Faded Glory

by David Essex

  The door was open as usual. Danny could hear his mum’s favourite record of the moment, Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable, drifting down the street. It certainly was unforgettable, Rosie had played it so many times lately. It never seemed to be off the prized radiogram, bought cut-price as it had apparently “fallen off the back of a lorry”.

  Pushing his bike into the passage, Danny looked through the half-open door to the living room. His mother was locked in a romantic shuffle with her latest beau, thin, tattooed Ricky with his fashionable Tony Curtis haircut. Ricky wore a string vest, braces, navy-blue socks with bed fluff on them and ill-fitting brown trousers. His real name was Derek, but he preferred Ricky.

  “Derek ain’t rock ’n’ roll,” he had explained.

  Unnoticed, Danny pushed on to the kitchen and into the back yard and parked his bike by the almost derelict garden shed. Going back into the kitchen, he grabbed a glass of water, downed a couple of gulps, took a deep breath and went into his mum’s smoochy parlour.

  Rosie Watson had a bit of a reputation. After a brief spell of mourning, when she had received the letter and visit to impart the sad news that her husband, Danny’s father, wouldn’t be coming home, she had soon become the local good-time gal. Ricky was the latest companion in what was a pretty long and less than impressive list.

  “You’re late, sugar plum,” Rosie said. “Dinner’s in the oven.”

  Danny ignored the invitation of burned offerings. “I got held up,” he said. “My bike broke, and I met this old bloke who took me to that black fella with the garage under the arches. He fixed it.”

  “They shouldn’t be over here,” said Ricky, waving a half-full bottle of brown ale to make his point.

  “He was all right,” Danny said, feeling that he ought to defend Lenny. “He fought in the war. Like Dad.”

  “No mate,” said Ricky, shaking his head. “There wasn’t any spear chuckers in the war.”

  Danny wanted to set the record straight and put Ricky in his place, but decided it was probably a waste of energy.

  “Where’s Dad’s war stuff, Mum?” he asked instead. The meeting with Albert and the photo of Lenny as a soldier had made him want to make contact with his lost father.

  “Ooh I don’t know, Dan,” said Rosie, her eyes half-closed on Ricky’s skinny shoulder. “Might be in the cupboard under the stairs. Why d’ya want it?”

  “Just wanted to see it, that’s all.”

  “All right darling. Have a look, your dad’s stuff is in a tin box under the stairs.”

  Danny looked through the clutter that filled the cupboard. Right at the back, underneath a stinking old mop, he found a battered red and silver tin box. He reverently held the box in both hands, went upstairs to his room and sat on his bed.

  Danny’s dad had been killed very early on in the war, before Danny had been born. He had never met his father, which was something he truly regretted. With his father’s box, Danny felt closer to him, less alone. Looking at the photograph of his proud dad in uniform, Danny thought back to his empty childhood. He’d missed the trips they would have had to his dad’s workplace, the Royal Docks: the massive ships, the cranes, the smell of spices. Not even his mother had come to watch his performance in the school nativity play. He wished he was in the photo, the way he’d seen other children, sitting high on their dads’ shoulders. He would have felt like the king of the world.

  Danny had always felt empty without a father, but looking now at his dad’s photo, his war medals and some letters to Rosie, it felt more like a deep-seated ache. He missed his father so much. And he hated the stream of “uncles” and “dads” his mum had entertained over the years. He loved his mum, but not her philandering.

  Danny had tried to ask his mum questions about his dad many times, but Rosie gave him very few answers. Maybe she felt too much pain talking about her late husband and preferred to put the past behind her, trying to forget. And forget she did. Within two months of the death of her husband and childhood sweetheart, she had married Danny’s stepfather, Bill Watson. This had outraged her parents-in-law, who saw Rosie’s actions as a serious lack of respect for the memory of their dead son. They’d broken off all ties with Rosie and young Danny, and the deep family rift still remained.

  The whirlwind marriage to Bill Watson didn’t last long, probably due to Rosie’s wandering eye. After the war finished, Rosie and Bill went their separate ways and Rosie and Danny moved from Canning Town to Poplar, a couple of miles away.

  “Bloody stupid war,” Danny muttered as he closed the tin box.

  The clock in the hall struck seven o’clock.

  “Wendy,” Danny said aloud.

  Putting the tin box safely under his bed, he headed downstairs and grabbed his bike. With a quick look in the hall mirror to check his dark brown hair, he was out the door. Wendy was Danny’s first and only girlfriend. Their friendship had begun when they were just eight years old at primary school. As a redhead, Wendy suffered many anti-ginger antics from the other pupils, despite maintaining that she was not ginger but strawberry blonde. Wendy now worked in a local sugar factory: a pretty girl, petite but strong, with twinkling green eyes and a freckled face like sunshine.

  As soon as he left school, Danny had put his name down for the Royal Docks. Working at the docks was a family affair. You had to have a family member working there to get a look in, and as Danny’s late father had been a docker before he joined the army, Danny was hopeful. In the meantime, waiting to be accepted, he did casual work on building sites.

  Danny and Wendy would meet up after work, sometimes staying in at Wendy’s house. Wendy’s parents were part of a privileged few that owned a television: a modern black-and-white miracle in an oversized cabinet that would flicker away in the sitting-room corner to be watched in wonderment. Sometimes, Danny and Wendy would take a trip to the local flea-pit cinema the Imperial, if and when they had the money. But most times, just being together was enough.

  Riding past Lenny’s garage now, Danny thought of his recent encounter with Albert and Lenny. He decided to mention Albert’s suggestion of taking up boxing at the Live and Let Live gym to Wendy and gauge her reaction.

  Wendy’s smart semi-detached house backed on to a cemetery, which had always worried Danny a little.

  “I met that black bloke,” he said, kissing her as he entered the warmth of the house. “You know the one with the garage that the others smashed up? He’s friends with an old bloke that my mates pushed into the duck pond at the park.”

  Wendy looked shocked. “Why did they do that?”

  “They shouldn’t have done it,” Danny agreed. “I helped him out.”

  “I should think so,” said Wendy.

  “Anyway,” Danny went on, “they’re all right. Lenny the black bloke fixed my bike and the other bloke, Albert, used to be a boxer. He reckons I should take up boxing, you know, to get off the streets and away from bad company.”

  Wendy’s face filled with concern. “Boxing? What if you get hurt?”

  “I’m only thinking about it,” Danny said.

  The truth was, Danny was starting to think seriously about Albert’s suggestion. He was sixteen now and searching for something to break the same old scenario of hanging round street corners with his wayward friends, looking for trouble.

  To clear the air and get back into Wendy’s good books, he suggested they go out.

  “Where to?”

  “We could go to a pub,” said Danny. “There’s a good one in Canning Town called the Live and Let Live, we could go there. I’ll buy you a Babycham,” he added hopefully.

  On the bus, Wendy told Danny about her day at the sugar factory, and something about a married foreman asking one of the girls out. Danny tried to seem interested, but was thinking about change, the possibility of getting something new in his life to break the old routine.

  As the trolley bus turned the corner, Danny could see the coloured light bulbs that hung outside the Live and Let Live.

 
“This is us,” he said.

  Wendy looked at the pub doubtfully as they stood on the street.

  “It’s supposed to be all right in there,” Danny reassured her.

  “I don’t know, Danny.”

  “Come on,” Danny said. “We’ll go in, shall we?”

  They found a table in one of the quieter corners. Danny went to the bar to order. As he made his way through the busy clientele, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “How’s that bike of yours going?” asked Lenny.

  “Yeah, going good,” Danny replied. “Listen Lenny, have you seen Albert?”

  Lenny thought for a moment. “I think he’s upstairs in the gym. Anything to skip working. Who you here with?”

  “My girlfriend.”

  “Nice,” said Lenny, registering Wendy, who looked younger than her years, “but I reckon you’re both underage. I’ll buy her a drink, save you breaking the law. Go take a look upstairs, I reckon that Albert’s up there.”

  Danny tried to look indifferent. Deep down, that was why he was here.

  “Sure thing, Lenny,” he said. “I’ll just let Wendy know where I’m going.”

  “Danny!” Wendy exclaimed. “Look who I bumped into.”

  Danny recognised the two girls sitting at their table. Wendy worked with them at the sugar factory. He felt a rush of relief.

  “You’ll be all right for a bit then?” he asked Wendy.

  Wendy was already sipping the Babycham bought for her by Lenny and chewing over the latest gossip with her workmates. From the sound of it, the romantic antics of the foreman were high on the agenda. Leaving Wendy happily engrossed, Danny followed Lenny upstairs.

  He could hear new sounds coming from above him. Punch bags being hit, ropes skipped, and orders being barked by a raucous Irishman. Danny felt a rush of adrenaline laced with apprehension.

  The gym was heavy with the smell of leather and sweat, and full of shadowy figures dedicated to the noble art. Something about the place lit a spark in Danny. He was struck by the dedication, the fitness, the power.

  Watching two likely lads from the corner of a well-used ring stood Albert.

  “Hey Albert,” shouted Lenny. “I’ve found your boy.”

  Albert turned. “Hello son,” he said with a smile. “You made it. What do you think?”

  Danny gave an impressed kind of nod.

  “Come and meet the boss, Patsy, he’s the trainer here,” said Albert.

  Patsy, huge and blond and hairy, assessed Danny. “If you can punch like this old champ, Albert,” he said, “you could be a contender.”

  “I’m just looking,” said Danny uneasily, well out of his comfort zone. “You know, out of interest. My girl’s downstairs so I’d better go.”

  “Fair enough,” said Albert. “Maybe come back some other time.”

  “Yeah maybe,” said Danny.

  He went back downstairs. Wendy was still chatting away to the girls from the factory, something about so and so and someone getting engaged because they were pregnant. Danny’s thoughts were all of the boxing gym. Perhaps it was a way out.

  But first there was work to do. He knew Wendy would not be keen on him taking up a sport that could damage him, or dedicating himself to something that would mean they would spend less time together. But something about this new horizon, this different world, was attracting him like a bee to honey.

  Walking Wendy home, he gently brought up the subject of the boxing gym and how interesting it had been.

  “It might be something to do,” he said. “Somewhere to belong.”

  Wendy looked straight ahead. “If it’s something you want to do, then I can’t stop you can I?”

  Her icy reaction came across like an Arctic wind.

  “Nah, listen,” Danny said. “I’m only thinking about it.”

  Wendy shrugged. “If you want to get your face smashed in, and you don’t want to see me much ’cos you’ll be busy bloody boxing, then great.”

  Danny kept quiet. He’d sampled Wendy’s temper before, and it wasn’t pleasant.

  After a rather frosty kiss goodnight, he rode home full of mixed feelings. Up to now, Wendy had been his world. Now there was another world, and the door to it was open.

  Despite Wendy’s reaction, Danny felt excited about this new challenge. If he became a fighter, he could protect Wendy like he always had done, but even better. There was the question of respect too. He’d been respected at school by both his peers and the teachers, not because he was a good scholar, but because he was a good footballer. He missed that respect, had stupidly tried to get it back by hanging out with the wide boys in the park. It was time for that to change.

  Back home, Rosie was half cut and Ricky was snoring on the sofa. As a means to escape Danny’s fractured world, the gym seemed even more attractive.

  “I might take up boxing, Mum,” he said cautiously.

  “What do you wanna do that for?” Rosie slurred, planting an alcohol-laced kiss on his reluctant lips. “Messing up your handsome face.”

  Danny escaped upstairs. He felt the need to reach underneath his bed and open the red and silver tin box again, to look at his father’s photo.

  “Do you think this boxing lark is a way to go, Dad?” he asked, looking into the eyes on the faded black-and-white photo. “What d’ya reckon?”

  “Sure, son,” the photo whispered in Danny’s mind. “You go ahead. Show them what you’re made of.”

  *

  With no prospect of dock work in sight and to fill the long boring days, Danny decided to start training as soon as possible. It would be good for him to get fit. So the next morning he got up early. He even heard the cockerel crow from a nearby back yard.

  “A bloody nuisance, that chicken,” Rosie would often say, especially when she was woken after one of her many late nights.

  Jogging to the park gates, Danny felt the sweet smell of fresher air inside him and power in his legs. This felt good. He ran and ran, finally taking a breather on a park bench. He had a purpose now. This was a new start.

  Someone whistled at him from across the park. He looked up to see Vince and the other Canning Town boys watching him.

  “Look at the state of you, Dan,” said Vince, shaking his Brylcreemed head.

  Danny was a fairly easy target, dressed in ill-fitting navy-coloured shorts, a vest, thick grey socks and hob-nail boots. He wasn’t exactly an arbiter of fashion, or the cutting edge of a sportsman.

  “What you doing Dan?” Vince sneered. “You look a right tosser.”

  “I’ve started training,” Danny replied.

  “Training? What for, to be a wanker?”

  Derisive laughter followed. Danny decided not to rise to the bait. He began running again.

  “He’s scared,” crowed one of the other boys. “He’s running away.”

  Danny ran on through the park, his ears ringing with their jibes and laughter. If anything, they made him even more determined to make a fresh start. Being part of that gang of idiots was yesterday’s news. He was looking to tomorrow.

  Running towards the duck pond, he recognised Albert in the distance, feeding the ducks. The old man turned as he heard Danny’s hob-nail boots pounding the path towards him.

  “Blimey son,” he remarked. “You training for the Olympics?”

  “No,” wheezed Danny. “Boxing.”

  A broad smile crossed Albert’s face. “Seven o’clock at the gym?” he said.

  Danny smiled back. “Seven it is,” he said.

  Albert was alone again with the ducks. He watched Danny run into the distance and smiled. Maybe. Just maybe.

  The boy’s enthusiasm was a positive thing. At least it would get him out of bad company. But only time would tell if he could last the course. If Danny was to make a new start, it would take dedication. Albert hoped for the best, but whispered to the ducks a few words of caution.

  “Time will tell. We’ll see.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE clock in D
anny’s hall struck six-thirty. Tea finished, Danny was ready to go.

  He still had not made peace with Wendy. He had tried saying that he wouldn’t do too much boxing and just wanted to go to the gym to get fit, that was all, simple as that. But as yet, his reassurances had not worked. Hoping that Wendy would in time come round, Danny grabbed his bike and pedalled the streets to the Live and Let Live.

  Albert was working the bar.

  “Good to see you, Danny,” he said. “Let’s go on up, introduce you to Patsy properly.”

  Patsy O’Neill wore the scars of both life and the fight world. He’d come over as a fighter from Ireland and settled in the East End, a stocky, fit man in his fifties with bushy eyebrows, impressive sideburns and twinkling blue eyes.

  Patsy had respect for Albert, but little respect for his flock of wannabe fighters. He’d seen too many of them fall by the wayside, unprepared for the realities of the boxing life.

  “Right then,” growled Patsy, hardly looking at Danny. “Let’s get cracking. Put these on and take those bloody boots off.”

  Danny obeyed, putting on the boxing gloves and taking off his hob-nail training boots. He climbed into the ring with Patsy as Albert watched from the corner.

  “Now hit these pads I’m holding,” barked Patsy.

  Much to both Albert and Patsy’s surprise, Danny was good, his hands fast and pretty accurate.

  “Not bad eh?” said Danny, feeling more confident.