Authors: Bryce Courtenay
'He did help me a great deal, it's true. But with the death of his wife, Gawd rest her pernicious soul, he's retired, so he can't no more,' Mary replies.
I knows Mary has a soft spot for Mr Emmett, what's always helped her from the very beginning when she were in the Female Factory. Whenever she was with him she were like a young girl, giggling and flirting. Even as brats, we knew that, beside us, Mary's only great love were for Mr Emmett. She cared for Ikey too, but that were different. For days before she was going to see Mr Emmett she'd be in a regular dither, burning the porridge and dropping things. And her what's always rushing around would take t' standing about and daydreamin' with half a smile on her face, her head tilted to one side.
What with Mr Emmett being a true merino and a married man, and Mary thinking herself a common ticket-of-leave, there weren't much chance o' their friendship turning into something more. But now Mary's wealthy and Mr Emmett a widower on a government pension, so perhaps it ain't impossible after all.
'Mama, what about Mr Emmett and you?' I asks, screwing up me courage.
Mary goes quite scarlet. Tommo, mind your tongue!' she gasps, like I've just used a dirty word in front o' the vicar.
I laugh at her embarrassment. 'Well, you loves him, don't you?'
'Mind your own business!' Mary retorts, but she won't meet my eye.
'Why don't you ask Mr Emmett? No harm in asking, is there? Him alone and you alone, two lonely people. It don't make no sense not to!'
'You think I should ask him?' Mary ain't too sure she's heard me right. 'Propose to Mr Emmett? Me?'
'Aye.'
'Don't talk nonsense, Tommo. Mr Emmett's a gentleman and me common as muck! Chalk and cheese! It ain't possible for them two things to get together. The whole bleedin' island would sink under the shame of it!'
'Mama, Hawk says there ain't no one person better than another. It's how we lives what matters, not how we's born.'
'Hawk's right too, but try telling that to the governor's wife, what calls me Miss Abacus like some reptile hissing it out. The nabobs don't marry the thingumabobs in this world, Tommo!'
'All right, well at least put Mr Emmett on your board of directors. Hawk reckons ya should, least that's what he said to me. Ain't no harm in that, is there? It'll keep his wise head working, Hawk says.'
'Hawk said that?' Mary looks pleased and I can see she thinks it a fine idea.
Never in me life have I talked like this with Mary. When I comes out o' the wilderness, she thought me a bit of an idjit. She'd talk to Hawk about the brewery and the business but never to me. Now she's treating yours truly like she wants my opinion, and I must say I likes it!
'Perhaps, perhaps,' she says, folding and unfolding her napkin again. 'Anyways, that's quite enough nonsense about Mr Emmett!' She throws her napkin aside. With the finger of her glove she picks at a spot o' dried gravy on her bodice. 'Now listen, Tommo, I wants to talk to you about Hawk and the Irishman. The more I sees, the less I like of this fight. We must stop it at once, at all costs. How does we do it, Tommo?'
'Mama, we can't! Hawk's got it into his noggin that this be a fight between good and evil. He reckons the evil began with Ikey and carried through to Mr Sparrow, what's got me under his thumb now.'
'That Sparrer's bad news and no mistake. But Hawk blames Ikey for all this?' Mary asks, surprised.
'Not Ikey hisself. Hawk loved Ikey, we all did. It be what happened to us because of Ikey's greed. That's what Hawk says he's fighting.'
'Oh me Gawd!' Mary thinks a while. 'Ikey were not the only one who were greedy. Hannah were even worse and now David.' She pauses, then says softly, 'Even me.'
'That's just it! Like Hawk says, it's a canker, it festers and turns everything rotten. Greed destroys everyone it touches!'
Mary's lips are pursed as she listens. 'Tommo, let's not forget the hard things what happened to Ikey too. He were a creature of the times, a survivor. To be a poor Jew in London when Ikey were a child was to be treated as dirt -lower than dirt! The lowest villain there was would think himself better than a Jew and spit on him. That ain't no way to treat another human being, but Ikey survived all that and he beat all who would destroy him.' Mary looks at me. 'Don't forget how much he gave me and you boys. Ikey were a truly remarkable man, Tommo.'
'Mama, I've told Hawk that. It's not Ikey what's the problem. If it weren't for Ikey I couldn't have survived the wilderness. But Hawk says, if it weren't for Ikey we wouldn't have been took by the wild men in the first place. If Ikey had shared his fortune with David and Hannah, we wouldn't have been kidnapped and there wouldn't have been no wilderness for me and for Hawk.'
'It weren't quite as simple as that,' Mary protests, though I can see from her expression that this line o' thinking ain't entirely new to her. 'It were Hannah wanting more than she were entitled to! It were her greed more than anything!'
'Mama, how is we to know what Hannah really deserved? Who knows what went on 'tween her and Ikey?' I shrug. 'I'm just tellin' ya what Hawk thinks. When Hawk gets an idea in his head nothing's gunna shake it out. He thinks Mr Sparrow's another example o' greed destroying everything it touches. And he's got a point. Mr Sparrow turns everyone what works for him into addicts and drunkards, and when they's no further use, he throws them out onto the street to die.
'Now, with the fight, Mr Sparrow thinks to take all the little punters to the cleaners. He's tempting 'em to bet every cent they has with his odds, when he knows Hawk can't win. For him, Hawk losing to the Irishman be a certainty. If he thinks Hawk's got a chance, he'll do something to stop him. Hawk says it's always the little people what gets preyed upon.' I draws breath. 'He says somebody's got to stand up for the poor and that if we expects it to be somebody other than ourselves, it ain't never gunna never happen. The villains will win again!'
Mary sighs and remains quiet a long time. 'We could still bribe the Irishman to lose? Hawk don't have to know. The poor will get their winnings, Sparrer Fart - or your Mr Sparrow as he now calls himself - will be ruined and Hawk won't be hurt too bad in the meantime!'
'Well,' I says, 'there's a lot o' "wills" in there, 'cept the one you ain't thought about at all. You will lose Hawk forever if he finds out. I sees that now. I were wrong even to think of it in the first place, Mama. Completely wrong! Wrong to ask you to come and wrong to ask you for the money to make the bribe.'
'I'm glad you did, Tommo. It's given me a chance to see you and Hawk again. And to help you, if I may.'
'Mama, if Hawk thinks you and me and Maggie don't believe in him, he would never get over it. He knows he's gunna need a miracle to win, but our Hawk believes in miracles!
'Matter o' fact, he works so hard at his training that I'm beginning to believe in 'em meself. He soaks his hands in brine every day and they be hard as mallets. He's training with Bungarrabbee Jack and Johnny Heki and Ah Wong's uncle, too. They's all saying that if Hawk can just stay on his feet long enough and keep out o' the clinches, he might win the fight.'
I can see Mary ain't convinced by this so I goes on. 'Best thing we can do is believe in Hawk - and hope,' I says. 'Hawk be the bravest man I've ever seen and he's awful strong, Mama.'
'I'm coming with you to the fight,' Mary says suddenly. 'If me boy's gunna be hurt, he'll need his mama.' Mary looks defiant at me, thinking I'm gunna object. 'And I want Hawk to know I does believe in him, with all me heart and soul.' She grabs her handbag from the floor beside her chair. 'Tommo, I want you to put five hundred pounds on our Hawk to win. Mind, you put the bet with our Mr Sparrow so it costs him dear and he knows it when the time comes. We want him to know the true price of underestimating the underdog, eh, Tommo?'
Mary snaps open her bag and digs into it. She brings out a roll of banknotes as thick as me forearm and slaps it down on the table in front of me. 'Now take me to Maggie. I'd best make things right with her and start making plans for the wedding and all. You'll be Hawk's best man and I'll ask Mr Emmett to give Maggie away! Let's be off!'
Tommo
New South Wales
August 1861
I walk around with Mary's five hundred quid stuffed inside me coat for near on two weeks before I figures what to do with it. I can't just do what she reckons and put the whole lot on Hawk. Mr Sparrow would smell a rat straight away! A hundred quid placed on the Irishman by a squatter or a big merchant would be all right. But if five hundred or even one hundred were put on Hawk, all the sporting gents'd want to know what rich fool made such a stupid bet! Or else they'd want to know what was going on with Hawk, in case they too should be stickin' their money on him. Either way, it wouldn't be wise to plonk the whole lot down on me twin at once. Finally I decides to get Caleb Soul and a few of his mates to dole it out for us in smaller bets of twenty quid or so. Even this be a big bet on Hawk and in the days what follow it causes noise enough.
The fight's just a week away but we must leave Sydney today to be sure o' making it. Its location's a secret so's the law can't prevent it, but we has to go to Yass, where we'll find out where it's at. Mary's hired a coach-and-four for all of us, with full provisions for the six days' journey. One thing's certain, the fight ain't gunna be at Lambing Flat. Since the riot there, the diggings have been crawlin' with about two hundred military men, marines and police.
We sets out on our journey and I reckon Mary and Maggie, what's made their peace together, would be enjoying themselves if it weren't for the flies. We've had a bout of warm weather and the flies are swarming everywhere. We take to startin' out early, to try and avoid 'em, but the moment the sun comes up, the little black flies comes to life again and they keeps up with us all day. They stick to the horses so that scarcely a patch o' horse hair can be seen beneath them. They gets in our eyes and noses and mouths. Luckily Caleb Soul, in his trap behind us, has brought along netting what Maggie makes into veils and attaches to our bonnets and hats, giving us all a most mysterious appearance!
But if the flies is bad, the blowflies is worse. They get into the woollen blankets by day and spoil 'em. They lay their larvae and in a matter of hours the blankets is covered in patches a foot square with maggots, what are at once fried by the sun and stick to the blankets. Again, Caleb saves the day by wrapping the blankets up in lengths of oilskin before sunrise and protecting them against the blowflies.
At first Maggie and Mary stay in roadside inns overnight, with us camped nearby. But soon they's complaining about the bed bugs and the noisy drunks, both of which be plentiful! They decides to camp with us, rough though it be.
The road is full o' people what's heard about the fight. Many reckons they'll go to see it and seek their fortunes in the diggings afterwards. Some have been walking for weeks to get to Yass. Lots of 'em cheer heartily when they sees Hawk. They run beside our coach to wish us well, stretching out their hands so that Hawk might touch 'em for luck.
I can see Mary is thrilled to see all the fuss being made over her boy by the passers-by. But every now and then I catch her watching Hawk with an anxious, loving sort o' look, as if she's seeing terrible things happen to him at the hands of the English and Irish double champion. Some of the travellers around us ain't so pleasant, with a band of rough Tipperary men jeering insults at Hawk and his team, Bungarrabbee Jack and Johnny Heki, sitting atop the coach with Ah Wong and his uncle, Ah Sing. But Mary brushes off the insults and is back quick enough to her staunch old self, declaring that o' course Hawk will win!
Mary and Maggie is having a grand time together as we trundles along, which pleases Hawk very much, and me too! Maggie makes Mary laugh such as we ain't never heard. The two of 'em gossips from morning 'til night, swapping whispered stories about their work on the streets - at least that's what I gathers from the way they huddles together, and then bursts into giggles, like two naughty little girls! Maggie's even told Mary the rudiments o' bare-knuckle fighting so that she can follow the bout.
When we arrives in Yass our carriage is mobbed by every sort of human being you could imagine - women, young and old, men from the city, men from the diggings, men of all nations! There's as much booing as cheering around us. Our carriage can hardly move an inch down the street for men hanging off the harnesses of the horses. It's said that our welcome be every bit as big as that of the Irish champion.
The Bolt arrived the previous day and is now settled in at the Golden Nugget Inn. He's taken three rooms for himself and his six doxies, what I reckons be mostly for the look o' things.
With his doxies on his arms, the Bolt is already a great favourite with the crowd. We hear that last night in the pub, he challenged everyone there to down one drink to his two. He were the last man still standing at dawn, waving a whiskey bottle and singing Mother Macree and Danny Boy to the cockerels! They reckon he drank four bottles of Irish whiskey in all, followed by any number of beer chasers. The publican's made a fortune in drinks and out o' sheer gratitude has sent his wife to stay with a relative and given the Bolt their very own bed chamber for his visit.
We're staying with the manager of the Oriental Bank, a mate of Caleb's. Mary and Maggie will stay in the house with him and his wife. We'll camp behind the bank in the yard, what has a high wall to protect us from them what wish us well and them what wish us dead!
By nightfall several thousand visitors are in town. The diggings for a hundred miles around be just about empty o' manpower. The celestials has made their own camp a couple o' miles out, so as to avoid harassment by the drunken revellers. Ah Wong and Ah Sing has gone to join them and will make their own way to the fight.
At eight o'clock at night, a young boy arrives with a message from my employer. 'Mr Sparrow sends his compliments!' he says brightly and I brood darkly for a moment on what Mr Sparrow's idea of a compliment might be. 'The bout will take place at Black Billy Creek, about five mile out o' town on the road to Lambing Flat, noon tomorrer! Fighters to be there an hour before!' he tells us. Mr Sparrow must be bloody confident of the Bolt to make his man fight in the midday sun.