Of wee sweetie mice and men Read online

  'You want a divorce,' she said in a monotone. Her face remained impassive, but her eyes betrayed her confusion. They darted from me to the window to the TV, back to me - like pinball, and she looked like she wasn't winning.

  I shrugged. She shook her head slowly. 'I suppose I had this coming.' She bit at a nail. She slipped off her stilettos and curled her feet up under her. She shook her head again. 'Has it really come to this, Dan?'

  I wanted to scream: No! Of course it hasn't, you stupid bitch! But all I could give her was the doe-eyed look of a man whose brain was sadly out of step with his tongue.

  She let a wry smile slip onto her face. 'You know, me living away from you all this time was meant to give me time to make my mind up about our relationship - not you. I'm the one who was supposed to keep you waiting. Then you spring this on me. It's not fair.'

  'Sorry,' I said.

  'Your sorry isn't overwhelming.'

  I gave her the sympathetic palms. 'I thought you were going out.'

  'I am.'

  'I shouldn't keep you then.'

  'You're not.'

  'You said they were calling for you. ..'

  'They are.'

  'Okay.'

  We sat in silence. Patricia stared at the carpet. I stared at the wall. I closed my eyes. Concentrated. I emptied my mind as best I could of all memories: of lovers, of battles, of death, of jealousy, of alcohol; chased that bitter history down the corridors of thought; locked it in a dungeon of dulled subconscious.

  'You've met someone else.'

  A simple statement, not delivered with conviction. 'No,' I said.

  'You must have.'

  'Why?'

  'Just.'

  Just and because are two of the great unarguables.

  There was a sudden rapping at the door. Patricia bit studiously at a fingernail.

  'There's someone at the door,' I observed.

  She nodded. 'They'll go away. It's probably the Mormons.'

  'It's getting dark. They don't come out at night, like Apaches.'

  'Apaches did come out at night. That was the whole point about them.'

  'No, they didn't. They stayed round the campfire making bad medicine. That was why they were always so bloody grouchy.'

  'I beg to differ.'

  'It'll be your lift.'

  'What?'

  'It'll be your lift at the door.'

  'Too early.'

  The rapping came again. I got up. Patricia got up. 'It's okay,' she said, 'I'll get it.'

  She walked quickly from the lounge, closing the door behind her. I followed. She opened the front door. A tall, slim-looking fella stood on the landing. He smiled at Patricia, then frowned over her shoulder at me. I frowned back. Patricia looked round at me, and joined in the frowning.

  'One of the girls?' I asked.

  'I'm sorry?' the fella asked. His accent was English. Smart suit, fresh-faced. He looked like he was on a first date.

  'Shhh,' said Patricia and motioned him in.

  I stood in the lounge doorway and tried to look threatening.

  My stomach was knotting up again.

  'The others in the car?' Patricia asked. 'Others?'

  Patricia nodded enthusiastically.

  'Oh, yes, downstairs.' Liars, and the pair of them didn't even have the courtesy to redden up.

  'Ahm, Dan, this is Tony, from work.'

  'Hello, Tony.'

  'Hi, Dan.'

  I crossed to the door. I put my hand out. As he put his out I hit him with the other. In fact, I nearly hit him with the other. He leant back and my left missed his nose by an inch. Unbalanced, I stumbled forward.

  Tony caught me and threw me back. He took two steps forward and hit me with his left and followed it up with a right. The blood was pumping from my nose before I hit the carpet. He'd fractured my fracture.

  Patricia caught him by the arm as he loomed over me. 'Don't,' she said.

  He hovered above me. I was torn between making a fight of it and sticking up for my woman, and staying on the ground looking pathetic. In practice I have found that looking pathetic usually does the trick, and is also somewhat less painful, but it generally doesn't quell dangerous passions.

  He was still there. 'Don't,' Patricia said again, and this time he stepped back.

  'Sorry,' he said. To Patricia. His eyes didn't leave me. I got to my feet and stared back.

  'Lucky punch, fella,' I said.

  'Lucky two punches, fella,' he replied. It was a fair point. Patricia stood between us.

  'You've ten seconds to get out, fella,' I said.

  'Don't threaten people in my house, Dan,' said Patricia. 'I'll threaten whoever the fuck I want,' I shouted.

  Tony reached out a finger to poke me in the chest, but Patricia blocked it and pushed his hand back.

  'Stop it,' she said, 'both of you.'

  I swung for him again. Missed. I nearly hit the back of Patricia's head. He pivoted left, Patricia went with him, but he switched to the right, had a clear shot at me, and popped me on the nose. Another spurt of blood.

  'Stop it I' Patricia screamed, and this time she whacked him on the nose. He staggered back clutching his beak, his eyes wide with shock.

  'What was that for?' he demanded, blood starting to trickle through his fingers.

  'It was for being a big bloody kid. Now stop it, the pair of you, please!'

  Patricia wasn't beautiful when she was angry. Her face tightened up, her skin blanched, her eyes glared. She turned to me, placed her hand on my chest and pushed me back.

  'Into the lounge,' she ordered. 'Stay there.'

  She guided me through the door and closed it after me. I stood staring at it. A real man would be out there, at it hammer and tongs. She was flaunting this man in my bloody face. The door could do with a lick of paint, I thought.

  In a minute I heard the front door close. Patricia entered the lounge. She shook her head. Tutted. She took a handful of tissues from a box on top of the TV and handed them to me.

  'I think it's stopped bleeding,' I said. 'I've run out of blood.'

  'What a pity.'

  I shrugged.

  'There was no need for that,' she said.

  'Well, what do you expect? Jesus, Patricia, you're my wife still.'

  'I know. I'm sorry. Look, you probably won't believe me, but Tony is just a... date ... Nothing's going on. ‘

  ‘Honestly.'

  'You expect me to believe that?'

  'No.'

  'Okay.'

  Patricia sat down on the settee. I went and stood by the window. There wasn't much to look at in the gathering gloom beyond a couple of pine trees and an elderly Labrador. My nose was about to fall off. Why did everyone always go for my nose? I wanted a drink. I wanted away.

  'I'm going to New York.'

  Silence.

  'I'd like you to come with me.' Silence.

  'Kind of a second honeymoon.'

  'No.' A pause. Dramatic. 'Honeymoon suggests too much.'

  'Just a holiday then?'

  'After all this ... blood and jealousy?'

  'And deceit.'

  'Yeah.'

  'Yeah. No strings attached.'

  'Okay.'

  'Really?'

  'Why not? We should make the effort.'

  'Okay.'

  'Dan?'

  'What?'

  'I'm sorry.'

  I shrugged.

  'Dan?'

  'What?'

  'Can Tony come?'

  3

  Fat Boy McMaster stood in one corner of the ring, drinking from a can of Coke. He held it between two big red fingerless paws like one of those cute but unsatisfactory baby cans you get on aeroplanes. He wore a scarlet headguard. He'd spat his white plastic gumshield on the floor. In the opposite corner his sparring partner slumped on a stool. I recognized the pallor of defeat and humiliation. He looked like he'd been in a scrap with Patricia. His breaths came in great whoops and he grimaced at each intake; there were big red weals
about his torso where McMaster had caught him and punished him with his favoured left fist.

  Still, it wasn't exactly impressive. His victim was at most a bloated middleweight. He'd been hired ostensibly to get McMaster to work on his speed, but also because there were no half-decent heavyweights in the country to give him some serious sparring at such short notice. He'd given the Fat Boy the runabout for three rounds, picking him off easily with lengthy jabs, until he'd been caught himself by a left to the ribs which slowed him down long enough to secure a proper hiding. It doesn't matter how good a fighter you are, how nimble you are on your feet, if you're light and you get caught by a heavyweight, you know all about it.

  McMaster tossed the can out of the ring. 'Ready for more, Ronnie?' he called across.

  Ronnie shook his head.

  'Thank fuck for that.' McMaster grinned. 'I'm knackered. Get these bloody things off me, wouldja?'

  Jackie Campbell, his trainer, climbed under the ropes and began to unlace the gloves. His moonbeam skin had an elastic look, courtesy of sixty years of chewing gum sixteen hours a day. His greased hair had a greeny-grey sheen. He pulled impatiently at the laces. 'I don't see why you have to drink that piggin' stuff, Bobby. It's fulla piggin' rubbish.'

  Fat Boy looked down on Campbell, fully a foot below him, like a freak son on a dwarf father. 'Don't I follow everything else to the letter, Jackie? Don't I get up and run? Do I touch alcohol? Do I stay up late at night? Do I dodge training? No.'

  'No.'

  'So let me have one little thing, eh?'

  'You didn't mention sex, Bobby,' growled Campbell.

  'What?'

  'Didn't I tell you there hasn't been a heavyweight champion of the world yet who didn't lay off the sex for three months before a fight?'

  A big sheepish grin spread across McMaster's face. 'Ach, Jackie, c'mon, I'm only married, what do you expect me to do?'

  'I expect you to lay off the sex!' shouted Campbell, yanking off one of the gloves. 'It saps your strength! You'll go weak at the knees!'

  'Ach, Jackie, wise up. I don't even use my knees.'

  There was a nudge on my elbow. I turned and looked at Geordie McClean. He went to hand me a cup of coffee, but I put my hand up. 'Sorry,' I said, 'I'm with the champ there, strictly a Coke man.'

  'Yo!' shouted Fat Boy from the ring.

  The sparring partner let out a little groan as he bent under the ropes and shuffled past us. Geordie clapped him on the shoulders. 'Great show, Ronnie, you'll be a contender yet.'

  'I'll be a fuckin' bar tender.'

  'Ah, you're not beat yet, son. Have a shower there and I'll sort you out.'

  'Sort me out with a fuckin' ambulance,' Ronnie said dryly as he moved towards the locker room.

  Laughing, Geordie McClean turned back to me. He set one of the plastic cups on the edge of the ring and took a sip from the other. 'So,' he said, 'you'll be the famous Dan Starkey.' He held out his hand, the wrong hand for shaking in polite company.

  'And you're the infamous Geordie McClean.' I put out my wrong hand as well, and we just rubbed knuckles for a moment.

  'Infamous? I wouldn't go that far.'

  'What about notorious?'

  McClean gave me a thin smile. 'Cameron did say you were a bit on the cheeky side. Still, you get used to that round here, as long as you don't mind gettin' a hidin' once in a while, eh?'

  I shrugged.

  'So you're gonna write me a book about all this, are ye?'

  It was one to nail right from the start. 'I'm going to write Cameron a book.'

  McClean nodded. 'But you'll be expectin' my cooperation.'

  'You've been paid for your cooperation.'

  'Aye, there's that, of course, but there's cooperation, and cooperation, if you see what I mean.'

  'I see what you mean.'

  McClean laughed down his nose. It wasn't a pleasant sound. It wasn't a pleasant nose for that matter, but I was no one to talk noses with. It sat in the middle of a squarish, well-tanned face, and beneath bushy eyebrows which, taken all together, made him look a bit like an owl. Despite the heat in the gym he wore a tan-coloured cashmere coat half buttoned up, a white button-down shirt and a thin grey tie.

  'You ever do any boxing yourself ?' he asked. 'That nose looks like it's been through a few wars.'

  I shook my head. 'Car accident. Nose hit the front window.'

  'Sorry to hear it. '

  'Yeah, well.'

  'So what got you this job? I've read your stuff, Starkey, good'n'all, but I don't recall seein' nothin' about boxin'.'

  'I'd say I'm more of a boxing fan than a boxing writer. Cameron's not lookin' for a boxing book as such. The sports pages will do that for you. I'm more of a people man.'

  'More of a people man? That's novel. So what do you make of our boy here, people man?'

  I glanced at Fat Boy, blowing in the corner, his hair matted, drenched in sweat, the bulge of his stomach.

  'He's lost a bit of weight,' was the best I could muster.

  'He's lost more than a bit.'

  'But still has some more to go.'

  'Of course.'

  McClean lifted the other cup of coffee and signalled for me to follow him. We threaded our way through the other boxers, about a dozen of them, mostly amateurs, with a few Panamanian imports. McClean kicked open a door and ushered me into a small, cluttered office with a slant of his head. He put both cups down on a desk and pulled a seat back for himself. I lifted a couple of magazines off another and sat down.

  'This,' he said, sweeping his arm before him, 'is my home.'

  I'd seen his home. It was a millionaire's mansion on the County Down coast, with a covered pool and a tarted-up pigeon loft with white doves, but I let it go.

  'All the money, all the deals, mean nothing to me, compared to this place. Boxing - boxing is something in the soul, people man. I mean, I couldn't punch my way out of a paper bag, but I'm a boxer at heart. I care about these people. I mean, I don't need to be in this business. It costs me a fortune every year. But I can't help it. Boxing's like that ... can you imagine someone getting this worked up over badminton or bowls or something?'

  I shrugged.

  'This phone,' he said, tapping an old-fashioned round-dial black telephone, 'is the one I did the deal on. Imagine it - the heavyweight championship of the world!'

  Yeah. I cleared my throat. 'You weren't put off by the press conference this morning, were you? They seemed to take your man less than seriously.'

  'Naaaah,' he wheezed, scrunching up his face, 'I expected that. I mean, give me some credit. I know none of yousens think Bobby has a dog's chance, but youse are only basing that on his past record.'

  'It's what all boxers are judged on ...'

  'Only up to the point where they make a breakthrough.' I nodded as if he was making sense. 'You see, I've known Bobby since he was an amateur.

  'A bad amateur...'

  'A reasonable amateur ... I've known that he's had potential all along, because I watched him train. Or not train as the case may be. Yeah, sure, he's Fat Boy McMaster. He's not proud of that name, but he knows why it's there. He never trained a day in his life, not properly. When he was an amateur, just a young lad, all he did was turn up and fight. No running, no sparring, no weights. The only kind of practising he did was at the bar, and I'm not talkin' legal shit here. Jesus, he's fought a couple of times with a skinful on him. He eats shit, drinks like a fish, and yet he becomes the heavyweight champ of Ireland.'

  'Yeah, well...'

  'Okay, okay, big deal, I know what you're thinking. But it's a big enough deal for a dedicated non-sportsman, just a big fat git who thinks it's a bit of a laugh to go and have a fight and get paid for it. Do you see what I'm getting at?'

  'No.'

  'Ach. Look, put it this way. You know the Irish League is full of crap footballers, right?'

  'Right.'

  'Okay. So you're at the Irish Cup Final and the manager of Linfield suddenly drops his prize centre fo
rward and picks big Sammy the Lump from behind the hamburger stand to lead the attack. Sammy the Lump lumbers onto the pitch, runs circles round the other side, scores a hat-trick, wins the cup. What does that say to you?'

  'That Irish League football is crap.'

  'Naaaah, you're not gettin' my drift. If Sammy the Lump, never kicked a serious ball in his life, can do that against footballers with at least some pretensions of professionalism, what would he be capable of if he was fully fit, properly trained, agile, everything?'

  'I hesitate to think.'

  McClean noticed the smirk. 'You're not taking this very seriously,' he said. 'Fair enough. It'll make your wee book that much more interesting in the end. But I tell you, I'm taking this very seriously.'

  'Because there's serious money involved. . .'

  'Yes, of course there's serious money involved ... but that's not the point . . .'

  'Isn't it?'

  'No, it bloody well isn't! The point is I believe Bobby has a realistic chance of taking the world title'

  McClean sat back; he was starting to sweat up, something he'd managed to avoid in the heat of the gym.

  'Look,' he began again, 'if you're going to be around us all the way up to the fight, you should understand why I'm doing this, okay?'

  'Okay.'

  'Of course there's the money ... but I've got money. I don't need any more. There's the glory. Sure, I could do with some of that. But I'll tell you this, if there's glory to be had, it'll all be his ... Bobby's not even under contract to me. That's how interested I am in the money. I get a percentage, sure, but it's as fair as any you'll find in the fight game. Ask around, be my guest.'

  'I know there's no contract, Mr McClean.' I'd done some research, which was a rarity. It consisted of a phone call, but it was a start.

  'Okay. Forget the money, let's get back to Bobby. So he's Irish champ. He's just married, but on the dole. I give him a job. I say to him, Bobby, come into my stable, let me train you properly, I promise to turn him into something...'

  'A corpse, quite possibly. . .'

  'Ach, there's no need for that, Starkey. It won't come to that. I know. Believe me. I've paid him a considerable sum of money just to get into shape. Now he's getting a million for just one fight. He's fast, he's powerful. ..'