Bucket Nut

by Liza Cody

  ‘The cavalry’s coming,’ the ref said. ‘They’re sorting the crowd out now, but there’s still some fighting at the back.’

  I felt the stage shake as people climbed up through the ropes.

  ‘Jesus!’ Mr Deeds said. ‘It was a great show, Miss Lewis, but you didn’t have to slaughter her.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’ Sherry-Lee asked. ‘Where were you? In the crapper counting the take?’

  ‘Now, now,’ the ref said. ‘It’s all right, George. No harm done. We had to stop the fight and Miss Lewis did it the quick way.’

  ‘She’s a star,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘We got to get her out of here,’ the ref said. ‘This mess was no accident. There’s bastards out there want to hurt her.’

  ‘Well I hope you don’t think I’ll carry her,’ Mr Deeds said.

  ‘Where’s Harry?’ I asked.

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘There’s a bunch of Chinese blokes and some blacks beating the hell out of each other up at the back,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘If we can’t cool things down the police’ll turn up and clear the hall.’ He sounded like he was shitting coconuts.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Sherry-Lee said. ‘I’m getting cold out here.’

  ‘What about Eva?’

  ‘She can get up now,’ she said. ‘I’ll help her. Give me a towel.’

  She heaved me up to a sitting position. I leaned against her like a corpse. She had a dab with the towel.

  ‘Ain’t she wonderful?’ said someone in the crowd. ‘You wouldn’t think she’d want to touch that ugly hulk after what she done to her.’

  It seemed like even my near death was making the Star of the East look good.

  She bent my head between my legs, like I was fainting and she was reviving me. Actually she was rubbing my hairline to make sure the blood kept running free.

  ‘Upsa-daisy, kiddo,’ she said.

  I staggered to my feet leaning heavily on her. I quite enjoyed all the gasps and murmurs as everyone saw my bloody face.

  We reeled and fell towards the ropes. And then the applause broke out – wave after wave of it. Most of it was for the noble Sherry-Lee, but some of it was sympathy for me. I know it was.

  The MC was milking it on the loudspeaker – ‘Let’s hear it for the winner by a fall and a knockout – the magnificent, the one and only Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis, Star of the East, Women’s Heavyweight Champion of the Eastern Seaboard … and a big hand for the loser, Eva Wylie, the London Lassassin. We will be taking Eva to the hospital as soon as possible so would you folk kindly clear the aisles. Clear the aisles as quickly as possible, please. This is a medical emergency. I’m sure we will all wish Eva a speedy recovery from her terrible injuries. A big hand please for our two gallant contestants. Best of luck, girls …’

  It was quite hard to see because of the blood in my eyes, but it was clear from the noise and the tension that something a bit heavy was still going on at the back. And we would have to walk through it to get out of the hall.

  ‘Gimme my dogs,’ I whispered.

  ‘Shut up! Me mam can handle them. She’s going first.’

  ‘Tell her to take the muzzles off.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Take the muzzles off.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Sherry-Lee. ‘Mam, can you get those muzzles off?’

  ‘If you say so, pet,’ Mam said. She was wheezing and puffing trying to hold Ramses and Lineker back. She had the dogs by their chains and the enormous silent sister had her mother by the belt. We followed them. I had one arm round Sherry-Lee’s neck, she had one arm round my waist, supporting me.

  I died and fainted past the front rows and up the aisle steps. As we passed the crowd got to their feet and clapped. It was magic. Well, near magic, because they were probably standing up to get a better view of the carnage. But all the same I got more applause than I’d ever got in my whole life before.

  I almost wanted to stay and count the people clapping, so that when I was all alone at night sometime I could say to myself, ‘Never mind, when you fought Rockin’ Sherry-Lee Lewis at the old Ladywell Baths nine hundred and thirty-four people put their hands together for you.’ It’s nice to have a number like that to fall back on in the middle of the night.

  Up near the back, we stopped. We had to. The backstage exit was blocked by fighting men. They were going at it with fists, with knives and with bottles.

  It looked like it was some of the Chengs against some of Count Suckle’s men. But I only recognised a couple of blokes from the Beijing Garden and the bastard with the razor who came in with Goldie. It was hard to recognise anyone because mixed up in the middle were Deeds Promotion bouncers and a load of erks from the crowd. The bouncers weren’t bouncing. They were just belting anyone who got close, including each other.

  The only people not involved were the wrestlers who wouldn’t fight anyone but themselves, and then only if they got paid for it. Quite right too, if you ask me. That’s the difference between pros and amateurs.

  Sherry-Lee’s mam couldn’t go on. Lineker wanted to go in one direction, Ramses the other, and they’d dragged her arms out like Jesus at Easter.

  ‘Gimme my bag,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘It don’t matter now,’ I said. ‘The punters can’t see us back here. Gimme my bag.’

  Someone slung the bag at my feet.

  ‘What you going to do now?’ Sherry-Lee said.

  I didn’t say anything. She’d hijacked my entrance. She’d hijacked the whole night. She’d hijacked my injuries. Well, she was the Star, wasn’t she, but I was buggered if I’d let her hijack my exit too. Not all of it.

  I opened my bag.

  The bastards threw things at me, didn’t they? They fucked up my fight. Why shouldn’t I fuck up theirs?

  I grabbed tins of stew and soup and I started hurling them into the ruck. And I started shouting.

  ‘Bugger off you load of turd-tops,’ I yelled at the top of my voice.

  Tins of stew and soup bounced off their noddles and got trampled underfoot.

  ‘Out me way. Out me way, bastards.’

  I grabbed for the bolas but they’d got all tangled up and that made me narked. So I chucked the lot at the person nearest me and he went crashing into the back row of the stalls. I could see his feet kicking wildly, all wound round with bolas.

  ‘She crazy,’ someone said. ‘She mad in the head.’

  I let out a tremendous roar and I snatched Ramses’ chain out of Sherry-Lee’s mam’s hand.

  I wanted him to clear a path to the exit but he had ideas of his own. He was like a half a ton of pure hate and he steamed into the fight snapping and snarling, saliva dripping off his jaws.

  What he didn’t bite I bashed with a tin of Campbell’s Big Soup. I lashed out at anything in my way.

  ‘She’s off her head,’ they said. ‘She’s insane!’ I could smell my own blood as it rolled down my face.

  We cleared a path all right, but it led straight to the bastard with the razor. Because Ramses was a clever dog who knew his enemies. You can learn a lot from a dog. I was very glad I was behind him, not in front.

  I saw him as he slashed at the bastard’s right hand. I saw the hand drop the razor. I saw Ramses’ jaws crunch down on bones and sinew. And I saw the blood spurt.

  It was good to see someone else bleed for a change but I didn’t like the scream. The guy screamed, and it sounded horrible, because he was frightened.

  I couldn’t blame him. When I saw Ramses work on that hand, work for a proper grip, I got a bit frightened myself. I hauled back on the chain.

  ‘Enough!’ I shouted.

  The guy ripped his hand out of Ramses’ jaws and ran. He stumbled and staggered away behind the stalls and Ramses nearly pulled me over trying to go after him.

  ‘No!’ I screamed.

  ‘Ro-ro-ro,’ went Ramses.

  ‘No!’ I yelled at Ramses. ‘Enough.’

  When he turned I saw he
had blood and saliva flowing from his open mouth. He looked quite insane.

  I turned him and we went back to the exit. No one stopped us. I was glad because I’d had enough. I couldn’t wait to get backstage and put Ramses’ muzzle on before he remembered he hated me too. That’s the trouble with dogs, they’re like amateurs – they don’t know when to stop.

  Chapter 24

  ‘You’re mad,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘You’re stark staring bonkers. That dog ought to be put down. Go and wash your face. I can’t think with you looking like that. You ought to wash that dog’s face too. That’s human blood he’s got round his mouth. That dog has tasted human blood and he ought to be put down.’

  ‘I haven’t got a basin in my room,’ I said. ‘You put me in a broom cupboard and there’s no bleedin’ water.’

  ‘Come to mine, flower,’ Sherry-Lee Lewis said. So I went. She was still the big star, but I didn’t mind taking favours off her now. We were more equal than we used to be.

  Everyone was out in the corridor watching – the Julios, the Wolverines, Harsh, Gruff and Pete. Gruff and Pete couldn’t go on until the ring had been cleaned up and the audience were back in their seats. They were well narked off.

  ‘Get rid of her, boss,’ Gruff said. ‘She’s nothing but bother.’

  ‘And you’re nothing but a waste of good skin,’ I said.

  ‘Tarts in the ring are a crime against nature.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Sherry-Lee Lewis said. She stared hard at his belly. Her mam and the silent sister stared hard too.

  ‘Only joking, girls,’ Gruff said, tying the cord tight round his robe.

  ‘Was that a joke?’ Sherry-Lee asked her mam. ‘I heard someone farting, but I didn’t hear no joke. Did you?’

  ‘Ladies! Please,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘We’ve all got a little overheated.’

  ‘Where’s Harry?’ I said.

  But no one knew, so I trailed the three enormous Lewises to Sherry-Lee’s dressing-room and had a shower.

  I was glad I didn’t have to push off home covered in sweat and blood, but in the shower I felt as if I was losing some of my skin as well. I almost saw it drain away down the plughole with the dirty water. It’s like I stop being me when I take off the black costume, and then I wash off the hard shell when I take a shower. I don’t know. I was tired and maybe the water was too hot. But anyway, by the time I got out I was feeling quite sorry for myself.

  I was thinking that I didn’t have a proper home to go to, and I didn’t have any money for a nice big dinner. Which I wanted because I’d used up a lot of energy in the ring. Boo-hoo, poor baby.

  What made it worse was the Lewises who were very nice to me – nicer than they had to be.

  When I dried myself off I found they had spread this huge picnic out around the dressing-room. There was cooked chicken, and ham, and hard boiled eggs and tinned salmon and potato salad, and bread and butter, and fruit cake, and chocolate biscuits, and tea out of thermos flasks.

  ‘Just a quick snack before the drive home,’ Sherry-Lee’s mam said.

  ‘Mam won’t pay London prices,’ Sherry-Lee said.

  The silent sister handed me a paper plate with some of everything on it, and I tucked in just like one of the family.

  Mr Deeds came in with Sherry-Lee’s purse and she made him stand there while she counted it. I didn’t see how much she got because she turned her back.

  ‘Can I have my money too?’ I asked.

  ‘You can have yours on Tuesday like always when I’ve done the books,’ he said.

  ‘I had expenses,’ I said. ‘I’m stony.’

  Any other time he’d have said, ‘Tough shit, you know the score.’ But with the three big Lewises and Ramses and Lineker all giving him hard looks he handed me twenty quid.

  ‘On account,’ he said. ‘I’m writing it down so don’t complain you’re short twenty quid on Tuesday.’

  When he left, Sherry-Lee said, ‘you should watch fellers like him, petal. One Tuesday, sometime, he’ll turn up missing. I should know, I had a husband like him once.’

  ‘So did I,’ said her mam.

  The silent sister said nothing.

  ‘What about your family?’ Mrs Lewis said. ‘Doesn’t your mam come to the fights?’

  ‘Oh Ma,’ I said. ‘She was busy tonight or she would’ve come.’

  Because whatever I think about Ma in private I never let her down in front of strangers. Well, you don’t, do you? And she has had a hard life so I can’t blame her really.

  ‘I bet she’s right proud of you,’ Mrs Lewis said.

  She was a nice woman, Mrs Lewis, but she didn’t know piddle-pie-po about Ma.

  I left soon after that because I was tired and because the yard had been unprotected for too long. I wanted to see Harry, but he wasn’t around.

  I don’t know why I wanted to see him, really I don’t. It was just that he had been in my corner that night and it seemed wrong to leave without saying goodbye. Hot water makes you go soft. That was it.

  I didn’t see Harsh either. He’d already gone by the time I left. Which was a pity because I wanted to know if he’d seen any of my fight, and if so I wanted to know what he thought. But he wasn’t there so I couldn’t ask.

  One good thing happened when I got back to the yard.

  Ramses ate his dinner.

  I decided to feed the dogs early because they’d had a tough old day. So I mixed up their horrible nosh and put it down for them. And Ramses wolfed his up, shrurp, slurp, chomp, just like nothing had happened and he’d never been off his feed.

  So that made me feel better – even if I did have to sleep on the hard floor in my old sleeping bag, and the Static smelled of car paint and gave me bad dreams.

  Chapter 25

  When I woke up my head hurt like a hot fat blister. It felt as if yellow pus was ready to burst out of my ears, which was funny because I’d been dreaming about Ma. In the dream she was sitting on my shoulders and drilling a hole in my head.

  It was dark and I thought it was still the middle of the night. But then I remembered about boarding up the door and windows. So I got up and opened the door.

  It was broad daylight. But it was Sunday and I hate Sundays. I hate dreams and I hate Sundays. That’s two things I hate and those were the two things happening – Ma drilling a hole in my head on a Sunday. How lucky can you get?

  The Static was bright red but I was black and blue – bruised all over from crashing around with Sherry-Lee Lewis. I wondered how she looked this morning. Bruises would show up something awful on that white skin. I wished I could see her. It might have made me feel better.

  I was hungry. I looked in my bag, but I’d chucked every last tin of stew into the crowd the night before. That’s the trouble with me – I don’t think ahead. If I’d thought ahead I would’ve saved a can of stew for breakfast instead of using it as a weapon. I hoped that last can of stew gave someone a bad dose of concussion.

  That’s human nature, isn’t it? When you feel bad you want someone else to feel worse. Well, it’s my nature anyway. Maybe Harry’s right. Maybe I’m not a very nice person. But look at Harry. He may be a nice old bird, but nice didn’t get him very far. He had to cover it up with a mask when he was fighting.

  You can stuff nice. That’s my opinion for what it’s worth.

  Still, Mr Deeds paid me last night. I decided to go to Hanif’s to buy tea and milk and something to eat. But no sooner had I decided to go out than that poxy dream gave me an idea. I fetched a half inch drill from the shed and then I drilled holes in the boarding over the doors and windows. The holes were big enough to let in some light and fresh air but they were too high up to let anyone spy on me without standing on a ladder. Even bad dreams are good for something.

  While I was at it I disconnected the electricity. Who needs it? I don’t. You soft central-heated buggers might, but I don’t. Creature comforts make you weak and wobbly. You’re so used to comfort you curl up and die when it’s taken away. Not me. I’m
prepared.

  It’s like Sunday – everyone tucked away in their squishy little homes with their squishy little families hiding from the world. No wonder they all moan come Monday when they have to get out and hustle again. They’re not prepared for the hustle, see. Sunday squishes you all up.

  Hanif has the right idea. Hanif stays open on Sunday. It’s just another work day for him.

  I had just about made up my mind to go and see him when I heard the dogs. The dogs have the run of the yard all day on a Sunday because there’s no one working there.

  I heard them making a big fuss out by the gate. So I picked up a tyre wrench and went out there to see what was happening. I really hoped it wouldn’t be more trouble, because although I was prepared I’d had enough trouble that week.

  But when I got there I saw a white Peugeot outside the gate, and that lady copper was leaning against the door.

  ‘You again,’ I said. ‘What you want now?’

  ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘I thought you might like to hear about your friend, Eleanor.’

  ‘You thought wrong,’ I said. ‘She’s no friend of mine.’

  She said nothing for a bit. I just stood there. I could’ve just walked away, but she was company – of a sort.

  ‘Well?’ I said after a while. ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it.’

  ‘I saw most of your fight last night.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It was good stuff.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  She bit her thumb. ‘I’m going down the Cut for a pie and mash. Want to come?’

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘No dosh.’ I wasn’t going to tell her about what Mr Deeds gave me, was I?

  ‘I’m buying,’ she said.

  ‘I’m coming,’ I said.

  So we went over to the Cut and had pie and mash.

  ‘I was wondering,’ she said, when we were sitting down, eating.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘I’m in security work.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Sometimes we need a bit of extra muscle.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘This and that,’ she said. ‘Personal protection. Someone to watch the door. Sometimes we have properties which need an eye kept on them.’