have owt to do wi’ us,’ McNally spat. ‘That’s if he has any sense. He knows we’ll do for him first chance we get.’

‘I didn’t mean he could work
with
us. I meant
for
us.’

‘How?’

Gallagher told him.

The next day Gallagher and McNally called on Joshua Fannon in the house where Meggie Fannon had died. It was changed now: there was new furniture and carpets on the floor, and
velvet cloth covered the table where Fannon added up his rents as a landlord and the bets he took as a bookmaker, worked out what he had to pay the winners. When he opened the door to them that
evening there was nothing on the table but the plate that had held his fish and chips, and a half-empty glass of stout.

He greeted them warily and with false bonhomie because he knew Gallagher as a hard man and McNally as a bruiser. ‘Now then, lads, what can I do for you?’

McNally’s eyes focused on the cupboard by the fire, its door half-open to show the bottles of various kinds inside. ‘You could give us a drink for a start. How about a drop o’
whisky?’

Fannon said heartily, ‘Aye, we’ll all have one, eh?’ and he got out the bottle.

When they sat around the table and the glasses had been filled and sampled, Gallagher said, ‘I’ve got an idea that could make us all some money.’

‘Oh, aye?’ Now Fannon was interested, but still wary.

‘Have you ever thought of setting up some fights?’

Fannon shook his head so that his jowls wobbled. ‘I don’t know owt about that business.’

Gallagher assured him, ‘You won’t have to. I’ll find the fighters and the places. All you’ll have to do will be to put up a purse and make a book.’

Fannon shifted uneasily. In fact, he was not entirely ignorant of the business of fighting. ‘Can you make any money that way?’

Gallagher conceded, ‘Not much, if you’re particular, but suppose you were managing a fighter yourself and you knew when he was going to lose . . .’ He paused and Fannon’s
eyes drifted to McNally. Gallagher said, ‘No, not him.’

‘Who, then?’

‘A lad called Peter Robinson.’

‘I’ve never heard of him.’

‘Neither has anybody else, but he’s good.’

‘And he’ll agree to . . .’ He stopped because McNally was shaking his head and grinning.

Gallagher said, ‘No, he won’t agree to lie down, but he won’t have to.’

And then he explained.

Peter Robinson sat in the doctor’s surgery with its examination couch and screen and smell of disinfectant. He held his cap on his knee as Dr Dickinson, greying and with
long years in that practice, told him gently, ‘Your mother’s heart is very weak. In fact it’s only operating at a third of what its strength should be. That’s why she is so
grey, easily tired and short of breath. On top of that she’s run down.’

Peter twisted the cap in his hands. ‘What should I do? Does she have to go to hospital?’ He knew she would hate that.

Dickinson shook his head, ‘No.’ He could have added, ‘The hospital can’t do anything for her,’ but he had decided Peter was worried enough. ‘No. She can stay
at home but she needs building up with good food – milk, eggs and fruit – and she must rest for a while. No stairs, no housework, just rest for a few weeks until she picks up a bit. Do
you understand?’ He asked because some men did not, considering housework was not work at all – and anyway it was a woman’s job.

Peter nodded, afraid for his mother. ‘I’ll do all o’ that. Young Billy can give me a hand.’ Little Billy Hackett would soon be eight years old.

So they were busy that Friday evening. Despite Margaret Hackett’s protest, Peter insisted she sat in her chair by the fire while he and Billy cleaned the fire irons for the weekend. There
were two sets, one steel and the other brass, each consisting of poker, tongs and shovel. The steel ones were used, regularly, and were cleaned with emery paper. The brass ones were for decoration,
laid out in the hearth inside the brass-railed fender, and these were cleaned with metal polish.

Peter and Billy had almost finished when the knock came at the kitchen door, and Billy opened it to show Joshua Fannon smirking fatly. Fannon said, ‘I’m looking for Peter
Robinson.’

Peter knew him as landlord of some of the houses in the streets around, and as a bookie. He came over from the table where the fire irons were laid on sheets of newspaper. ‘I’m Peter
Robinson.’

Fannon asked, ‘Can we have a talk?’ He jerked his head at the empty passage behind him.

Peter pushed Billy gently towards the table and the fire irons. ‘You get on wi’ that lot. I’ll only be a minute or two.’ He stepped out into the passage and shut the door
behind him. ‘Now, what did you want me for?’ He eyed Fannon with dislike.

Fannon’s eyes flickered away from Peter’s gaze. ‘The feller that ran the boxing booth – the one in the Garrison Field – told me about a Peter Robinson that beat one
of his lads. Was that you?’

Peter nodded. ‘It was. What about it?’

‘Ah! Well.’ The fat man licked lips already wet. ‘I could put you in the way of making some money.’ A door opened on the floor above and a neighbour came out on to the
landing and peered curiously at the two men below. Fannon muttered, ‘Tell you what: if you’re interested, come to the Frigate and have a drink. I’ll tell you all about it
there.’

Peter was interested. His labourer’s pay from the shipyard was barely enough to keep the three of them, and now Margaret Hackett needed a more expensive diet. He said, ‘I’ll
get my coat.’ As he took his jacket from a hook on the back of the door he ruffled Billy’s hair. ‘You can knock off now. I’m going out for a bit but I’ll finish it
when I get back.’ Then he warned his mother with mock severity, ‘You stay in that chair. Billy will tell me if you get out of it.’