Fair Fight (6 page)

The day was horrible warm, the sky low and heavy as damp skirts. My head swam from the strange air and the gin. Every year, since the day we met, we’d been here together, crushed in the crowd at the front of the boxing tent, cheering every blow.

Perhaps for common folk it was a diversion, nothing more, but for a pug the fair was a starting line, the place where a cull could make his name, and the buzz was that this year all the fancy would be on the look-out for the next Champion of England. Gentleman Jackson had stepped down as holding the title too long, and finding no man willing to match him. All the fancy would come on the rush to Bristol now, the city which had birthed so many champions of the ring. Jack Slack, Ben Brain, The Tinman – all of them were Bristol boys. Even old Jack Broughton had fought his first bouts at St James’ Fair. Jem Belcher, the lad tipped to have a good chance at the Championship up in London that year, was called ‘the Bristol youth’, and he’d had his start on the very stage that I was to step onto now. Every hopeful young rough would be out with his fives raised, and every fancy name crowding the ring. Tom had great hopes of watching one of these high-stakes mills, or of picking out beforehand which of the likely lads the fancy might take a shine to and carry up to London. My thoughts were fixed on my own fight and couldn’t see beyond, but I thought I’d feel different when once it was done. I liked to see good science in a mill as much as the fancy; perhaps more, for I could learn from the tricks used and turn them to my own use.

Tom held his head up as we walked and it gladdened my heart to see him unfurl from his stoop. He only bent a very little, so that he might hold my hand, the difference in our heights being so vast. We both called out and waved to the people we knew: Mrs Dick, who sold hot potatoes from a brazier, Black Lou the piper, and the magician’s boy, and many more men and women laying out their wares, tuning up fiddles, or hanging bunting. Two brats followed behind us till Tom turned and waved at them, at which they ran off, shrieking up a racket. I supposed they took him for a giant. The great wheel of the flying coaches stood over all.

The boxing tent was something to see, with its painted front showing pictures of bare-chested millers knocking seven kinds of hell out of each other and plenty of gore done in buckets of scarlet. In years before I’d used to stand before it and set upon any girl I could, to encourage the gents passing in to feel obliged to stop and watch, and perhaps throw me the penny entrance. The fancy like to see a cat-fight before the main attraction, even between children. Now I’d fight on its stage, and not as a Charlie from the crowd. I was both swollen and quaking with the thought of it.

The wooden booth had a window cut into it and here an old woman sat, to take the pennies from the fancy. She barely looked at us but only held out her hand for the money.

‘My wife is come to fight,’ Tom said.

Now the woman goggle-eyed me.

‘You’d best come in, dearie,’ she said, and swung open a door cut so neatly into the wall of the booth that I’d never known it was there. Inside it was done up like a gypsy caravan, or almost like, with a stove and a kettle, a lamp and a pair of stools. Behind her was a pallet bed of rags and quilts. I stepped inside. The ceiling was close enough to reach up and touch, if I’d a mind to do it.

‘Your young fellow had best wait out there a time,’ she said. ‘He’s a bully one, ain’t he?’

I looked back at Tom.

‘Go on,’ he said, ‘I’ll be in here,’ and he gestured into the tent, where the ring and the crowd waited.

‘Go on in and wait. I’ll not charge you a penny, neither,’ the old woman said, and laughed aloud.

She turned to look at me and I saw that beneath the frilled cap and curled white hair she had a pug’s nose, broken and never made straight, just as mine was. My gaze went to her hands then, to see if the knuckles pushed up high as mine did, but she had on gloves and I couldn’t be sure.

‘Now, duck, I’m Mrs Narrow, wife of Mr Narrow who owns this booth. Now suppose you tell me your name and then we’re square.’

‘Ruth Webber,’ I said, for I’d long ago taken Tom’s name as my own.

‘Ruth,’ she handed me a pair of padded mufflers, ‘you’ll be what we call a novelty. That is to say, we mean to cheat a bit. Not so much, you know, as to be wicked, just so as the fancy sees a good show.’

‘I never have cheated before,’ I said.

‘Cheated, why that’s a strong word,’ Mrs Narrow said, though it’d been her word. ‘This is theatricals. You’re to win your fight, Ruthie, but at first you must seem to be about to lose it. Can you do that?’

‘Are all the fights at the fair theatricals, then?’ I was so disappointed as to be unsure that I wanted to go on stage at all.

‘My stars no, all the London boys are fighting to win, ain’t they? This is only a piece of play to warm the stage. Your swell fellow said you’d be good enough for this. Is he wrong? There’s a good purse in it for you.’

‘I’m good enough,’ I said, though what she meant by it I wasn’t sure.

‘You’re to seem to lose, then you’ll rally and take the fight. Fall at least once, duckie, and be sure not to knock yourself cold when you do. That would spoil it all.’

I was more nervous now, everything about this being new to me. I wished I could just put up my fives and fight. I didn’t know how else it was to be done, after all. She sent me out then. There was a crowd as thick as fog. I pushed toward the stage and climbed up upon it so that Tom could find me and I was right to do it because he was there in a moment.

‘You’ll second me, won’t you?’ I said.

‘Let them tell me I mayn’t,’ Tom said.

He’d barely ever seconded me before; Mr Dryer hadn’t liked to choose him at The Hatchet before we were married, and since then Tom had worked near every night on the convent door. He looked so gleeful now I had to turn my eyes from his face. It was making me churn inside with nerves. I didn’t tell him what Mrs Narrow had said. I wasn’t ashamed, or perhaps I was, but that wasn’t why I held my tongue. I kept silent because to speak it scared me, and because, if anyone should hear, the whole would be ruined and Mr Dryer would be sorry he’d trusted me. It caused me a little bitterness to think that Mr Dryer had sent me there to play a trick upon the fancy, not to fight in earnest. I wondered how much of the purse I could keep.

I stood at the ropes, looking out at a crowd greater than any I’d stood in front of before.At last I spied Mr Dryer, in a tall hat, talking to another gent. It calmed me to see him, though he didn’t look at me. He’d a lady clinging to his arm; his wife, perhaps. Dora wouldn’t be glad to see her. I twisted to look for my sister but she wasn’t to be found. She’d sworn to watch me only because she knew I’d rather she didn’t; now she’d likely not be fashed to come, just when it would be most fun to have her there. These thoughts kept me from boiling over entirely. That, and Tom, who was silent and steady in my corner, waiting on one knee for me to sit upon the other. I left the ropes and went to him. I blessed him for his silence then. The feel of his thigh beneath my own was more comforting than anything he might’ve said.

Before too long there came a cull climbing over the ropes and taking his place as second in the other corner, followed by the little man who always squired the fights on the booth. I guessed now that he was Mr Narrow. He wore an ill-fitting wig and rushed about the stage, crying out, ‘Come forward, and see this valiant miss take on a champion of the ring!’

He gestured that I should stand. My head seemed to come up faster than the rest of me. The betting began. From what I could hear the crowd hadn’t much hopes of me and soon I saw the reason; the cully they sent into the ring was near as big as Tom and with the meanest mug I ever saw. If I’d not liked the sound of theatricals before I was glad of it now.

‘The more in the hat, the harder they fight!’ Mr Narrow called out.

Tom was shifting about nervously; he didn’t know about theatricals, and thought me ready for a beating.

‘Don’t fret,’ I said, but I didn’t explain. I couldn’t tell if he heard me.

My eye found Mr Dryer again. He looked to be arguing with the gents he was with, Mr Sinclair and the handsome cull that Dora was so taken with.

‘This young miss will stand up against the hardest fellow I have on my booth,’ cried Mr Narrow.

‘Step up,’ I called to the big cull, ‘big as you are, you’ll take such hits as make you feel like a little girl!’

Mr Dryer always liked me to call out in this way and now Mr Narrow looked at me and nodded.

‘Then let the same be true of you, though you be more sow than woman,’ the big cull replied, shrugging off his shirt to hand to his second. This friend of his laughed out loud to hear such high wit.

‘Sow I may be,’ I said, ‘but I kick like a donkey, as you’ll soon tell.’

All this was said loud, for the ears of the fancy who crowded the ring. Already I could feel my vision narrowing; I might call out for the crowd but all I could see was that big hackum, with his thick skull waiting to be broke. I had to keep reminding myself about the theatricals. I hoped he’d know how best to do it.

Mr Narrow waved us to our corners. Mrs Narrow had climbed up beside where Tom knelt. She held a bottle of water to splash upon my face if I should need it. I sat on Tom’s knee. His big hand came up and rested on my arm. I knew he was wondering if he should take me out of there but I knew just as well that he’d not dare, unless I asked him to do it. I just stared at that great lobcock opposite me, sitting on the knee of his own second. He didn’t meet my eye but gazed at the air above my head, or perhaps at Tom.

At last, after too long and yet too soon, the betting was done and Mr Narrow called us up to scratch. As soon as I was there I might’ve been back at The Hatchet. I knew I could take him; I knew it. I forgot again about the theatricals and had to pull myself back – I was going to take him because he was going to let me. First I must seem to lose.

Mr Narrow called out, ‘Fight!’

We began our dance. I threw a few fast pokes, though not much to hurt. When Tom and I played at fighting in the convent yard, to please the misses or the cullies, he’d move his head when I fibbed him, so as to make the force seem more than it was. This cull did nothing of the sort, but rather looked at me with a scornful eye. This riled me a little and I threw my fist in earnest. There, he felt that. He shook his head like a bullock and I threw two more, fast as a shuttle. These I pulled back so as not to really hurt, but put enough into them to make them sting. He wasn’t scornful now. My hand stung something cruel; the cloth inside the mufflers had ripped the scabs from the cut that Tom had given me the day before.

I threw a few darts with the left and parried with my right forearm, to rest my poor wounded mauler. He threw a few, but slow, and I dodged him rather than block, where I could. As I began to plan our pageantry in my mind – I’d leave myself open now and let him appear to best me – this ass of a man squared up and threw such a clout as to knock me fair backwards. He didn’t pull it but smashed me right in the ivories. I fell on my rump and didn’t feel the pain at first, only the weight and the power. It was as I pulled myself to my feet that I was aware of my lips, my nose, my very teeth aflame. Blood ran down my chin; my lip was split. Mrs Narrow pulled me upright and helped me to the corner, where Tom waited. He’d been arguing with Mrs Narrow, I could see it in their faces, but they’d not quarrel before me. Tom rubbed my shoulders and Mrs Narrow sponged my lip, and gave me a drink of water. Then my thirty seconds was past, and she brought me back to scratch, in the centre of the ring.

I looked at the cull who’d made me taste blood and saw that he was serious – he meant to pound me as much as ever he could, not last out the rounds, not lose for a purse. I saw his eyes and then again I was driven backwards with such a fib to the gills as set my skull to humming. I didn’t fall this time, though it was a near thing.

He had me frit now. I’d not had such a mill as this since I was a girl, when it seemed that everyone was bigger and heavier than I. My quick pins were the only skill I’d claim to. I began to dance about him, this way and that. I forgot where I was, the crowd, the tent. I didn’t hope that Mr Narrow would stop the fight. I saw only those two great mauling fists.

I was faster than he. He was indeed a bull, thickly muscled but slow to the turn. I danced about him; I struck him where I could. I stopped and guarded till my arm grew numb from taking the fibs upon it. His left made a feint at my stomach and I stopped it with my right elbow, even as his right went for my face. I blocked with my left forearm but I didn’t throw my head back quick enough and he drove my own arm into the bridge of my nose. This was how it went; I parried the blows alright, but so heavy were his maulers that even to block them was to take a pounding of a kind.

I danced so long that soon enough I was flagging. Every hit I landed hurt my hand; the inside of the muffler was wet with my own blood. He began again to close in, throwing his left directly at my face. I blocked him at the wrist and struck him a back-handed blow across the mug with my left, but I was so weak by then that he only took the hit, and dealt me a fib in earnest. I was driven off my legs, and only with difficulty stood.

Again I was brought to sit upon Tom’s knee, again I saw my husband’s face grown feverish with rage.

He muttered to me, ‘If you need, Ruth, throw the fight. You drop to your knees, girl.’

Mrs Narrow threw him a glare. Tom cursed aloud, though he didn’t precisely aim his curse at her.

I began to reply, but my head was too fuddled to think what I meant to say, and in the end I only patted his hand with my soaking muffler, and moved to stand.

Mrs Narrow pressed my arm before she left me at the line. I supposed she meant some comfort by it.

I began again to dance. I felt a new surge of strength, and knew from experience that it was likely to be my last. I had this chance only, and must use it or do as Tom said, and drop the match. As that whoreson closed in once more, no pity in his eyes, I began to mill on the retreat in the style of old Jack Broughton, who’d been dead ten years then and was still called the father of English boxing. I struck one, two, three at his face, all the time stepping backward. The cull followed me and in that way he put his own weight into my blows. The first two fibs were pokes only, but the third caught him neatly on the right side of his jaw, even as he moved toward me.