Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  find me a job to keep me out of trouble, a nice steady job training the

  lads he managed. It would suit me down to the ground.

  The door of a dressing room opened and Peter appeared carrying

  his holdall.

  'Hello Peter, how're you feeling?'

  'Oh, I'm not so bad you know.' He smiled self-consciously, embarrassed at his performance: Floyd Patterson, after his first defeat

  against Sonny Liston had hidden in the dressing rooms and left the

  arena hidden under a beard so Peter's feelings were natural but very

  unpleasant. I was glad it wasn't me. His face had a red patch high on

  the cheekbone but it was the only mark on him.

  'I wasn't fit you know. I mean if I hadn't been skint I wouldn't

  have taken it,' Peter explained. 'I couldn't turn down £600 could I?'

  'No Peter, you couldn't turn down money like that.'

  He pushed himself from the wall and called 'see you then' over his

  shoulder and disappeared round the corner into the arena. It was a lot

  of money, far more than I'd realised. If I'd fought instead of him it

  would be in my pocket now and in the next 6 months I'd have

  another 6 fights and be earning fortunes. It sickened me that somebody with Peter's attitude had been given the opportunity while I had

  to wait.

  There was somebody coming, footsteps sounded and then tonight's

  promoter, Mr Manny Goodall, appeared in the corridor. I recognised

  him instantly from his photo in the papers and I'd heard him speak on

  the radio. 'If you play for pennies that's all you'll win,' he'd said in

  answer to a question about fears the show would flop holding it in the

  stadium.

  'Hello Paul.' He drew deeply on a tipped cigarette as if it was

  giving him life and then blew the smoke through his nose. It twitched

  sideways like a rabbit's.

  'Hello Mr Goodall.' I smiled. 'It looks like you had a success

  tonight, a full house. '

  'The headaches. You wouldn't believe the headaches.'

  He weighed me up like I was a secondhand car he was thinking of

  buying.

  'Tommy tells me you'll be boxing yourself soon, start of next

  season.'

  'All being well I will be.' I grinned hopefully.

  'Hope so Paul. The game's almost dead. It's crying out for some new blood.'

  He swivelled on his heel in a cloud of smoke and returned the way he'd come without a backward glance or another word.

  How did he know me? I hadn't been in the national papers or on the radio. How the fucking hell did he know me? After a minute's deep thinking I had the answer, or I'd bet my life I had. When Tommy had come to the beach back in '73 he'd invited me to watch his heavyweight sensation in action that night in some hall up the north shore, The Blackpool Sportsman's Guild or a name similar. Peter had been in with Guinea Rodger at the top of the bill and he'd fought then as if he'd been frightened of being hit. He should have walked in and battered Guinea Rodger like Spinks had done with him tonight. I'd shouted for him to steam in; he was two stones heavier and Rodger couldn't hit anyway. I'd sparred with him a week or two earlier in some North London gym -the sweat, the smell, the memory came flooding back as though it was yesterday.

  It had been some enormous barn of a place with donkeymen, ice-cream, rock, candy floss, Tee shirt print, tea stall owners, all sitting 4 to a table wearing ancient evening suits, clapping politely between rounds and telling me to be quiet as though it was the National Sporting Club and they were only there to appreciate the aesthetics of the game. Mind you I did say I'd batter the pair of 'em and told them all to bollocks off before I'd left the place in disgust. Manny had been one of those I'd told to bollocks off. No, no, had he hell, he'd been the promoter. Yes, that's right, he'd been the promoter and Tommy had been his matchmaker, just like tonight.

  It all came back with startling clarity, Tommy holding his hair in place on the beach, the phoney crowd, the phoney boxing, the phoney clapping, the whole charade. It had been a typical Blackpool sideshow and nothing to do with fighting at all. Yes, and not just that, they were the ones who had stopped me from boxing and were making me wait now. They were both on the Board of Control and they'd inferred, well Tommy had, 'box on our shows or you won't box at all'. Now the penny had dropped I remembered Leon Spinks had exactly the same cornermen Hutchins had, two little black fellers and another much younger one.

  They were in the swindle too. The whole lot was one big swindle. No it wasn't, Conteh and Hutchins had been trying and so had many of the others on the bill but Peter hadn't and he was their star man. It was a knocking bet I'd fight him once I started and when I did there would have to be some changes made. I wasn't any side-show. The whole business made me itch as though a spider was crawling up my back. Manny Goodall, big time promoter, smoking tipped cigarettes and wearing a rumpled brown suit on the night of his biggest success, and on about headaches like a donkeyman on a rainy bank holiday Monday. It was enough to make anybody itch. What made it worse these were the people who said Alex was a bad influence. I'd need all his help with this mob when I did start.

  On my way from the stadium with Nat announcing the winner of the last bout and requesting those remaining to stand for the National Anthem I remembered Peter had been on £600 that night too. It had to be his going rate I thought and decided I wanted more than him. I was worth it.

  It wasn't until I walked into Del in some back street blues did I stop thinking about the discovery I'd made tonight. Manny, Tommy, Nat Basso, the Americans, the referee, the seconds, every man jack of them were in on the conspiracy but the boxers. No, even Peter was in the conspiracy. Alex was of the same opinion and said they weren't paid enough to try. That's why he hadn't been allowed a promoter's licence. They were frightened he would capture the market and boxers would only box on his promotions and they would have to pay better purses if they wanted to compete.

  The only kids who'd given their all were the young lads coming through and the old plodders who really enjoyed a fight, the lads who made up the bill on every show. They'd never be champions although one would occasionally drop lucky like Richard Dunne, which would renew the hopes of them all. It was the likes of him who kept them all living in hope.

  Richard Dunne had won the British heavyweight title from Bunny 10hnson one miserable Tuesday night in some club in Manchester, which rated 6 lines in 'The Daily Mirror', the standard of boxing had dropped so low. 10hnson, the British heavyweight champion, was l3st wet through and less than 6ft tall, a Jamaican who'd come over to live in Handsworth, Birmingham, and get a living boxing: after I'd

  sparred with Guinea Rodger I'd sparred with Johnson. He wasn't big enough to make an impression but what he'd lacked in size he'd made up for with determination.

  Along comes Dunne, 6' 3", 15st plus and pokes out a points win and the next thing he's fighting for the European title against a 7' beanpole who farmed reindeer in Lapland. Dunne grits his teeth for a round and a half and flattens the feller and then the press start screaming he could beat Ali. The big Yorkshireman is suddenly a paratrooper, a high rise scaffolder, a feller who's been about a bit. Ali is fat and old and ready to be taken. Dunne finds himself fighting Ali in Munich and it isn't a dream, he really has hit the jackpot. He tries his best for a while really believing he can win then slowly realises Ali on crutches with an arm in a sling is too good and loses heart. Reality sinks home with a half a dozen punches in the blink of an eye and he's out, but it doesn't end there. He fights Bugner on the strength of the World title fight and is in the big money once again.

  All the young lads on the under-cards of every show live in the hope it will happen to them but unless they were signed up with the right people it never would. How many of them were aware of this nasty little fact of boxing politics and if they
were, how many cared? Peter certainly didn't, the fraud. Well I wasn't, I'd do it on merit or I wouldn't do it at all.

  At the moment I could beat the current crop of heavyweights in this country without having to train and probably the Europeans too providing I could stay fit and wasn't injured. No way did I want to be on a Blackpool side-show poncing about like Big Daddy or Giant Haystacks and the only way to make sure was to flatten everybody and get in the big league. I had everything; good wind, able to fight or box, as much bottle as it takes, but I was growing old and all the old injuries were catching up. I had no alternative but to go along with them if I wanted to turn all the years of training I'd done into money, but there was this 6 months to get through first. Once it was over and people saw I was genuine the following I'd have would be tremendous and it would grow. The likes of Manny Goodall and Tommy Miller wouldn't be able to hold me back.

  The stadium flashed into mind.

  The World Boxing Council had ordered it to be cleaned up or the

  fight would be cancelled. Manny Goodall had been going to put the

  fight on in the muck and squalor, the penny pinching snide. No wonder he. wears brown suits and smokes tipped cigarettes. Six months to get through and when I have, the reward will be to join his act. Behave and prove you're honest enough to join the swindle. It wouldn't be for long I thought, groping my way in the dark behind Del in some club ten minutes after leaving the stadium.

  It was like walking into a stone wall about chest height and waking up. For what use my senses were I may as well have been asleep. The noise coming from two enormous loud-speakers was deafening, my ears overloaded once more in the space of an hour, and my eyes were blinded by a kaleidoscope of colours coming from a million tiny spot-lights dancing everywhere. The smell of humanity in all its glory clogged my nose, sweat and smoke, scent and sex, when-instantly everything was knocked into focus. Del had stopped before a table where Anita was sitting; I could see her over the top of his head. All my senses became alert and stood to attention. In the few seconds we looked at each other both knowing what the outcome of this meeting would be I took in her perfectly round Afro, her flawless skin texture, her dazzling teeth, her milk white eyes and thought of Pauline.

  'I'll leave you two for a minute,' Del said, 'There's somebody I want to see. Wont be long.'

  We were alone in a small cave of silence about a yard from the dance floor with the place heaving with people. Everybody it seemed was black or had a good portion of Negro blood from jet to Anita's coffee colour but they were mere shadows to the startling brightness of Pauline's memory. It was Pauline who was sitting before me and the deep probing scar she'd left wasn't healed and the memory still hurt. It was the pain of a relapse. Compared to Anita she was an old banger, a used and battered old motor. I even recalled making her wear a wig and false nails to smarten her up before we'd married, like polishing the car before it's sold. What a full bouncing cunt I'd been to fall in love and leave myself open to all the agony that followed. It wouldn't happen again although to fall in love with Anita wouldn't be difficult, she was breathtaking.

  Pauline had said in one of her 'Dear Johns', another excuse for

  being unfaithful, it wouldn't have worked anyway because I was too

  old. If she could see me now I thought, recovering rapidly from the memory and realising it was the music making the row and not the

  clock above the prison gate, she would be gutted, sick as a parrot. Never again would I be blinded by dazzling teeth and milk white eyes. Anyway Pauline had rotten cruel eyes the colour of fish. I should have known, all the signs were there but 1'd been blind. Del came back after a while very businesslike and full of importance, his manner when he didn't want interrupting. Bristling with contained power to make people wary, on this occasion Anita.

  'Right, it's all arranged,' he said. 'You can move in whenever. It's handy, very central, but you'll have to share. Your own bedroom, and all that, and there's bags of room and they're two nice lads. Just muck in.'

  Anita came with me to Blackpool that night, where we stayed in a boarding-house posing as a hotel on Central Drive. We went into the '001', a night club where 1'd often taken Pauline, just to dispel any thoughts the regulars may have we were still together and moved into the flat the following day. Anita, 5ft 10 and 19 years old with the looks and figure of a Playboy centre page was followed by Patsy, another Liverpool girl equally gorgeous and only 18 years old. Lily, Patsy's mate was the next and then Ann, an old friend and a divorcee. The two lads whose flat it was, a van driver and a typesetter, didn't mind whom I brought providing they made no snide comments about their relationship. They were desperately in love and couldn't help kissing and stroking each other's crutch every time they passed, which amounted to at least 20 times a day. It didn't bother me and I wished they wouldn't do it in the kitchen, but I didn't say anything.

  Life zipped by like the needle skidding across a record in a tumble of events and incidents too numerous to mention. Every day seemed a month long until after two weeks I was thinking 1'd been out of gaol years so much had happened when I realised it was time I went home and settled into a routine. After years of the same dull colours, the same monotonous noises, the same hours for everything; brushing teeth, using the toilet, sleeping, waking, it takes a while and I found the best indicator was my bowel movement. Like everything the food was exactly the same week in, week out. Every Tuesday tea the same, every Saturday dinner, every meal of every week tallied down to the last slice of bread. The sudden influx of food solid enough to chew; nothing is served in prison that makes the use of a knife and fork necessary and 1'd often thought having teeth was superfluous to the

  needs in gaol but now having to chew not only made my jaws ache but bunged up my system. My first discharge from prison had caused me to feel worse than I'd ever done. I'd gone a full week without using the toilet and when I had, in a girl's flat, I'd blocked up the plumbing and almost faded away from embarrassment. Now my bowels were in order and when they were in order then the rest of me was. It was time to find a routine and where better than with my family at home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Four weeks later I was in the filthy fortress of Leeds gaol, remanded in custody and charged with GBH on my old school pal, Mick Sellers, and feeling as if justice and fair play must only exist on the playing fields of Eton.

  Leeds gaol with its four wings built of huge lumps of Yorkstone blackened with the soot and grime of the West Riding coalfields reeked of misery and despair and the screws revelled in it like pigs in mud. They were fat and happy, content in the knowledge there was always somebody worse off and if they weren't they wanted to know why, but it was better than Durham had been and I didn't really mind being in at all. It was giving me time to analyse and adjust to the speed of life and redirect my plans along the straight and narrow. It was a breathing space that couldn't have come at a more appropriate time.

  Everything had happened too quickly, too much happening before I had time to think, speed and rush and people and events; it had been like playing chess, doing a crossword, running a marathon, juggling Indian clubs and making love all at the same time and Leeds gaol was a welcome respite. The charge didn't worry me although the police were making a meal of it and on about another long sentence. I had faith in the truth and thought I'd be given bail in a week or two. I was getting a visit every day from a married woman who thought I was Al Capone. If I was released she said I could move in with her. In fact she insisted I did, and was divorcing her husband in preparation.

  We'd met the Saturday night Ronnie had come over; my first Saturday night at home, after we'd toured all the city centre pubs, or most of them, and then gone to Heppy's Nite Spot. Ronnie was the mate who'd been with me when I'd robbed the bookie's accountant and he'd been a friend even longer then Del or Michael. He'd served his sentence in Lancaster gaol while I'd been stuck in Durham and Liverpool, and he'd had the gym red-bands job. Ron was like that,

  nothing and no
body could upset him and he always got a decent job in gaol. The gym job suited old Ron down to the ground. He'd been a pro footballer with Blackpool, played in the same team as Sir Stanley Mathews at one time and was still a dab hand at the game. He is 3 years older, 6" shorter, stocky, deft and very fast, a typical inside-left. He was a Cockney originally from Camden Town and had moved to Blackpool as a lad of 14 but he still retained his dialect even though he regarded Blackpool as home. He was fitting petrol tanks into new garages now and living with Josie, a tall, very attractive girl who was the mother to his only son, Jason, aged 7. They were at home witching the telly with the old feller and mother while we were out having a night on the town just like old times.

  We'd gone from one pub to another and at 11 o'clock we'd strolled up the cobbled alley off the beaten track to Heppy's. On the neon sign on the gable end it read, 'Heppy' s Nite Spot. Fish 'N strips', but for all that it was still the best club in town. We were sitting at the back watching the antics of the band, 'The Kalahari Bushmen' , on the small stage and sharing a bottle of Barsac. We'd been in the place about 10 minutes when a tall woman dressed completely in black with a frizzy bush of black hair parading before the table drew my attention. She smiled crookedly and sort of minced past, walking in such a way I couldn't help but notice her. Over the following hour I realised the women in the place were already spoken for and she'd paraded before the table another six times in exactly the same fashion. She was elected on pure effort.

  On her way past for the seventh time I smiled invitingly and asked if she'd like to sit down and rest her feet. She flew round the table to the chair next to me, hitched it nearer and then grimaced. It was supposed to be a smile but she could have been sitting on a nail. Her lipstick had been applied with a toothbrush and her eyebrows were different colours. After I'd poured her a glass of wine she told me her brother was serving 8 years in Parkhurst. Prison was the only link between us and it crept into the atmosphere like a gas leak. I changed the subject quickly to discover she was married with a 3-year-old daughter and her husband didn't mind her having a night out with her mate on Saturdays. We talked of this and that; I was surprised she had such a working knowledge of the local villains and villainy in general. It bored me.