Maggie swishes out of the door like a princess. I pick up her florin, and walk over to where Ma Smith is seated beside the kitchen door and pay her. ‘Thank you, ma’am, the brisket was excellent and the potatoes amongst the best I’ve tasted,’ I say softly.
‘Humph!’ she snorts, handing me my change. ‘You’d do well to stay away from that one!’ Her lips are stretched so thin I think they must snap. ‘She’ll take every penny you’ve got and more!’ She looks up at me with her rheumy, red-rimmed eyes and cackles, ‘Why d’ya think she’s called Maggie Pye, eh? ‘Cause she collects bright little valuables for her nest, that’s why!’
I laugh and look down at my tattered coat and blouse, my breeches, frayed and torn at the knees, and my poor old boots. ‘Thank you, ma’am, I’ll take care that she doesn’t diddle me out of my riches!’ I bow slightly to the old crone and take my leave.
I’m feeling good as I walk out the door with all eyes upon me. It isn’t natural for me to enjoy such attention and yet I do! Then the men commence to whistle and clap and laugh. ‘Welcome to Sydney, Hawk Solomon!’ someone shouts and I can’t help grinning. I feel lightheaded and wonder if at last this might be love. It seems not such a bad idea. Maggie Pye and Hawk, birds of a feather!
Chapter Fifteen
TOMMO
Sydney
July 1860
When Hawk asks me if I wants a cup o’ tea that first morning it’s the last straw. With me head hurtin’ from the musket ball more than I’m willing to admit, I can think of only one way to kill the pain. I’m thirstin’ for the black bottle, for half a pint of the most glorious grape, me Cape brandy, not a cup of friggin’ tea!
Well, I’ve waited long enough for it, haven’t I? Four bloody years! My tongue is hangin’ out so far that my boots are fair tripping over it. So the moment I gets the chance I tells Hawk I’m off.
I walks down Bridge Street not even lookin’ back to see if Hawk is following. If he tries to stop me, I swear I’ll leave the bastard forever. But he lets me be and I stroll into The World Turned Upside Down pub. It’s full with lunch-time drinkers from the docks and the markets. With me sore head, I’m in no humour to be among the yakking, ‘baccy-smoking, beer-swilling mob. So I make me way into the saloon bar, what’s nice and quiet, with only a couple of well-dressed coves having a bit of a natter in the corner.
I walk to the bar and gives the bell a good thump. Soon enough the barmaid comes through from the main bar. She ain’t what you’d call young nor pretty and seems none too happy at the sight of me neither. ‘Be ‘appier next door, I should think?’ she sniffs, indicating the main bar with a nod of her head.
‘I’m fine right here, thank you, miss,’ says I, then turns to the two men in the corner. ‘Providin’ these gentlemen don’t mind?’ A little bloke no bigger than me and a bit of a toff, though with the look of a weasel about him, nods friendly enough. The fat cove what’s with him don’t twitch an eyelid. ‘Looks like I’ll be stayin’,’ says I.
‘Suit yerself,’ says the snooty barmaid. ‘What’cha want?’ ‘Brandy. A daffy o’ Cape, thank you, miss.’ ’A daffy?’ she asks, one eyebrow raised most high and mighty.
‘Fer goodness’ sake, Doreen! Give the gent a nobbler of brandy and stop making trouble.’ It’s the little weasel bloke what speaks.
‘Much obliged,’ I says to him. ‘Nobbler, is it?’ Doreen turns on her heel and she’s about to vanish into the main bar when I shouts after her, ‘Nobbler of Cape, miss!’
She soon puts down a glass in front o’ me. I pick it up and sniff, waiting for the smell o’ the precious ambrosia to hit me nostrils. I sniff and then I sniff again. ‘This ain’t Cape,’ I says, looking straight at her.
She shrugs her shoulders. ‘It be better than Cape.’ ‘Thanks, miss, but it’s Cape I asked for and Cape I’ll have! You know, brandy what comes from the Cape o’ Good Hope!’ Me head feels like it’s gunna explode and I push the brandy away. Next moment the little bloke’s besides me. He picks up the glass and sniffs at it.
‘This ain’t brandy!’ he exclaims and pours the glass o’ spirits into the brass spittoon beside the door. ‘Now get this gentleman a Cape brandy, or I’ll call Mr Hodges!’
‘It ain’t right!’ Doreen cries. ‘I tries to keep the saloon bar nice for the better class o’ person like you and ye friends.’ She sniffs and looks directly at me. ‘Mr Hodges don’t like it when the hobbledehoys comes in the saloon bar!’
Christ Jesus, I thinks, what is this? Ain’t I ever gunna get a drink? If I had my axe with me I’d know exactly what to do with Doreen’s saloon bar.
Anyway off she flounces and the little cove pats me on the shoulder. ‘You’ll get your brandy now, matey.’ Then he sticks out his hand. ‘Art Sparrow.’ I take his hand a bit reluctant-like, for I don’t want no company. I catch sight of the ring he’s wearin’ what sports a diamond the size o’ me pinkie nail. Then he withdraws his hand and there, ‘tween forefinger and next, is a small white card. ‘My card,’ he smiles, bowing his head.
It’s a neat piece o’ palming, not difficult mind, but nicely done. I take the card and read it, thankful that Hawk made me take up learnin’ again at sea. It’s very fancy lookin’.
F. Artie Sparrow Esq.
Special Arrangements
of a
Sporting Nature
The World Turned Upside Down
Bridge Street, Sydney
I dunno what makes me do what I do next, but I hold his card up, close me hand over it, and then open it again. Where his card was, I now holds the ace o’ spades.
‘Well I never!’ he exclaims. ‘Use the flats, then, does you?’
‘Some,’ I reply.
He glances down at the playing card then he sticks out his hand again. ‘How do you do, Mr Ace O’ Spades?’
I don’t feel much like smiling but it’s clever enough said, so I oblige. ‘Pleased to meetcha, Mr Art Sparrow,’ I says, though me greatest pleasure would be for him to go away and leave me in peace.
‘My friends calls me Mr Sparrow, and me enemies…’ he pauses a moment and points to his card. ‘Well, I’ll leave that to yer imagination!’ I looks at his name on the card again, F. Artie Sparrow. ‘Frederick Arthur Sparrow,’ the little cove says. ‘I most sincerely hopes we can be friends and you’ll call me Mr Sparrow?’
‘Thank you, Mr Sparrow,’ I says, though it’s hard now not to think of him as Fartie Sparrow. I know a mag artist when I see one. But I think it best to humour him a while. Otherwise, he might see that Doreen here, or even Mr Hodges, sends me on me way without a drink.
‘I ain’t given you my proper name yet, Mr Sparrow,’ I says.
He throws up his hands in alarm. ‘No, no, don’t! Leave it be, my dear. Ace O’ Spades is a grand name for a young Irishman who plays the flats.’ He cocks his head. ‘That is, if you can play sufficient well to earn it as ye handle?’
Before I can tell him I ain’t Irish, Doreen brings in my brandy and I goes to pay her.
‘No, no, my dear—my stand,’ Mr Sparrow insists. ‘Make that two more. We have to celebrate Mr Ace O’ Spades arrival in Sydney!’
‘Cape again?’ Doreen asks him.
Mr Sparrow grins. ‘Now don’t you be cheeky, my dear. It’s finest cognac for me and rum for Fat Fred over there as you know well enough.’ He nods to the corner. ‘Bring your poison, Mr Ace O’ Spades, and come over and meet Mr Fred. Perhaps you fancy a hand or two of poker? What say we play fer drinks, eh?’
‘Much obliged, Mr Sparrow, but if you don’t mind I won’t today.’ I points to the brandy in front o’ me. ‘I come in here to get a few drinks in me, and that is what I intends to do.’
‘A misfortune or a celebration, my dear?’ he asks, not in the least put down by me knocking back his offer. ‘Celebration or misfortune, which is it then?’ he repeats.
My head is aching so much I can’t hardly remember why it is I wants to get drunk. Is it to mourn me beloved Makareta or am I wetting the head of me new bab
y daughter? I don’t even know where the poor little mite is. Perhaps it’s about coming to Australia, or perhaps none o’ them things?
‘Sort o’ both, I suppose,’ I replies. ‘I’m best left on me own at the moment.’
Doreen brings Mr Sparrow’s brandy and takes the other tipple over to Fat Fred. He’s a hugely fat man with a very red face what has several spare cheeks and a spirit drinker’s knobbly nose. I reckon he’s about forty years of age and Mr Sparrow near enough the same. Fat Fred has his elbows on the small table in front o’ him and his chins cupped in his hands, so that the flesh spills out the side most handsome. When Doreen puts down his rum, he makes no sign he’s seen her, his piggy-eyed expression of darkest gloom unchanged.
‘Cheerio, then!’ Mr Sparrow throws back his head and swallows his drink in one go. With nary a glance in his direction, Fat Fred in the corner does the same, to the exact second, so that they bang down their empty glasses with a single sound.
Meanwhile all I has done is lift me glass and bring it close under me nose. The sharp fumes rises to my nostrils like an ancient memory. I close my eyes a moment. Then I takes a sip and damn near faints. The Cape hits me like a red hot poker down me throat. ‘Bloody hell!’ I gasp.
‘What’s the matter, lad?’ Mr Sparrow asks most concerned, thumping me back as I choke and splutter. ‘Doreen!’ he cries. ‘What’s she done to yer brandy then?’
My eyes is watering and I can’t hardly speak. ‘Nothing’s been done!’ I croak. ‘It’s bloody delicious! But it’s been a long time between drinks.’
‘Oh dearie me!’ he laughs. ‘Whaleman, are yer?’
‘I was.’ I knuckle the tears from me eyes. The brandy is warming my stomach something wonderful.
‘Harrington Arms be the pub for whalemen,’ says Doreen, who’s popped up from nowhere. ‘T’ain’t far from ‘ere!’
‘Right,’ I say, taking another small sip. ‘But I ain’t a whaleman no more and intends to be a gentleman, if that be all right with you then, miss?’ All it takes is a single sip o’ the glorious grape and Tommo is back to his old self.
‘Course you aren’t a whaleman no more, it’s plain for all to see you’re a gentleman,’ Mr Sparrow glowers at Doreen.
‘It is, is it?’ I grins. ‘Could’ve fooled me!’
Doreen gives a ‘Hmmph!’ and stamps off again.
Mr Sparrow smiles. ‘I like a man with a nasty sense of humour. And it’s good to see you enjoy your brandy!’
I take another sip o’ the blessed Cape. ‘I’ll be fine now, thanks. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mr Sparrow, but I’d best keep to meself.’
Mr Sparrow looks at me with sympathy. ‘Naturally, after all yer time at sea, you’ll want to fully savour yer drink.’ Suddenly his voice grows hard. ‘But may I remind you, sir, it’s your turn to stand a round.’ He’s smiling, but this time it’s different and I sees the weasel again. ‘Wouldn’t do to neglect your stand, now would it?’
‘Oh, of course, I begs your pardon, Mr Sparrow.’ I dig in me breeches for coin.
‘No ‘arm done, Mr Ace O’ Spades, it’s not yours to know the local form. Tell yer what? I can see you want to be on yer own, so we’ll spread the flats once each. You win and there’s no need to shout me and Fat Fred and we’ll leave you well alone. Can’t be fairer than that now, can I?’
Mr Sparrow says he’ll shuffle and then select five cards what he’ll show. Then I’m to do the same, and if mine beats his, I win. Well, Tommo don’t like to say no to such an offer. So Mr Sparrow picks up the cards and examines them most careful. I ain’t shaved them none and they be in most excellent condition. He shuffles the deck a few times to get the feel and I’m interested to see how he does the relocation. He’s very good, as I knew he’d be, and there’s a pretty blur of the broads as he spreads them in a straight line across the bar counter. Then he picks five cards and turns up each in turn. Three queens and a pair of tens, a full house—the perfect poker hand.
‘Nice.’ I keep me voice steady. In fact it be most skilled and I can’t understand why he’s done it. A cardsharp as good as him don’t play boastful with a stranger. I can see he thinks I’m a whaleman paid off in Sydney—a slip of a lad with a pocket full o’ brass what a few games o’ poker will soon empty. But why the big trick? That would do nothing but scare away a patsy-mark. It don’t make no sense whatsoever.
Mr Sparrow takes a cigar from the inside pocket of his coat, bites the end off and sets about lighting it. He looks even more the weasel with his sharp little teeth bared, some missing to either side, and gold in three of ‘em. I wait ‘til he’s got it going and the air about is filled with the rich smell o’ tobacco smoke. Then I takes up the cards and shuffles, laying them down in a perfect circle with one card placed in the dead centre the way Ikey taught us. It’s a trick, no more, and not to be used in any card game. But it takes hundreds of hours of practice to get it right, and few can do it well.
‘Hmm!’ says Mr Sparrow, chewing at his cigar. ‘Card tricks, eh?’
I selects a card from the very top o’ the circle and the next from the very bottom, leaving two gaps exactly opposite each other. I does the same to the left and the right so that the circle, but for the four matching gaps facing each other, remains perfect. Now I has four cards placed face down in front o’ me on the bar. In a manner most casual, I turns them face up. King, then another king, then a third, then a ten. I reach out and take the card from the centre o’ the circle and places it face up to show another ten. Three Kings and two tens. My full house beats his!
‘I’ll be damned!’ says Mr Sparrow. ‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d not have believed it!’
‘I’d be much obliged if you’d let me be now, Mr Sparrow,’ I says, upping me glass and drinking down what’s left of my brandy. I do this so he can’t see the big smile on me gob!
But Mr Sparrow’s still staring at the five cards I’ve laid out on the bar. ‘Ace O’ Spades, there be only one man in the world what I’ve known can do that, and he’s long dead.’
‘Ikey Solomon?’ I says. The cigar drops from Mr Sparrow’s lips onto the floor. I lean down and pick it up. Then I put it carefully on the counter with the lighted part over the edge. ‘You’d be Sparrer Fart, then, I presume?’ I say, cool as you like.
‘How the devil —’ he exclaims. ‘Who are you, then?’
‘Tommo X Solomon, at ya service!’ I says, sticking out me paw. ‘Ikey said I couldn’t never beat ya, but I bloody well just did!’
Mr Sparrow, alias the one and only Sparrer Fart, is too astonished to take offence.
‘Yer Ikey’s boy! Ikey Solomon! Prince o’ London’s Fences, sent to Van Diemen’s Land?’
‘One and the same,’ says I. ‘And you be Sparrer Fart, what Ikey considered the best pickpocket of all the lads he ever trained and a master o’ the flats when you was ten years old.’
‘I was, too!’ Mr Sparrow muses. ‘Thought I still was, until a few moments ago!’ He looks me all over like he’s looking at me for the first time. ‘Glory be! Ikey’s lad, eh? This is a most momentous occasion!’
I sighs. Me and my big mouth. I just never learns to keep me cleverness to meself. There’s no hope of getting rid of Mr Sparrow now he knows who I am.
Mr Sparrow is banging the bell and the lovely Doreen appears once more. ‘Ere, same again,’ he calls to her.
I raise my hand to object. ‘Mr Sparrow, please, we made a deal. I won, now I wish to drink me fill on me own!’
Mr Sparrow stops and gazes at me a long time. A tear escapes from one of his little red weasel eyes and runs down his cheek and across his small, sharp face.
‘Son,’ he chokes, ‘I’ve waited thirty years for this moment. Ikey Solomon were the closest thing to a pater I ever ‘ad. He give me a family—all the likely lads from the Academy o’ Light Fingers. Ikey was our beloved kinsman. He found me when I were nothing but a starvin’ guttersnipe. He taught me the most noble art o’ tooling until I were the best pickp
ocket in London. He give me book-learnin’ and writin’ and taught me cribbage so that handlin’ the flats became me second nature.
‘Ikey Solomon gave me everything I am become, son. When Mr Dickens picked me character for the Artful Dodger in that book of his, Oliver Twist, I were the very finest example of the genius of Ikey Solomon.’ Sparrer Fart pauses. ‘Now I meets you, Tommo Solomon, alias Mr Ace O’ Spades, Ikey’s lad!’ Another tear escapes. ‘And you tells me t’ piss orf? I’m ‘urt, ‘umiliated to the uttermost!’
Fat Fred lets loose a gentle snore.
From the way he’s talking, it’s like Sparrer Fart’s once more the little ragamuffin what Ikey found starving in Rosemary Lane. I don’t know what rightly to say to his outburst. I know I’m being had, but also that some o’ his declaration is genuine enough.
Ikey would always tell us, ‘A good scam be from the heart as well as the head, my dears. Always find yourself something what you can say with a sense o’ conviction, what makes you sad or happy or angry, then work it in like butter and flour. The result be most soulful and is as effective on your patsy-mark as mother love.’
Now Mr Sparrow has gave me a proper lesson in doin’ this right. For a moment, I thinks I must cry for the memory of Ikey, which be most funny, for as far as I know ain’t nobody much ever cried over the memory of Ikey Solomon. Mary might have shed a few tears what quickly dried, and so might me soft brother, but nobody else. It all goes to show the skill o’ Sparrer Fart.
‘You’re right, Mr Sparrow, I’ve been most hardhearted,’ I says, even half-meaning it.
‘No, no, lad!’ He takes me by the arm. ‘Tell you what? We’ll ‘ave a couple o’ nobblers. My stand. Me and Fat Fred will nurse our drinks on our own, and leave yer free to take up the slack on your grief or celebration or bit o’ both. Then afterwards, I want you to accompany us on a proper adventure. Put money in your pocket too. What do you say, eh, lad?’
Tommo and Hawk Page 36
