“Tobe, I reckon you’ve led me up the garding. I fought you was my friend, but you’ve let me dahn.”
“When you’ve done muttering, gentlemen,” said Smetton, coming over to them, “I’ll start the second round. You’ve had a lot more than your one-minute interval.”
Toby went back to his corner and Smetton struck the gong.
“Well,” he said, when, after the third disastrous round, Dave had gone off to take a shower under a home-made apparatus in the bathroom, “I dunno what you think, Mr. Sparowe.”
“I expect you do,” said Toby, in a low tone, afraid that Dave might be hanging about in order to overhear the conversation. “The poor kid’s no earthly good at all. A dozen times I could have knocked him cold. He’s fit enough, but he hasn’t the rudiments of an idea what it’s all about.”
“I suppose you were well coached in your young days, Mr. Sparowe?”
“Oh, yes, I was. I boxed for the Varsity when I was up, and our instructor at school had been the middle-weight champion of his day, and one of the masters was a first-class amateur, so I was very lucky. I shouldn’t think Dave has had any proper coaching at all, beyond what they taught him at school and at that boys’ club he told me he joined. He’ll never make a pro unless he’s taken in hand pretty soon.”
“Trouble is, if you ask me, sir, the lad can’t use his head, and that don’t help his fists, if you see what I mean. Dumb as a brick, so far as I can make out.”
“I know. But what has his trainer been doing for him since he joined this outfit? The man ought to be crowned!”
“Search me! That Chris is just a big ape, and nasty with it.”
“But he and Gorinsky, and even Harry, must know they’re handling a hopeless proposition.”
“Unless the lad has been told to keep himself dark, sir.”
“Dark? He’s lost in the fog. I’m very worried about him.”
“He don’t seem too happy about himself, sir.”
“No, I don’t suppose he is. I went as light as I could, but I had to stop those bull-rushes of his. When do you expect Gorinsky back?”
Before the landlord could answer this, Dave, in a towelling bath-gown, emerged from the bathroom and came back to them. He seemed to have recovered his spirits, but was still inclined to be reproachful.
“You’d ought to ’ave told me ’ow good you was,” he said. “Tell you what, Tobe. ’Ow’d you like to be me trainer ’stead of old Chris? Wot you say if I get Gorinsky to sack ’im and take you on instead?”
“Neither of them would wear it, Dave, I’m afraid. I think I’d advise you not to suggest it.”
“I’ll fink it over. And now I’m goin’ to sink me a pint, and if Gorinsky don’t like it ’e knows what ’e can do.” Dave’s air of defiance was, on the whole, rather pathetic, Toby thought. He said,
“Well, if you’ve made up your mind to a pint, I’ll certainly join you.”
“Gorinsky’s gorn to meet ’is bit of skirt orf the train,” said Dave, with apparent irrelevance.
“Oh, really? Have you met her?” Toby enquired.
“Me? No. Don’t warnt to, neever. I don’t go for dames.”
They went down to the bar, and at Smetton’s suggestion, Toby lunched with Dave at the pub before he returned to the station house. There he thought over the sparring match and the boy’s ineptitude. He decided that his guess had been right. There was not any intention on Gorinsky’s part to groom Dave for the professional ring. He was selling him to Gracechurchstreet to take a small part in a television play (the play which Toby had refused to write, but which somebody else, using Toby’s book, most probably would), and then the lad would be ditched and left to fend for himself.
Toby could think of nothing to do about this except to continue his morning visits to the bar of the Swan Revived and wait upon events. As for attempting to obtain an injunction to prevent his book from being used as the basis of someone else’s play, as soon as the idea crossed his mind he dismissed it. The playwright would almost certainly be an American, and the thought of attempting litigation in the States was too alarming to be contemplated.
He had come to no other conclusion by the time he had breakfasted on the following morning, but his determination to visit the pub as usual for his midday pint had not altered.
There was time to kill before the bar of the Swan Revived would be open, and he did not, in any case, plan to get there much before midday. It occurred to him that his article for his aunt’s magazine was not yet written and that he was short of ideas for it. He got out the car and decided to see what inspiration he could pick up on a drive round the adjacent countryside. When he returned and had put the car away, he stepped across to the pub. The bar was empty and there were none of the thudding sounds from overhead to which, during the past weeks, he had become accustomed, although he had never climbed the stairs again to see what was going on until the previous eventful day.
“Everybody out?” he asked the landlord, who appeared, somewhat tardily, from a lair at the rear after Toby had twice rapped on the counter with his half-crown.
“Out? Gone, you mean, Mr. Sparowe. Paid their reckoning almost as soon as you went off in your car this morning, and then they hopped it.”
“Unexpectedly?”
“Sure. Expected them to stay another fortnight at the least. They were booked for it. And mother slaving herself to keep ’em in good hot food three times a day, and Daffy—that’s her cousin—having to run in to Morchester to get in the butcher’s meat and all the other stuff they wanted, and giving up her room to Gorinsky’s young woman and all. Treated like princes they were, and then to go off at a minute’s notice like this! It’s not fair on a man, Mr. Sparowe.”
“Didn’t you charge them extra for going off like that without notice? You’re entitled to, I believe.”
“Well, I did sort of suggest it, but they turned kind of nasty on me, so I let it go. What can one man do against four of ’em, and with two women to protect? Then there was the youngster cutting up rough like that.”
“Didn’t the youngster go willingly, then?”
“I couldn’t say. He was fighting mad this morning, that’s all I know. I kept out of the way, but you could hear him all over the house.”
Toby finished his pint and crossed the road to his home. The landscape was back to normal except for the new black patches which the road repairers had left. There was nobody about and the station looked lonelier and more deserted than ever. The disused railway line, rusty and weed-grown, curved away into the grey and misty distance, and nothing showed any sign of life except a disconsolate group of fir trees on a patch of sandy heathland some half a mile away. Depressed and, on Dave’s account, both puzzled and worried, Toby went into his kitchen and looked disparagingly at the tins on his pantry shelf.
After a meal of tinned stewed steak with a mound of reconstituted mashed potato, followed by a couple of oranges, Toby felt a great deal more cheerful. His feeling of helplessness and insecurity vanished. The station was still on the telephone. He rang up his aunt.
“Could you have dinner with me tomorrow night at Barley’s? I’ll call for you at seven and bring my spot of copy with me. And could you put me up for the night? No, of course that isn’t why I’m buying you a dinner! All right, then, seven sharp and I shall be wearing a lounge suit . . . Well, tell uncle to dine at his club. I want to see you alone, and, anyway, I can’t afford dinner for three.”
Toby had been orphaned at the age of sixteen and from that time his aunt, who had been his mother’s sister, had taken on most of the responsibilities of parenthood, having no children of her own. She welcomed him when he arrived at her London house, enjoyed the dinner he gave her in Soho, but, when they had returned from it, she demanded,
“Well, and why have you come?”
“I wanted to look up a chap or two tomorrow, that’s all.”
“I hoped you’d found a girl down in the wilds of Dorset, and had come to ask an aunt’s blessin
g.”
“Afraid not. Anyway, please don’t start all that again.”
“How long do you want to stay?”
“Only this one night. But if I get a ticket to a fight in which I know one of the boxers, could you have me here again for the night in a month’s time?”
“I suppose so. Since when have you taken an interest in prize-fighting?”
Toby thought it best to tell her the whole story. As he had expected, the only part which interested her was that played by Maverick and Gracechurchstreet, and then only with regard to the commission they had offered him.
“I can’t see why you won’t write the thing for them,” she said. “If you don’t, they’ll probably ask somebody else, and you’ll lose five hundred dollars. I think you’re being rather silly.”
“But they want all kinds of impossible additions which didn’t come into Heathcote’s life at all.”
“Couldn’t you meet them half-way? Give a little, take a little, compromise here, stick your feet in there? It’s always done. Look at Shakespeare.”
“Aunt, dear, you have the soul of a Philistine and the morals of a—well, I’d better not say what.”
“Oh, go to bed! Breakfast at eight, and you won’t get it brought up to you. S.O.S. in these days means Short of Staff, so, if you don’t come down for meals, you don’t get them. Understand?”
“I do. Good night, then. I suppose you’ll wait up for Uncle Edgar?”
“Well, not for long. I don’t know when to expect him. The House is sitting late.”
“Doesn’t he get his breakfast in bed, then?”
“Yes, but I shall take it up myself. I wait on husbands, but not on nephews.”
“Graceless nephews, you mean.”
“I suppose you’ll be here for lunch tomorrow?”
“If you won’t grudge it me, yes.”
“Well, mind you make yourself presentable. I’ve got a contributor coming.”
“I thought you always saw them at your office.”
“Not this one. She’s far too important.”
“Oh, Aunt, darling, you’re not up to your tricks again, are you?”
“Wait and see. Anyway, you’d better risk it. The lunch will be rather special.”
“Oh, well, it sounds as though I’m safe. You wouldn’t go to that sort of trouble for a young marriageable wench who’d probably just as soon have a small slice of underdone beef and a glass of pure lemon juice.”
“A girl of that age would hardly be one of my contributors, dear. By the way, I suppose you’ve brought your article with you? I hope it’s an improvement on your last effort. I don’t really know why I print you. I suppose your rubbish gets by on the strength of your photograph at the head of your column. I must admit you’re not bad-looking.”
“You mean I’ve got that lean and hungry look which makes your readers yearn to be a mother to me?”
On the following morning, at the witching hour of eleven forty-five, he sought his cronies at their favourite pub. His particular quarry was a sports reporter named Pim Carmichael. Nobody knew this enormous man’s Christian name, for Pim was short for pimple, on the principle which operates in the cases of other huge men who are known to their intimates as Tiny. Carmichael even wrote under the name of Pim. He covered boxing and motor-racing for his paper, and Toby had made his acquaintance by accident. Pim had happened to barge into Toby when the latter was conveying a pint of beer for himself and a brimming glass of vodka and vermouth for a female companion (of whom his aunt would not have approved) from a crowded bar to a small table. Pim immediately apologized, which astonished Toby, and insisted upon replacing the drinks, which astonished him still more. Their friendship dated from that hour.
At a quarter to twelve the pub was not unduly full, and Pim had not put in an appearance. Toby got himself a drink and found a table from which he could keep a strategic eye on the door. He had drunk perhaps a third of his pint and was halfway through his first cigarette when his friend appeared.
“My treat,” said Toby. “What will you have?”
“You come into money or something?” asked the huge reporter, settling down to a pint with a chaser of gin.
“No. There’s method in my madness. I want some information from you.”
“I don’t follow the gee-gees. You know that.”
“This is about boxing and boxers. Do you know anything about the Moonrocket Kid?”
“Up and coming young American named Tiquico. Mexican origin, I believe. Never fought over here, but they stopped his fight with Maddeleno in the sixth round and gave the Kid the verdict.”
“Not like the Americans to stop a fight, is it?”
“They say Maddeleno will never box again.”
“How old is the Kid?”
“Twenty-three. Heavyweight. They’re waiting until Cooper retires, and then they’ll match him over here.”
“It seems he’s got a namesake over here already.”
“How’s that?”
Toby explained all the circumstances under which he had made Dave’s acquaintance.
“Well, I suppose there’s no copyright in names,” said the reporter slowly, “but I thought everybody in boxing circles had heard of the Moonrocket Kid. Besides, why would a British boxer be named after the moon rocket? It doesn’t make sense. Another thing: we don’t usually give our boxers fancy names, anyway. Henry Cooper, Jack Bodell, Brian Curvis, Howard Winstone, Chic Calderwood, Bob Fitzsimmons, Phil Scott, Jimmy Revie, Billy Walker, Jimmy Wilde—see what I mean? It’s in wrestling you get the flowery monikers. What did you say this young chap’s manager was called?”
“Gorinsky. Reuben Gorinsky. His trainer is a plug-ugly called Chris—an ex-pro, I rather fancy—and he’s only allowed one sparring partner, a poor old wreck named Harry who must be pushing fifty. I don’t know either of their surnames. Come to that, I don’t know young Dave’s surname, either.”
“And you say they’ve booked this youngster to fight in London?”
“Yes, on the twenty-fourth of next month at the Ironbridge Baths.”
“They’ll be lucky!”
“How do you mean?”
“The Ironbridge Baths don’t close for the winter. They’re of international standard and they’re used for training international class swimmers. You must have got the name wrong. It couldn’t be the Ironbridge Baths.”
“I’m certain I haven’t got it wrong. They’re down Hoxton way somewhere, aren’t they, these baths?”
“That’s right. You know, Toby laddie, loth though I am to think ill of my fellow-creatures, I’d say your Reuben Gorinsky is a slightly shady customer. Professional boxing is very well controlled nowadays, but it still has its fringes, no doubt. Tell me the tale, laddie. What goes forward, do you think?”
“Well, I hardly know. I mean, I’m not in a position to form an opinion. I think the boy is being exploited in some way, but he seems pretty well satisfied with his lot.”
“Who told you he was booked to fight at the Ironbridge Baths?”
“He told me so himself, and there’s no doubt he believed it. Apart from the fact that I didn’t like the manager or the trainer, young Dave can’t box. Then there’s this business of the sponsors. I don’t like them, either, and I don’t believe they’re interested in professional boxing. There’s some other game afoot.”
“Who would they be?”
Toby gave his friend an account of the call he had received from Maverick and Gracechurchstreet and of their offer to finance a play based on the life of William Heathcote.
“And you can see—at least, I can—a sort of tie-up,” he concluded. “They want a fight in a pub and they have connected themselves with Gorinsky, who can produce a young, very good-looking boxer. I rather think they’re going over my head in the matter of turning my book into a play and are featuring Dave as the young hero. If so, they’re up against two obstacles. First, I shan’t agree to their adapting my book to their rotten, sentimental ideas, that’s if
they have the decency to ask me, of course, and they probably won’t—second, if they think young Dave is capable of learning even a couple of lines of dialogue, let alone picking up his cues and timing his entrances, they’ve got a big headache looming.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Lunch With a Crocodile
“Give what you give freely and heartily, but give your guests credit for knowing their stomachs better than you do.”
Anon.—The Analysis of the Hunting Field, 1846
Any ideas that Toby might have had about meddling in Dave’s affairs were dispelled (for a time) in amazed contemplation of his aunt’s luncheon guest. This was an incredibly elderly female whose yellow hands and wrists reminded him of the wings of a pterodactyl and whose clothes came, as P. G. Wodehouse would put it, from another and a dreadful world. Added to this, she cackled in an unnerving manner at what he thought were his most original and penetrating remarks, and for a time made him feel like a six year old who had come to table with illicit jam on his face.
In spite of all this, he liked her. Moreover, he felt that this (to him) irrational sentiment was returned. It transpired, during the course of conversation, that she possessed grandsons and grandnephews of about his age and was expecting a great-grandson in the near future. Toby was emboldened to put to her the case of young Dave and his fears concerning the boy. She listened without interrupting him and waved a yellow claw imperiously at his aunt when that relative attempted to stem the flow of Toby’s eloquence.
“Do you enjoy guessing games, Mr. Sparowe?” she asked, when he had finished.
“I’m not much good at them,” said Toby. “How do you mean, Dame Beatrice? By the way, didn’t you, some years back, cure a friend of mine of claustrophobia?”
“If the two men who came to see you about a play had not been involved with your young boxer, would you have been as much concerned about him as you are?” asked Dame Beatrice, ignoring his second question.
“Is that the guess you suggest I should make? If so, I can’t think of any answer.”
Gory Dew (Mrs. Bradley) Page 5