by Paul Sykes
He knew now who the crowd-puller was, not Sibson or Malpass but me, Paul Sykes from Wakefield. 85% of the crowd had come to see me and if the others on the bill hadn't taken tickets for their own supporters I'd have sold the lot, everyone and then some. It was time now I took advantage and solved a few of the problems that had accumulated over the last few months and got myself into the proper frame of mind before this next fight.
* * * *
There wasn't any need to go to Cath's the following morning like I'd done after every fight to let her know the result because she'd been there and seen for herself the
feller at the housing offices and heard what he had to say when we'd gone about a council house.
Cath had a certificate to prove she was pregnant and the addresses of twelve unoccupied houses near her Mother's. We were sent from King Street to Castleford, where the main offices were. It was like downtown Los Angeles with lawns and fountains and bright new concrete. It was a block of a building taken from the next century for all the council workers. Not the lads digging the roads or emptying the bins but those who gave out the jobs. It was a Labour town too. Already I was feeling like I used to do in the nick when I was waiting to go into a governor's office, with it's fitted carpets, subdued lighting and central heating, and I was in a freezing cold cell with a feller who snored, whose feet stank and who was as daft as a brush. This place had all that and more. Lifts, and enormous rooms with paintings and acres of windows.
The feller we saw could have been an assistant governor with his polyester suit and imitation Gucci shoes. He listened to Cath with the standard Home Office look of sympathy and then said with a smile we could go and live in a commune with nine other families, a place called Welfare House.
'Bollocks, you fucking live in it,' I'd exploded and then demanded to know why we couldn't have one of the empty ones on our estate. He didn't try to answer but threw the ball back by saying it was the best he could do and looking for the alarm bell.
'You fucking arsehole,' I said vehemently. 'This is Welfare House and you can stick it right up your fat arse. I'll buy my own fucking house.'
'You've ballsed it up now,' Cath cried on the pavement. 'We'll never get a bleeding house now. '
'You just worry about the baby,' I assured her, 'and leave the rest to me.'
She snuggled nearer, almost tripping me and peered up with eyes full of trust and whispered, 'All right love, I will. '
That was weeks ago and I knew now how I'd be able to keep my
word. Manny would be feeling like he thought I was after beating
Meade when he'd asked me to come to the office. He'd be euphoric
with last night and he'd want to restore his credibility and show he
really was acting in my best interests. Only a full-blown half-wit
could see I wasn't at my best last night. Distracted, unable to concentrate, mind on other things, and Manny was nobody's half-wit. He'd want me at my best for this Yank and it was only a loan anyway. I rang him and asked if he would lend me the money to buy a house, I couldn't concentrate at home and my girl was pregnant. Not a mansion or a villa but a little house for me and Cath and the baby when it came. Nothing elaborate or outrageous but it would have to be cash and it would be in his name. All I'd be really was the live-in caretaker. He agreed, thoughtfully. An hour later Burky had me in an estate agent's; like Alex asking Terry Downes to find out about fighting in the States, Burky was the man to see about buying houses. He knew everything from swopping deeds to property searches, he even knew how to avoid the tax, and estate agents had to be the first stage in the operation. He asked for the brochures in FIVE agents on property for sale up to £10,000. We had 50 houses to see and the next stage was having a look. We began in Ossett, where the property values were rocketing and whatever I bought would double, or even treble, in the next 12 months, or so Burky said, but I liked Ossett and always had done.
The first house was a red brick terrace cell I didn't even stop the car for but the second was exactly what I'd had in mind but never thought I'd find. It was a 400-year-old farmhouse complete with yard, stables and barns that had been divided into a 3-bedroomed and 2-bedroomed house, but we didn't know that, only its price, £4,500.
We drove under the umbrella of stately trees standing at the side of the narrow lane leading into the yard at the rear and the house I'd come to see was in the corner adjoining a stone barn all boarded up. It was a little witch's house I thought going through the door and seeing an iron pot for boiling cats and hedgehogs lying in a heap of soot at the bottom of a great chimney with an open fireplace. Tiny window-panes in bottle glass were mostly broken and the floor had risen. Doors were hanging off and plaster had fallen to expose bare stone walls. It was dark and dingy and completely filthy.
'This is it,' I said to Burky. 'I'm having it. What's the next step?'
'You're not serious?' He couldn't believe his ears.
'This is what I want you to do,' I said. 'See your mate Ray, the builder and arrange a meeting. Give him this.' I gave him a plastic envelope with 50 tenners inside, half my purse. 'That's to show good
faith and tell him it's a rush job. I want a house-warming party before I fight this Yank.'
Half an hour later he'd persuaded the owner, a young lad living next door, to accept three grand cash and the builders were on the job the same day to secure the deal.
The walls were 22" thick and there hadn't been a sign of damp throughout and all the woodwork was sound too. The kitchen was massive and so was the front room. It had a lovely big bedroom and a nice sized one for when the baby arrived. The place had potential, bags and bags of it. I hadn't taken the City & Guilds in bricklaying for nothing or read a thousand colour supplements. It wanted gutting and rebuilding to my specifications and I'd have it turned into a palace. It would be unrecognisable from what it was now and would feel like a brand-new house. I couldn't wait to tell Cath, but I had to wait until she came home from work, about 5.30.
'I've bought a house Cath.' She hadn't taken her coat off yet.
'You haven't.'
'I have. '
'Well let's bloody see it then,' she snapped. It was one of her bad days. She hated working in the Double Two shirt factory. We drove past all the big detached houses on Kingsway. She asked hopefully at every 'For Sale' sign if this was it until I turned the corner onto Dewsbury Road and stopped. The farmhouse was hidden behind a high stone wall, a scraggy privet hedge and a patchy, overgrown garden. Her little head turned this way and that looking for a sign but the only one she could see was 50 yards in front, outside a pair of bungalows that were still being built.
'Where?' she asked suspiciously.
'There love, over there on the right.' I pointed to the sign blending in with the hedge.
She glanced, she stared, her mouth opened and closed.
'Fucking hell,' she drawled. 'It's not is it?'
'Yes, but wait until it's finished. You won't know it then.'
She didn't say a word only stared. Imagining living in the place.
Tramps wouldn't.
'Do you want to go in and have a look round?' I'd point out the potential and what the builders were going to do on my instructions. The plans I had that were already under way.
'Do I hell,' she said hastily and gave me a glance which plainly said I was mad, completely mad.
'I'll see it when it's ready.' She giggled. 'I'll borrow our Mick's crash helmet. '
It was finished before I took Wendy, and then it was only to ask if she'd mind scrubbing the floors before the carpets were laid.
'You don't mind do you love?' I asked. 'I'd do them myself but I've to go to the gym.'
She was on her hands and knees scrubbing away like a borstal boy before I left and when I returned 90 minutes later the job was done. The entire house was spotless. She hadn't argued or complained or looked down her nose, just got on with the job with the same casual air she'd had the first time I'd asked if I could make love to her,
but that's how she was, nothing bothered her providing she was with me or doing something connected.
The song Charlie Rich sings, 'When we get behind closed doors', summed up my feelings for her exactly, in fact I thought every time I came over the brow on Broadway on Sunday nights the song had been written especially for us.
Sunday nights were the only night she could stay out late but even then she had to be in before her old feller got back from the club. She would be standing at the bus stop at the bottom of Gargrave Place wearing a scarlet skirt and a midnight-blue cardigan, her best clothes, and wouldn't look out of place on Hollywood boulevard. She'd give me a smile of welcome when she saw the car which totally obliterated the worry of subterfuge, lies. (Cath thought Sunday nights I went with the old feller into Ossett for a pint), and the pressure Mother was giving me. Nobody existed but Wendy and me. We always went to a WMC in a little town called Penistone, that held a livestock market every Tuesday. It was on the Moors between Sheffield and Huddersfield. Cath hadn't heard of the place and the chances of her, or Wendy's parents finding out we were together were non-existent. It had a massive concert-room and the acts on Sunday nights were good enough for the Palladium. It had been Bob who'd first brought me to watch him win the club awards. All the people sitting at the tables knew who I was; I'd been on the telly another couple of times but they didn 't try to impose on our company although they nodded and smiled and made us feel welcome.
Wendy went to the bar because if I went I'd never get back for people wanting to talk. That's what I told her but really all I wanted was to watch her walk across the room and compare her to the others. She'd glide back to her seat as though on wheels and my chest would almost burst with pride seeing the admiration on the feller's faces as they looked over their wive's shoulders and the old fellers pausing as they lit pipes or had a swill from a glass. She made all the women conscious of their figures and lost youth. She was a rose among ragworts. She had as many prizes for ballroom dancing as her old man had for fishing but the dancing lessons she'd had hadn't given her the grace. She was as natural as a breath of fresh air. Cath didn't know any of this and she didn't know Wendy had scrubbed the floors either.
The carpets were laid, the furniture installed and the invitations sent and the house had been transformed like Cinderella going to the ball. Picture windows, new floors, beams across the roof, Tudor-pattern woodwork, oil paintings and subdued lighting. The outside had been pebble-dashed so it was brand new inside and out. The last £30 was given to a technical college-educated chef, a young fat kid Burky had found to do the catering, and he'd laid out a spread along the breakfast bar that would do justice to the Dorchester.
At 10 o'clock I dropped Wendy off and brought Cath from home knowing there would be murders when she found out. Kay whispered in her ear straight away but I felt now Cath had seen the finished product I could get away with anything. She glared through narrowed eyes and then shot across the room to stand in front.
'You had to bring HER,' she said threateningly.
I was the gaffer now in my own house and if she didn't like it she could lump it. The promises I'd made her had been fulfilled and besides Wendy had scrubbed all the floors. How could I not bring her?' I wandered away too happy to argue.
Manny had come to inspect his property although he hadn't paid for it yet and the kid next door was screaming for it.
He'd pay now he'd seen what an investment it was but it was only his on paper. It would take donkey's years if he wanted to evict me. Burky knew all about the rights of sitting tenants and now I did too. He brought a nickel-plated tea service. Del brought a Chinese handmade rug which was exactly what the front room needed to add the
final touch of class. Burky brought a crockpot and Norm and Ronnie brought huge appetites.
'Haw haw haw,' Norm laughed and rubbed his hands together. 'This is o'reight, this lot,' he announced heaping a plate high with piles of everything. Ron did the same then went to inspect the alterations like a clerk of the works. If only Davy Dunford had been able to come then all the lads would have been here. Lads I'd shared choky blocks with, winning goals, bad letters, grief, torment and anger, all the emotions being in the nick gives and leaves, an affinity like no other. With Davy there my happiness would have been complete. He'd just started a IS-month sentence for ringing a car. We toasted his health instead. I wanted to sit down and cry I was so happy. The yard was packed with big new cars and the road at the front had a line 30 yards long and it was marvellous, wonderful, glorious and the first party I'd ever had.
'Did you hear that Netty?' Tommy asked his wife, a little white-haired woman all the girls seemed to like.
'It's the first party he's ever had.'
'Ee, it's not is it?' She patted my leg. It was all she could reach from the depths of an easy chair.
'It won't be your last though will it?'
Not if they are all like this one I thought, but didn't say so.
Tommy would think my training days were over.
About 10.30 Manny and Tommy went home and then the genuine
guests really came to life. It was like the teacher had left the classroom. Del had us all troop into the yard for an ancient Nigerian custom to bring Cath and me good luck and prosperity in our new house. We had to stand in a half-circle while he mumbled something and then throw our drinks over the step.
'Nay. ' Ave o' ny just filled the bloody thing,' Norm complained.
'All the better,' Del answered. 'It will bring more luck.' Norm swigged a good half and murmured it was a waste of good whisky. I thought so too. It was Del's way of keeping the party going longer. A breath of fresh air and throw your drinks away.
The last thing I remembered before I fell asleep about half two,
wrung out like a dishcloth of energy and emotion, and alone, in the
big new bedroom, was the chef challenging somebody to a race, lamp
post to lamp post out in the street and listening to the hoots and
squeals as it was organised and wondering if I had any policemen for neighbours.
Little Cath was curled by my side wearing all but her shoes the next morning and the house was spotless. Josie, Cath and Molly had shifted a ton of empties, washed up, and hoovered.
Norm was asleep on the settee. He awoke the instant he heard my voice.
'As tha been training?' He demanded. 'Tha's feighting a Yank an' tha'll 'ave to train to beat a Yank tha knows.'
* * * *
Nobody had to remind me I had to train. I didn't have to do anything unless I wanted and I wanted to train, it was the only bit of reality in my life now. The rasping of my breath, the thump of my heart, the steady drip of my sweat played music I danced to every day, every day without fail. Circuits were a pleasure, the clock was a challenge, shuttle runs were agony and I loved it all. Manny had been right. I had complete peace of mind but it was too good to be true, it couldn't last. It was only 18 months since I'd been released from Durham and 9 months since I'd been in Leeds on remand and now I had a house that was paid for, everything in it paid for, a beautiful girl having my baby and everything for my ego. A new car and a rosy future but it couldn't last, something had to happen to spoil it. Something always did. Six of the local task force had nicked me for speeding; 4Smph on Ings road, a new dual carriageway with the old 30mph limit the council had forgotten to up-date. It wasn't anything to worry about even if I had employed two of them at the theatre club. If something serious was going to happen there wasn't anything I could do to prevent it, just make sure I didn't break the law and bring it on myself.
Burky had distributed the new posters and handbills and Ronnie had done the same in Blackpool and the fight had been announced in the papers. All I had to do now was win in spectacular fashion and justify the publicity.
Manny turned up at the gym in Manchester a week before the fight to see what kind of shape I was in, or so I thought until I'd finished and changed.
'This is Dr Mcgill, Paul. He'll be stopp
ing with you until the fight to keep his eye on you. '
After we'd shaken hands the reality of what he'd said sunk in.
A doctor staying with me for a full week before I fought made me more than a side show now. But was I?
Dr Mcgill was known to me and had been for ages but Manny wouldn't suspect a big thick ex-con like me would know about the private life of a doctor. In '74 I'd been on 1.5 landing in Liverpool while Mcgill had been on trial for committing GBH on a girl at Blackpool's north shore golf club. He 'd been found not guilty and not long afterwards the girl had been found washed up near the north pier. Four cells from me had been the girl's brother. He said the coroner's verdict of suicide had been correct. His sister had drowned herself because she couldn't face the shame of being thought a liar and she had a profound belief Mcgill was laughing at her and rubbing it in. Last year I'd been walking through Blackpool when I'd noticed a big shiny brass plate where a brass plate had no right to be. It was like seeing traffic lights in the desert. It said Mcgill was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a member of another eminent clique who were psychiatrists.
Handy people to know when it comes to a judge's summing up I thought recalling the trial. Never mind him keeping his eye on me. I'd keep my eye on him and there was plenty to see. He didn't slot into the usual concept of a doctor, or any I'd seen before. He was a big feller and kept himself fit. He'd be about 45 or not much older and he didn't smoke or drink and had an avid interest in all sports although by the end of the week I realised he had very little knowledge of any of them. He was a real sharp dresser too. He brought a big plastic bag full of meat and another full of food supplements, among which were two bottles of urine-coloured fluid.
