Fair Fight (7 page)

My wounded hand screamed with the pain of it but I fibbed his jaw alright, I’ll say I did. My stars, but I hoped I broke it. He’d not had an idea it was coming, and his head was driven back like a bladder on a stick. I couldn’t have given a fig at that moment for broken fingers; I’ll swear home it was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever known to see his face driven sideways, his mouth opening like a noddy’s, his breath huffing out an evil wind.

My chest was filled with heat. I meant if I could to see him stove in, to turn him to dogmeat. Quick as anything, before he could come back to his senses, I fibbed him as hard as I knew how with my good left hand. This time a tooth left his mouth to decorate the boards and I screamed aloud with the wild joy of it. He had blood and spittle coating his chin. His mug was the match of mine for blood, now.

That’s as far as I remember, that day. I heard later that directly after that he planted me a good facer and my head hit the boards something devilish when I went down. The scar upon the back of my head, which to this day forms a little bald worm amongst my hair, would seem to prove that tale true. I remember none of it. To me, the fight ended with his tooth flying across the stage, a much more agreeable end than the breaking of my crown.

I was told that I lay there all through the cheers and the declaring of that clotpole as a hero for soaking the sawdust with my blood. He had his arm lifted high and took his cheers, and I, half cold as I must’ve been, knew nothing of this. By all accounts, when Mrs Narrow came to help me up I wrested myself from her and lurched back up to scratch, as though the mill wasn’t done.

It was nothing much that I didn’t know what I did, or that I went back to scratch. I’d spent the main of my life at scratch in one way or another, and it must’ve seemed more natural than a feather bed should’ve done at that moment, had one appeared. What happened next, mind, was that this brute, seeing me lurching bloody as a butcher’s block toward him, came for me quite as though he meant to knock me down again. I was told that when he moved for me, Tom leapt forward and dealt him a facer that turned his nose to smash. It still makes me smile to think of it now. I’m only sorry that I’ve no recollection of that boy’s eyes as his nose came to join him inside his own head, or the sweet sound of my good Tom’s mauler turning his bones to powder.

PART TWO

George

4

I
have never considered myself a fighter; call me, instead, a gaming man – a far merrier mode of living, I assure you. The sweat and sawdust of the prize-ring cannot compare to the elegance and high excitement of the gaming houses. If ever the two were to compete for the title of Champion of Amusement, the foppish gaming house would drive the brutish prize-ring to its knees and skip away, its pockets jingling. No, I was never particularly interested in pugilism, but for the pleasure that might be found in placing wagers upon the outcome. Eventually, however, I came to feel differently – although that was in pursuit of the greatest gamble of all.

The stakes were against me right at the start of play; God, in his questionable wisdom, saw fit to give me three elder brothers, all as brutish as gentlemen’s sons are wont to be. I, being the youngest, was often the target of their jokes and rough treatment. In retrospect, perhaps John, Charles and Edward were quite as foul to each other as they were to me, but I took it hard. I was always small for my age and prone to weeping, which infuriated my father and my tutor in equal measure. At ten years old it was decided that I should be sent away to school, to see if the bullying of the schoolyard might succeed in toughening my spirit, where that of my brothers had failed.

I could not believe that my mother had agreed to the plan. I see now that she meant to do me a service by it, but at ten years old I felt only baffled and betrayed. It seemed to me that my brothers had been at fault, but it was I who was to be punished. All the journey to Bristol – which was not above two hours, but felt longer – I sat in the carriage beside my tutor, quivering with the tears I dared not shed in front of him. Especially painful, I recall, was the thought of leaving my favourite dog, Balloo, an old and affectionate hound of my father’s.

I thought nothing of where I was to go until we were nearly arrived.

Mr Allen’s school was a small private academy for the sons of gentlemen, near to St Michael’s church in Bristol. There were twelve scholars residing there when I arrived, and although that number fluctuated over the years, it never varied greatly. The boys comprised two types. The first category, into which I fell, were younger sons of noble stock, who could not expect much by way of inheritance but must nevertheless make their way in the world in a manner befitting the reputation of their family. We were all to be prepared for universities and the respectable professions, such as divinity and law. The other boys were the sons of gentlemen merchants, come to learn book-keeping and the casting of accounts, as well as those arts which might enable them to mix with the quality; as with many private institutions, Mr Allen’s school was much preoccupied with the teaching of fencing, dancing and etiquette. My father had paid enough that I need only share my bed with one other boy.

I was standing beside the narrow window, watching the carriage as it drove out of sight. I was very close to tears. When the chamber door opened I wheeled to face it and felt a bitter disappointment at first sight of Perry, as though I had expected to see my mother arrived to carry me home.

Perry Sinclair was the same age as I, but my opposite in countenance. I was slender and dark, whereas Perry looked exactly as I wished to look myself; fair and of good height, with broad shoulders and strong limbs. He had pink, hearty cheeks and lashes so fair as to be almost white, although at that moment they were darkened by tears. His shoulder was held by Mr Allen, the schoolmaster, in a grip that implied that the boy had been dragged there. As we looked each other over I thought, with a determined kind of dread, that I had better knock him down as soon as ever I could, to get things straight between us.

‘Make yourselves nice, boys,’ the master said, ‘and come straight down, or you won’t have time for tea before chapel.’

He shut the door behind him with a neat click, somehow more intimidating then than a slam.

We were left to eye each other, both of us awkward in our new coats and moleskin breeches. I struggled with the catch of my trunk and only got it open with the greatest effort; Perry watched me wordlessly.

When we had made ourselves as nice as ten-year-old boys know how to – which is not much beyond a washing of the hands and face – we made our way down the staircase and out into the yard, where several other boys gathered. Their bored and comfortable air declared them seasoned residents of the school. Perry and I were easily the youngest there.

The moment we got down to the yard I put my scheme into action and tripped him. I did this easily, as we came off the bottom step, in exactly the way my brother John had tripped me countless times at home. Whereas I would tend to fall obediently and perhaps weep, Perry fell only to his knees, from which position he seized my stockinged leg and pulled me down beside him. We set to upon the ground, the other boys howling with excitement. By the time Mr Allen pulled us apart we had both dirtied our new costumes disgracefully. In the event Perry and I were so evenly matched – for I was sinewy though I was small, and not afraid to bite – and the fight so soon ended, that it served to make us equals.

We were caned straight after chapel. Mr Allen called us into his office and beat us one after the other, both trying not to cry out, both failing and shrieking at the last like piglets. When he had exhausted himself and sent us out Perry and I wiped each other’s tears and compared our welts, each of us sure he had received the worse punishment. I’ll wager that there is nothing better able to cement a friendship than the experience of being whipped one boy beside the other. All young bedfellows should suffer it, just for the sake of camaraderie.

I had never had a real friend before. Perry was a younger son, just as I was, though he had only one brother and two younger sisters.

‘My sisters are a pestilence,’ he said, as we paced about the courtyard after dinner. ‘They are fleas. They do nothing but irritate, until I have to slap at them just for peace and am thrashed for it.’

I nodded emphatically. ‘My brothers will do the same. They torment me until I cannot be calm and then it is I who is called naughty and sent to bed.’

We stopped and leant against the wall but two of the older boys, standing close by, looked at us fiercely until we began to move again.

‘I should rather be sent to bed than thrashed. Early to bed is a soft chastisement. You need hardly be afraid of that.’ Perry put his hands into the pockets of his breeches and assumed an air of great nonchalance.

‘You, Sinclair,’ the master called, ‘take those hands from your pockets. This is not a dock-yard.’

Perry did so, and I did not remark upon it.

‘Pish!’ I said, instead. ‘Before I am sent there I have likely been thrashed twice by my brothers’ hands. Your nurse never beat you as my brothers have me. They are brutes of the first order.’

‘I should rather have a brute for a brother than Arthur. He does nothing but study his books. He would not stir if the house was burning.’

‘I wish my house would burn, with my brothers in it,’ I said.

‘Do not wish for that, bird-wit. Your fortune would be burnt up with them.’

‘Pirates, then. I wish pirates would come up the cliffs and slaughter them all in their beds.’

‘You will burn eternally for saying that, you know, George.’ Perry sounded perfectly peaceful about the notion.

‘Do not you wish the same for Arthur? You lie if you say you do not.’

‘I never think of it.’

‘You lie, then.’

‘Upon my honour, I do not think of it. If he were to disappear I suppose I would be glad. But I would rather be a pirate myself, than take Arthur’s place.’

‘Oh, yes, let’s. Let’s be pirates together and never go home but to show our chests of gold.’

‘I will be captain,’ Perry said.

I replied by pushing him, hard. I had not yet learnt how to express a gentlemanly objection. I pushed him and we fell to fighting and had to be pulled apart.

On that occasion Mr Allen fetched, not a cane, but a measuring rod of birch-wood.

‘Hold still, Sinclair,’ he said to Perry, and when my friend could not stop his hand from shaking, he whipped my own palm first. I believe I shrieked at the very first blow – the burning buzz of a wasp sting across my palm. I could see nothing but my own tears. Again and again he whipped, and each time I shrieked aloud.

‘Remember this, young Mr Bowden, when next you are inclined to behave like a savage,’ he finally said, and sent me out.

I looked over at Perry as I left but he would not look at me; he was holding his hand by the wrist to still it.

‘Now, you quaking pudding,’ I heard Mr Allen say to him, as the door swung to behind me. Perry’s shriek was quite audible through the wood.

There was a wooden pew set outside Mr Allen’s door for boys to tremble upon and it was there I seated myself, to examine what injury had been done me. My palm was striped with lines of white where the cane had struck and a hellish purple between. At the edge of my hand, where the rod had bitten repeatedly, I had begun to bleed. I was weeping when at last Perry emerged, still clutching his inflamed hand by the wrist, his eyes rather dazed.

We compared our injuries. Perry’s hand was not bleeding.

‘Now look, George, and don’t cry any longer,’ Perry said, digging his nails into his injured palm until he, too, sprung bright red.

‘Don’t, Perry!’

‘Hush and give me your hand,’ he said. ‘There. Now we are blood brothers. I will never let any harm befall you and you must defend me likewise. Loyalty until death.’

I found this thrilling and dried my tears at once.

‘Like soldiers,’ I said.

‘More than soldiers,’ said Perry, but I could not think what that meant.

When Perry and I were not fighting each other, we were laying bets. We had no money, for the younger boys were not allowed to carry coins lest it encourage vice; Perry and I bet our possessions instead. I would lay my pen against his handkerchief, or my pocketknife against his bag of marbles. Our things passed between us in this way so often that sometimes we forgot who owned what. We had a wager for everything; whether there would be pease-porridge or milk gruel for supper, or the number of times the parson would clear his throat while he read the lesson; these were contests as exciting to us as the result of a race.

The school kept its boys very close. We were always within its walls unless we were walking to church, and we did not see much of the city even then. We were less worldly than we might have been had we been kept at home; we had no society outside of the other boys and no feminine company at all. In these circumstances, who can be surprised that Perry and I grew to be more, perhaps, than soldiers? We studied, slept, bathed and dressed side by side. As we grew and our bodies made their own demands, it was the most natural thing in the world that Perry and I should relieve ourselves together. It was not unusual in that school – I might go so far as to say that it was commonplace. All growing boys sin, unless they are Christ himself. For Perry and myself, we began so young that we did not consider the nature of the sin until the sin itself had formed our nature. Until, that is, it was too late for real repentance. One cannot repent what one does not wish to alter.

In the winter Perry’s family lived at Bristol, in a house at Queen Square. His father intended that Perry live at home with them in the winters and attend school as a day-boy; we were in terror, as winter approached, that we should be parted. We were sure that Mr Allen would place another boy as my bedfellow and once that happened, how were we to come together again? I can only imagine how earnestly Perry must have entreated his father to allow him to remain a boarder. He was joined in his persuasions by Mr Allen, who did not like to see the loss of the boarder’s fee, it being so much dearer than that for a day-boy. At the last it was agreed that Perry stay on and only be released into the care of his family each Friday tea-time and each Sunday, to attend St Mary Redcliffe with his family, rather than St Michael’s, beside me. Sometimes, at Mrs Sinclair’s express wish, I was allowed to accompany him and partake of the most sumptuous teas – at least, they seemed so, next to the fare we were accustomed to at school.

In the summer Perry’s home was at Aubyn Hall, near the town of Keynsham, only five miles from Bristol. My own home was considerably further and in the opposite direction, near to the town of Bridgwater. I greatly envied Perry that; his family home was perfectly placed between Bristol and Bath, so as to allow for amusements in either city within a two-hour’s ride.

During the summer I visited Aubyn Hall and stayed as long as the Sinclairs, and my parents, would allow. I did not find Perry’s sisters, Charlotte and Louisa, an annoyance. I delighted in the way they followed us about, or glanced at me and giggled. How much did I envy Perry’s home, with those sweet sisters and his elder brother only noticeable as a quiet presence upon the settee, a book open upon his knee.

My mother was pleased at my acquaintance with the Sinclairs. They were a very well-regarded family.

I was obliged, of course, to visit my own home also. I found it difficult. All my new and joyful independence would fall away and I would become as shrinking and weak as I had been before I went to school. It was not just John, Charles and Edward, though they were as thuggish as ever they had been. It was my mother, who would every time be shocked and, it seemed to me, appalled, by how much I had grown.

‘You are not my baby any longer, George,’ she would say, as though I had done it on purpose to vex her. ‘You are quite changed. I would hardly have known you.’

I did not wish to be her baby, but I should have liked to climb into her lap. Instead I let her fuss and fret, and order that I have my hair cut.

I always returned to school with relief. I was only really comfortable there, and with Perry.

The year we were both fifteen, a grievous blow was dealt my friend. We were at school, practising fencing together in the yard. I was quicker on my feet, being so much the lighter. I was driving him backwards when Mr Allen came into the courtyard and called out Perry’s name. I stopped immediately and Perry took the opportunity to jab me hard in the stomach. His rapier had a stop upon it so I was not injured but it winded me enough that I bent over. It was from this position that I heard Mr Allen give the news that Perry’s siblings were all taken by smallpox and gravely ill. Before I could straighten up Perry had sunk to his knees upon the ground. I shuffled to his side and pressed his hand to my cheek. We knelt, I wheezing and Perry weeping, while Mr Allen hovered over us, looking uncharacteristically doubtful as to how to proceed.