Bucket Nut

by Liza Cody

  ‘You gave our room away to a tart?’ he thundered at Mr Deeds. ‘That’s not on. That’s a fuckin’ liberty.’

  ‘Had to,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘It’s in her contract. It’s only this once.’

  ‘But to a tart!’ Gruff Gordon said. ‘I’m not standing for it.’

  ‘Well, sit down then,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘It can’t be changed now. And if you don’t like it you know what you can do.’

  He had that epileptic look he gets before a show when things are starting to go wrong.

  ‘It’s unnatural,’ Gruff Gordon said. ‘Tarts in the ring.’

  I was watching through a crack in the door of the smallest pokiest room at Ladywell Baths. And I was pleased as punch. Heavyweights think they’re so bleeding shit-hot.

  ‘Where’s that other tart?’ Gruff Gordon asked.

  ‘Eva?’

  ‘Not fuckin’ Eva,’ he growled. ‘The pretty one. I ain’t seen her. She’s late.’

  ‘Ask Eva,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘But watch out, she’s got two bleedin’ great hounds in her room.’

  ‘You ask her,’ Gruff said. ‘It’s your job.’ He was in a right old state.

  Mr Deeds knocked on my door, and again I was ever so chuffed.

  Normally he comes barging straight in without a by-your-leave. If you want respect in this life, get yourself a pair of big dogs.

  I let him wait a couple of minutes before opening up.

  ‘Come in,’ I said generously. But he didn’t. I never thought he would – not with Ramses and Lineker prowling around behind me.

  ‘Where’s your friend, Goldie?’ he asked.

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘She should be here by now. Gruff and Pete are depending on her.’

  I said nothing. She wouldn’t come, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  ‘I thought she was staying with you.’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘She’s on the fuckin’ bill,’ he said. ‘I gave her money.’

  I could’ve said, ‘more fool you,’ but I didn’t. I could’ve told him everything I’d given her. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to soil my lips.

  ‘Well, if she turns up,’ he said, ‘send her along to me sharpish.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re on second after the interval.’

  I grinned. It was a good spot. The best I’d ever had.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Miss Lewis,’ he said. Miss Lewis! Get that! ‘And she wants a fall in the second and a knockout in the third.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You talked to her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘We sorted it out.’

  ‘None of your tricks now, Eva,’ he said. ‘You play this one by the book. If you fuck up on this one I’ll see you never work again in this business.’

  I looked at him, and behind me Ramses started growling.

  He said, ‘Look Eva, do me a favour. Be told.’

  ‘You told me,’ I said, ‘I’m the villain. She’s blue-eyes. She wins by a fall in the second and a knockout in the third.’

  ‘And those bleedin’ dogs stay in the dressing-room.’

  ‘Right.’

  I closed the door. I could’ve danced. I had Mr Deeds sweating, and it was lovely.

  ‘You two little beauties,’ I said to Ramses and Lineker. ‘You’re doing me proud. You really are.’

  They both stared at me, and they both looked surprised. For yard dogs they were taking it better than I thought they would. Perhaps it was because Ramses wasn’t himself, but he was behaving pretty well, considering.

  I started to change. I change slowly. I want everything right. And, as I put the black costume on I feel as if I am becoming the London Lassassin. As I put on the black I become bad.

  I brush my hair so that it stands out around my head. Sometimes I put on some lipstick. But always I scowl at myself in the mirror. I make my neck and shoulders big, and I scowl, and I look in the mirror and I say, ‘You’re bad. Man, are you bad! You’re so bleeding bad you should be locked up.’

  And that makes me feel mean. It makes me feel like scurfing anyone who gets near me. Because I am the villain, and everyone in the audience better believe it. And I had better believe it myself.

  That’s only the beginning. The other thing I do is put on a dressing-gown and go out to find a place where I can watch the audience without them seeing me. I watch them coming in and I watch one of the bouts before mine. I want to see what sort of crowd we’ve pulled – how many, and how they are acting. Sometimes you have to work very hard to whip up a response. Sometimes you hardly have to crook your little finger and they’re howling for blood.

  I hate to say it, but this is where Gruff Gordon shines. This is where he’s better than Harsh. Harsh is the best. Harsh is a shooter. Gruff Gordon is too old and too fat to fight his way out of an ice-cream cone. But he can whip a crowd into flames, and Harsh can’t. Well maybe Harsh could if he wasn’t a purist. But he is a purist and he isn’t interested in anything but fighting beautifully.

  That’s why they put Gruff Gordon on last. He keeps bums on seats till the bitter end. He sends the crowds home happy. Every bout is a story, and every story has a happy ending. The crowd loves it. I don’t like saying anything nice about Gruff because he is such a tosser, but you have to be fair. Sometimes.

  So I went out to look at the crowd.

  It was shaping up nicely. Lots of people were coming in, and there was that rustle and bustle you get when folk are really ready to enjoy themselves. It’s important, because the crowd is like the third character in the ring. There’s you, there’s your opponent, and there’s the crowd.

  The fourth character is the referee. He is very important too.

  I met the referee while I was squinting through the door at the audience. He had come for a quick squint too. I know him. He’s our regular ref, and he travels with us too.

  He said, ‘How’s it looking?’ and he took my place at the door.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said before I could answer. ‘It’ll be a good night. I’ve a feeling in my water.’

  The ref s water is a good sign. He’s been around a lot longer than I have. He’s a good ref. He knows when to look in the wrong direction. The crowd go wild at him. He’s the man without a father. He’s the one that needs a white stick. But he is also the one who lets a villain be a villain. In the ring he’s my mate.

  He said, ‘You sorted it with Mr Deeds, Eva? It’s a …’

  ‘Fall in the second, knockout in the third. It’s sorted.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. The referee has to know what you’re going to do or he can’t help.

  I know what you’re thinking. You don’t have to tell me because I’ve heard it all before. You think wrestling is all phoney. I can’t really explain, but it is and it isn’t. You’re right and you’re wrong. And if you don’t know I can’t explain. What about the movies? That’s real and it’s not real, but you don’t complain about it do you? You want a good story. You want good actors. You want to be convinced. You’ve got to believe it to enjoy it. Well wrestling’s like that – but it’s different.

  There were a lot of kids in the crowd. I like kids in a crowd. They really believe.

  I first went to the wrestling when I was a little kid. It was in the days when Ma still had boyfriends who stopped around for more than the one night, and this particular boyfriend – I can’t remember his name or what he looked like – took us to the wrestling one Saturday night. It was magic, and for weeks afterwards I drove Ma up the wall asking to go again. But the boyfriend pushed off and I never went again till I was older.

  I suppose some kids dream of running away with the circus. Well I never went to a circus. But I did go to the wrestling once, and I used to dream about that.

  And now, here I am, the London Lassassin, and I’m going to fight Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East. Who says dreams don’t come true?

  Chapter 22

  It began. The magic moment, when the house lights go dow
n. The crowd hushes. They sit in the dark, and the ring shines like a moon in the night. The MC climbs into the ring to announce the first bout – ‘In the red corner … in the blue corner …’ The music starts, and two fighters come down the aisle with their trainers.

  The trainers are just bouncers really. They are just people like Harry Richards who wear white jackets with Deeds Promotions written on the back. Mostly they are old fighters, like Harry. Mostly they never really leave the game, just like Harry.

  I went back to my dressing-room, because now that everything had started Mr Deeds would be pronking around the door and the corridor fussing and fuming and getting up everyone’s noses.

  Usually I share a dressing-room with Bombshell. I’m not used to being on my own before a fight, and the time seemed to stretch.

  So I stretched too. I did what Harsh always does – I kept warm and loose. But time hung, and I found I’d done all my exercises long before the first bout was over.

  The dogs watched. Well, Lineker watched. The expression in Ramses’ eyes was not watchful. He had an angry, short-fuse look about him, and I thought, ‘The London Lassassin should look like that.’ But when I looked in the mirror I found that I already did.

  I wanted to go on now.

  I didn’t want to wait.

  I hate waiting.

  My muscles tingled and burned.

  I was ready.

  Why wasn’t everyone else?

  A fall in the second and a knockout in the third.

  Well, all right. But nobody said I couldn’t cream her in the meantime. Did they? Well, did they?

  I jiggled around for a bit and then I went out into the corridor. It’s hard to keep still when you’re ready.

  I could hear the crowd – not really excited yet, but heating up nicely. Flying Phil Julio, in his blue and yellow robe, was pacing up and down, waiting to go on.

  I said, ‘Where’s Harsh?’

  ‘In with us,’ Phil said. ‘It’s a piss-off in our room. That Sherry-Lee Lewis bumped Gruff and Pete out of their room, so they’ve bumped us out of ours, so we’re in with the middleweights, and it’s a squash. Dad is doing his number about the dear old days and Harsh is full of Eastern promise. That guy is such a tosser. He could toss for Britain. He’s sitting in the middle of the farkin’ floor where everyone has to trip over him and farkin’ meditating. Meditating. Can you credit it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘In the middle of the bleedin’ floor? Too right I wouldn’t. He’ll give himself haemorrhoids. And he’ll deserve them.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. I shouldn’t, beause Harsh is special. But Flying Phil Julio has been in this game since Danny hoiked him out of school when he was fourteen, and he doesn’t have much education. You can’t expect anyone that ignorant to appreciate someone like Harsh.

  Just then Mr Deeds came cantering down the corridor all of a lather, saying, ‘Five minutes, Phil, five. C’mon, hustle it up. Get your dad and the Wolverines. No farting around. Move it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Phil said, and wandered away like a kid going to school.

  ‘No respect,’ Mr Deeds muttered. ‘That kid’s got no sodding respect.’

  Then he saw me and said, ‘Where’s that friend of yours, Eva? She ain’t shown up yet and if she don’t she’ll wreck everything.’

  I was getting a bit choked with him keeping on pestering me about Goldie so I said nothing.

  ‘I don’t know about girls nowadays,’ he said. ‘Do them a favour and they kick you in the teeth.’

  He stood there fuming and I went off to find a bog. I didn’t have one in my broom cupboard. Sherry-Lee Lewis would have one in her dressing-room but I didn’t feel like tapping on her door and asking if I could use it. I was going to scurf the crap out of her so I didn’t want to ask for any favours. You have to mind your manners with big stars.

  The trouble is, see, that the men hog all the facilities and sometimes you have to search for ages to find somewhere you can pee in private. They expect women to have cast-iron bladders even on a cold night, and that ain’t fair. Maybe when I’m rich and famous I’ll complain. It’s no earthly good complaining when you’re not rich and famous because they just tell you to put a cork in it and that narks you off even worse.

  In the end I had to cross the public foyer in front of the box office to use the one the punters use. There were a few latecomers straggling in and they nudged each other and pointed. People are beginning to recognise me. They really are. And it gives me a buzz.

  A woman turned away from the ticket counter. I should have recognised her with her back turned – especially with her back turned. Once a copper, always a copper – that’s what I always say.

  If I’d clocked her right off maybe I wouldn’t have monged around trying to be recognised myself. Maybe I’d have nipped straight across the foyer. But I’m a very visible person. It’s hard to nip anywhere.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘Your friend turned up yet?’

  ‘Can’t talk now,’ I said. And I shot across the hall into the bog on the other side.

  The friggin’ woman showed up everywhere. Every time I turned round there she was, just like the polizei.

  I finished in the bog, went back across the foyer into the backstage side. And, would you believe it, there she was again, in the corridor outside the dressing-rooms.

  ‘Fuck off!’ I said. ‘You don’t come in here. Not you.’

  She grinned at me, quite friendly-like, but it made my blood boil. Well I was wearing the black, wasn’t I? When I’m wearing the black I’m not supposed to be nice, am I?

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘listen to me for one short minute. Your friend Eleanor has got herself into very bad company.’

  ‘Piss off,’ I said. ‘Don’t you talk to me about bad company.’

  ‘Not you,’ she said. ‘You never did her any harm I know of.’

  ‘Tell her that. You should see what she done to me.’

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I told you I was a detective. Didn’t I warn you? Well, didn’t I?’

  She did warn me. I had to admit that.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘You’re still not supposed to be here. And anyway you’re wasting your time. She ain’t coming. She wouldn’t show her face round me no more.’

  ‘They might make her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ she said. ‘She’s bending over backwards to show she’s still loyal to that singer and his family and friends. Count Suckle. Remember him? Haven’t you had a look at the audience? The troops are gathering.’

  ‘What troops? What you bunnying on about?’

  Just then Harry came down from the door to the arena. He looked like a worried man.

  He said, ‘You, Miss Lee.’

  ‘Hello Mr Richards,’ she said.

  ‘You not supposed to be here,’ Harry said. ‘No members of the public allowed back here. You get me into trouble with the boss, Miss Lee.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just tell Eva here who you saw in the audience. And if that golden girl shows up she could get hurt.’

  She went back through the door into the foyer.

  ‘Nosy cow,’ I said.

  ‘She not so bad, Eva,’ Harry said. ‘She treat an old man with respect. Not like you, Eva. You got a mouth on you like a bunch of sharp knives.’

  ‘I’m the villain, Harry.’ I suddenly felt very sad. I don’t know why.

  ‘On them boards you the villain,’ Harry said. ‘Not outside that ring you ain’t. You should learn the difference, Eva. You should listen to your friends.’

  ‘I’m listening, Harry,’ I said. I still felt very sad. Because Harry suddenly looked like an old man and he talked like an old man and he seemed like he was a long way away. Like my nan, when she died.

  ‘Then you better watch out,’ Harry said. ‘There come a big bunch of Chinese folk into that audience. I don’t know one from another, Eva, but yo
u should ask yourself what you done to Mr Cheng. Chinese folk don’t come wrestlin’, Eva, you know that.’

  ‘Shit!’ I said, because I’d almost forgotten about driving the Astra through the Beijing Garden window. It seemed so long ago. I thought it was an eye for an eye. Account closed.

  ‘What you do, Eva?’

  ‘Shit,’ I said again. ‘I didn’t do shit, Harry. I didn’t do nothing the Chengs didn’t do first. It isn’t my war, Harry. It’s between the Chengs and Count Suckle. Why does everyone have to drag me in?’

  ‘You drag yourself in, Eva. You act tough and you talk mean when you be better off givin’ the soft answer.’

  ‘Don’t go on, Harry. I ain’t the villain. Where’s Mr Cheng and Auntie Lo? Where’s Count Suckle?’

  Harry gave me a look but he didn’t have an answer.

  ‘And where was Bermuda Smith the night you had bother? He knew there was bother because you knew. Else why did you ask me for muscle? Answer me that, Harry. Where are the big boys? It’s their war. But they ain’t fighting, Harry. Oh, no. They’re at home. They’re staying alive. It’s us gets the shaft. We’re the soldiers. The dead soldiers, Harry.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Harry said. ‘Too many soldiers in that crowd I don’t like.’

  He went away, flip-flopping on his big flat feet.

  ‘Tell the guys out front, Harry,’ I called after him.

  ‘I tell them,’ he called back. ‘That’s what we here for – crowd control. You better watch out too, Eva.’

  I wasn’t happy any more. I had let myself get cold, and my teeth hurt.

  But the crowd sounded happy. There was a lot of screaming and yelling. It sounded like the Julios and the Wolverines were working them up nicely. Which meant that the Wolverines were beating the crap out of Flying Phil. Flying Phil was the young pretty lad who got scurfed by two older bullies while his father looked on helpless. The Julios were blue-eyes who played by the rules. The Wolverines would keep Flying Phil in the middle of the ring where he couldn’t tag Danny and they’d work him over till the crowd went epileptic. Then he’d make one of his miraculous escapes so that Danny could chase them around a bit, and so on.