by JH Fletcher
‘It’s not that. I wouldn’t ever ask such a thing.’ But the silence went on and on, heavier with every second, until she could bear it no longer. ‘Did you?’
A mouse would have squeaked louder.
Again silence. And then …
‘I never seen her before,’ Charlie said. ‘So how can I ’ave slept with ’er? But you believe what you want.’
‘Do you fancy ’er?’
A pause.
‘No.’
‘Why not? She’s good looking, isn’t she?’
‘She’s all right, I suppose. But that’s not what you asked. You said did I fancy her. And I don’t.’
If he’d planned his answer for a year Charlie could not have chosen his words better. If he’d denied Alice’s looks Sarah would never have believed him. But he was right: looks and attraction were not the same.
Timorously she stretched out her hand. Her fingers interlocked with his. She couldn’t speak, but that didn’t matter. Because her body could speak for her, could act out the dictates of her heart.
And did.
Christmas Day was tricky. Sarah saw Alice and thought of her with Henry and how they’d been together. Thought of how she’d placed her hand on Charlie’s arm and smiled at him.
And now Charlie was going to fight for the money she said was owing to her.
Yet it was Christmas and you couldn’t let things get you down. It was a blazing hot day, as Charlie had predicted. Between the trees the sky shimmered, half sapphire, half brass. Even the river smelt hot, while its surface was almost obscured by clouds of insects that would have invaded the saloon had Sarah not kept all windows and doors tightly shut. There was no wind and the leaves of the gums hung limp.
So all of them crowded into the stifling saloon: Charlie, Sarah and Luke, Will and Petal, and Alice Henderson.
There was a present for Luke, a tiny paddle steamer carved in wood, which Charlie had found in Goolwa on their last visit. And later, in the privacy of their cabin, he gave Sarah a bottle of violet scent that he had picked up in Niland.
She opened it and sniffed. Powerful enough to blow your eyes out. Delighted, she dabbed it here and there.
‘Got somethin’ for you, too,’ she said.
It was a kerchief to wear about his neck. ‘So you can look smart when you go ashore.’
‘Not like the scruff I am now,’ he said.
She set her lips primly. ‘I shoulda said, even smarter when you go ashore.’
Reeking of violets, she danced down the steps to the saloon, where she caught Alice in mid-sniff.
‘Help me make some toffee.’
Alice was reluctant, Sarah determined, and Sarah won.
‘I bought the cream specially.’
She had kept it in the cool box by the paddles. In this heat it was a miracle it had kept, but it had. They pounded the cream with sugar and eggs and poured the mixture into a pan. Into the oven with it; when it was ready, out it came again. As soon as it was cool enough to handle it was pounded and rolled up and stretched and pounded again, Alice helping whether she wanted to or not, until every corner of the boat smelt of toffee, their mouths were running with spit and the scent of violets was entirely eclipsed.
For dinner they had cod — of course — and a ham and a chook, with the toffee to follow, and beer and whisky and a tot or three of gin, so that soon they were all packed to the gunwales and tiddly and laughing.
‘Merry Christmas!’ Sarah said, and laughed some more, for no good reason except she was happy. ‘Charlie, give us a tune on your mouth organ.’
Which Charlie was far from wanting to do, but was persuaded at last, as from the first he had known he would be. He fetched it, grumbling, and blew a tentative note or two.
‘What d’you want?’
‘Somethin’ Christmassy.’
So he tootled. ‘Thou Who Cameth From Above’ followed ‘Lo He Comes With Clouds Descending’, while some tried to join in and others didn’t and Luke sucked on his new toy paddle steamer and flung it across the saloon.
Alice turned to Sarah. ‘I’m poor. I couldn’t afford presents for everyone. But I got somethin’ I’d like you to have. Because you bin kind to me.’ And she smiled, with pointed tongue and a hint of teeth, eyes opaque and shining, so that Sarah wondered what creature might be hiding behind them.
‘There’s no need —’
‘I want to give it to you. It’s not worth anythin’. I picked it up somewhere, I forget where. But it struck me as somethin’ unusual. I’d like you to have it. As a keepsake, like.’
She held it out. Sarah took it hesitantly, inspecting it. It was a stone, flat and white, in the shape of a human face. It was unusual, as Alice had said, and harmless, yet something about it made the blood hesitate in Sarah’s veins. She put it down carefully. She looked up and surprised Alice with a sly smile on her lips. Sarah was filled with a sudden overwhelming hatred for this woman who had come into her life from nowhere and taken away her peace. She felt like throwing the stone overboard. Instead she smiled, biting back her feelings.
‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’
CHAPTER 28
But Sarah had more important things to worry about than the strangely shaped stone. Tomorrow was the day of the fight.
She was angry with Charlie for taking such a risk. She had visions of him beaten to a pulp. He had lived hard but had not fought in all the time she’d known him. She couldn’t see how he could be sharp enough to win.
And so she tossed this way and that all night, until dawn brought grey skies and the threat of unseasonable rain.
She lay on the bed with her head turned on the pillow, watching through half-closed eyes as Charlie got up and began to put on his clothes. She saw his hard white chest and muscled back, the play of sinew as he bent to put on his trousers, the sturdy arms that could lift a wool bale. He was strong, he was quick, he was confident — but would he win? She saw the same flesh black with bruises; she saw her Charlie beaten to his knees, eyes blind, nose askew and still not giving up, never giving up, because he wouldn’t, the stubborn fool, her husband, her love, her life, putting himself and all of them on the line in an illegal punch-up for Alice Henderson’s benefit.
She remembered Alice’s pointed tongue tasting the air and was convinced that Alice had been mocking her, was secretly mocking her still as Charlie made ready to face the day and the unknown opponent whom Sarah hated with every atom of her being.
Her nerves were stretched to breaking point as she heard Charlie go whistling down the deck towards the engine room, as if he had no care in the world. She got up too and looked out of the window. The grey day matched her mood, the grey uncertainty of not knowing what she would do if anything happened … She turned away from the window, eyes wide, breathing deep, determined to go no further down that path. Everything would be fine. It would; it must. She went to Lukey and talked to him as she changed him, muttering gobbledygook, then carried him on her hip as she clattered down the steps towards the galley to make breakfast.
And found Charlie and Alice in the saloon together. They turned to face her as she came in as though they had been speaking together but had now stopped.
She made herself smile. ‘Good morning!’ If she’d had strychnine she’d have fed it to Alice in her porridge.
Charlie gave breakfast a miss. It made sense, with the fight scheduled for ten o’clock, but Sarah had cooked the last of their eggs for him, and porridge, and he would eat none of it. She felt useless, frightened, resentful of Charlie for putting them all at risk, and ashamed of herself for being so.
She’d thought she wouldn’t be able to eat a mouthful either, but managed somehow. All through the meal she talked about anything and nothing, her voice as brittle as sticks.
At last Charlie said it was time. He gave his wife a long, searching look, took her wrist very gently in his big, hard hand — but was it big and hard enough? — and led her a little aside.
‘Perhaps it might be be
st if you stayed behind.’
It was like a blow to her heart. ‘Don’ you want me there?’
‘Of course I do! It’s just that I thought you might prefer not to see it.’
‘And not know what’s going on? That would be worse!’ She smiled at him with brilliant, lying eyes. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Leaving Petal to look after Luke, the rest of them went ashore — the brothers subdued, Alice excited, Sarah smiling and gay on the outside with a feeling of death in her heart — and went to the fight.
The ring was an open space under the trees, half a mile from the riverbank. There was a big crowd of men, far bigger than Sarah had expected. Some of them were sharply dressed, others in working clothes, but all were talking and laughing as though it were a picnic and they were there to see men grilling meat for tea instead of pounding each other into bloody ruin.
Sarah hated them for being there, Doug Champion for organising it, and Charlie for agreeing to fight — exhibiting himself in front of these people like a prize bullock at a show. Except that prize bullocks were not treated the way fighters treated each other and themselves.
But she kept her strongest hatred for Charlie’s opponent, whom she had not yet seen but would have boiled in oil for the threat he posed to her and hers.
A man she did not know scowled at her. ‘What yer doin’, missus? No place for a woman.’
Sarah’s chin went up. ‘I’m ’ere to see my husband win the fight.’
I’m here to see him kill the other man. And when he’s done that I’ll get him to come and kill you too, if you talk to me like that.
The man stepped back, touching his forehead. ‘Sorry, missus, I didn’ know.’
He took off, leaving Sarah trembling and close to tears.
Silence fell as Charlie and Will came forward. Men parted to let them through. Some slapped Charlie on the shoulder and others did not, so it was easy to see the way the bets had gone down. More ignored him than touched him; Charlie’s opponent was favoured to win.
Damn their eyes, thought Sarah, and meant every syllable.
There was no wind. The air was inert, heavy with impending rain, so that the smoke from pipes and cigars hung blue and sharp and it was hard to breathe.
Sarah looked about her at the men waiting to see the fight. There must have been a hundred of them. Most of the faces were red with good cheer and spirits. The sound of the mob was a tide that ebbed and flowed, carrying all manner of filth with it. Because these men, born into the world as Charlie and his opponent had been born, who lived and breathed and maybe wept as they did, were here to see two other men maim each other for sport, and were loving every minute of it.
There was shouting, sudden and violent, as Charlie’s opponent pushed his way through the crush. With all the people about him Sarah caught only glimpses, but they were enough. He was bigger than Charlie by several stone. He had a yellow, shaven head like a cannonball, no neck that she could see and shoulders heavy with muscle. He also had a belly on him like a woman six months gone.
On the other side of the ring Charlie looked little more than a boy.
Will was at her side. ‘Jake Cousins,’ he said, half under his breath. ‘I’ve heard of ’im.’
‘Is he a real fighter?’ asked Sarah, heart in her throat, dreading the answer.
‘More a brawler than a real fighter. But he knows how to hit.’
Fancied himself, too, by the look of him. No sooner had he stripped off than he raised his fists above his head, strutting like a rooster on a dung hill. He went across to Charlie — not to greet him but to look him up and down superciliously. When he’d had a good look he laughed, as though amused by the inadequacy of the man he was about to fight.
The crowd growled, smelling blood.
Doug Champion went into the ring and ordered Jake Cousins back to his corner. Doug turned to the crowd and began to speak. What it was Sarah couldn’t hear above the noise; she knew only that the moment was fast approaching when she would either have to watch her husband pulverised or shame herself by looking away.
Will had gone back to Charlie’s corner, but Alice was nearby, standing on tiptoe, head craning, eyes hectic in her flushed face. The two women watched as the fighters — because that was how Sarah would have to think of him, wasn’t it, not as her husband but as a fighter — approached each other and touched fists. And the fight began.
Sarah’s eyes were wide and staring but her brain absorbed nothing of what she saw. She heard the baying of the mob, sensed the gasping breath of the two fighters, the thud of blows. It was only after it was over that images came back to her. Of a man staggering back, arms flailing, legs going, under a torrent of blows. Of blood flying in heavy drops while the mob screamed. Of arms at full stretch, clenched fists raised to strike. A yell of triumph as a man crashed backwards against the crowd, head flung back, one side of his face a red ruin, an eye black and bleeding. An image from hell: arms thrown in the air, a face lifted to the sky. A figure swaying as though it might fall forwards or back. A skull spouting blood from eyes and nose and mouth, no longer a man but a nightmare, an image that she thought would haunt her for ever.
He fell, and was still.
The mob bayed blood.
Sarah turned to Alice with groping eyes. ‘Is it over?’
‘Oh, yes! Oh, yes!’ Alice was dancing with excitement. Because Charlie, against all the odds, had won.
Sarah was sick with relief, so weak that the bones might have been drawn from her legs. She could barely stand but waited until Charlie came to her. Now he was a hero to all the world, this man she did not know, with his triumph burning like fire in him and his eyes eating her up.
He was cut about the face, with a bruise or two showing dark against the white skin and his knuckles red and swollen, but there was no injury that time would not cure.
‘Thought you’d see your old man whipped, did you?’
‘Never!’ she lied. ‘But I was afraid for you, of course I was. How could I be anything else?’
‘All talk, that’s what he was. Talk, and that belly on ’im.’
‘How is he?’
Charlie spat redly onto the earth. ‘Jake Cousins? He’ll be fine. You couldn’t kill him with a bomb.’
CHAPTER 29
With a purse of a hundred, some side bets and a couple of gifts from men who’d backed him at good odds and done well, Charlie made eight hundred pounds from the fight. Enough to pay out Alice Henderson and leave plenty over.
Doug Champion came after him, full of talk and plans for the future. ‘I’ll set you up with another one, soon as you like. I always said you could be a champion, and by God I was right. Make a fortune out of it, mate, my oath you will.’
Charlie looked sideways at Sarah. ‘What about it?’
She stretched out her hand, eyes desperate. ‘No, Charlie, please …’
Charlie shrugged. ‘Another time, Doug. Maybe we’ll have a jaw about it then.’
‘Anything you say, Charlie boy. Whatever you like.’
And Doug scurried away, leaving an unquiet silence between Charlie and Sarah.
Sarah said, ‘I don’ want you to do it, Charlie.’
‘You heard him. We could make a fortune.’
‘It’s not worth it!’ Passion swarmed over her. ‘Not for a thousand quid!’ And then, in a low voice: ‘I was that frightened …’
He looked at her searchingly and shrugged. ‘We won’t say no more about it, then.’
She seized his arm, gave it a little shake. ‘You mean it? You promise?’
He hesitated, then grinned. ‘I promise.’
But the fire of his victory still burnt in him; he was aglow with triumph. His eyes were full of it, his voice rang with it. He was as he’d always been: a man who needed danger.
She said nothing, but smiled, keeping Charlie close, and the day ended, as she had known it would, with a burst of passion so intense that she clung to him and cried out, her voice rising higher and higher on
a wave of ecstasy that crested and crested again most gloriously, and she did not care who heard her.
1881
CHAPTER 30
Sarah later believed that was the day it happened, although when it came to that sort of thing no-one could really be sure. For a while she said nothing, telling herself the news could keep until she was certain. The way Charlie had been with Luke, he’d want her to sit around all day and twiddle her thumbs. The idea drove her crazy. So she waited until things were beyond doubt, and still said nothing. Then she decided to keep quiet until Alice had left. It would take a while to reach Goolwa, but as Charlie said, if Alice was planning to leave them there it was only reasonable to take her.
It was the middle of March when they finally headed south across Lake Alexandrina, Brenda pitching and wallowing in a hatful of wind, typical of that area. Sarah kept her fingers and toes crossed as they approached Goolwa, afraid of last minute hitches, but she need not have worried. They tied up at the wharf and Alice went ashore, smiling and waving and blowing kisses, with her little portmanteau and five hundred pounds for her share of the business, and Sarah felt she could breathe again at last.
‘She seems happy enough,’ Charlie said that night.
‘So she should be. She’s got five hundred quid of our money.’ Sarah was a forgiving soul, but only sometimes.
‘I hope she’ll be all right,’ Charlie said.
‘She’ll be fine. She’s a survivor.’ Why should we care? She thought, but managed not to say so.
Even Petal, waddling like a duck, bum and belly almost on the deck, was glad to see the back of Alice. ‘Always seemed to be laughin’ at us behind our backs,’ she said. ‘As though she knew somethin’ we didn’t.’
‘And her eyes everywhere,’ Sarah agreed.
‘All right for you,’ Petal told her. ‘You got no worries, the way you look, but what about me? Will’s a lively lad, know what I mean, and who’d want to come near me, the way I am at the moment?’