A Kid for Two Farthings (8 page)

Then Shmule moved his hand up and down in fast little movements against his thigh, and the referee, jumping about watching, saw the sign, and told Python to let go, the Hammer gave in. But Python wouldn’t let go, and Shmule bit his lips in agony. Now the crowd shouted against the Python, but that didn’t help Shmule. The referee and all the seconds jumped on to him to tear him away, and the bell rang.

Blackie and Oliver helped Shmule to his corner and gently rubbed him, putting wet towels on his face. The crowd was furious with the Python, but he didn’t care. He shouted back at them, showing off his muscles and asking if any one would like to try them. ‘Filth!’ Mr Kandinsky shouted, but poor Shmule looked pale and his eyes were closed. ‘He’s a dirty fighter,’ the man with painted hair said, ‘but give credit, he’s got a grip like iron, the bleeder.’

‘Get us some more nuts, Fred,’ the woman replied.

Blackie and Oliver were working hard on Shmule, who breathed deeply, the colour coming back into his face. By the time the bell rang for the third round, he seemed as good as new.

‘But you can’t tell,’ the man with the painted head said, ‘he could have a couple of ribs broken clean and he wouldn’t know till after.’

‘Has he got a couple ribs broke?’ Joe asked.

‘God forbid,’ Mr Kandinsky answered, ‘God forbid.’

Blackie and Oliver must have told Shmule not to waste time, because he came out fast and made straight for the Python, who, being pleased with himself, was a bit careless. Shmule clasped his hands together and raised them for a rabbit punch, but he was too late. The Python crouched away, out of distance, not careless any more. Then a look of pain suddenly crossed Shmule’s face, and the Python grinned and came in to attack, his hands low.

‘He’s hurt,’ Sonia whispered.

‘He’s hurt all right,’ the man in front of Joe said. But what a surprise! Shmule suddenly leaped forward and caught the Python a great crack on the jaw with his left fist. The Python looked surprised and fell down.

‘No boxing,’ the crowd yelled.

The Python started to get up at once, but Shmule was on top of him, his knees to either side of his stomach, his hands firmly planted on his shoulders, pressing them to the canvas. As he pressed he strengthened the grip of his knees. The Python groaned, shouted. He jerked and jumped and twisted, but he couldn’t throw Shmule off.

‘He can give it,’ the man said, ‘but he can’t take it. Go on, boy; do him!’

The Python beat the floor with both hands and Shmule let go at once.

‘Good boy,’ the man said.

‘He should give him the same as he got,’ Sonia said; ‘why should he fight him clean?’

The crowd cheered Shmule, but the Python wasn’t hurt as much as they thought, because as soon as Shmule broke away, he leaped to his feet. Not fast enough though. Shmule wasn’t so green now. He didn’t stop watching the Python for a second, and he saw him tensed to leap. Ready for him, he caught the Python another crack on the chin as he came up. The Python went down with Shmule on top of him, but he was saved by the bell.

‘That’s more like it,’ the man said; ‘he’s got the old Python on the squirm, proper.’

‘Get us some nuts, Fred,’ the woman said.

‘Fancy an ice?’ the man asked.

‘Some nuts, Fred,’ the woman said again.

‘How’s the boy doing now, Sonia?’ Mr Kandinsky asked.

‘He’s all right,’ Sonia said; ‘another round like that and he’ll win.’

‘We’re winning,’ Joe told his mother.

‘That’s good,’ she replied. ‘It’s awful to see their faces.’

In the fourth round the Python set out to finish Shmule off. He tried all the fancy holds, the Indian death-lock, the flying mare, the cobra, but Shmule was like an eel; he didn’t stay still long enough for the grips to take.

‘He’s using his speed now,’ the man said; ‘let’s see the Python catch up with that.’

But the Python couldn’t catch up with that. After a couple of minutes the crowd started to laugh, because the Python lumbered like a great ox, while Shmule danced circles round him, cracking him on the back and chest every so often. Now the Python was on his guard against face-blows, and being careful made him even more clumsy. He was furious with the crowd for laughing. He looked at Shmule through slit eyes wanting to murder him.

‘Let me get my hands on you, laughing boy, that’s all,’ he growled.

Then suddenly Shmule nipped in close, his foot jabbed out, and the Python fell heavily on to the canvas, his arms round Shmule’s leg. But as he fell Shmule struck the Python a heavy blow to the stomach, and pulled his leg free.

The Python held on to his stomach with both hands. His head came forward. His neck bent towards Shmule like a beast to the slaughterer.

Shmule folded his hands together as if to pray. He lifted them and carefully aiming, brought a rabbit punch with all his force clean on to the Python’s neck. The Python slumped forward over his hands. Shmule stood back, watching. The Python didn’t move.

‘Cold meat!’ someone shouted.

‘Hammer!’ all the tailors yelled.

‘Hammer!’ shouted Joe.

The Python was out cold.

11

It was the latest night ever. It was late when Joe and his mother and Mr Kandinsky left Sonia at the swimming-baths waiting for Shmule, both of them to follow on later. It was late when they got home, but no one suggested that Joe should go to bed, because it was, after all, an occasion. Joe said it was only fair to bring Africana in, since he had been such a help, but Mr Kandinsky said, ‘Leave him sleep. Tomorrow is also a day.’

Joe’s mother lit the gas fire in the kitchen, and put the kettle on the stove to make a cup of tea. As they waited for the kettle Mr Kandinsky told them about the patent steam presser which, only four years old, he could buy for practically nothing from the Grosvenor Garment Company in Fournier Street. With a bit of patching up, tighten a few screws, a good re-padding job, scrape off the rust, a coat of paint, it would make a first-class presser, good as new.

Now Mr Kandinsky didn’t have Shmule to worry about any more, he could concentrate on the steam presser again. In fact, now that Shmule had actually won the fight, it seemed unreasonable to Mr Kandinsky that he shouldn’t have the presser.

‘A chance like this, Becky,’ he said, ‘doesn’t, after all, come up every day. A chance of a life-time. He would take thirty pound for it, he said, but I know better. He would be glad to get twenty pound as well. After all, all the big firms can buy new pressers, what do they want with an old machine four years old, rusty, dirty? And who’s got thirty pounds who isn’t a big firm? Believe me, he would be glad to take twenty. And yet who’s got even twenty?’

‘Shmule has got twenty-five pounds because you heard, the winner gets twenty-five pounds to himself,’ Joe said.

Mr Kandinsky looked thunderstruck. He slapped his forehead with his palm. ‘You’re right, Joe,’ he said.

‘Shmule has got twenty-five pounds.’

Joe’s mother looked over from the stove where she was pouring boiling water into the teapot.

‘Shmule must buy Sonia a ring before anything else,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame otherwise.’

‘That’s true,’ Mr Kandinsky said, pursing his lips. ‘Quite right. Mind you, if Shmule was to come along to me and tell me, “I bought the steam presser, what about a partnership?” I would tell him straightaway, “Certainly.” But naturally Sonia must have a ring. Only this other way she wouldn’t just be a girl with a ring marrying a young fellow, a worker in the tailoring. This way she is marrying a guvnor, a partner in a business, and what is more, a growing business. Because I tell you, Becky, with a patent steam presser we can take in so much jobbing, we can make a living from this alone. Still, Sonia must have a ring. Maybe it is the only chance Shmule gets his whole life, but it doesn’t matter. A ring is important.’

Mr Kandinsky was very upset. It was selfish of Sonia to stop Shmule becoming a guvnor. Mr Kandinsky pressed the lemon in his glass with a spoon. Joe sipped his milk, wondering what Africana would do about this. Then they heard voices on the stairs.

Shmule and Sonia came in arm in arm. Though he looked tired, Shmule’s eyes were bright.

‘I couldn’t get him away from there,’ Sonia said. ‘They all wanted to see him.’

Mr Kandinsky gripped Shmule’s hand.

‘Good luck to you always,’ he said, ‘good health, and every blessing.’

Joe’s mother said, ‘It was awful to watch, but you were marvellous, Shmule, marvellous. Only don’t let him do it any more, Sonia. You mustn’t do it any more, Shmule. Buy Sonia a ring now, and finish with the wrestling.’

‘She’s right,’ Mr Kandinsky said. ‘It’s for the beast of the field.’

‘You know what he told me round one?’ Shmule said. ‘He told me to lie down in the seventh, I could share the purse with him. That’s what he told me.’

‘That Python,’ Sonia said, angry, ‘he wanted Shmule to lie down.’

‘When I tell him I am fighting clean he says he’ll ruin me.’

‘You hear?’ Mr Kandinsky said to all of them. ‘You hear what kind of a business this wrestling is?’

‘It kills you for real development of the body beautiful,’ Sonia said.

‘No good for the muscular tone or the efficiency,’ Shmule said. ‘Still, I can give baby a ring.’ Sonia hugged him.

‘I want to talk to you with a serious proposition,’ Mr Kandinsky said, clearing his throat and holding his hand up for silence. ‘Namely, now that you got a bit of capital, and I am, after all, the truth is the truth, an old man. Namely, a partnership deal.’

Shmule looked more dazed than the dreaded Python the last time he was hit. Sonia hugged him again.

‘Baby,’ she said, ‘you hear?’

‘But,’ continued Mr Kandinsky, and he explained that Shmule would have to bring with him a patent steam presser.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Shmule, ‘for a hundred eighty-seven pounds a patent presser. Not two?’

‘Don’t grab,’ Mr Kandinsky said; ‘listen a minute.’ He told him about the second-hand presser over at Grosvenor Garments.

‘You think he would take twenty?’ Shmule asked, stroking his lip.

‘Take?’ answered Mr Kandinsky. ‘He would drag it out of your hands.’

Sonia didn’t say anything. Her face couldn’t make up its mind whether she was pleased or not. It was a difficult decision.

‘Let me speak to Sonia a minute,’ Mr Kandinsky said. ‘Sonia,’ he said, ‘here you are a young woman in the bloom of her beauty, a perfect mate for life with this Maccabaeus here.’

Sonia blushed and looked at Shmule.

‘Two years you have been patient,’ Mr Kandinsky continued. ‘Listen, Sonia. This is important. Two years you have lived on the word of this man alone. No ring to bind the promise, so that sometimes other people, busy-bodies with big mouths, who didn’t know what kind of girl you are, they said, “Look, at Sonia, no ring. What kind of an engagement?” ’ Mr Kandinsky paused.

Sonia’s eyes were full of tears as she listened. It was no more than the truth. She had been marvellous, it was true.

Mr Kandinsky continued. ‘Sonia,’ he said, ‘they didn’t know this boy, what a fighter he is, how clean and honest, and what a worker, no one to touch him in the entire East End. Him they saw tonight. Now they know what he is. And you saw him, too, what he will do for you, to get you a better ring than any girl in Novak Blouses ever had.’

‘Gay-day Blouses,’ Sonia said tenderly.

‘Gay-day,’ Mr Kandinsky repeated. ‘But something else no girl in Gay-day ever had. You know what it is?’ He pointed to Sonia to answer the question. She shook her head.

‘They didn’t marry a fellow who was, already, so young, a guvnor in his own business. That’s what they didn’t have.’

Mr Kandinsky made his last point in a loud voice, his pointing finger sweeping round the whole world to find another girl who could say she had done better than Sonia.

‘Now, Sonia,’ he continued after a moment in which Sonia squeezed Shmule’s hand. ‘I ask you straight out. Which is better, such a husband, a champion, a guvnor, with the world in front of him; or a fiancé, works for Kandinsky, the Fashion Street trousers-maker, wrestles Saturday nights to make a few pounds, he might be able to get married one day to a girl at Gay-day Blouses with a big diamond ring? Don’t answer me,’ he went on as Sonia opened her mouth. ‘Think first. It is in your hands, his life, your life; I don’t want to influence you. Drink a cup of tea and think.’ That was how Mr Kandinsky made Shmule his partner, and though everyone was pleased, they said Joe should be in bed.

12

The next morning was fine and sunny. When Joe woke up he heard the horses clopping over the cobbles, and goods-trains rattling from the arches. The first thing he thought was he must tell Africana. He dressed quietly, and leaving his mother to have her Sunday morning lie-in, ran downstairs.

Mr Kandinsky was already at work, and Joe shouted good morning and rushed into the yard. ‘Good old unicorn!’ he shouted out to Africana, but there was no rustle from Africana’s house. The house looked like a pile of old boxes waiting to be chopped up for fire-wood, desolate. Africana was gone.

‘He’s gone,’ Joe shouted, running back to the work-room. ‘He’s gone, Mr Kandinsky, he’s gone.’

‘What?’ said Mr Kandinsky. ‘Who’s gone?’

‘Africana’s gone, he’s just gone,’ Joe cried, and how would he ever bring his father back from Africa?

‘Let’s have a look,’ Mr Kandinsky said. ‘Let’s keep our head and look.’

They searched the yard carefully.

‘Let’s look in the house again,’ Mr Kandinsky said.

‘It’s empty,’ Joe replied, tears coming fast. ‘Can’t you see, it’s empty?’

‘Let’s look, all the same,’ said Mr Kandinsky. He searched through the bed of remnants.

‘What’s this?’ he said. He bent down and picked up something. It was a gleaming golden sovereign. He handed it to Joe.

‘What is it?’ asked Joe.

‘Come inside, Joe,’ Mr Kandinsky said. ‘I will tell you.’

‘He’s gone,’ Joe said, the tears still there.

‘Come inside,’ said Mr Kandinsky, and he put his arm round Joe’s shoulder.

‘You know what this is, Joe?’ he asked, giving him the sovereign. ‘This is a golden sovereign. And what has happened is plain as my nose. You could see yourself that unicorn didn’t do so well in Fashion Street, ailing the whole time, no interest, miserable the whole day. So you know what he’s done? He’s gone back to Africa like you said he should. But just to show it’s nothing personal, he left this golden sovereign on account of that magic horn worth five thousand pound.’

‘Ten thousand,’ said Joe.

‘Ten thousand pound, I mean,’ continued Mr Kandinsky. ‘Meanwhile, keep this for luck.’

‘He won’t come back,’ Joe said.

‘Maybe not,’ Mr Kandinsky replied. ‘Unicorns can’t grow in Fashion Street, but boys have to.’

Joe went upstairs slowly, rubbing the golden sovereign between his fingers. There was a small rough piece broken on top of it, but otherwise it was like the coin on Mr Kandinsky’s father’s watch-chain, which made two golden sovereigns in the house.

When his mother came into the kitchen, her face blanched with sleep, Joe asked whether two sovereigns would bring his father back. It was the only thing the unicorn had forgotten to arrange. With the sleep still on her, she didn’t know at first what he meant. After Joe explained carefully, she said yes, it was a great help, and they would find his father’s return passage money somehow. They would never go to Africa, it was a dream, but he would come back to them, he would come back soon. Next week she must see about Joe starting school. He was growing up learning nothing about life.

Joe rolled the sovereign on the table thinking that if all the pets he had ever had were in the yard now, he could charge people pennies to come in. They would cheer and throw more pennies when they saw Africana’s shining horn stretching high above the slate rooftops.

After breakfast he went into the yard to play, although he had no special game in mind. For a little while he missed Africana, but soon he thought of something. In the end, it brought him safely to Africa.