Chrissie's Children (30 page)

Peter Robinson appeared to have just come in to train at the gym, shrugging out of his jacket, and found Fannon, grubby raincoat tight over his belly, waiting for him. The bookmaker’s
pudgy face was sweating and he smiled falsely. Now Peter asked, ‘What’s McNally getting?’

Fannon assured him, nodding and licking his lips, ‘The same, just the same.’

Peter was tempted to refuse, sick of the bloody business, but driven to accept the challenge; he was out of a job and needed the money badly. His mother seemed stronger now from the diet of eggs
and milk, and insisted on cooking and doing some light housework. But that diet had to be maintained and the dole would not pay for it. So far Peter had just about made ends meet by selling coal
from the colliery tip or the sea shore, or by any other means that came to hand, but it was a precarious living. He said curtly, ‘Usual place?’

Fannon shook his head, pendulous cheeks wobbling. ‘No, we’re changing it. I think we’ve been there too often and the pollis might get to hear of it. It’ll be in
Jackie’s yard, ten o’clock Wednesday night.’

Peter said, ‘Right,’ then he pushed past Fannon and walked into the gym, the door slamming shut behind him.

Fannon stayed in the passage, watching him go, then the door of the bar opened and Gallagher came out, McNally on his heels, the pair of them still in dirty overalls. Gallagher asked, ‘Did
he bite?’

Fannon said unhappily, ‘He swallowed it.’

McNally smacked a big fist into the palm of the other hand and gloated, ‘Now I’ll have him!’

Fannon said, ‘Well, you won’t want me any more . . .’

But Gallagher seized his arm as he turned to walk away. ‘Not now, but you’ll be there on the night.’ His tone and expression were contemptuous. ‘You’ll not be much
use but we’re all in this together.’

They tramped away along the passage, boots drumming on the boards, and left the club. Sarah realised she had been breathing shallowly from fear and now let out a long sigh, but she was not
relieved. She knew she had overheard the arrangements for a fight between Peter Robinson and McNally. She also suspected that all was not as it should be, or as Peter believed.

She tried to warn him, left the door to the passage open and intercepted him later when he came out of the gym. She told him what she had heard but Peter shrugged it off. ‘Oh, aye, McNally
wants his revenge. They’re all in the business together; I worked that out after the fight when I beat him. But I can do it again. I’ll fight him like I said.’

Sarah was still unhappy. She would have asked Tom for help but he was in Newcastle and she did not have his address there. She wondered, should she tell Mrs Ballantyne? But she was afraid
Chrissie might go to the police and Peter would be arrested along with the others, because street-fighting was illegal.

A couple of days later Chrissie chanced to ask her, not for the first time, ‘Will you slip your coat on and take these to the post, please, Sarah?’ She handed over a sheaf of letters
then added another: ‘And this is for Sophie.’ Sarah memorised the address and wrote to Sophie herself.

On the Monday evening before the fight Peter answered a knock on his kitchen door and found a ten-year-old boy standing there. The urchin, in a ragged jersey, shorts and worn plimsolls, was
panting, having run all the way with his message. He asked, ‘Are you Peter Robinson, mister?’

‘Aye, that’s me.’

‘Mr Nolan says can you come up to the club for a minute? He says he has some good news for you.’

‘Righto.’ Peter fumbled for the few coppers in his pocket and gave the boy a halfpenny. ‘There y’are. Good lad.’

‘Ta, mister.’ Then he pattered along the boards of the passage in his holed plimsolls and ran out into the street.

Peter pulled on his jacket and told his invalid mother, knitting in her chair before the fire, ‘I’m just going up to the club. Won’t be long.’

She smiled at him. ‘You get away and enjoy yourself.’

Billy Hackett, nine years old now, sat on a cracket, a little stool, by his mother, his nose in an old comic he had got through a swop. Peter told him, ‘You be in bed by the time I get
back.’

Billy started to complain, ‘Aw, Peter . . .’ but he stopped when he caught Peter’s eye and said resignedly, ‘Aye, I will.’

At the club Peter found Joe Nolan in conversation with the ex-boxer he had talked with some weeks ago, a man in his fifties, his hair still thick but greying, hands gnarled and tattooed. Joe
said, ‘Aye, aye, Peter. This is Harry Latimer.’ The two men shook hands. ‘Harry was a handy lad in the ring in his time but he’s been going to sea for the past thirty-odd
years. He can put you in the way of a job.’

‘Can he?’ Peter turned to the old seaman eagerly.

Harry Latimer saw that eagerness and warned, ‘I’m not offering a soft touch and I’m not recommending it, either. It’s hard work and hard lying, but we –
that’s the ship I’m on now – we’re short of a hand. The mate was going to get somebody from the shipping office but I thought o’ you. D’ye want the
job?’

Peter did not hesitate. ‘I’ll take it. When do I start?’

Harry said drily, ‘I hope you don’t regret it.’ He warned, ‘Just remember it was your choice. You’ll be paid by the month and all found so you won’t have to
bring any grub with you. We’re sailing with the tide early Thursday morning. Get yourself aboard some time on Wednesday night. I’ll tell the mate you’ll be turning out.’

Peter set out for home, happier than he had been for a long time. As he left the club he met Gallagher and McNally. The latter challenged, ‘Are you goin’ to turn up on
Wednesday?’ Peter hesitated, thinking that he no longer needed to fight because he had a job. Then he remembered that he would not be paid until the end of the month and he would have to
leave some money for his mother and Billy to live on. McNally seized on that hesitation and taunted, ‘Turning yellow, are ye?’

‘I’ll be there.’ Peter shoved past so that McNally staggered, swore and lifted a fist. Gallagher grabbed his arm and muttered something and McNally lowered his hands.

That Wednesday started unseasonably warm, leaden clouds hanging low. As the sun set, the first thunder rolled. Peter packed a battered old suitcase he had bought secondhand for a few coppers. It
gaped at the corners and was secured with a length of clothes line but it would serve his turn. When it was close to ten and Billy was in bed and asleep, Peter said to his mother, ‘I’m
just going out for a bit.’

Margaret Hackett sighed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, son.’

Peter tried to reassure her. ‘I’m only off for a walk.’

‘I know all about the fighting.’ His mother kept on knitting. ‘Folks talk. And I’ve seen you after you’ve had a fight. I’m not blind.’ Peter had hoped
she had not noticed his bruises but now he knew he was wrong. Margaret Hackett pleaded, ‘Don’t do it, Peter. We’ll manage till you get paid at the end o’ the
month.’

Peter hesitated as the needles click-clicked, not wanting to hurt her, but then he remembered how his mother and Billy would ‘manage’. It would have to be by economising on food,
because that was where their little money was spent after paying the rent. He said, ‘I’ve got you a bit better. I’m not going to throw that away. You rest easy, Mam. I won’t
be long.’ He kissed her and left.

When the tread of his boots had receded down the passage Margaret Hackett laid down the knitting, fumbled in the pocket of her pinny for her handkerchief and held it to her eyes.

Peter walked down to Jackie’s yard, which lay not far from the river. A hawker kept his carts and stabled his horses there. A gate in a high wall stood open and the yard lay beyond. It was
flanked by the blank gable ends of terraces of houses and backed by the blind windows of a deserted warehouse. Peter walked in through the gate and on towards where he could see a lamp shedding a
pool of light. Halfway across the yard he heard the gate slam shut behind him.

Sophie had only received Sarah Tennant’s letter that morning. She caught the first train she could from Southampton but it was past nine in the evening when she reached
Sunderland. She took a taxi and rode across the bridge as the thunder rolled. Rain bounced off the road and filled the gutters so they ran like small rivers. ‘Wait here!’ She left the
taxi and ran through the rain into the club as lightning cracked. She sought out Sarah Tennant and demanded, ‘Tell me everything they said.’ So she heard, word for word, the
conversation Sarah had overheard between Fannon, Gallagher and McNally. This only increased the sense of foreboding that had sent her hurrying north and been with her all the way.

Sophie said, ‘I don’t like the sound of it.’

Sarah agreed simply, ‘I think there’s badness.’

Sophie remembered the man who had helped her before. ‘Is Joe Nolan here tonight?’

‘I saw him earlier on, going into the gym.’ Then Sarah cried, ‘But you can’t go in there!’

She was too late. Sophie knew that women, particularly young girls, were barred from the gym but she didn’t care. Tom was not with her to go in her stead so she pushed in through the door
herself. Joe Nolan stood by the ring, leaning on a corner post and watching two young men sparring. Several others were punching bags or shadow boxing. A chorus of yells greeted her entry and Joe
Nolan whirled around, outraged. ‘You can’t come in here!’

Sophie retorted defiantly, ‘I’m already in. And I’m sorry, but I need your help. Will you come outside?’

He was only too willing. He gripped her arm and almost ran her out of the room. In the passage he let her go and complained, ‘I don’t know what’s getting into young lasses
these days.’

Sophie ignored that and asked, ‘Will you take me to this fight?’

He stared at her, uncomprehending. ‘What fight?’

‘In Jackie’s yard. Between Peter Robinson and McNally.’ Then seeing his blank face, Sophie questioned, ‘You don’t know about it?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’

Now Sophie took his arm and urged him towards the door to the street. ‘You tell the driver where to find Jackie’s yard.’

The taxi drove through streets emptied of people by the rain. The pubs were turning out but there were few customers on a wet midweek night, nearly everyone’s money having been spent at
the weekend. The scattering of people they saw were hastening home, caps pulled down and collars turned up against the deluge.

As the taxi turned into another street of terraced houses down by the river, Joe muttered, ‘Funny. I’d ha’ thought there’d ha’ been look-outs, even if it is
raining.’ But no one stood on watch at the street corner. Then he shouted, ‘Here it is!’ The driver braked outside a closed gate and Joe was out of the taxi in a flash and shoving
at the gate.

Sophie joined him and the taxi driver shouted, ‘Here! What about my fare?’

Sophie called over her shoulder, ‘Just wait there!’

Joe Nolan swore. ‘The bloody thing’s bolted!’ He looked up at the high wall in which the gate was set and the other three blank walls that enclosed the yard. The rain ran down
his face and he said uneasily, ‘I don’t like the look of this.’

Sophie stood back and blinked through the rain at the wall lifting above her. Its top had been sown with broken glass. The driver appeared at her side to argue, ‘All very well saying
“wait here”, but I haven’t seen a copper yet and you owe me—’

Sophie shoved her handbag at him. ‘Hold that.’ As she slipped out of her coat she said to Joe, ‘Give me a lift up.’ She pushed him so he stood with his back to the wall.
‘Hands together.’ He linked his fingers and she set her foot in the step thus formed, grabbed at his shoulders and heaved herself up, balanced precariously.

Now she could see over the wall. As she spread her folded coat over the ragged edges of glass she saw carts ranked along each side of the yard, forming an aisle that ran from the gate to a
stable building at the back. An oil lamp hung on the wall there and by its dim light she saw an animal with a half-dozen legs, and arms that appeared as fists then disappeared again into the
shapeless mass of the body. The animal uttered occasional grunts and snarls of rage, cries of pain, but mostly it was horribly silent but for sobbing breathing. Then she realised she was watching
three men locked in close combat.

Sophie moaned softly, fearful, but now the coat was spread and she pulled herself up and over the wall. She lowered herself to the length of her arms and fell the last foot or so. She staggered
but did not fall, shoved down her skirt that had worked up around her waist and ran to the gate. There were bolts at top and bottom where it was set into the wall. They were big, and stiff with
rust, but she strained at them and drew first one then the other. The gate swung wide as she pulled at it and Joe Nolan set his shoulder to it outside. Then he ran past her and into the yard.

Sophie stumbled, a heel turning under her, but recovered and ran after him. The rain beat on her head and washed down her face into her mouth. A spray of dirty water and mud was kicked up by her
running feet to splash up her legs and skirt. Lightning cracked again and in that second-long flash of light she saw Joe Nolan reach the fighting group and clamp his hands on one of them. The
raincoated Fannon stood nearby, fat fist raised as if awaiting a chance to strike a blow. Then the light faded as the thunder rolled overhead.

The glow from the oil lamp showed Joe Nolan hauling Gallagher out of the group, and Fannon stepping up behind him. That was when Sophie raced out of the darkness and into Fannon. It was not a
scientific attack. She simply ran into his back and he was thrown forward, arms flailing wildly as he tried to keep his balance. Then Sophie shoved him again and he fell.

She turned away from him and saw that Joe Nolan had his hands full with Gallagher, who was the bigger man and twenty years younger. Gallagher had hold of Joe at the length of one arm and was
punching at him with the other while all Joe could do was block the blows. Sophie grabbed Gallagher’s arm as he pulled his fist back. Startled, he half-turned and Joe broke his grip then got
in two punches while Sophie still held that arm. Gallagher went down on one knee, head shaking dazedly. Sophie looked for Peter Robinson and saw him standing with his back to the stable wall.
McNally lay at his feet, face down in the mud.