Tiger Men (7 page)

The dance came to an end and one of the men claimed the girl. He was a big man, strongly built and clearly known to many of the drinkers, and no-one disputed his claim. The girl laughed as she clutched at the coins he fed between her breasts and, after a brief negotiation with the beefy man who stood guard at the door near the bar, the pair disappeared up the narrow stairway to the rooms overhead.

Mick bought himself a mug of ale, careful not to reveal his stash as he paid the barman. Along with the wages he’d collected from the
Maid
, he was carrying quite a sizeable amount of cash from his Liverpool jobs and some smart new clothes he’d purchased before sailing. Seamus’s presumption that he’d ‘dressed up special’ had been incorrect. Mick always dressed stylishly. He considered clothes and grooming of the utmost importance. But in a place like this, it was not wise to be conspicuous about the valuables one carried, and he kept his kitbag tucked firmly under his arm.

‘Hello, handsome. Fancy a bit of fun?’ The wench who’d yelled out to the dancer had sidled up to him and was resting her breasts invitingly on the bar. They spilled from her low-cut bodice, full and milky-white and obviously her calling card.

‘You’re very enticing, my lovely,’ he said, his eyes and his smile telling her she was. ‘The fact is, though, I’ve just arrived and I’m drinking in the atmosphere.’ Enticing as the woman’s breasts were, she had to be at least thirty and he felt not the remotest desire for her, but Mick was never rude to a woman. ‘Perhaps a little later – that is if you’re available. I imagine they’re queuing up.’ With breasts like that they probably are, he thought, and with a few ales under his belt, he might well want her, but for now he just wished to drink in the night. Having a woman was not his major priority anyway. He’d been lying to Seamus simply to rid himself of the man’s company.

‘The name’s Peg,’ she said. By God, but I’d give this one a poke for nothing, she thought. He was as handsome as the devil himself. ‘You only have to ask; they all know me here.’

‘Peg,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember it, and I’ll surely be asking.’

Peg reluctantly turned her attention to the foul-breathed man who was kneading her right buttock with one hand and jangling coins in the pocket of his breeches with the other.

The fiddler played another tune. He was joined by a man with a tin whistle and the music became even more infectious as women twirled enticingly, selling their wares, inviting men to join them in the dance. Some of the younger men willingly did, while others more intent upon drinking shooed them away like flies.

Mick, although he was not standing in the forefront of the crowd, was singled out by several of the women, but he demurred with a smile for each, gesturing to his half-finished ale. He was not in the mood to dance. He finished his drink, dumped his mug on the bar and made his way out to the lane at the rear of the pub to relieve himself.

As he stepped outside he was vaguely aware of a couple in the gloom up ahead. They appeared to be copulating against the sandstone wall of the pub, but he took no notice as he undid his breeches and started to urinate in the gutter. Then he heard the woman’s protestations. She obviously had no wish to call the attention of others to her plight for the pitch of her voice was low, but her tone was nonetheless urgent.

‘I said no,’ she hissed. ‘Get away, you bastard. Leave me be.’

Mick peered into the darkness. He could make out their shapes about twenty paces away, and he could see now that the woman was putting up a fight.

The man, a huge brute of a fellow, had her pinned against the wall. He’d hoisted her skirts up around her waist and was fumbling with his trousers. Within seconds he’d freed himself and, lifting her bodily off the ground, he spread her thighs with his hips, thrusting for his mark.

‘I don’t want your filthy cock,’ the woman snarled through clenched teeth, fighting with all her might to push him away. ‘Keep it to yourself, pig.’ She was young and feisty, but her struggle was ineffectual, and the man simply grunted with satisfaction as his thrusts hit home.

Then she stopped trying to free herself. Instead, she raked the claws of her fingers down his face, her nails tearing the flesh of his temples and his eyelids and his cheeks before losing themselves in the mass of his beard.

Her attack was successful. The man roared in rage and as he broke his hold on her she staggered free.

Upstairs, a shutter was opened and someone peered down from the lamp-lit room to the laneway below, but the man was undeterred by the presence of an onlooker. The woman had angered him now. He grabbed at her, slamming her against the wall.

‘Slag,’ he roared, ‘cunt,’ and he smashed his fist into her face.

The woman’s knees buckled. All fight had left her. The man hoisted her skirts up once again and was about to take her, when Mick stepped out of the shadows.

‘You shouldn’t hit a woman like that,’ he said. He didn’t know why he was interfering; as a rule he avoided trouble whenever possible.

The man peered through the gloom, puzzled more than anything. ‘What’s it to you, Irishman? Mind your own fucking business.’ And he redirected his attention to the woman.

‘She doesn’t want you, my friend,’ Mick said. ‘Let her be.’

The man released the woman, who slowly slid down the wall, to remain in a huddled heap, semi-conscious, broken-nosed and minus several front teeth. ‘Let her be?’ he queried threateningly as he turned to face Mick. He was not one accustomed to taking orders, and certainly not from a man half his size. ‘Who says?’

‘I believe I do.’ Mick put down his kitbag. Oh God in heaven, he thought, why am I behaving so foolishly? What sort of trouble had he landed himself in now?

Upstairs, Ma Tebbutt brought the oil lamp to the window in order to get a better view of the proceedings. Weight for weight it’s certainly no contest, she thought as she looked down at the bulk of the brutish oaf and the slim figure of the young man. But then, the young man looked fit, and he had twenty years on the other. He’d be more agile. If he could land a few punches and avoid getting hit, he might just stand a chance. Ma was a Londoner, born within the sound of Bow Bells, and she admired a man who could use his fists. As a betting woman she was interested in the outcome. She might even put her money on the lad, she decided, he looked like a cocky young devil. Then she saw the oaf’s hand dive behind his back to the sheath that hung from his belt. Different odds altogether, she thought as the knife flashed silver in the lamp-light.

She paddled her way to the door – the combination of age, weight and arthritis rendering movement awkward these days – and, popping her head out into the hall, gave an order to one of the girls who’d just come upstairs.

‘Tell Len he’s to bust up a fight in the back lane,’ she said. ‘He’ll need Billy with him and tell him to take a pistol. Evie’s copped a bashing and the bloke’s got a knife.’

Then she returned to the window to watch. A good fight was one thing, but she would not have murder on her turf. Not if she could help it anyway.

Mick was grateful for the spill of light from the overhead window. He could see the knife quite clearly now. It had taken him by surprise, he had to admit, and he wondered if he would have acted with such gallantry if he’d noticed the man was carrying a blade. Bit late to ponder the fact though, he thought as he circled warily, dodging each time the man lunged at him.

Mick dodged the lunges with ease, second-guessing the man, catching him off balance, changing direction, then circling again, waiting for the next lunge. This is where my strength lies, he told himself, in the man’s clumsiness, for strong though the man no doubt was, he did not use his weight well. Mick decided he would use it for him and, biding his time, he continued to lead the dance.

Mick O’Callaghan was an accomplished fighter when cornered. He preferred to avoid physical conflict if possible, but when necessity dictated he was a canny opponent. His use of tactics and quick wit had bested many a formidable adversary.

The man was becoming angered beyond endurance: his laboured breathing was now mingled with snarls of frustration. All he needed was one stick of the knife. One stick and then I’ll gut the little prick from top to toe, he told himself. One stick and he’d disembowel the bastard. He’d pull the guts from his belly before his very eyes and feed them into his fucking mouth. With a bellow of murderous intent he charged.

Mick feinted and the man barrelled past, missing him by only inches, as had been Mick’s intention. The fury of his aggressor was essential to his plan.

The man staggered and recovered himself, then turned to charge again, during which time Mick backed off, creating more space between them. He started to circle in the opposite direction. Now, he thought, now’s the moment. Both the positioning and the distance were perfect. He just needed the man to get a good run at him.

Tantalised by his near miss, the man didn’t pause for breath but charged once again, hurtling towards Mick like an enraged bull. When he was nearly upon him, Mick stepped to one side and, grasping a fistful of the man’s hair with one hand and the back of his belt with the other, he whirled him off course, altering the trajectory of his charge and heading him straight towards the sandstone wall of the pub. The sheer force of the man’s weight did the rest. He hit the rock-face head first and crumpled to the ground unconscious. The fight had lasted exactly two minutes.

There was a round of applause from the upstairs window.

Mick looked up. He couldn’t quite make out who it was, but he was distracted as the back door of the pub opened and two men appeared, one of them bearing a pistol.

‘You’re too late, Len,’ a Cockney voice called from above, ‘the lad won without landing a single punch.’ Ma Tebbutt leant her considerable bulk out of the window and gave Mick another round of applause. ‘Come on up here, boy. Show him the way, Len, and you Billy,’ she gestured to the other man, ‘you see to Evie. She copped a blow that’d down a mule.’

Mick did as he was told. Shouldering his kitbag, he accompanied Len, a beefy, taciturn Englishman, back into the pub and up the narrow staircase, which led directly to Ma Tebbutt’s quarters.

She ushered him in, eyeing him up and down, apparently liking what she saw. ‘Thanks, Len,’ she said.

The Englishman closed the door and disappeared without having uttered a single word.

‘You handle yourself well, lad.’ Ma carefully lowered her body into her favourite armchair, which sat beside the table in the centre of the room.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Mick nodded amiably and looked about at his surrounds.

He was in a cosy sitting room that smelt of whale oil and pipe tobacco, which was not surprising as a clay pipe and tobacco pouch rested in a bowl next to the oil lamp on the table. There was a door to one side, which he presumed led to a bedroom, for the woman was clearly infirm and unlikely to travel up and down the steep staircase with ease. He further presumed, and correctly so, that the other rooms leading off from the passage outside were reserved for the girls and their clients.

As if in verification, there was the sudden clump of boots on the landing, followed shortly by a girlish giggle and the slam of a door further down the hall.

‘What’s your name?’

He quickly returned his attention to the woman who was studying him intently. He hoped he hadn’t appeared rude, but it was a habit of his to vet any new location, just in case he should need to beat a hasty retreat.

‘Michael Patrick O’Callaghan, ma’am,’ he said respectfully. ‘They call me Mick.’

Ma nodded and introduced herself. ‘Margaret May Tebbutt,’ she said with a welcoming salute of her arthritic right hand. It so galled Ma that she could no longer shake hands with the strength of a man as she once had that these days she refused to shake hands at all. ‘They call me Ma.’

‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am.’ Mick returned a salute of his own.

‘Ma,’ she corrected him.

‘Ma,’ he said with a smile.

Handsome bugger, she thought. ‘What do you do for a crust?’

‘Nothing yet. I just arrived in town.’

Ma did not ask ‘from where’. A person’s background was never queried in Wapping. But she couldn’t help making the wry observation that if the lad was fresh from the penal settlement at Port Arthur, then he’d certainly managed to outfit himself well. Mine not to question how or why though, she told herself.

‘If you’re after a spot of work, I could put some your way. Enough to tide you over until you get yourself settled. Not much money, mind, just expenses, but board and lodging, what do you say?’ As always, Ma got straight to the point.

‘I say yes.’ Mick grinned, unable to believe his good fortune. ‘I say yes, indeed.’

‘I rather thought you might,’ she replied drily. ‘The luck of the Irish, eh? You lot with your gift of the gab, you always land on your feet.’

He wiped the grin from his face – it seemed he was being chastised – but Ma was quick to reassure him otherwise.

‘No cause for alarm, son: I cater to the Paddies. Big drinkers, big womanisers – they’re my favourite clientele. Half my girls are Irish too. Fancy a tot of rum?’

Mick nodded. Ma Tebbutt’s disability was physical only; her mind moved with extraordinary agility.

‘The dresser over there, bring us the bottle and a couple of mugs, there’s a good lad.’

He dutifully fetched the earthenware bottle, pulled out its stopper and placed it on the table before her together with two pewter mugs.

‘Grab a seat.’ She indicated the hardback chair in the corner by the desk, which was littered with paperwork.

He pulled the chair over to the table and sat.

‘I’m grateful to you for looking after Evie like you did,’ Ma said, pouring them both a liberal measure of rum. ‘Not many would have come to her rescue.’

‘Oh that’s not so, Ma,’ he protested modestly. ‘Any gentleman would have done likewise, I’m sure.’

She gave a pig-like snort of derision, which Mick sensed was personally directed at him rather than the inanity of his remark. He would need to take a different tack, he realised, if he were to find favour with Ma Tebbutt, charm was obviously not enough.