Gypsy Girl (17 page)

Stranglehold, that was one of my strengths. Rocky knew it. All I wanted to do was get my arms around his neck and lock my fists together, cutting the blood to his brain and making him black out. We were wrapped around each other, closer than we’d ever been, our faces almost touching. The heat coming off his body was frying me.

“You could’ve asked me,” he hissed in my ear. “I told you, I’ve got money.”

I tried to get my arm around his neck, and failed. “No. We’re proud.”

“I would’ve kept it a secret. Chrissake, Sammy. I’m so angry with you.” He tore my arm away and threw me down on my back, and he was on top of me straightaway, pinning me down. “Look at this place. No referee, no safeguards, no one to stop the fight if it goes too far.”

I stopped trying to throw him off me. “It’s sweet that you care. But you shouldn’t. Imagine if Beryl got her way and we went out together. We’d destroy each other.” I stopped struggling. I let him think just for a moment he’d worn me down.

He grinned, tightening his grip “Like I’m going to do now? Even though you’re pretending to be beat.”

He shouldn’t talk during a fight. Boys can’t do both. Girls can. Me sister Sadie-May says it’s called multi-tasking. While he was ranting, I’d got in a position to knock him off me. I twisted and moved so fast that before he could do anything it was me on top, and he was beneath me.

“Give up now?” I said. “Before I destroy you.”

There was no grin on his face now. “Maybe we should’ve hooked up together. Then I could’ve stopped you doing stupid, dangerous stuff like this.”

“You don’t want me. You want your secrets and your older woman.”

“And you want rich boy over there. And that’s cruel because he’s fallen for you, and you’re going to leave on Sunday and never see him again.”

“That’s why I brought him here. I wanted him to see what I was.”

Rocky let his head fall back onto the mats, and laughed. “You thought that’d stop him wanting to jump your bones? You really don’t know boys.”

The crowd was getting restless. So was Scar-face. “Stop talking, and fight!” he bellowed. He wanted to see me get beaten.

Rocky smiled. “Let’s do this.”

He pushed me off him and leaped to his feet. We began circling each other. Kimmy was shouting through the bars, rattling them. Gregory was next to her. He looked so young and fair among the men, eyes locked on me, his hands holding the bars. Golden-brown eyes staring at me, trying to understand why I was doing this. Why I was in a cage with people shouting at me, betting on me.

Rocky tried every trick he knew to trip me, but I was too quick for him. In fact, he tripped himself, only for a second, but long enough for me to skip round and leap on his back like a monkey. He tried to tip me off, using his full strength now, but it made no difference. My arm was locked around his neck, pulling his chin back, destroying his breathing and his balance, until he sat down and I could squirm from behind him, still holding the lock.

It should’ve worked, but somehow he half-slithered free, and twisted, and then it was equal, deadlock. We both had a hold of each other, but neither of us had the upper hand. I’d used the last of my power, but so had he. We lay there, wrapped around each other, gasping for breath in the middle of the cage.

I tried to finish him off, but I couldn’t. My grip on him slipped, until finally he broke free and reared up on his knees. I was undefended. All he had to do was pin me and get a stranglehold, and I was finished. He’d won.

I held my hand up in surrender. “Not my face,” I said. “I’m a bridesmaid tomorrow.” I couldn’t be bruised. Sabrina would go crazy.

He groaned and sat back on his heels.

“Jeez, Sammy. What are you doing to yourself? What are you thinking? I’d never hit you.”

He jumped to his feet and held out his hand.

“Come on. Let’s go home.”

I could’ve cheated and grabbed his hand, thrown him and won. I didn’t.

The crowd booed. Kimmy looked spooked. Crowds are like wild beasts, they can turn on you at a moment’s notice.

Rocky pulled me up, breathing in great gulps of air. Another few minutes and he would’ve had no strength left either.

“Run!” shouted Kimmy, throwing the cage door open. “They’re mad at both of you!”

We pushed our way out of the cage, squeezing past the fighters waiting to come in. As Rocky passed Kimmy, he grabbed hold of her and hauled her along beside him. They were shouting at each other, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying over the booing. I didn’t care, because the crowd had parted to let me through and Gregory was there, waiting for me. If the fights were like a honey pot to me, so was Gregory. I’d shown him what I was. I should’ve walked away and left him. But I couldn’t. I went up to him.

“You could’ve been injured,” he said.

“That’s my business.”

He stumbled as he got pushed to one side by the crowd. I took his hand. “We have to get out of here. They’re mad because I didn’t finish the fight.”

I thought he might push me away, but he didn’t. He started shoving his way to the door, making a clear path for me, dragging me along, holding tight to my hand. I was glad of it. I had hardly any strength left. My blood sugar had dropped like a stone, my knees were shaking.

“Does your dad know what you do?” he said.

“No. No one does except Kimmy. And now you and Rocky. Don’t ever say anything.”

He looked around for the last time as we made it to the exit doors. “This place is the pits. It’s horrible.” He pulled me through the doors into the cold night air. My legs buckled, and I almost fell. No more adrenaline in my blood, no more energy in my muscles. He put his arm around me, holding me up. “But you were amazing. How can you fight like that?”

I shrugged. “I’m a Smith.”

His arms were still around me. The car park was quiet. Rocky and Kimmy were still inside.

“Good job we won’t be seeing each other again,” I said. “You can forget that places like this even exist.” My whole body ached after fighting Rocky, but it was my heart that ached the most. “This is goodbye. I bet you’re glad, now you’ve seen what I do.”

“No,” he said.

I pushed his arms away from me, even though I wanted to stay wrapped in them for ever. “Go away. Go back to your girl. You fell out with her for no reason. I’ll forget you by next week.”

“I won’t forget,” he said. “I won’t forget you.”

A door slammed, and now Rocky was dragging Kimmy over to us.

“Get your hands off me!” She was thumping him and trying to kick him. He shoved her towards her motor.

“Get in and drive, and don’t let me see you again.”

I turned away from Gregory and shouted, “Leave her alone.”

Rocky swung round at me. “She helps you go to these places. What sort of friend is she?”

“My best friend. She doesn’t boss me around. She doesn’t tell me I should be marrying this person or that person, like everybody else.”

Kimmy bipped open the doors, fumbling the key in her haste to get away. I got in and lowered the window as Rocky came over. “Take Gregory home. I’m going with Kimmy.”

He gripped the ledge, so I couldn’t close the window. “Fine. But I tell your daddy the moment I get back.”

My heart gave a thump. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” He slammed a fist down on the window ledge. “You gonna tell me what’s going on in your head, Sammy-Jo?”

“No. And you won’t tell my father anything. You’ve got secrets as well.”

“Not like yours.”

“Right. A boy gets in trouble with the police, and they let him off. Something happened to you a year ago.”

Everyone else was relieved he hadn’t got sentenced. But I noticed that he started disappearing off by himself, saying he was doing part-time jobs for someone or other.

“No mystery,” he said. “I got into trouble and charmed me way out of it.” He stopped and listened. In the distance, a siren was wailing. “You hang around in those places and
you’re
going to get into trouble with the police. And then your daddy’ll find out. And Beryl and Queenie.”

He was trying to panic me. It didn’t work.

“Before you got into trouble you stopped training and fighting,” I said. “Why?”

He thumped his fist again. “I told you. I told everyone. Someone I knew got injured. Billy Lee, he’s called. He broke his neck. He’ll never walk again. It put me off, OK? That’s why I don’t want the same thing happening to you.”

I wasn’t going to back down. “So how come that crowd knew you?” I’d heard a few of them shouting out his name while we were fighting. “You didn’t just follow us. You’ve been to these fights before. That’s how you knew the name Gypsy Girl. So it’s OK for you, but not for me?”

For the first time, he looked uncomfortable as well as angry. “What I do is none of your business.”

“Why?”

“It just is. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

“I might start following you round as well.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said.

I smacked my fist down on his hand to make him let go of the door. “Well, you’re not me. And you’re not my keeper.”

Kimmy revved the car. “Police siren’s getting nearer. They might be coming here. We’ve got to go.”

She was right – it was louder now. “Drive,” I said.

The Golf shot forwards, and Rocky, swearing and cursing, had to step back to avoid getting his foot run over. We left them in the car park, Gregory staring after us and Rocky kicking furiously at a piece of rubbish blowing across the ground, before storming off to his car.

I spent the rest of the journey in silence, while Kimmy chatted on and on. All I could think about was Gregory’s arms around me and how safe and secure it had felt. And now it was over. It wouldn’t happen again.

Gypsy’s Acre was still except for the fox again. It was high-stepping around some black bags of rubbish we’d piled up to take to the dump, trotting up and down like a ghost creature in the darkness. I should’ve been tired but I wasn’t. My heart was aching too much. And if I closed my eyes all I would see was Gregory’s face watching me as I drove off with Kimmy.

I wandered through the trailers. A couple of dogs lying under Tyson’s daddy’s trailer lifted their heads and watched me go by, then went back to sleep. There was a light in the sky to one side, over Langton House. Dawn wasn’t that far away. I was going to be a bridesmaid with bags under her eyes if I wasn’t careful.

Everyone else was fast asleep. I was the only one who heard the lorry engine idling and the bumps and bangs coming from the International Express yard. I could see that all the lights were on over there. And I could see something else. There were two men in the driveway, given away by the glowing ends of their cigarettes. One was watching this field, one was turned towards the road. Did McCloud think that we were so desperate to come and rob him that we’d sneak over in the night, when they were still working? They seemed to do more loading at night than they did during the day. Suddenly I wanted to go and have a look, and show them that even with security all around, they couldn’t stop me.

So I took the little overgrown path – which they hadn’t thought to guard – safe under the cover of darkness, or so I thought. The lights in the yard were as bright as day, but the brambles and bushes were still in deep shadow. I picked my way through carefully and saw two more men standing guard by the closed gate. They should’ve been paying attention, but they were both leaning on the fence and playing with their phones. No one was looking my way. I supposed they never thought someone would creep through the brambles at night. I moved forward until I found a spot where I could see the yard and the two lorries, and crouched down to watch.

I should never have done that. I thought my life couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong.

The yard was busy with people and vehicles. There were two lorries, both with their backs open. One was being loaded, the other was being emptied. McCloud’s silver Range Rover was parked next to the red Subaru Impreza with the personalized
HUD18
plates.

You’d think McCloud would leave all the night work to his staff, but he was standing watching them as they shifted crates in and out of the lorries. Beside him was a boy. He got my attention straightaway. I hadn’t seen him before, but it seemed that the Subaru was his, because he was leaning on it, laughing at something someone had said. He looked older than Gregory, and he was dressed as though he’d been out clubbing before coming here – I even got a scent of aftershave on the breeze, Paco Rabanne. He was as sleek as the car, his dark hair all styled, his clothes expensive and his smile Hollywood-white. When you looked from him to McCloud, you could tell they were father and son, except McCloud never smiled and the boy never seemed to stop. I didn’t know what his name was, but I bet it was something to do with the
HUD18
number plate. The car had probably been a present for his eighteenth birthday.

Pony was there too. He jumped out of the back of the lorry that was being loaded and went over to McCloud. They were close enough for me to just about hear them.

“We’re nearly ready for it, boss.”

“Good. Our man’s waiting at the docks…”

“We’ll get it loaded and then block it in with the rest of the crates.”

McCloud’s son was more interested in the second lorry, the one that was being unloaded by a couple of men. When a wooden crate appeared, he called to the men, telling them to bring it over to him. He said something to McCloud, who nodded, and the boy levered the top off. Whatever was inside pleased him.

“Sweet!”

He pulled something out. When I saw what it was, my heart began to hammer. He was holding a rifle. I don’t know much about guns and weapons, but it was the sort you see in films, the sort that shoots about a million bullets in a few seconds. Pony pulled another one out and examined it. The crate was full of them.

I sat back on my heels, stunned. Jeez, all that shouting at us, telling us to move as though
we
were the lawbreakers, and it turns out that McCloud was the crook. He was transporting weapons but pretending to be this lawful businessman. I should’ve scarpered right there and then. Gone back to the field, pretended I’d never seen anything, wiped it from my mind. But no, my heart was still aching, and I’d got a whole lot of anger simmering inside me after the fight with Rocky. I stayed where I was and watched. It was like a bad joke: McCloud, who looked down on us as if we were scum, was a criminal in a designer suit. I took out my phone and switched to the camera. If he or any of them got nasty with us again, I could wave a photo in their face and tell them to leave us alone.