by Peter Watt
Max was first to enter the hotel built on the corner of two streets. His bull-like frame forced a way through the close-packed patrons. Daniel and Michael followed in his wake as they were assailed by the acrid, thick smoke of cheap tobacco, vomit and the unpleasant stench of unwashed and profusely sweating bodies.
Kevin O’Keefe saw the three men make their entry as he stood leaning against a wall with his arm around a young prostitute with sad old eyes. She might have been twelve and her grime-smudged face could have been pretty, except for the scabs around her lips and a blackened eye from a beating she had suffered at the hands of a drunken customer the night before. Her long greasy hair hung limply around her face and she clung to O’Keefe, desperate to have him share her flea- and lice-infested palliasse for the night – at a price.
‘Ahh, gentlemen,’ O’Keefe slurred. ‘It’s so good to see you all here in my Sunday retreat.’ The girl eyed Michael with a mixture of curiosity and mercenary calculation. He was certainly handsome, she thought, as she tossed her head to help hide the bruises. ‘Michael, Max and Danny meet . . . damn! I don’t know her name,’ O’Keefe said, pushing the girl in Michael’s direction. ‘Anyway, meet this little lady who wants to befriend me for the night.’
The girl flashed a coy smile at Michael who ignored her. Nor did he smile at O’Keefe’s weak attempt at humorous reference to the girl’s status as a friend. Kevin O’Keefe was big and handsome with flashing eyes that always seemed to be laughing. Traces of a brogue still existed, a legacy of growing up with Irish parents. Like Michael’s accent, it had the touch of the Cockney about it, and visitors from the Old Country had often commented on this strange new accent emerging among the Australian colonials.
‘We’ve come to take you back to the Erin,’ Michael said in a loud voice to be heard over the raucous and drunken laughter around them. ‘There is a serious matter we have to talk about . . . in private.’
O’Keefe’s eyes narrowed as he glanced sharply at Michael. Then he shifted his attention to Max and Daniel. ‘What serious matter, young Michael?’ he asked suspiciously, as he sensed trouble if the three had ventured into The Rocks to fetch him.
‘Not something we can talk about here. Something I want to talk about elsewhere,’ Michael replied, as he pushed away an old and toothless whore who had attempted to attach herself to the handsome young Irishman. Daniel prayed she would not settle on him next as she looked capable of inflicting physical pain in return for rejection.
O’Keefe swigged from the tin mug. ‘Can’t go yet. Have to stand Jack Horton a round,’ he finally replied. ‘Jack is not someone you stand up if you want to keep friends in these parts.’
As if on cue, a bull-necked man, slightly shorter than Michael but much broader in the body, growled, ‘Yer not be plannin’ to go just now, O’Keefe, would ye?’
Michael could smell the putrid stench of rotting meat at his shoulder and tactfully stepped aside to give the man space. O’Keefe had hoped that Horton might not have noticed the entry of the trio but they had stood out for the fact of their sobriety.
‘I am afraid I have been summoned by young Michael Duffy here for a meeting of sorts . . . at the Erin,’ he replied apologetically to Horton.
‘Michael Duffy?’ Horton registered a hint of recognition on his badly scarred face that vividly reflected a life of physical violence.
‘Michael Duffy. The great man ’imself from the Erin! I’ve ’eard about you, pretty boy,’ he said with a sneer, as he pushed his face up to Michael’s. ‘’Eard yer some kind of fighter. But yer don’ look much to me, pretty boy,’ he challenged, with his unblinking yellowed eyes.
‘My friend, vould you like to talk to me?’ Max said quietly, but with a menace that could not be mistaken for a request as he stepped protectively between them. Horton felt the sharp tip of the small knife prick his belly through the dirty jacket he wore and he turned to face the ice-cold smile of the German. Their eyes locked and Horton recognised a man equal to himself in the ability to inflict pain and death.
O’Keefe realised the deadly situation developing, as Horton was not a man to back down, and he did not want Michael or Daniel caught up in what might become a bloodbath in the hotel. If Kate found out that he had allowed the situation to turn into a brawl she might never speak to him again. He was fully aware of how much she idolised her brother.
‘Jack, I’ll tell you what,’ O’Keefe said reasonably. ‘You take what’s-her-name here for the night, my compliments, and we will call it square. How does that sound to you?’
Horton made a quick appraisal of the girl clinging to O’Keefe. She was young and he liked them young. He liked to make them scream, to make them beg for mercy, before he took them. ‘I’ll take the girl an’ you can leave with the pretty boy an’ his friends,’ he said, licking his lips with anticipation. The young girl instinctively shrank away from the man whose reputation for inflicting sadistic pain was well known in The Rocks. Horton was relieved to have an excuse as a way out of the confrontation. He knew the German was a man like himself and thus capable of slitting his belly with the short knife. Accepting the offer was not backing down. Just a bargain between mates.
O’Keefe pushed the girl towards Horton who grabbed her by the throat and kissed her roughly on her broken lips as he groped with his hand at the tattered and grimy dress she wore. Tears streamed from the young girl’s eyes as she tried to find her strangled voice to plead for mercy, but no words could come. He held her and lifted the hem of the dress as his hand slid up the inside of her thigh, and he chuckled with pleasure when he felt the girl stiffen as his stubby fingers entered her. She gasped with pain at the rough probing of the sausage-like fingers and tried desperately to struggle free, but his bear-like strength pinned her helplessly.
‘True love,’ O’Keefe said lightly as he placed his hand on Michael’s chest. He knew that any rash move by him to help the girl might be his last as Horton also carried a knife, and he could see that the man was watching Michael from the corner of his eye, anticipating his reaction.
‘The girl . . .’ Michael attempted to protest, but Max cut him short.
‘Not vorth dying for, my friend,’ he muttered as they pushed their way to the hotel’s entrance.
‘Hey! Pretty boy!’ Horton shouted as they departed. ‘Next time I meet yer, we will see ’ow good yer are. Before I kill yer,’ and he turned his attention to Max. ‘And you, cabbage eater, I will kill you if you get in my way,’ he snarled. Max ignored him. A lot of men had threatened him over the years. Most of them were dead. Michael heard the threat directed at him and felt an ominous chill. Men like Horton did not make idle threats and he reminded himself to stay away from The Rocks in future.
They left the hotel and Daniel breathed an audible sigh of relief. Now all they had to do was get back to the Erin where the patrons preferred fists rather than knives to settle arguments. They hailed a horse-drawn tram in Pitt Street which took them most of the way to Redfern.
The four men sat in silence for the journey and O’Keefe searched his own thoughts for reasons that might bring the three men into The Rocks on a Sunday night to fetch him, and he had a vague and disturbing thought that it might have something to do with Kate. Had Kate gone to her brother and told him that he, Kevin O’Keefe, had forced himself on her? Forced himself on her! Why, she had practically seduced him in the cellar beneath the hotel’s main bar.
When they left the tram at the top of Pitt Street they trudged in silence to the Erin where Max pushed O’Keefe roughly to the back of the hotel.
They stood facing him under a jaundiced yellow light cast by the gas lamp of the street outside the yard. Deep shadows covered the spaces between empty wooden crates stacked neatly awaiting collection, and something about the silence from the three men and the atmosphere in the tiny cluttered yard warned O’Keefe all was not well. His survival instincts were soon realised when he saw Michael slip off his coat and hand it to Daniel. He balanced himself warily in a fighter’s sta
nce. So this was it. But why?
‘You know I like you well enough, O’Keefe,’ Michael said casually, as he circled him with his fists raised in the traditional bare-knuckle fighter’s posture. ‘So this is not personal. Well, that is not completely true. This is personal,’ he added, as O’Keefe licked his lips and raised his hands to defend himself.
‘I don’t know what this is all about, Mick,’ he replied as he eyed Michael’s defence for an opening. ‘But you are making a big mistake.’
Michael’s first punch came blindingly fast and caught O’Keefe’s ear with a sting that caused him to swear and retaliate with a wild swing of his own. ‘Bejesus, Michael. That had a bit of ginger in it,’ he said with a snarling grin as he unleashed a one-two-three barrage at Michael’s head. Two of his punches connected and Michael grunted in pain, but he was not slow in returning the barrage as he sought the opening that, for a split second, O’Keefe had left after hitting him. One of his punches slammed into O’Keefe’s face, bursting his nose with an audible crack. Blood sprayed over both fighters and spattered Daniel, who tripped over a wooden crate in his haste to get out of the way of the two slogging at each other with blows heavy enough to drop lesser men.
In his haste to escape, he dropped Michael’s coat which tangled itself around O’Keefe’s feet, causing him to lose his balance. Michael took advantage by slamming three hard punches into him. The blows caught him face, belly, face. O’Keefe toppled, cursing whatever had hold of his feet, and he slammed into a high wooden paling fence which gave way with a splintering crash.
Michael danced back from his fallen adversary with his fists raised for another telling barrage as O’Keefe lifted himself groggily from the muddy ground. He could taste blood in his mouth as a red haze drifted before his eyes and he was not sure whether he had been tripped or had fallen of his own accord.
‘Jesus, Michael,’ he groaned as he spat the blood from his mouth. ‘What in hell is this all over?’
‘Are you going to marry my sister, O’Keefe? Or does Max get a go at you after I’m finished?’ Michael answered between gasps for air as he danced around O’Keefe. The punches had taken all his strength and he was hoping his opponent would not rise in a hurry.
‘Katie!’ O’Keefe exclaimed. ‘Why would Katie want to marry me?’ Michael did not answer as he was not satisfied that his sister’s honour had been properly defended, and when O’Keefe finally regained his feet shaking off the coat from around his ankles, he circled Michael warily. The red haze was gone from his vision and he was once again a fighter who had a healthy respect for his opponent’s style.
He feinted with a left hook but Michael had anticipated what was coming and had stepped inside his defence, snapping a stinging punch to his broken nose. The telling blow was rewarded with a grunt of pain from O’Keefe.
The pain enraged him and, with a bellow like a bull, he waded into Michael with a flurry of hammering blows that forced him back against the stack of wooden crates. Michael felt his lip split as his back went up against them and he desperately fought back to fend off the blows.
The fight deteriorated into a slogging match between the grunting and panting men. Max yelled advice but Michael was too busy fighting to stay on his feet to heed him, and the finer points of bare-knuckle boxing advice were lost in the haze and pain of the battle.
Exhausted from the furious exchange of punches, both men mutually separated to circle each other. Blood from Michael’s split lip splashed down the front of his once starched shirt which was now crumpled and stained.
‘Why would Katie want to marry me, you bog Irish bastard?’ O’Keefe panted as he jabbed at Michael’s face with a short left.
‘Because she is going to have your kid,’ Michael hissed back as he unleashed a left and a right to O’Keefe’s face, who unwisely dropped his fists and stared at his future brother-in-law in amazement. ‘And she wants you as her husband.’
Kevin had never really considered marriage to Kate as he knew Frank Duffy’s low opinion of his convict parentage. Now Michael was saying he had to marry Kate because she was expecting their child!
Michael saw the opening when O’Keefe dropped his hands and instinctively capitalised on the other man’s mistake. A single blow sent O’Keefe crashing into the ground. He sat up groggily rubbing his jaw. The red haze was back, but this time it was full of swirling black spots.
‘Are you saying all this is about me marrying Katie?’ he groaned.
Michael kept his fists up waiting for his opponent to rise to his feet. ‘That . . . and a matter of honour,’ he panted. ‘For what you have done to my sister, O’Keefe.’
Kevin tried to grin but his face hurt too much. It was a strange way to become a member of the family! But it was no less than he expected from the likes of the Duffys.
‘Well, then, I suppose it’s my duty to stand you all a drink to celebrate the occasion,’ he said, extending his hand in a gesture of peace. ‘If you will only help me up. I am sure old Frank will let me buy a bottle of the best.’ Michael eyed the outstretched hand with suspicion.
‘Ja, Mikey. O’Keefe can buy us a drink,’ Max said as he retrieved Michael’s coat, now equally as tattered as the two fighters’ faces.
Michael dropped his fists and took the offered hand of his soon-to-be brother-in-law and heaved him to his feet.
O’Keefe placed an arm around Michael’s shoulders. ‘I could have beaten you,’ he said with a grimace, spitting blood on the ground. ‘If you hadn’t told me about Katie. Except Katie would never have forgiven me for hurting her precious brother.’
Michael returned the grin. ‘No chance of that,’ he replied. ‘No one beats a Duffy. Especially an O’Keefe.’
They laughed as they shook hands and Daniel breathed his second audible sigh of relief for the night.
But his relief was cut short when the kitchen door was flung open and all four men cringed at the sight of the woman standing with her hands on her hips in the doorway. There was a fire in the beautiful eyes and they instinctively winced at what they knew was coming. They were like guilty schoolboys caught stealing apples from an orchard.
‘Michael Duffy! Daniel Duffy! And you . . . Uncle Max! What have you done to Kevin?’
Michael attempted to protest. ‘Us, look at . . .’ He stopped short as the withering glare of his sister came to rest on him. The grey eyes softened noticeably when she saw the amount of blood on his face. But just as suddenly the coldness returned to her eyes.
‘What am I going to tell Aunt Bridget?’ she snapped. ‘You know she hates you fighting, Michael.’
‘Me fighting!’ her brother protested. ‘What about . . .?’ Her withering glare cut him short again and he knew that his protests were futile. He hung his head like a little boy. What could you do when a sister gets angry with you?
Daniel foolishly decided that he should try legal logic about the merits of natural justice employed to defend a sister’s honour. But as soon as he opened his mouth he only brought himself to her attention, and he wisely decided that it was best to save his legal logic for reprieving men from the gallows. It would be easier than reasoning with Kate Duffy when she was in this kind of mood.
Sheepishly all four men followed Kate into the kitchen where she poured hot water into an enamel bowl from the big kettle that remained permanently simmering at the edge of the stove. She fetched clean rags from a kitchen cupboard as Michael and Kevin sat at the table side by side, waiting meekly for her nursing skills to be applied to their battered faces.
Max and Daniel made a tactful retreat from the kitchen, leaving the angry young woman alone with the two battered fighters as she dabbed at Kevin’s bleeding nose.
‘You will have to hold the cloth underneath until the bleeding stops,’ she said gently. But when she dabbed at her brother’s split lip with a clean cloth she was not so soft and gave him another of her withering looks.
He took away the blood-soaked rag from his swollen and bleeding lip. ‘Kevin says he wan
ts to marry you, Katie,’ he said and hoped that his statement of the marriage proposal might soften his sister. ‘Told me out in the backyard himself.’
She paused as she washed and wrung out a blood-soaked cloth in the enamel basin. ‘Kevin will ask me when he is ready,’ she answered. ‘I don’t think it is the concern of brothers, uncles or cousins, to be the first to know. And it’s not as if I am prepared to marry the first man who asks me for my hand.’
Confused, Michael shut up to dab at his lip, and he noticed that her eyes said silently, ‘Leave us’. He nodded his understanding and, as he closed the kitchen door quietly behind him, he was able to catch Kevin’s mumbled proposal. ‘Kate Duffy, will you honour me by becoming my wife?’ Michael did not have to hear his sister’s reply because he knew what it would be.
He smiled and winced as he dabbed at his bleeding lip and mused on the profound differences between men and women. How was it that his sister had no sympathy for a matter of honour that was inevitable under the circumstances? He sighed and shook his head at the eternal mystery of life. Ah, but they were wondrous and mysterious creatures, despite all their vagaries.
ELEVEN
The seagulls rose as a squalling white cloud over the yellow sands of Manly beach. Michael Duffy watched the birds float on a gentle breeze before they descended again on the dismembered carcass of a cuttlefish. He scooped up a scalloped shell and tossed it at the squabbling seabirds but the shell fell short.
‘Leave them alone, Michael,’ Fiona gently scolded. ‘They are doing you no harm.’
The barefooted Irishman stood in the break of the wave’s wash that ebbed and retreated hissing back to the ocean. His trouser legs were rolled just below his knees and his shoes strung around his neck by the laces. Fiona had also removed her shoes and she carried them in one hand. She also carried a colourful parasol as the late afternoon breeze plucked at the long filmy material of the white cotton dress she wore. The sea had soaked the hem because she had not been fast enough to avoid one of the big breakers rushing ashore when she had played the timeless game of daring the ocean to catch her with its watery fingers. She would shriek with delight and fearful anticipation as the sea rushed up the hard-packed sand towards her. Then she would dance away nimbly to avoid its clutches. Once or twice the ocean had won the dare.