The Scrapper

by Brendan O'Carroll

  The other man beamed a smile. ‘Ah sweet Jaysus, Kieran, you’re amazing. Thanks a lot,’ and he rushed off to get the button.

  Kieran Clancy’s mother had told him from a very early age that he had St Anthony’s gift, the gift of finding things. If anything were lost in their home in Dublin, Kieran’s mother would simply say, ‘Just wait till Kieran comes in from school and he’ll find it.’ And he usually did, although he regarded it as a ‘knack’ rather than a gift.

  Confirmation of this knack of his came when he was about thirteen years of age, on a day out at the beach with his mother and father and some relations. Some of Kieran’s aunts and uncles were swimming while he was sitting on a towel on the sand with his mother, devouring sandwiches. Kieran’s Aunt Maeve returned from the water dripping wet and looking so cold that even her goose bumps had goose bumps. She was about to take a sandwich when she suddenly exclaimed, ‘Good Lord, my ring! I’ve lost my wedding ring!’

  Kieran’s mother got Maeve to take Kieran and herself out to where she had been swimming. ‘It was about here,’ she told them, ‘but you can’t even see in the water it’s so clouded with sand.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Kieran’s mother said, and she simply nodded at Kieran. Kieran was now standing up to his thighs in seawater. He bent over and dug his hands deep into the sand beneath the water; slowly he brought them up and, as the water washed the sand from his hands, there on his little finger was a gold wedding band.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ shrieked Maeve. ‘You’re a marvel! Betty, that child definitely has St Anthony’s gift.’

  When at eighteen years of age Kieran had announced to his mother that he wished to become a member of the Garda Síochána she showed little surprise, and her only comment was, ‘Well, with St Anthony’s gift you’ll probably make a great detective.’ Detective Kieran Clancy: he liked the sound of that.

  Now Kieran stood there on his graduation night, a tiny smile on his face as those memories came floating back to him. He didn’t know he was being watched.

  * * *

  Moya Connolly had not planned to come to the graduation this evening. She had been on the verge of a tantrum, insisting she wasn’t attending yet another graduation ball with her father, the Police Commissioner. She was a beautiful girl and her father loved to show her off – with her red hair, pale skin and green eyes she looked the typical Irish colleen. But an Irish colleen without a boyfriend. For with fiery red hair came a fiery temper, and although many’s the man and boy had tried, none could tie her down. Exasperated, her father often said, ‘No man will pick Moya, ‘tis Moya will pick her own man.’

  Unknown to her father, that very night Moya was making her choice. She looked Kieran Clancy over again and again: his blond hair, the high cheek bones and the strong chin. That mischievous glint in his eye.

  Moya’s mother sat down beside her at the circular table, which still had the remains of the evening’s dinner scattered around it. ‘His name is Clancy, Kieran Clancy,’ she announced. ‘He comes from Rathfarnham. He’s twenty-three years of age and he wants to be a detective.’

  Moya was stunned at first, then burst out laughing. ‘Oh Mum, you’re a tonic – you should have been in Intelligence.’

  ‘I often think I am, dear, and have been all my life.’

  The two women laughed, then Moya became a little more serious. ‘He is nice, isn’t he, Mum?’

  ‘Gorgeous. And he graduated top of the class, just like your father.’ Both women were now looking at Kieran.

  ‘Oh Mum, I swore I’d never fall for a policeman.’

  ‘So did I, love.’ Again the two women laughed.

  As they watched Kieran, Moya’s father approached him and began to speak to him.

  ‘What’s Dad doing?’ Moya wondered aloud.

  ‘He’s going to introduce him to us – I asked him to.’

  ‘Oh Mum, for heaven’s sake!’

  They saw the two men chat, Kieran now out of his casual pose and standing erect, military-style. After a few moments the Commissioner raised his hand, indicated their table, and the two began to make their way towards Moya and her mother.

  ‘Good God, he’s bringing him over.’

  ‘Well, of course he is! What did you expect him to do – shout the introduction across the room? Just be calm, dear, for goodness sake.’

  Moya tried to be as casual as possible when the two men eventually reached the table. Kieran Clancy was even more attractive close up than he had been from a distance. He shook the Commissioner’s wife’s hand very formally and then turned to Moya. He took her hand in his, and was in the middle of saying ‘How do you do’ when his expression changed completely. Carmel Connolly looked at her husband and smiled. The Commissioner smiled back. They were both recalling a similar situation thirty years previously – and, surprisingly, the Commissioner blushed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BY ANY STANDARDS, it was a beautiful house. Sheila Murtagh had convinced her husband Dennis to allow her to do all five bedrooms in different colours, although Dennis himself would have gone for plain white throughout, reflecting his keep-it-simple attitude, an attitude every bank manager needed. The Murtaghs had three children and three children’s bedrooms, although only two of them were being used, as the two boys shared bunk-beds in one of the rooms. They were sound asleep right now. In the other occupied bedroom was Deirdre, the Murtagh’s eldest child and only daughter. She was sixteen and had all the trappings of a sixteen-year-old’s lifestyle scattered around her room. Deirdre was in her room, but she wasn’t asleep. She would have found it very difficult to sleep in the position she was in, spread-eagled on the bed, face up, with an arm tied to each of the top bed posts and a leg tied to each of the bottom bed posts. Her eyes were tightly closed and across her mouth was a strip of surgical tape. She was breathing heavily through her nose and through the tape one could just hear her murmur, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace …’

  Downstairs in one of the two carver chairs in the dining room sat Sheila Murtagh. Her legs were tied to the legs of the chair and her arms to the beautiful hand-carved arm rests. She too had surgical tape across her mouth, but unlike her daughter who was unscathed, Sheila had bruises and small cuts across her forehead and down the left side of her face. She seemed to be sleeping soundly, but actually she had passed out some fifteen minutes earlier from overwhelming fear.

  Half-way down the hall, and through two french doors, was the main living room. On the pink velour couch and its matching armchairs sat three men, smoking and talking.

  The two that sat on the couch were easily identifiable as brothers; they were Bubbles and Teddy Morgan. The Morgans were large men and had been inseparable since their early childhood. They had been in school together, they had been in borstal together, they went to parties together, and they had been in prison together. The two were a bit of an enigma, you see, for Bubbles had no capacity to think, so Teddy had to think for both of them, and Teddy had difficulty even in thinking for himself! Neither was married, nor had either a girlfriend, although Teddy had been in love for a short time with a girl called Eileen Coffey. Though this love was never reciprocated, Teddy always regarded Eileen as ‘his girl’. Unfortunately for Teddy, Eileen was getting married that day, which probably accounted for his grumpy humour, the brunt of which had been taken by Sheila Murtagh in the kitchen. Neither of the two men was speaking; instead they were completely focused on and listening to the third man in the room.

  This was Simon Williams. In Snuggstown he was known as Simple Simon, not because Simon was retarded in any way – quite the opposite. Simon was a very intelligent, very sharp man. He’d got his nickname ‘Simple’ because that was the first word Simon used to solve any problem. If somebody ruffled Simon’s feathers, Simon’s answer would be, ‘Simple, break his legs.’

  ‘Some day I’m going to have a house like this boy’s.’ Simon spoke softly as he glanced around the room. ‘Yeh see, lads, it’s all about application. It’s not enough to think y
ou want to do something, you have to go and do it. And people have to know that you’re that kind of man. They have to know that if you say you’re going to do something you will, without fail. That’s how you get respect, lads. You take the arse-hole who owns this house. If I walked into his office yesterday and talked to him about, let’s say, starting a new business, do you think he’d give me respect? I don’t think so. But two seconds after he walks through that door you watch the kind of respect we get.’

  ‘And will yeh still live in Snuggstown, Mr Williams?’ Although the conversation had moved on, Bubbles Morgan was still at the house stage.

  ‘You must be joking, Bubbles! I don’t want to live in Snuggstown, I just want to own it, and then I’ll live somewhere else.’

  ‘You will, Mr Williams, you will own it!’ Teddy knew the right things to say. Simon smiled slightly; he enjoyed adoration, albeit from fools. The beam of two headlights swung across the room as a car pulled into the driveway of the Murtagh home.

  ‘Aye, aye lads, here’s our man.’

  ‘Let’s hope he has the keys, Mr Williams,’ Teddy commented.

  ‘Oh he has the keys all right, if not he’ll find them – otherwise we’ll bash the door of the bank down with his daughter’s head.’

  The other two men began to laugh and Simon had to shush them with a finger over his lips.

  Dennis Murtagh climbed out of the car, slammed the door and went around to the boot from where he extracted his golf clubs. He used the brass Yale key to open the garage door, and he left the clubs just inside. It had been a tough game, he hadn’t played well and he was tired. He hoped to go straight to bed, and in the back of his mind prayed that his wife was not in the humour for a chat. As he walked across the driveway to the front door the exterior light was switched on by a motion sensor. He let himself into the outer hall, closed the door and double-locked it, then went through the french doors into the hallway itself. He stood for a moment with his mouth agape. Three bulky figures stood before him, their faces covered by stocking masks. One thing he noticed that would stick with him for the rest of his life was that the middle figure had a Trilby hat on over the stocking mask. The other two held pistols. In unison the three cried, ‘Surprise!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SPARROW AND EILEEN HAD A SHORT HONEYMOON of ten days in Galway city. Although Eileen still had fourteen weeks to go before the birth of the baby the couple did nothing over-energetic; instead they spent their days taking short walks, eating and talking. In the evenings they would have a couple of drinks and then eagerly look forward to going to bed together, not just for lovemaking but for the pleasure of being there with each other. Neither Sparrow nor Eileen had ever, as adults, experienced that feeling of falling into a deep sleep with somebody else’s arm around you, and then waking up every morning to have beside you the one person you wanted in life. It was a great honeymoon. But when they returned to Dublin at the end of the ten days the honeymoon was well and truly over. Tommy Molloy, Sparrow’s coach, saw to that.

  Tommy had chosen The Star And Crescent Boxing Club as Sparrow’s training camp for the next two months. Although it was only thirty miles from Dublin, in Drogheda, Tommy had arranged digs there for the entire team, and for two months Sparrow would not see Eileen. They talked every morning and every night on the telephone, but as the training went on these conversations became shorter and shorter and Eileen could tell that Sparrow was getting more and more focused on his fight. Tommy Molloy had arranged flights and accommodation for Macker, Rita and Eileen out to Madrid. But Sparrow would be travelling ten days beforehand for acclimatisation, training, and, of course, to meet the press. By the time the night of the fight arrived and Eileen, along with Macker and Rita, stepped from the cab into the entrance of the stadium, Eileen had not seen her husband for twelve weeks. And Sparrow had only seen the progress of her pregnancy in photographs sent to him by his mother. These are the sacrifices that have to be made for a thirty-minute grasp at glory.

  In the dressing room Tommy Molloy taped Sparrow’s hands tightly, all the while speaking to him: ‘You are the champ. You will be the champ. This guy is no match for you. You want it more than he wants it.’ This last phrase sent Sparrow into a reverie. Sparrow had long ago realised that he was never going to be academically bright. His only route out of Snuggstown to fame and fortune and a secure future for his wife and child would come either through music or sport. Sparrow couldn’t sing or play an instrument, but he could box. This was his shot, his ticket out. In the ten days since he had arrived in Madrid he had read articles about Lorenzo Menendez. He could have been reading about himself – similar background, similar amateur fighting success. Similar. Similar. The winner would move on, probably to a world title chance, the loser would go back to Snuggstown, or Santa de la Snuggstown or whatever. Tommy Molloy slapped Sparrow hard across the face. Sparrow snapped out of his reverie with anger.

  ‘That’s it, Sparrow, you want it more than he does,’ Molloy was screaming at him now.

  As is traditional, everybody left the dressing room two minutes before the fight. Sparrow sat alone. Then slowly he stood up and walked to the end of the room to the full-length mirror. He was afraid, very afraid – not afraid of being hurt, he’d been hurt before, and wounds heal. He didn’t know what he was afraid of, but there was something, something … He looked at his body from top to bottom: he had never looked better, he had never felt better. He was ready. He spoke to his reflection.

  ‘I want it more than he does.’ He said it again and again, the last time screaming at himself. ‘I want it more than he does!!’ The dressing-room door opened. Tommy Molloy stuck his head in and announced, ‘It’s time, Sparrow.’

  The Sanmartino stadium in Madrid was hot and heaving with bodies. As Macker, Rita and Eileen were led to their ringside seats the noise of the crowd was deafening. The two women sat quietly. Macker remained standing. Slowly Macker turned full circle to take in the huge crowd that seemed to sweep away from the ringside straight up to the roof of the massive building on all sides. Here and there he could see Irish flags, but the red and yellow of Spain was everywhere, and the crowd chanted ‘Men-en-dez’ in unison over and over again. Macker defiantly puffed out his chest and smiled as he slowly sat down. At the ringside the Irish radio commentator Jimmy Magee spotted Sparrow’s family. He waved and they acknowledged his wave, then he returned to his microphone to tell the folks listening back home that the family had arrived.

  The MC stepped through the ropes and took his position in the centre of the ring. In his left hand he held some papers. He was dressed in a dinner suit and bow tie, with his hair slicked back. He looked like a head waiter about to read the contents of a menu rather than a man about to introduce two ‘pitbulls’ into the ring for a slaughter. Slowly, from above the MC, a microphone dropped out of the lights. When it reached his shoulder the MC took it in his right hand.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Sanmartino Stadium, in association with De La Cruz Fruits, are proud to present the sixth bout on your card this evening. The bout is to decide the European Lightweight Championship Title. Let me first introduce the challenger. Wearing white trunks and weighing one hundred and twenty-four pounds, from Ireland, Anthony “The Sparrow” McCabe.’

  A spotlight came on from the back of the stadium, focusing on the dressing-room doors and directing everyone’s attention to them. The crowd stood up. Rita McCabe’s heart shuddered as she beheld the tiny figure of her only child, dressed for battle.

  Macker screamed, ‘Yea, Sparrow!’ His scream was primeval and animal-like. It frightened Rita even more than she was already frightened. Rita looked at Eileen. Sparrow’s new wife did not stand or clap, but sat looking down at her knees. As Sparrow began to make his way to the ring the crowd booed and cat-called at this young man whom they had never met and had only barely seen before. Rita placed her hand on Macker’s arm. ‘They hate him,’ she said.

  ‘Of course they do, woman, they’re Spanish! What did you expect,
for fuck’s sake?’ Macker roared back as he roughly shrugged away her hand.

  ‘Kill the bastard, Sparrow!’ he yelled as Sparrow stepped into the ring. This scream was even wilder than before. There was spit dribbling down his chin and his eyes were bulging.

  Staring at her husband, Rita slowly sat down. She was sorry she’d come; she should have stayed at home and listened to it on the radio as usual. She felt Eileen’s hand on hers, and it was cold. She took it. The women’s fingers interlocked and their terrified eyes met.

  If the derisory booing had unsettled Sparrow, he didn’t show it. As Tommy Molloy massaged his neck and shoulders, Sparrow had a perfectly calm look about him. His eyes were glazed as if he was in a trance. Every square inch of his body was ready for this fight. Were an artist to be given clay and asked to mould it into a Grecian Olympian model, the result would have resembled the tiny Irishman in the white trunks. His body was ready. All that mattered now was his mind. As he finished his massage, Tommy Molloy took Sparrow’s head firmly in his hands. He brought his face up to Sparrow’s until their noses touched. He locked eyes with Sparrow and spoke strongly but calmly, ‘You want it more than he does.’

  Sparrow nodded.

  ‘If you weaken he’ll kill you.’

  Sparrow nodded again.

  Then, with a smile, Tommy said, ‘I love you.’

  Sparrow hadn’t been expecting that! Nervously he began to laugh and Tommy joined in, their laughter drowned in the boom of the MC’s voice.

  ‘And now, Ladies and Gentleman, the defending champion.’

  The crowd exploded into a deafening roar that really scared Rita and Eileen. It went on and on, so loud that the stadium actually shook, and so long that all that was heard from the MC was the final ‘… Lorenzo “The Village Boy” Menendez.’ And the roar took off again as the olive-skinned man appeared in the spotlight.