Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  I try to laugh, yet I don’t like it one bit. ‘But it’s seen everything, you and me, us making love!’

  ‘Hawk! That bird’s seen more fucks than you’ve had hot breakfasts!’ She laughs. ‘It’s a magpie, not a stickybeak!’ She stretches out and grins wickedly. ‘Don’t worry, lovey, it’s too busy on its own nest to be bothered with you on yours!’ She points to the bottom of the bed to where the golliwog lies sprawled. ‘He’s the one what’s got the dirty mind!’

  ‘Maggie, is that all it was, you and me, just another trick, like another hot breakfast?’ I am hurt, even angry, though I know I have no right to be. Maggie has been most generous. Why should I think I hold a special place in her affections?

  Maggie looks at me and, for an instant, I think she is going to cry. Then she sniffs and brushes the underside of her nose with her forefinger. ‘Hawk, I’m a whore. That’s all I am, all I’ll ever be. You hear me? Maggie Pye is Maggie Pye and don’t you forget it.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  TOMMO

  The Rocks

  March 1861

  Two things happen at the Rocks on the Sabbath what always tells me it be Sunday, even when I has the worst head after a heavy night. The first be the church bells, o’ course. They don’t only call folks to worship but also, from the crack o’ dawn onwards, they toll for the week’s dead. One peal for a child, two for a woman and three for a man. Though I dunno why a man gets three and a child one. I reckons there ain’t nothing what makes you any better than anyone when you’ve snuffed it.

  The second thing ‘bout Sunday is the delicious smell of roasting meat. It be the only time in the week when the Rocks don’t smell of the shit what comes from the houses of the wealthy who lives above us in the big houses on the cliffs above the Argyle Cut. Us lot, what live at the bottom of the cliffs below them, receives gratis and free of charge the sewage, what runs over the cliffs into our streets and homes. There’s talk of building sewage pipes to go out to sea but it ain’t happened yet. Maggie Pye, Hawk’s sweetheart, says she can’t wait for them pipes to go into the briny, so’s when the rich eat a fine fish, they’ll find it stuffed full of their own shit! In the meantime, when the church bells toll, it is mostly for the poor.

  Still, some folks here below at the Rocks like to keep up a bit o’ decency. If they save a spare florin by the week’s end, they’ll have a proper Sunday roast. Few if any goes to church, knowing themselves to be of no consequence to God. Instead, while the rich kneel at prayer, the poor partake of the ancient ritual of the Sunday roast. The cottages and skillings here don’t have no stoves nor colonial ovens, only open hearths. So the women buy a joint o’ meat at the butcher shop and take it to Berry’s Bakery, what on a Sunday turn their ovens over to meat-roasting.

  Comin’ home from me cards one Sunday morning, I happen to pass the bakery and I see women standing in a long line outside—each holding a baking dish with a piece of meat and lots o’ taties. Some even has Yorkshire pud. They all be waiting to cook their roast, though it’s no more than ten o’clock in the morning.

  I stop to have a gander. Inside the bakehouse stand two tables what run the length o’ the room and on these you can see two great rows of dishes with more than a hundred baked dinners in the making. Two bakers push the dishes deep into the oven with long poles. The women bring their roast in no later than eleven o’clock and call for them at one. Each woman is charged threepence and given a tin disc with a number on it. Another disc, what’s got the same number, is stuck into the roasting joint.

  Many’s the fight to be seen when the time comes to collect the tucker. Some of the women has gone down to the pub to wait, supped a few drinks and lost their number discs meanwhile. Others remember their particular joint as bein’ a much nicer cut o’ meat than what they gets back. Often there’s a bit of a set-to amongst the women, and the bakers are called on to sort it out. Then they make the offenders wait ‘til last, in case they are just chancing their arm, hoping to steal another’s dinner.

  Mostly, though, waiting for the roast is a friendly time, with poor folk catching up on a bit o’ gossip. And later every street and lane smells of mutton, pork and roast beef as the women hurries home to their families so’s the joints still be steaming hot for their triumphant arrival.

  After I sees this, I tell Hawk about it. What a damn fool idea that were. A do-good expression comes upon his gob, like God’s touched him on the nose or something. ‘Righto, Tommo,’ says he, ‘the first quid you win at cards on a Saturday night goes to the butcher and the grocer for meat and potatoes. We’re going to feed the urchins with Sunday roasts!’ I’m none too happy about this. Sometimes the first pound is hard-earned and then, quick as a flash it’s purloined by Hawk, and I has to begin grafting and relocating ‘til I’ve earned it back again. Knowing that if I don’t take a quid right off them brats will go hungry is a bother I don’t need at the card table. Hawk don’t mind reminding me o’ my responsibility neither. ‘Don’t forget my urchins, Tommo!’ he always says before a Saturday game.

  Hawk’s bought ten roasting dishes and every Sunday, he’s up at dawn peeling spuds. By seven o’clock he’s at the butcher’s, haggling like a fishwife over the size and quality of the meat, demanding with that big, scary smile of his that a portion o’ cracklin’ and basting lard be thrown in for free. By half-nine he’s in line outside the bakehouse along with twenty or so dirty little ragamuffins, each pair holdin’ a dish, with meat and potatoes set out pretty as a picture.

  There’s our Hawk, mother of the unloved and unwanted, standing two and a half foot taller than all the old biddies in line. They’re teasing him about the size of his brood and what’s in his breeches—all of ’em havin’ a grand old cackle like people do when they’s expectin’ a good feed. Soon as it be ready, there’s Hawk and Maggie Pye down by Semicircular Quay, carving meat for fifty or more little brats, what guzzles on the proceeds of me toils like a pack o’ starvin’ dock rats.

  Mr Sparrow were anxious that we finds ourselves better lodgings as soon as we was able, in a more respectable part o’ town, but Hawk would have none of it. He seems to want to stay here and look after his urchins—and me. All he agreed was that we should get better rooms, nearer the Argyle Cut, which is where we be now. Hawk loves his brats and they loves him, following him ‘round like he’s the Pied Piper, a ragged army of starvin’ kids what he tries to feed best he can. Every chophouse knows him for he goes knocking on doors to beg for leftover scraps for his ragamuffins. In the evenings, down by the ferryman’s wharf, he can be heard telling them tales o’ derring-do. They listen enchanted and for a short time seem to forget the hunger gnawing at their bloated bellies.

  Today, though, it’s gunna be Flo what feeds them their Sunday tucker, for Hawk, Maggie and me are goin’ up the Parramatta River to a prize fight. In the evening Mr Sparrow has arranged a game o’ stud poker at the Woolpack Hotel. ‘Some of the Irish gentlemen,’ he cocks an eyebrow, ‘if there be such a commodity, fancy their luck at the card table. I count on you to oblige them and to win ‘andsomely.’ He sticks a bony finger in me chest. ‘So mind you do, lad.’ I confess, there ain’t much left what I likes about Mr Sparrow.

  I ain’t all that happy about Hawk and Maggie Pye being sweethearts neither. After all, she is a whore, or as the sporting gentlemen o’ Sydney would call her, a crinoline cruiser. This is the name for a somewhat higher class o’ slag, but still a slag. Crinoline cruisers hang about sporting occasions where respectable women ain’t found, like dog fights, bare-knuckle bouts, cockfights, card games, and the horse races at Homebush.

  I has to admit though that Hawk seems a happy man these days. He and Maggie has been together more than six months now. When I warn him about catching the pox from her, he nods, with a serious sort o’ look on his face, but I know he ain’t gunna take no notice of me. He’s talking about takin’ Maggie back to meet Mary, for Gawd’s sake! In fact, the two of them women ain’t so unlike. Maggie’s bright but also has a terrible
quick temper like Mary, and a tongue to put many a tar to shame. But she’s witty with it and good company.

  Maggie likes her gin, though I be the last to judge her for that. After all, grog comes with the job for us both. Gin and women is often an ugly combination, though, and it don’t seem likely to lead to connubial bliss. But Hawk, so sensible and solemn, won’t hear no ill spoken of Maggie Pye and thinks the world of her. I tell him not to mention the prospects we has in Tasmania, for he is a man of potential wealth. He promises he won’t, and I know it be most important to him that Maggie loves him for hisself. I just hope she ain’t a gold digger looking for a life of ease at Hawk’s expense. I’m gunna keep a good eye on that Maggie Pye!

  As for yours truly, I can’t say I fancy any of the women around here. Me darlin’ Makareta has spoiled me for the average tart, I reckon, though I don’t let me thoughts dwell on her much these days. Nor me daughter, Hinetitama, neither. My new mistress, the opium pipe, be a great help in that regard. It takes away much of me desire for female company too. It’s a blessing that it does, for good women be thin on the ground in these parts o’ the colony.

  Any respectable girl what reaches the age of sixteen gets herself married quick smart. If you sees a younger girl on the arm of a man, you can safely guess she be a slut in apprentice, or one what’s been on the game for a few years already.

  The Rocks don’t hold much hope for the bloke what seeks a lady’s companionship. Instead, the Botanical Gardens is where the fashionables of Sydney’s fair sex may be found. This be where young toffs go to meet the members of the opposite sex. For a laugh I go up there meself one day. Hawk tells me they ain’t really Botanical Gardens—not like the Kew Gardens of London, what’s a grand creation with exotic trees and shrubs o’ great variety, growing in a green and watered landscape. What we has in Sydney is two rows of stiff gum trees in a long avenue leading into a wasteland of dusty ground. When it’s dry, the slightest breeze blows up clouds o’ sand and dirt.

  But if you go up to these scrawny old Gardens today, you’ll see many gay parasols surrounded by young coves dressed in their Sunday best. The female specimens beneath these bright sunshades only show themselves if you can push through their admirers for a closer look. Most has long since passed the summer of their life and make much use of powder and lip rouge and extravagant bonnets. They is expensively attired and bejewelled, their gold trinkets no doubt the gifts of admirers who’ve failed to make the final journey to the four-poster bed.

  At Semicircular Quay, the boats from Europe are always met by scores o’ young swells hoping to find, for the purpose of marriage, any single female within five years of their age. At card games and the like, I has heard many a bachelor say that there ain’t much choice among Sydney’s unmarried ladies. The demand is great, the supply small, and Europe a long way away, so that the poor specimens what does exist are quickly snapped up by the sons o’ the goldocracy.

  But like I said, I ain’t much worried by all this. I’m busy with me cards, me pipe, and when I can get it, me bottle. The life I’ve taken up with Mr Sparrow don’t let me drink during the daylight hours and only a little during my card games at night. Still, I usually glug down the better part of a black bottle before dawn. But I always keep my senses about me, ‘specially now I has a new way to ease me pain.

  I found the Angel’s Kiss the very first night I played cards for Mr Sparrow, in a gambling den owned by Mr Tang Wing Hung. He’s an important man among the Chinese what comes to Sydney from the gold diggings. He’s tall for a Mongolian, six foot, and thin as a rake. He don’t say much but Mr Sparrow reckons there ain’t much business among the Chinese what he don’t control, and says his bony yellow fingers may be found in many a pie concocted by a Sydney broker or merchant.

  That first night in Chinatown, I did exactly what Mr Sparrow told me. I acted the country bumpkin, a wealthy settler’s son from Tasmania, innocent of the ways of the world. There were no need for Mr Sparrow to blow a smoke ring so that I might resort to ‘other’ methods of winning—me skill proved sufficient. I cleaned up a pretty penny and earned five pounds.

  By dawn’s light, when the game finally came to an end, me head was so painful I couldn’t bear it. When he heard about this, Mr Sparrow talked to Tang Wing Hung and I was took into a small room and given the opium pipe. The pain lifted at once and I came away most grateful to the Angel’s Kiss.

  Hawk is most worried about me new medicine, but I has assured him I use it sparingly and only when me head hurts. The black bottle is still old Tommo’s first love!

  I am now a solid member of Mr Sparrow’s sporting fraternity and Hawk and me is well set up. I earn a fair bit from me card games most nights—though not always so much as five pounds. Mr Sparrow is talkin’ of a partnership, now that I’ve learnt much about what he calls ‘the predilections o’ sporting gentlemen’. Mr Sparrow dabbles in sports of all kinds: horse races, dog races, cockfights, dog fights, gambling and o’ course women and opium. He promises that I shall be a part of all of this if I play me cards right.

  In all these months I ain’t found a broadsman what can better me and it’s grand to have a quid or two. After me first night at the game in Chinatown, I were very glad to see Hawk’s smiling phiz outside the pub, as me note had asked. Hawk takes three pounds of the five I’ve earned. We goes off to a tailor in Pitt Street, by the name of Barney Isaacs. There Hawk pays for a suit o’ clothes, two blouses, and two pairs of hose what he’s had measured up for himself. He said somethin’ about paying his own way, what’s a bit of a laugh as it’s my earnings what’s paying for it! But I don’t begrudge him none. As soon as his clobber were made up and boots bought from the Italian bootmaker in Bligh Street, Hawk gets a position as clerk at Tucker & Co. in George Street.

  Hawk got the job ‘cause of his experience in Mary’s brewery and his knowledge of hops and beer. Captain James Tucker, the brother of the founder, William Tucker, is a wine and spirit merchant. Even though Hawk knows little of this side of the liquor trade, Captain Tucker seems pleased to have me brother in his employ. He were once a ship’s captain himself and likes the fact that Hawk has been to sea. My twin has proved a careful bookkeeper and is always happy to help out, loading the drays and stacking shelves when times is busy in the warehouse. This counts for a great deal with Captain Tucker, what ain’t a man to stand on ceremony and will himself roll up his sleeves when needed.

  And so we’ve made our lives in Sydney. Hawk is still my keeper though I don’t see that much of him—only at breakfast when I returns from a game, not always sober, and then again at supper. He puts me to bed after a breakfast of eggs and bacon or fish, and gives me a good dose o’ Seidlitz powders so that when I get up on his return from work, I ain’t got too much of a hangover. Often when it’s just the two of us, he reads to me from newspapers and books. He gets me to do the same, so that I be ever improving, catching up on what I lost all those years in the wilderness.

  This morning I ain’t retiring to bed though, for we are on a family jaunt, making our journey up the river. The prize fight be organised by none other than Fat Fred, Mr Sparrow’s henchman and the colony’s principal procurer o’ prize fights.

  Mr Sparrow and Fat Fred can always depend on a big crowd as they are the only proper prize-fight promoters in the colony. Prize fights is against the law and most comes about as a result of a direct challenge from one recognised fighter to another. Then a venue is hastily arranged behind a pub or sly grog shop. When news of the fight spreads by mouth from pub to pub, the bookmakers and amateur oddsmen turn up and the betting begins, the odds changing constantly during the progress o’ the contest. Often the ring is simply marked out with stones on the grass and the crowd what gathers around the fight surges backwards and forwards into the ring as the fighters advance and retreat.

  Mr Sparrow, however, will tolerate no such higgledy-piggledy set-ups. He ‘licenses’—some would say owns—all the bookmakers at his fights and rakes in a percentage from each, closi
ng the betting after the start of the bout. At other fights it ain’t unusual, if a favourite looks like he’ll be beat, for some of the crowd to storm the ring and declare the fight ’no contest’ so’s to get their bets back. But Fat Fred has the rings well guarded by ex-pugs and bothermen what are prepared to spill considerable claret if a member o’ the crowd comes too close.

  A prize fight what’s organised by Fat Fred be a most popular event, and despite today’s fight being writ up for weeks beforehand in Bell’s Life in Sydney, the police don’t seem to know of it.

  Maggie is much excited at the prospect of the fight and an outing in the country. She has packed a large basket of cold mutton, roast taties, a fresh baked loaf, three bottles of the best beer and some other tidbits from Flo’s mum, what is a most excellent cook. Even if the fight be stopped by the Parramatta traps, Maggie promises we shall have us a lovely picnic.

  Maggie never works the fights, even though they be a rich fishing ground for Sydney’s tarts. Instead, she dresses up in her finest black crinoline with a black-and-white silk bonnet, her ‘magpie’ colours as she calls them. She takes a great deal o’ pleasure from being seen on Hawk’s arm at these events. Maggie Pye’s become a right dolly bird, cocking a snook at the other girls as they shows their tits in their gaudy silks and wiggles their hips, trolling for a gold fish—what in their lingo means searchin’ out a rich bloke!

  We are all set to go upriver to Parramatta Town aboard one of the little Billy steamers leaving from the Quay. Maggie has persuaded us not to take the railway what has recently reached Parramatta Town but is still somewhat a novelty. Hawk reckons it’ll be nice to be out on the water again and I don’t give a bugger which way we goes.

  Our steamer seems decked out as though for a festive voyage. She’s brightly coloured with a copper funnel and a wide-rimmed chimney, and her shade awnings are of a bright purple and ochre. We’re in for a merry time, the boat being full o’ folk what’s goin’ to the fight, though we’re calling it a picnic so’s to fool any copper who’s aboard in disguise.