Bucket Nut

by Liza Cody

  In the ring, I am the one who wears black. It’s like in cowboy movies – I’m the one in the black hat. I’m the baddy. Baddies always wear black – except of course if you’re a mad monk or a kendo warrior in which case you wear red. Black and red are the colours of the devil, see.

  I don’t go in for fancy stuff. No sparkle or sequins for me. Just a plain black costume and plain black tights. But you don’t want gear which sags at the bum or bags at the knee. You want quality gear, and quality costs.

  If I bought all the gear including new boots and knee pads I would be stony for the rest of the week. But it had to be done. Tonight I wanted to look my best – whatever my best was.

  I put on my Big Is Beautiful T-shirt – it was the only clean one left – and I went out through the gym.

  There were about half a dozen weekend recreationals pumping away with the weights. And Soraya.

  Soraya stood by the window wearing a pale pink and blue sari, looking like the Queen of farkin’ Sheba. Just the person you want to meet when all your clobber is mucky and all you have left is a Big Is Beautiful T-shirt. Soraya makes me feel like a toad, but I suppose it’s not her fault.

  ‘Hello, Eva,’ she said, in her soft sweet voice. ‘Are you leaving?’

  I looked round for Harsh but he was in the changing-room.

  ‘I got to go shopping,’ I said. You feel you could get Soraya dirty just by talking to her. ‘Got to get gear for tonight.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘It is a big night for you, Eva. Harsh has told me.’

  I couldn’t imagine Harsh telling Soraya about me and Sherry-Lee Lewis. I couldn’t imagine them talking about sweaty subjects.

  Harsh came out of the changing-room. He said, ‘Did you find your friend, Eva?’

  Fancy him remembering that. I thought his mind was on higher things.

  ‘She’s gone,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t matter no more.’

  ‘Eva is going shopping,’ Soraya said. ‘Shall I come with you, Eva? Otherwise I shall just get bored waiting for Harsh.’

  ‘Got to go to the launderette first,’ I mumbled. I was hiding my bundle of dirty clothes behind my back. ‘Launderettes are even more boring than waiting for Harsh.’

  ‘This is true,’ she said seriously. ‘Quite true.’

  ‘I am flattered,’ Harsh said, and went away to warm up.

  I said goodbye to Soraya and left quickly. Go shopping with her! I’d rather chew lizards’ tails.

  Shopping shits. Shopping is for little people who can fit into the coffins they call changing-rooms without bruising their elbows on the mirror. If you are my size you don’t want to be that close to a mirror, believe me. But it had to be done, and I did it while my clothes were in the washing machine.

  Then I had lunch. You’re supposed to eat carbohydrates. At least that’s what marathon runners do. You have your last meal a few hours before your fight or whatever. And it’s supposed to be easy to digest and it’s supposed to be the sort of food which will give you energy quickly.

  I had spaghetti with meatball sauce followed by a double helping of banana split. Harsh turned me on to bananas. I believe in bananas.

  The next thing you are supposed to do is lay up quietly somewhere and get your head together.

  Getting your head together is a lot more difficult than eating carbohydrates. You are supposed to be totally relaxed, and you are supposed to imagine in your head everything that might happen in a fight and then you are supposed to imagine what you will do about it. Well, ha-bloody-ha.

  I fight. I don’t think. If you’re in the ring and you’ve got to stop and think what you’re going to do about someone charging at you off the ropes at ninety miles an hour, you’ll get slaughtered. No two ways about it. Slaughtered.

  You don’t think. You act.

  But Harsh says, ‘Run through all the moves in your mind, Eva. Then when the time comes you will react more quickly.’

  That’s what Harsh says. And I do try, but eating bananas is easier.

  Which is why I committed the sin of sins and drove the Cortina right into the yard.

  Never, ever do that. You are just asking to be caught in possession. If you borrow a motor, put it outside someone else’s house. Putting it outside your own is about as brainless as you can get without having liposuction of the head.

  But what else could I do? I couldn’t lay up in the Static because the paint was still wet and the fumes were enough to make a vicar drunk and disorderly.

  I lay down on the back seat and covered myself with my old sleeping bag. I tried very hard to clear my mind. Have you ever tried to do that? Not think about things? Talk about the brain having a mind of its own! I must’ve thought about everything except running through the moves.

  In the end I got up and went to look at the dogs. Ramses still hadn’t eaten his food. He was lying with his head and paws close to his dish so that Lineker couldn’t get it but he hadn’t touched a mouthful. I took the bandage off to look at his neck. It was nasty. What was more worrying was Ramses not trying to chew lumps out of me when I touched him. He snarled and gave me a really ugly look but he didn’t go for me. It was so unlike him.

  ‘Right, my lad,’ I said. ‘I’m going to take your horrible carcass to the vet.’

  Well, why not? I was fed up with trying not to think. I’m always better off doing things, and I still had a couple of hours to kill before going to the Ladywell Baths.

  There was a vet half a mile away and he had someone on call at weekends. I knew that because Mr Gambon had an account with him and I took Lineker there once when he got glass in his paw. The vet was an old man who wheezed and smoked a pipe. It’s silly to do both, but he did. You’d think a man that age would know better. He wouldn’t treat guard-dogs unless they were muzzled – so maybe he wasn’t that silly.

  I took Ramses to see him in the Cortina. Ramses didn’t like the Cortina and he hated the vet but he couldn’t do a thing about it because of the muzzle.

  I lifted him onto the table so that the vet could see his neck.

  The vet’s pipe bubbled. His hair was yellow at the front from the nicotine. He puffed smoke in Ramses’ face. Ramses kept his eyes on me. I had never seen him look so evil. He blamed me for everything, including the vet’s pipe.

  ‘Fine dog,’ the vet muttered, ‘fine muscular animal. Splendid.’

  Maybe he couldn’t see the look Ramses was giving me. ‘Splendid’ was not the word for it.

  ‘Well, it could be worse,’ he said, after poking Ramses’ neck for a while. ‘No major damage. No sign of infection either. This scabbing and clotting looks worse than it is. I’ll give him a shot just in case, but this is a good strong animal and he’s healing up already.’

  ‘He’s off his food,’ I said. ‘He never goes off his food. He eats like a cement mixer.’

  ‘How did he receive this wound?’ the vet asked. He took Ramses’ temperature, and Ramses looked at me the way a tiger looks at a fat goat.

  I told the vet a bit about the break-in at the yard.

  ‘What a frightful thing to do to a dog,’ the vet said. He read the thermometer and told me Ramses’ temperature was normal.

  ‘Is he in pain?’ I asked. ‘Why isn’t he eating?’

  ‘Well he won’t be very comfortable,’ he said, ‘which might affect his temper. But that isn’t what’s causing this loss of appetite.’

  ‘What is?’

  The vet stood back and stared at Ramses who was sitting on the table. Ramses stared at me. His head was low and thrust out from his shoulder blades as if he was going to spit at me.

  The vet said, ‘This dog is humiliated.’

  ‘He’s a bleeding dog,’ I said. I told you he was a silly old man, didn’t I?

  ‘Nevertheless, he is humiliated. He’s been hurt and he’s been made a fool of.’

  ‘That happens to me all the time,’ I said. ‘But I don’t go off my nosh.’

  ‘He’s probably better trained than you,’ the vet said cros
sly. ‘He’s been trained to protect his territory. He failed. He is humiliated, and that’s that.’

  ‘All I need,’ I told Ramses when we were back on the streets, ‘is a sensitive bleeding guard-dog. Pull yourself together, my son.’

  But I kept thinking about it.

  Back at the yard, while I did my rounds, checking the wire, the padlocks, the gates, the doors and windows, I kept thinking about finding the dogs hung from the fence.

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ I said out loud. ‘The bastards did their stuff. There’s nothing left for them to do. Except me.’

  All the same I kept on worrying about leaving the dogs on their own. Which is plain sodding daft. Ramses and Lineker were supposed to protect the yard. I wasn’t supposed to baby them. They were trained fighters, for chrissake.

  At the very last minute, when I’d checked all my own equipment and stowed it in the Cortina, I decided to take the dogs with me.

  ‘You dopey great dick-heads,’ I said, as I shoved them onto the back seat. ‘Call yourselves attack animals? All I do is worry about you. Well after tonight you better worry about me. Got that? If you go soft, it’s curtains for you. Got that?’

  And the three of us drove together to the Ladywell Baths.

  Chapter 21

  The old Ladywell Baths is built of grey stone. It looks as if it would survive a nuclear attack. It used to be an important place. Now it’s all run down and neglected. But the outside looks as if it’ll last for ever. It looks like a prison.

  It isn’t a theatre, like the one in Frome, with the ring out front and all the seating in one place. No, at Ladywell Baths, the ring is in the middle and the seats go all the way round. When you enter, you walk down an aisle with the audience on either side of you, and you march towards the ring with the loudspeakers blaring out your music. It is quite a long way from the door to the ring, and the ring looks bright as a jewel. And you march down, and the people shout, and you feel important. It’s like there’s a bubble in your chest which keeps getting bigger and bigger until you reach the ring, and you climb up and swing yourself over the ropes. You stand in the light and you hear all those voices, and you see all those faces looking at you. And that bubble in your chest gets so big it nearly bursts.

  I went in through the side entrance. I had Ramses on my right and Lineker on my left. The first thing I saw was a pay phone and I suddenly wanted to ring someone up. I wanted to ring Simone or anyone and say, Here I am. I’m going to fight Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East. Come and see.

  Of course I couldn’t. But thinking about Simone made me think of Dave de Lysle. So I tied the dogs to a radiator and rang him up.

  ‘It’s Eva,’ I said when he answered. ‘I’m fighting Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East tonight at the old Ladywell Baths. Come and see.’

  ‘Hello Eva,’ he said. ‘I’d love to.’

  I’d love to, did you hear that? Love to.

  ‘But,’ he went on, ‘there’s a bit of a problem. I went out at lunchtime today and found that someone had stolen my car. It might be difficult to get there.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I saw Mr Deeds and Harry come through from the arena. Harry was saying, ‘All ready, Mr Deeds. All set.’

  Mr Deeds said, ‘Quite like old times, eh Harry?’ And then he saw Ramses and Lineker.

  Dave de Lysle was saying, ‘Will Harsh be fighting too?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Mr Deeds came bustling over. Ramses and Lineker got up and started growling. Mr Deeds stopped.

  ‘It’s a matter of getting there,’ Dave de Lysle said. What a dweeg!

  ‘Get those fuckin’ dogs out of here,’ said Mr Deeds.

  ‘I can’t think what anyone would’ve wanted with my car,’ Dave de Lysle bleated. ‘It’s only an old Volvo estate.’

  ‘Shit!’ I said. And I put the phone down.

  ‘I said get rid of those animals,’ said Mr Deeds.

  ‘What for?’ I said. He was going to spoil everything.

  ‘You can’t bring dogs in here.’

  ‘They’re for protection, Mr Deeds. My life has been threatened.’

  ‘What the fuck for?’

  ‘It’s true,’ I said, ‘isn’t it Harry?’

  Harry shuffled his big flat feet.

  ‘I don’t care what they’re for,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘Get them the fuck out of here.’

  ‘They don’t like sitting in the car,’ I said. ‘But if you want them out why don’t you take them out yourself?’

  Mr Deeds looked at Ramses and he looked at me.

  ‘Watch your step, Eva,’ he said. ‘You can be replaced just like that.’ He tried to snap his fingers but his hands were sweaty. He turned away and took Harry with him into the main foyer. Harry glanced at me over his shoulder. He seemed unhappy.

  ‘One up to our side,’ I said.

  I untied the dogs, and went to look at the arena. It didn’t look like much with the house lights up. It didn’t look like a magic pool of light in the middle of darkness. But it looked all right to me. The mats were down and ready. There was red, white and blue flashing round the sides of the ring and red, white and blue ropes. Like Harry said, it was all ready. It just needed the audience. It just needed the show to begin.

  Down at the front, in the first row of seats, was a little group of people. I came down the aisle slowly to see who they were. The dogs were pulling me faster than I wanted to go.

  One of the group turned and saw me. She waved an arm.

  She said, ‘You Eva Wylie?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said from halfway up the aisle.

  ‘Come on down, pet,’ she called.

  It was her!

  I let the dogs pull me down further. A man with the group saw the dogs and began to move uneasily away. I came closer. There were three enormous women and the one uneasy man.

  It was her, and she was even bigger than I remembered.

  She had red hair down to her shoulders and a skin as white as pork fat with little sandy freckles on it.

  I said, ‘Hello, Miss Lewis.’ Now I was standing in front of her I couldn’t think what to call her.

  ‘’Lo, pet,’ she said. ‘Meet me mam and me sister. They always come with me. We don’t often get to London so it’s a bit of a treat.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said again. The dogs were straining forward and I was trying to hold them back.

  Sherry-Lee Lewis’s mam looked me over like I was a second-hand car. The sister said, ‘Big enough for you, Sherry?’

  Sherry-Lee Lewis laughed. ‘She’ll do,’ she said.

  I felt proud enough to float up to the ceiling.

  The man said, ‘Um, about those dogs – couldn’t you tie them up somewhere?’

  ‘You’re not afraid of two little dogs, are you?’ Sherry-Lee Lewis asked. But I noticed she kept quite still and didn’t wave her arms around. She knew about dogs.

  She said, ‘This is Benny Knight of Takedown magazine. He’s doing an interview. Why don’t you ask Eva some questions, Benny?’

  He really didn’t like the dogs, but he held his little tape recorder out towards me and said, ‘Well Eva, you’re a relative newcomer on the wrestling scene, how does it feel to be fighting in the big league so soon in your career?’

  ‘Great,’ I said. I looked at Sherry-Lee Lewis and she smiled at me. Her teeth were pretty good. I admired them.

  ‘How do you fancy your chances tonight?’ Kenny asked.

  Sherry-Lee Lewis kept on smiling.

  I said, ‘I am the London Lassassin. This is my patch.’

  Sherry-Lee Lewis said, ‘I’m the girl to make patchwork of her patch, and her face.’ She winked at me, so I knew what I was supposed to do.

  I said, ‘And I’m the girl to rock Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis all the way back to Newcastle.’

  ‘Good stuff,’ Benny said. ‘I think I’ll go and get myself a drink. Maybe I’ll catch you girls later.’

  He backed away until he was well out of Ramses’ a
nd Lineker’s reach and then he sprinted up the aisle.

  Sherry-Lee Lewis laughed. It was a nice throaty laugh. She said, ‘You’re not going to give me any trouble tonight, are you, pet? It’s a fall in the second and a knockout in the third. Right?’

  ‘I haven’t talked to Mr Deeds yet,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you talk to him, pet, and he’ll tell you the same. It’s a fall in the second and a knockout in the third.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But we’ll give ’em something to look at in the meantime. Right? That’s if all your size isn’t just peas puddin’.’

  ‘Does it look like peas puddin’?’

  ‘Take it easy,’ she said. ‘I just want women’s wrestling taken more serious, see. You got to have a bit more about you than size.’

  ‘I got more,’ I said. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘Okay. But remember – it’s a fall …’

  ‘In the second and a knockout in the third. I heard.’

  ‘Mind you remember.’

  She was nice and I liked her, but she didn’t have to go on about it.

  I hadn’t seen her standing up, but I guessed she was at least six foot two. We were a good match. The first good match I’d ever had.

  ‘What a night,’ I said as I made my way up to the dressing-rooms. ‘What a flaming, blazing, beautiful night.’

  It has to be said that Mr Deeds is not a very important promoter. He doesn’t have a huge stable of fighters like some of the other promoters do. It’s a bit of a tin-pot outfit, if you must know, but it was Mr Deeds who gave me my first chance so I ought to be grateful. And I am, when I remember.

  Sherry-Lee Lewis came from a bigger stable, and I suppose she was used to better conditions. She was doing Mr Deeds a favour by appearing on his bill and so she could write her own contract.

  She got the biggest dressing-room – the one the heavy-weights would have expected to have for themselves. I was used to being slung away in whatever corner was left – but Gruff Gordon and Pete Carver weren’t. Gruff Gordon’s face was a picture when he was told the star dressing-room was already occupied by the Star of the East – and her mam and her sister.