Tommo & Hawk (56 page)

I smile, and my heart is full of love for her, but I cannot tell her I love her. Not yet. 'If I come up against the Irishman I won't hate him, I won't feel anything. It'll just be one man against the other. The difference is that he's an experienced pugilist and a champion, and I'm just a big nigger with clumsy feet and fists.'

'But what about yer noggin? Johnny said you thinks real good.'

I grin. 'It doesn't need Ikey's brain to work out that a fast noggin and a slow body is not as good as a fast body and a slower brain!'

'But Johnny said, fer a big un you moves fast and ain't clumsy!'

'As fast as an elephant dancing the Irish jig!' I laugh. 'It would be no contest, Maggie. I'd get my teeth knocked through the back of my throat, and the little people would lose their shirts. Only Mr Sparrow, Fat Fred and various sportsmen, toffs and swells, including your precious Johnny Sullivan, would benefit.'

Maggie is silent a while and then announces, 'Hawk, I've changed me mind. Them bastards can't have ya, not even for five hundred pounds.'

But a mischievous thought has crossed my mind, an idea quite out of character. Perhaps Tommo and Maggie have encouraged in me a daring I never thought to have. 'Hold still a minute, Maggie. As Ikey would say, "My dears, one good scam deserves another!" I think we should talk to Tommo. On these sorts of matters he is much smarter than I am. After all, he's beaten Mr Sparrow at cards, which Ikey said was not mortally possible.'

Maggie looks perplexed but shrugs, and returns to her nap, leaving me to ponder. Should I raise with my twin the possibility of a sting within a sting? And do Tommo and I want to get into another scrape? What would our dear Mary think? Since we've been back in Australia, I have written to her every week, telling her of our various doings. I have given much thought to our homecoming and how Tommo and I would fare in Hobart Town.

Though he denies it, my brother is in the grip of opium. It is no longer the Angel's Kiss and I can feel the hot breath of Tommo's devils from the wilderness closing in again. I am beginning to think it could be time to leave Sydney, for there is no opium that I know of to be had in Hobart Town.

But Tommo, still struggling with his demons, says he is not yet ready to return home. Nor, I confess, am I. There's Maggie Pye to think of, for a start. I'm not sure she'd like Hobart Town. I would also like to try my hand at shopkeeping - a venture that is of my own doing, not Mary's - something which would allow me to feed the many hungry children who roam the streets in every place I've been. And I can see my little bower bird Maggie Pye doing very well in such an enterprise! If we could acquire the capital, we could open a shop, perhaps in the goldfields. I have kept all the one hundred pounds I won from the Dunn fight for this very purpose - though not without some argument from Mr Sparrow. When the money was handed over, he demanded sixty per cent of the purse.

'Wait on!' I said. 'Fair go! Sixty per cent, for what?'

'Expenses, my dear. You were fighting at my venue, engaged in fisticuffs with my fighter,' he replied imperiously.

'No fear,' I said, amazed at his audacity. 'You had a near riot on your hands because the Welshman couldn't fight. Though it was unintentional, I saved the day and saved your hide.'

'But this is the agreement I have with your brother. It's what Tommo gives me from his poker winnings as my commission.'

'Sixty per cent?'

'Aye, there are a lot of expenses to this game!'

'None ventured on my behalf, Mr Sparrow. I have no agreement with you and you'll receive no commission from me!' I stood my ground.

'I see,' replied Mr Sparrow. 'In that case you can go to hell and your brother with yer!'

'What about the future champion o' the world you was so keen on an hour ago?' Tommo mocked.

'Business is business!' Mr Sparrow sighed. 'Didn't Ikey Solomon teach you nothing?' Then his mood grew darker. 'You know what, Ace O' Spades? You're getting too big for yer boots!' He pointed to Tommo's feet. 'My boots! The nigger don't take care of you, lad. I does! You'd best remember that! You'd 'ave been nothing, a starving bloody drunk, without me and Fat Fred here!'

'And I'd be a lot less than nothin' without him, Mr Sparrow,' Tommo pointed to me. 'You gets sixty per cent of me card games, me twin gets one hundred per cent of me life!'

'We'll see how you go without me,' Mr Sparrow sneered. 'There's not a card game in this colony you'll be part of, son!' He flounced off and Tommo waved him away with a backward flick of his fingers. 'Toodle-oo, then.'

'We'll talk again, my boy,' Mr Sparrow murmured to me on his way past, wagging his finger. He didn't say anything further to Tommo but spat to the side of his boots.

Not five minutes later he came and apologised to us both, all smiles. Straight away I wondered what he was up to.

'It be the excitement of the fight, boys. Me nerves were on edge in case the police arrived and stopped it,' he explained. 'I lost my temper. You see, it cost me a pretty penny to stage. What I asked you for be the commission Ben Dunn would've also had to pay.'

'Shall I go and ask Ben Dunn, then?' I replied, not willing to accept Mr Sparrow's smarmy apology.

'No point,' he cackled.  'You took all the gelt!' He brought out a Cuban cigar, bit the end in his yellow teeth and fussed about, lighting it up. Then, through a puff of smoke, he remarked, 'What a fight, eh? Worth losin' my commission just to see it, lad.'

But Mr Sparrow's eyes narrowed as he said this and I could see by the way he chewed his cigar he didn't like losing his commission one bit. I realised he was the type to sweep insults under the carpet in order to tidy up, but that he would come back to the dirt at a later time, never minding who got brushed aside then. I felt certain I had not heard the last of this business. I knew Mr Sparrow still intended to get the sixty per cent of my prize money, with a great deal of interest added, before he was through with me and Tommo.

But on the surface Mr Sparrow was all smiles and forgiveness. He wanted Tommo to sit back in on the poker game that night too. 'Plenty o' rich pickings, lad. The gold finders pay in kind, nuggets and dust. It'll be a most profitable enterprise!' I thought of Ikey, who would never have lost his temper and then come crawling back. Mr Sparrow is not a patch on his old teacher.

'I'll come, but only for an extra ten per cent of the action,' said Tommo, cocky as hell. 'From now on we shares fifty-fifty, including tonight. What's you say, Mr Sparrow?'

'Oh no, Tommo, I can't agree to that, lad,' Mr Sparrow murmured, nice as pie. 'I'm in business with Mr Tang Wing Hung and must first discuss everything with him.' He took a puff of his cigar and exhaled. 'You do understand me, don't you?'

I saw at once what he was getting at and my heart sank. More and more, Tommo had been visiting Tang Wing Hung's opium den before going to his poker game. Now I knew that Mr Sparrow had Tommo in his tiny claws. One word from him and the opium pipe would be withheld from poor Tommo. I closed my eyes and held my breath, ardently hoping that Tommo wouldn't give in to the threat hanging in the air. It wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen, should Tommo be denied the pipe. I would be with him, and would stay at his side however long it might take to rid him of his new addiction.

Tommo grinned foolishly. 'Sorry, Mr Sparrow,' he said quietly. 'I begs your pardon. Sixty-forty as always and no harm done, eh?'

'Ah,' smiled Mr Sparrow, 'that's much better, Tommo. I only wish yer brother could see it as commonsensical. A little co-operation and all's well with the world, ain't that so?'

I wanted to weep. For the first time, I saw how weakened Tommo was by his need for opium, for it had him grovelling to this overblown gnat. I could still taste the blood in my mouth from the fight, but I was almost overwhelmed by fresh rage. I wanted to crush Mr Sparrow and, for the moment, Tommo with him. I had an urge to wring Mr Sparrow's scrawny, miserable neck with my bare hands, and to put Tommo out of his misery too. I knew then that my brother had succumbed to his old despair, even though I would have done anything to prevent this.

'Tommo, tell him to go to buggery! We don't need him!' I pleaded quietly.

But Tommo looked down at his boots and stayed silent. I felt deeply ashamed for my twin. How was it that I wanted to kill him and love him and hold him and protect him all in the one moment?

'Tommo! Tell the bastard no, Tommo!' I yelled, the words coming from deep inside.

Tommo looked at me and I could see he was crying. 'I can't, Hawk, the mongrel's got me!' he wept, burying his head in his hands.

I turned to Mr Sparrow and grabbed him by the coat front, picking him up off his feet. 'Leave us! Before I lose my temper, you bastard!' Then I threw him to the ground.

Mr Sparrow lay at my feet cringing. He covered his face with his hands, thinking I would kick him. Now it was not the great Mr Sparrow, a sportsman game as a fighting cock, but Sparrer Fart, little brat who was terrified. I leant down and took him by the collar, lifting him back up to his feet. He came no higher than my elbow and I could feel his whole body trembling.

'Please, Hawk,' he grovelled, 'don't hurt me!' He closed his eyes, expecting the blow to come. 'I'll give him fifty-fifty, whatever you wants.'

I let him go, disgusted. 'If any grief comes to Tommo, any harm, I'll come for you!' I growled. 'I'll see you pay, no matter what it takes!'

And so here is Sparrer Fart once again in our lives, become 'Mr Sparrow' as if no longer Ikey's little pupil. He's got Tommo in his clutches, and now he wants me. The sting is his revenge on our getting the better of him. He is using Johnny Sullivan, who is using Maggie, the innocent party in all this. I am pretty certain Mr Sparrow's vengeful mind is pitting me against the visiting Irish fighter so I can get my brains knocked out and he can clean up at my expense.

Ikey would see my idea of beating Mr Sparrow at his own game as an excellent way to get even, with a bit of solid business added. I feel in my bones that I am right and that it is not some crazed idea I have constructed out of my overheated imagination. How I have grown to despise Mr Sparrow. If he has learned his ways from Ikey, then I must think carefully about what this means for Tommo and me, Ikey's sons.

*

Sunday is usually Tommo's night off. On the Sabbath, the toffs, merchants and senior government officials, who enjoy the sportsman's life on all other nights of the week, generally settle down to Sunday roast with their respectable families. This is their time to pat the heads of their offspring and to grunt while their wives attempt polite conversation. They must also be seen at the evening service, for many will have missed the morning one because they were sleeping off hangovers gained from a night of gambling and carousing with the likes of Tommo and the ever-present Mr Sparrow.

I know Tommo will have risen at about five this afternoon. He will have gone to visit Tang Wing Hung's opium den, and will be returning shortly to have his evening meal with Maggie and me downstairs at the chophouse run by Flo's father. I will ask his opinion of my plan then, for Tommo has lost none of his wits.

This is the curious thing about opium. Whereas brandy will cloud the brain, the same is not true of opium which is said by some to promote great clarity of thought. Caleb Soul, my friend and colleague at Tucker & Co., is of this opinion. A pharmacist by profession, he speaks of opium's powers to promote intellectual thought and cites for example the work of Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and de Quincy amongst other English luminaries.

This is still no reason to embrace opium, nor will I for one moment condone its use for anything other than alleviating pain. These days, Tommo cannot live without the Devil's Smoke, and it is my sad opinion that he could not give up the celestial poppy even if he most sincerely desired to.

Nonetheless, Tommo is in fine form when we meet for dinner, smiling and sipping quietly at a glass of his favourite Cape brandy. Though it tears at my very soul, I have accepted that he must drink. Accordingly, I have offered him the very best brandy imported by Tucker & Co. He will have none of it, preferring the rough Cape grape to all else. I have noticed that after taking opium he drinks less, though this only in degree.

'So,' Tommo says, when I raise the subject of Mr Sparrow's sting, 'have you decided to fight then, Hawk?'

I nod. 'Only this once, and only if we can think up a way for me to win and the money to be made is, as Maggie says, five hundred pounds.'

'Maggie's right,' Tommo says. 'Mr Sparrow is most confident of the winnings to be had. With the Protestants and the Jews against the Catholics, it be a holy war of sorts, he says. What a strange thing! Here we is, brought up with no religion to speak of, and you's gunna be promoted as a Jew.' Tommo chuckles. 'I reckon Ikey would have a good laugh at that! But Hawk, tell me. Why d'ya want to do it?'

'The gelt,' I say.

Tommo grins and shakes his head. 'Pull the other one, Hawk!'

I look at Maggie, who appears to be most interested in her bowl of Irish stew. 'It's true, I want the money - the reason being I want us to open a shop. You and Maggie and me. We could make a tidy sum from this fight - enough to set us up with a shop, perhaps at the goldfields where I've heard there's a fortune to be made.'

'Come on, Hawk! You're talkin' to me, Tommo, your twin! It ain't in your nature! Since when would you take up fisticuffs to earn money?'

'What's wrong with that?' Maggie asks sharply. 'Ain't nothin' wrong for a man to earn an honest crust at prize-fightin'!'

'Like I said, it just ain't in Hawk's nature, Maggie,' Tommo sighs. 'You've seen him with the brats. He'd rather give it to others than keep it for hisself! Besides, he's gunna take a terrible hiding in that fight.'

'No he ain't!' Maggie replies, looking furiously at Tommo.

'You can't win!' he says to me. 'This bloke's the champion of Ireland and England, for Gawd's sake!'

'Hawk could be the champion o' the world,' Maggie protests.

I cut across them both. 'You're right, Tommo, it's not just about the money. Though it's true, I'd like us to open a shop. In the end, though, it's not that.' I pause, not sure that even Tommo will understand what I'm going to say next. I take a deep breath. 'It's about getting Ikey out of our souls!'