Sweet Agony

by Paul Sykes

  He knew I was out to beat him after the first mile so he stepped up the pace. After four I could feel I was into energy reserves I'd need that afternoon so I didn't push and he came in 3 minutes before me again. The circuits in the chapel had done their job magnificently but it wouldn't be prudent just yet to declare my hand.

  Breakfast ten minutes after returning and once again I could hardly eat a thing. At 4 o'clock I was starving and realised unless I altered my feeding routine I'd be a middleweight by the time I got to Wembley. I sparred with the Syrian for two rounds and then Leon. He tried to hustle me but he wasn't big enough, didn't punch hard enough but he was fit. I shook him a couple of times with stiff right-handers but I couldn't go all out because I didn't have the energy. Manny beamed after we'd finished and said I was in great shape and would be even better after living here for six weeks. He was going back in the morning but he was confident he was leaving me in exceptionally good hands. A week later the penny finally dropped. Leon was fighting a feller with my build and height and I'd been imported to be his sparring partner. It hadn't cost Manny a dime.

  Every night I climbed the highest ski slope. If I had a skiing holiday it wouldn't be here. The hills were hardly higher than Ossett common and you'd be at the bottom in five minutes but the scenery in every direction was wonderful. It was like being in the crow's-nest

  of a ship but instead of seeing the ocean, it was trees stretching away forever. No chimneys, no power station cooling towers, no cathedral spires or pylons, nothing but trees to the horizon in reds and golds and different shades of greens and browns. This was the part of America where the ex-Vietnam war veterans came to live when they'd opted out of society. This was definitely Bigfoot country. There were deer watching me run in the mornings from the trees at the edge of the road. I'd seen three snakes, long, thick blue ones, slithering across the road, and since I'd been climbing the hill I'd seen a porcupine being followed by three little ones. Eagles, buzzards, gophers, racoons, possums, squirrels, brown, green and blue snakes, and I'd even heard a grizzly bear. It was pleasant on top of the hill but how I wished I had a friend with me. Norm would be in paradise here with his lurcher, and I hadn't a clue what the old feller would say. Would Wendy or Cath like it? I couldn't hazard a guess but how I ached to see them.

  I wasn't only a total stranger to everybody in the camp but they couldn't understand my Yorkshire dialect, and I was the only white man. Not in the slightest did it worry me but the fact I was growing steadily weaker did. I wasn't half the man I was when I'd first arrived. The first three sparring sessions I'd put Leon in his place. When the penny dropped and I realised there was a strong possibility we would be fighting at a later date, I slowed down but I hadn't any real choice. The run drained me and I couldn't put it back before we sparred.

  Hank Groomes had only one concern, Leon, nobody else mattered. I was sick of Leon, with his continual racket of pop music blasting all day long. He had half a dozen massive loud-speakers in the hotel, two more in the gym, and everywhere he happened to be, apart from the morning run, they blasted out Northern soul. I wanted to smash them to pieces. He didn't even speak to me directly but asked his questions through an intermediary. He had a full-time tutor to make up for the years he'd missed going to school but I fancied he was employed as a tax dodge because Leon never had a lesson. He had the needle with me since I'd flattened the Syrian, jealous because I'd done it and not him. I hadn't flattened him intentionally just happened to catch him on the button with a textbook left hook the second day.

  He'd collapsed on to his arse and sprawled across the bottom rope. I knew I hadn't hurt him, just caught him spot on.

  'You guys beatin' up on each other,' Leon had cried angrily but went back to the heavybag when he saw the Syrian recovering. He'd tried his utmost in every round to flatten him. The Syrian had climbed to his feet ready to carry on when Hank called it a day. I wondered if Leon had flattened me would he have called it a day, especially when the two little black trainers suddenly began to take a interest in me. They had something to say about every move I made afterwards. Move this foot, shift your hand to here, keep your head in this position. Anybody would think I'd just come in off the street, but they were always cheerful, as if they couldn't believe how lucky they were having such a cushy job at their time of life.

  Sitting at the table during my third week (I'd managed to overcome the feeding problem by sneaking into the kitchen and was at last coming to terms with this new regime), Leon announced he was breaking camp for a few days. He was going to Kalamazoo for his ex-wife's birthday. Hank looked glum until the two elderly trainers eagerly pointed out it was still a long time to the fight and the break would do everybody good. Including them.

  I'd have the hotel to myself, have time to organise my thoughts and analyse the results of the training with one of my own routines. Catch up on some carbohydrates. Relax and gather my wits.

  It wasn't to be, If Leon was going, we were all going.

  The following morning I'm sitting in the back of a car Hank hired, driving along narrow roads through countryside flatter than Lincolnshire. It was the first time I'd seen more than trees and the Manastee river, when I'd been fishing for blue gills and wall-eyes and heard the grizzly. This was grouse and pheasant country. Nothing but fields.

  Occasionally we'd pass a drive-in cinema; a tarmac patch with parking metres and a huge screen, but where the people came from I could only guess. They either travelled hundreds of miles or lived in wooden shacks like people did in the woods around the hotel. The vehicles I saw were mostly Range Rover types, and nothing like the ones I'd seen on television, in fact nothing was like I'd seen on the television. These vehicles were tied up with wire, and dropping to bits.

  We drove through Grand Rapids, on a road like the Ossett bypass and alongside a river like the Calder. The buildings at the other side wouldn't be out of place in any mining town in Yorkshire.

  Hank booked me into a hotel when we reached Kalamazoo which was incorporated into a shopping precinct. Six hours later I'd walked round the whole town and decided I was in a time warp. I'd landed in 1926 during the General Strike.

  I spent a miserable two days watching the television on a kingsize bed eating chocolate and watching the Yanks on the telly playing idiotic quiz games.

  I'd sent post cards to the old feller, Wendy and Cath from the post office where I had to queue for ages behind people cashing welfare cheques. How I wished I hadn't taken on Manny's proposition.

  Until I reached my room back in the Caberfea I couldn't stop thinking about Manny. I'd solved him like I'd done Cath, and one or two other problems.

  The first morning back I was standing in the foyer waiting to go on the run when Mitch, one of the elderly trainers, said it was cancelled. There would be no running this morning. I was aching to run. I'd bought $50's worth of chocolate for energy. No, I couldn't go running alone. That was it, I'd had enough. I'd a month left to tighten up, put on some weight and get myself right.

  Hank tried his best to persuade me to stay but I was adamant, and my resolve to leave was strengthened when he blamed Leon. He said we hadn't gone running because Leon wasn't up to it. Leon was dancing like John Travolta in his tracksuit in the concert room challenging me to a race with the volume. Two hours later I was in Traverse City and on a plane to Detroit. It was Saturday tea time when I arrived home knowing I'd wasted a month of my foundation training. The sparring hadn't been any harder than the lads in the gym could provide and the running had taken me down to 14st 100b. I had a month to find 7lb of best steak in my shoulder girdle.

  Wendy had never looked more beautiful I thought the moment we met. I wanted to take her straight to bed and stay for a week like we had a few times already but not now, not now. There would be no love-making until after the fight. Wendy, attuned to my mood so acutely, instantly adopted a role I'd not seen before, a Miss Prim and Proper role, and I started back in the chapel. I wasn't strong enough yet for the circuit but my shuttle ru
ns flew. Light weights and body weight exercises and in a month I'd be ready.

  One thing first before I started. I had to see Cath and tell her about the watch, and a few other things.

  I didn't get a chance for over a week because Tommy came at dinner to rush me off to South Wales to train under Eddie Thomas, in Merthyr Tydfil. I demanded to come home when I realised what was happening and I'd lost another two pounds. It wasn't Manny's show this one and Tommy was implementing his manager's contract. No 50% to Manny this time, Tommy was claiming his full whack and we paid our own expenses. Tommy had blown Manny out and he could sue if he didn't like it. Tommy had me under contract, a Board of Control contract, and the Board of Control were the mob putting on the show at Wembley. Tommy had dropped Manny for bigger and better fish. It suited me until I discovered Eddie wasn't any different to Hank Groomes and knew less about training than I'd thought possible with his experience. Ran, skipped, and shadow-boxed, and injured my elbow. I'd injured my elbow 7 years earlier and now the result was evident. I couldn't throw my right hand unless I was absolutely sure of hitting the target. If I missed there was an instant of excruciating pain like an electric shock. The running and shadow-boxing had loosened the bones. I went home to tighten up and see Cath, and told Tommy not to worry.

  It took Kay over a week before Cath turned up, pushing Adam in his new pushchair. Fucking hell, he was the prettiest baby boy I'd ever seen. The 14% increase in his age had transformed him into a person. He was sitting up and pointing at things with a stubby finger and making lovely warm baby noises. Coos and gurgles and occasional shouts. He wore smart red trousers with a bib and brace and a little sun hat. I lifted him straight from the pram and kissed him. He was my little lad and I loved him.

  She followed us like an old sheepdog down the common, under the motorway to the stream in the bottom where the tarzan rope used to hang when I was a little lad. I wanted to show Adam where I used to play and point out the rope bum in the branch above the stream. Afterwards he finished in the bushes looking towards the derelict school in the graveyard while I made love to Cath on a tomb, white granite chippings and fungi, and then we walked to Manor Park and sat on the bench near the sand pit. She was at the other end with her

  legs crossed, elbow on her knee and gazing over the football field with her chin in a palm. Thinking.

  'I know what's the matter with you Cath. Your legs are too short.'

  She wasn't aware of my existence.

  'It came to me while I was watching the telly in America. Your legs are definitely too short. Stumpy legs they're called.'

  'There's nowt wrong with me legs,' she said quietly. 'They're alreight.'

  She lit a Benson's and leaned back with her face to the sun. She looked 15 again.

  'Remember when the weather changed after Rhyl and I took you into Barnsley. You'd just had the abortion. I bought you some clothes for the winter. A cream mac and your leather boots. You were always terrific when you had either your platforms on or the boots. They had four inch heels remember? When you wear flat shoes like for school, or slippers, you change into a real nasty little twat. A bit like a rabid bull terrier. You've a complex about your legs and that's why you hate Wendy. You're jealous of her legs.'

  She wasn't listening.

  'Can you remember the first time I saw you Cath? You were the prettiest little girl I'd ever seen. You were six then and your legs were normal.'

  'Seven. I was seven.' She threw her cig on the floor and ground it to dust with a powerful twist. Her short, thick bones acting like grindstones. Crunch. Gone. Even I couldn't do that.

  'Six then, but your legs were normal.'

  'I was seven, will you be told!' She couldn't ignore me for long.

  'May 1969, that's ten years ago. Oh aye. Sorry love, I keep forgetting you're seventeen now. I'm telling you Cath, I've so much going round in my head I even forget how old you are.'

  'You remember her though. I heard all about HER birthday.'

  'Never mind her, her name's Wendy, and I love her no more or less than I love you. But not just that Cath, you've got him and I love him too. Ifit really came to the crunch I'd have to be with you and him.'

  His little face was alive with innocent pleasure as I joggled him on my knee. He had a thick line of runny chocolate dripping from his chin and, beaming wide-eyed at everything. A pure little angel.

  'Stop giving him bloody chocolate will you.'

  'No, will 1 fuck. You'll still have to change his clothes if he eats chocolate or not. '

  'Look. You don't have to change his nappy.'

  'I would though if your mam would let me, or if you came back to live.'

  'Give me him here.' She plucked him from my knee and plonked him in the pram. 'I'm going home now and 1 hope you win but I'm not bothered if you do or not. Tara.'

  'You didn't say that in the graveyard.'

  'You bloody raped me.' She was indignant.

  'You put it in you little fibber. Funniest rape I've ever heard of, that. Anyway you've not been on the swings. Go on Cath get on the swings and I'll give you a push like 1 did when you were six.'

  'Seven,' she shouted, 'And bloody grow up.'

  'Sherrup shorty and have a go on the swings.'

  She laughed like she used to do, her normal self. No she hadn't received my postcard and she wasn't coming to Wembley. She couldn't afford it. On the subject of training I hadn't to argue. Just do as I was told.

  Walking home she said it wasn't the swings but the roundabout I pushed her on. I didn't mention the watch.

  Tommy gave me the posters and handbills Harry Levene had posted in the gym that night. Burky had volunteered for the job again and would take care of the tickets, in fact he'd been taking care of the tickets since the fight had been announced and he'd got himself married while I'd been away. He'd taken his bride to Scotland for the honeymoon but all they'd seen was the market at Inglestone. The honeymoon was cancelled and Burky used the ticket money to buy 10 Go-carts. He was back at Inglestone the following week and every week afterwards. He had paid the ticket money back and now had 16 Go-carts and 10 junior motorbikes, all paid for and earning bombs every week. He was going to work galas and fairs this summer and try to get into the Showman's Guild.

  He had sold over twelve grand's worth of tickets up to now. More

  local people than ever were coming this time. Trinity had reached

  Wembley and were playing the Saturday before. Local people were

  making a holiday of it all and talking about Wakefield doing the

  double.

  It was ages before I had the chance to call home and tell them about America and Wales, Tommy and Manny, and all the other bits and pieces. Once I showed the posters and handbills to the old feller he really believed the news at last and wasn't bothered in the least about anything else.

  'Ee, my lad fighting for the British title,' he repeated, walking the living room with tears in his eyes and holding a poster at arm's length. 'Ee, my lad fighting for the British title.'

  Mother said she wouldn't mind seeing little Paul. He would be three soon and she would like to see him. A strange request at this stage of the proceedings and something I'd forgotten all about. Paul and Pauline had been pushed into a backwash at the base of my brain but yes, it would be good to see them. Not yet though.

  The gym in Manchester was heaving with bodies every night, Monday to Friday. All the lads had given up their annual holiday and were training out of season. They were giving me all the sparring I'd given them. Peter came out of retirement to spar, and so did big John Celabanski, who was now a Bradford landlord. Both of them steamed in regardless of cost or consequence until they were knackered and then it would be the others. One after the other, all colours and sizes.

  The gym had spectators, dozens of them watching me spar and weighing up form. One late afternoon a big young lad introduced himself and said we were related. His dad had married Pauline's mother. He didn't know Pauline's address but she worked
for a feller who sold fruit and veg on Bolton market at the weekends. After this fight I'd look her up, I decided. I wouldn't tell Mother I'd made contact yet.

  Mother told me a couple of days later Pauline had been to the stall and Paul was attending the school on Pinderfields Road. She thought they'd turned up on account of something I'd done or said. Sort of performed a miracle to please her.

  'It's nothing to do with me,' I told her quickly, and explained about the kid who'd come to the gym. He had told her, not me. She wasn't bothered, and planning on seeing little Paul.

  The following afternoon I parked across the road waiting for the kids to come through the school gate. It was only a small school, maybe six classrooms and 100 kids but he wasn't amongst them.

  Maybe I'd come to the wrong school, or he hadn't attended today. I went in to ask.

  'Oh yes Mr Sykes, he leaves by the back door and crosses the field,' a young woman told me. He was a well behaved, quiet little boy she told me. Yes, she did teach him. He was always well dressed and clean. A glowing testimony and he'd only been attending a week.

  He was perched on the apex of the 'jungle gym' roundabout, in the rec behind the school.

  'Hoy,' I called, not sure at all if he'd even remember me. 'What are you doing up there?'

  'Waiting for you,' he answered, and then came to earth with the agility of a sailor who'd been up in the rigging and stood in front looking up at me. I couldn't see anything in him that wasn't Pauline's, but his eyes. He had lovely chestnut eyes but the rest of him was her. The hair, the teeth, the skin.

  'Do you know me then?' He was a little stranger to me.