by Peter Cocks
I never knew Edward Savage, but I was glad to have the ring. I fixed it on a thong around my neck. For luck.
FORTY-THREE
I could hear the roar of the bikes long before we arrived at Brands Hatch. By the time Sophie parked up at the circuit, the scream of the engines was high-pitched and deafening, setting my teeth on edge and making me feel more anxious than I did already. For Sophie it was the opposite: she found the noise exciting, said that it got her revved up. Once we got out of the car, she squeezed me round the waist and kissed me.
She had dressed in a kind of biker style for the outing, which made me laugh because she was going nowhere near a bike. She wore a tight, white leather jacket, white jeans and biker boots. Her hair was scraped back and she wore red, wrap-around shades. She drew glances from the off-duty sponsorship girls smoking fags near the entrance. She drew glances from the stewards and race marshals. In fact she drew glances from everyone, because she looked hot. I felt proud that she was with me. It made me feel better.
We watched a couple of races from the trackside: blokes throwing themselves around the tarmac at ninety miles an hour, their knees scraping the ground as they dropped the bikes on the corners. Sophie pointed out Jason’s bike to me. He was driving like a nutter, weaving in and out of the other bikes. The sun was shining and the air was thick with the smell of burnt fuel and rubber. Around us there were pin-up girls in sponsors’ T-shirts holding up numbers, and craggy-faced blokes waving flags and changing wheels. I had to admit, the atmosphere was as cool, sexy and exciting as an action movie.
“Let’s go and get a drink,” Sophie said. We walked away from the track up into the stands. Needless to say, Tommy Kelly had a private enclosure that looked down on to the circuit. Inside it was insulated from the roar of the bikes and was filled with the noise of loud laughter and chatter. There was a private bar and a buffet laid out with food. In the middle of it all was the man himself, nursing a gin and tonic, surrounded by other men who were hanging on his every word. It was Sunday, so there were no suits, but they all sported those kind of smart-casual clothes that golfers wear: sharply creased trousers, Italian shoes and disgusting jumpers in garish colours. The smell of aftershave was strong in the air and caught in my throat. Heads turned as Sophie walked in, and Tommy’s associates, all flat noses and capped teeth, smiled nicely at her as we crossed to the bar. Whether they looked at me or not, I didn’t notice. I looked straight ahead. Sophie got us Cokes and I picked up a couple of sausage rolls from the buffet. A late breakfast.
Tommy called us over. “Sophie you know…” he said to the man he was chatting to. “And this is Eddie, who I was telling you about. Eddie’s going to be helping me out with the pictures.” The man held out his hand. His face was tanned and his features sharp.
“Saul Wynter.”
“Saul’s my accountant,” Tommy explained. “Financial genius, keeps all the books straight.”
The man laughed and appeared to think better of something he was about to say. I was searching my brain for a topic of conversation that I could have with the man who cooked Tommy Kelly’s books without putting my foot in it, but I was saved by Jason coming in from the track. A smattering of applause went round the enclosure.
“Nice one, son,” Tommy said. Jason’s face was smeared with soot and people slapped him on the back of his leathers as he crossed the room to his father. Tommy hugged him with the arm that wasn’t holding his gin.
“Did you win?” Sophie asked.
“Weren’t you watching?” Jason looked at his sister and then at me.
“We were,” Sophie protested, “but I don’t understand who’s winning and when. There are lots of numbers.”
“Personal best,” Jason said. He reeled off some times that made no sense to Sophie or me.
“Congratulations,” I said. He ignored me. Someone handed him a cold beer, while others gathered round and joined in the backslapping. From what I had heard, Jason wasn’t especially popular, but everyone present wanted a piece of him just to keep in with his old man.
“What’s happened about the fight, Jase?” an old bruiser with short white hair and a nose like a mashed potato asked him.
“Still looking for someone. A suitable opponent has yet to be found,” Jason said in a silly posh voice, sticking his fists up like a prize fighter.
“It’s not easy,” Tommy Kelly said, joining in. “All the good amateurs are matched up. And we’re not going to put him against any old donkey. Or anyone too good, come to that.”
“Thanks, Dad!” said Jason.
“No, I don’t mean it like that, kid.” Tommy put his arm around his son again. “It would be stupid to put you in with a pro. Dangerous. We just want a good fighter about your age and weight for a good exhibition bout.”
Jason looked at me. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” Sophie was about to protest. “Next week.”
“Are you a scrapper?”
“Jason, I don’t think—” Tommy began.
“I can look after myself,” I said, feeling the hairs rise on the back of my neck. He gave me the pip.
“Why don’t I fight him then?” Jason asked. He squared up in front of me. He was bulkier than me, but I had a couple of centimetres or more in height over him.
The voices around me faded into the background: Sophie telling her brother to leave me out of it, Tommy saying it wasn’t a good idea, one or two others suggesting that perhaps it was – that I looked up to it. It was one of those decisions only I could make.
Fight or flight?
I could either pick up the gauntlet or run scared, but I needed to prove myself in front of these people.
“I’ll fight you,” I said.
FORTY-FOUR
I started training the following morning.
I’d had a bit of a row with Sophie the night before. She was dead against me fighting her brother. Said it would split her loyalties, put her in a difficult position. I argued that Jason had put me in a difficult position and that if I’d backed down, everyone would have thought I was a complete wuss. I needed their respect.
Tommy Kelly seemed to have come round to the idea by the evening, saying it would be a good bonding exercise. People gain respect for each other in the ring, he said. As long as neither of us beat the living daylights out of the other, it should be a good exhibition bout. He even went as far as booking me in for a few training sessions at a gym over in Canning Town. Jason had been training up at the Elephant and Castle for a while and Tommy didn’t want anyone having an unfair advantage.
I got up at six on the Monday and started running, down to the waterfront and along to Greenwich. It was chilly and a mist rolled in from the river. I jogged across the wet cobbles on the old side of the river, past the burnt-out wreck of the Cutty Sark, then up towards the park. By the time I reached the statue at the top, my heart was pumping and my throat and lungs were on fire in the damp air. I wasn’t as fit as I’d thought. I put my hands on my knees, panting, looking out across the river to the Dome and beyond. I thought how far I’d come since my first date with Sophie at this same spot.
It was a long way.
At ten I bought a ticket and got on the DLR at Deptford. The train went under the river, emerging among the skyscrapers I had seen from the other side a few hours before, then on into the badlands of the old docks. The people in business suits all got off at Heron Quays and Canary Wharf, and by the time I got out at Canning Town, the only people around were Indian women with kids and ratty-eyed blokes with Staffies.
The gym was down a side street. Outside it was a small bronze statue of a boxer: an eighteen-year-old boy who, according to the plaque underneath, had died of a brain haemorrhage in the ring. I didn’t want to think about it. It was a shit statue anyway.
“I’ve been booked in by Mr Kelly,” I told the girl on reception. “I’m training with Gary Cribb.”
The Kelly name got me immediate attention. An energetic man with cropped grey hair and
a Lonsdale sweatshirt was out to meet me in seconds.
“Eddie?” he said. “Gary.” He shook my hand and clasped me on the shoulder. He was lean, his hands like steel and his accent pure East End. “Great to have you here. Have you done much boxing before?”
I told him that I’d done a bit at school … that I’d won a cup when I was fourteen and also had a brown belt in judo. He laughed at that.
“Not a complete novice then?” He winked and feinted a punch at me, which I instinctively defended. I didn’t tell him that I had also done a five-day crash course in killing with a Welsh sadist.
He showed me to a changing room and threw me a pair of gloves. “We’ll do a couple of rounds so I can see where we are.”
I changed into a vest, track pants and boxing boots, then pulled on the big, elasticated sparring gloves and went out into the gym.
There were four rings in the space and a couple of blokes were sparring in one of them: a giant of a black bloke lumbered forwards slowly, throwing thudding jabs at his trainer’s pads.
Elsewhere boxers pounded speedballs, the noise throbbing against the walls of the gym. Others worked at heavy bags that hung from girders across the ceiling. I walked past a sweaty, well-muscled bloke who was slamming hefty hooks into the bag. Every blow sounded like a cricket bat hitting a leather sofa, and I was glad it wasn’t my ribs that were soaking up his punches.
Gary Cribb was waiting for me, stripped down to a vest. He must have been nearly fifty but he was in really good shape. Sculpted and hard. He helped me up into the ring.
“Have you been doing this long?” I asked.
“Training?” he said. “About twenty years. Long enough. I was pro before that, middleweight, and before that I was in the Marines.”
It sounded like a pretty good pedigree to qualify as a hard bastard, I thought. “Why did you give up boxing?” I asked.
“It hurt too much.” He pressed a finger on his broken nose, flattening it against his upper lip, and laughed. “Right, let’s have a go.”
I chased him around the ring, trying to catch the pads that he held high, at face level. He called out encouragement to me, telling me to watch his eyes, not the pads. You can anticipate an opponent’s moves far better by looking at their eyes than their fists, he said. By the time you’ve looked at their fists, it’s often too late and the thing’s in your face, busting your nose. We did a round like that and he said I was pretty fast and accurate, but needed to get more strength behind my jabs, to come off the back foot more. The weight behind my punches needed to come all the way from my back heel.
We did another round with Gary wearing gloves too. He came at me, jabbing through my defence, showing me my weak spots. I led with a good left, which stopped him coming forward for a moment, but then, pleased with myself, dropped my right. Gary didn’t waste a second and his left hook found the opening, swinging into the side of my head. We were only wearing big, 10 oz sparring gloves, but the blow stunned me and I staggered back. I’d hate to be hit by this bloke for real.
“You all right?” he asked. “You completely dropped your guard. Fatal mistake.”
We took a break and Gary asked what I knew about my opponent. I told him very little except that he wasn’t much of a stylist and had a good punch. Gary nodded. He said he’d seen Jason Kelly fight at Repton Boys’ Club in Bethnal Green a couple of years previously. I needed to try and dominate the centre of the ring, he told me, to keep him at bay with stiff jabs and to deflect his charges, like a bullfighter.
Gary showed me how he thought Jason Kelly might work, rushing me with combinations and wild flurries of punches. He showed me how to work the corner of the ring and the ropes, how to defend myself while my opponent wore his energy down trying to get at me. The Rope-a-Dope, he called it. Perfected by Muhammad Ali in the “Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman in 1974.
We boxed about eight sparring rounds, then Gary worked me on the heavy bag, trying to get weight and speed behind my hooks before finishing on the speedball.
He sat me down in the café area after and made a list while I necked a protein drink. I was cream-crackered but buzzing with the aggression I’d unloaded. Gary listed my training regime, which included running, sparring and weights. He said he thought that I was pretty good. That I should be ready to have a go in six weeks.
I told him I only had four.
“Has anyone mentioned anything about enhancing your performance?” he asked in a low voice.
I was confused for a minute. “You mean ster—?” He put a finger to his lips and nodded. “No,” I said.
“It’s your choice,” he said. “I won’t lie to you. Regulated boxing’s generally as clean as a whistle, carefully policed. But there’s plenty of that gear available around here. The place is funded by it and I expect you know where it comes from.”
I began to make the connection in my head. “No, I don’t want anything like that.”
“Good man,” he said. “Just remember, it’s a charity event. For villains. The rules aren’t quite so stringent. It’s outside the board of control, so your opponent will probably be up to the gills in the stuff.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said.
FORTY-FIVE
It was my eighteenth birthday and Sophie took me out for the evening. We went up to the West End and Sophie drove. The city looked surreal as we crossed Tower Bridge. The towers were lit up bright and the modern buildings beyond were glowing with blue neon. Further down the river someone was popping fireworks, which made the night sky flash red too. The Tower of London loomed on the left and it felt as if we were driving into a fairy tale.
One with no guarantee of a happy ending.
We had a drink just north of Covent Garden in a downstairs bar full of ultra-skinny art students and fashion people. I felt a bit square among the bohos. They had crazy haircuts and were all wearing vintage skinny jeans and pointed shoes. And half of them were outside smoking roll-ups on the steps. Sophie didn’t seem to notice. They all looked at her anyway.
She gave me a present. It was a classic Omega watch, stainless steel and chunky. “Speedmaster Pro. First watch on the moon,” she said. “Dad said Neil Armstrong wore one.” It had a black dial with push buttons and a steel strap.
I was really chuffed. It was a great watch and must have cost her a few quid. It meant something, given because she liked me. She was pleased that I was happy with it.
We walked from the bar a couple of blocks to The Ivy. The booking had been made for us, otherwise I don’t think they’d have let me in. The service was amazing – they treated us like film stars. In fact, sitting two tables away was an A-list American actress who was over here in a West End show. Sophie told me not to stare, and I tried not to, but she looked as if she had come from a different world altogether. Which I suppose she had.
I had shepherd’s pie, which sounds boring, but it was fantastic. The mash on top had been grilled until it was crisp and the meat inside was melting and delicious. Sophie had grilled Dover sole and they gave us both a glass of champagne. I broke my rule and drank it. It was my eighteenth birthday after all. Sophie was all for going on to a club, but I cried off. I’d been up since five-thirty, running, and had to do the same again the next day. Gary had allowed me a lie-in, but only till six-thirty. Hardly a luxury.
We drove back across Waterloo Bridge with the lid down. The evening was cold but dry and the city still looked impressive from this angle: the London Eye sparkling white with its spiderweb cables. Big Ben’s clock face lit up yellow, clanging out twelve.
I thanked Sophie for a fantastic evening and asked her if she wanted to stay at mine. She kissed me in the car outside the flat but said she needed to get back, and anyway didn’t I have to get up at the crack of a sparrow’s fart? I agreed that I did, and she touched me on the nose, said my birthday treat could wait. As she drove away, I felt a real sense of loss. I’d wanted her to stay with me.
I’d become more dependent on Sophie since I
’d had less contact with Tony; since I’d lost my security blanket. I called and texted her more often and she seemed pleased, as if she liked me to need her a bit more. And why wouldn’t I? She was lovely.
And I was falling…
I found it hard to sleep, but at half six I was back out on the road. The run to the top of Greenwich Park was getting easier and I was now on nodding terms with one or two early dog walkers. There was an old boy with a white pug who looked just like him. He asked me what I was training for and I told him. He said to work on the body: keep laying into the ribs and solar plexus until the head drops and then go for the nut.
Everyone had a piece of advice for me except the advice that I wanted – from the people who were supposed to be looking after me.
I had texted Ian Baylis the bare details of the fight arrangements and had heard nothing back. My only ally was my trainer.
Fortunately, Gary was very encouraging. Although I was tired after my night out, he was pleased with my progress. The speed of my combination punches was improving, my footwork was good and I was launching attacks off the back foot, making my leads and jabs twice as effective. A stiff jab poked regularly and hard into the opponent’s face is a very tiring weapon, Gary advised.
He also worked on my ability to soak up punishment, by battering my ribs and dropping medicine balls on my stomach from a height. Plus I was doing sit-ups, stomach crunches and press-ups by the hundred. I could skip so fast, forward and backwards, that you couldn’t see the rope, just hear the whip of it spinning and the crack as it hit the floor.
The third week Gary put me in the ring with sparring partners. One was a black guy, Gilbert, who was a good bit bigger than me with a much longer reach. He kept me at bay with a long, heavy jab, and swung slow hooks at my body. My job was to parry the jab and try to step inside his defence. Also to try and ride his shots, slipping back, so they didn’t land on me with full force.