Much of what I know of the Sydney lad, I have learnt from my brother. Tommo already knows many of these lads in their cabbage-tree hats. It seems that Mr Sparrow commands the nastiest of these scoundrels, which he addicts to grog early. They cannot be good company for Tommo, but of far greater concern to me is Tommo’s wounded head and his increasing reliance on the Angel’s Kiss, the dreaded celestial poppy.
Tommo insists he takes opium only to alleviate the pain of his injury, which certainly remains a serious condition. But I am much afraid that the Angel’s Kiss will eventually turn into the Devil’s Smoke and he will become addicted. He has been using the opium pipe since the first night we arrived.
I waited all afternoon for him outside The World Turned Upside Down that day, and then made urgent enquiries at the bar when he failed to emerge. But all who worked there claimed not to have seen him. Naturally, I was distraught and even close to panic. I searched the Rocks half the night and then went up to Hyde Park to see if he was there, perhaps lying under the gum trees with the other drunks. I missed my meeting with Maggie Pye, although I left a note explaining my predicament, hoping she would not be angry and that we might, with luck, meet again. I spent a most miserable night looking for Tommo, only abandoning my search when the currawongs called at dawn.
Hoping that Tommo might find me in the Rocks once he’d recovered, I went back there to look for accommodation. I soon found a decent enough room with two mattresses and after paying the landlady ten shillings for the first week’s rent, I left our belongings with her and went straight to the public bath house. There I paid a penny for soap and another for the hire of a razor, and shaved for the first time in a fortnight. I also gave myself a good scrubbing, and washed my clothes, wringing them out as best I could before returning them to my body damp. I spent a penny more on two loaves of bread and went to sit in the sun, watching the boats on the magnificent harbour as I breakfasted. I meant only to stay until my clothes were dry but I must have fallen asleep. I woke to hear two chimes of the post office clock and realised with a renewed burst of anxiety that it was past noon. As the last chime faded to silence, I felt a small hand on my shoulder. My heart leapt and I swung around, hoping to find Tommo. Instead a scruffy lad with a cheeky grin stood before me.
‘Yer name Solomon? Hawk Solomon?’ he demanded.
‘Why do you wish to know?’ I replied, looking as stern as I could.
‘Ere,’ he thrust a piece of folded paper at me. It was a note in Tommo’s unpractised hand, telling me that he was well. I was to meet him outside the same pub in Bridge Street at seven o’clock the following morning. Not content with so little information, I looked up to question the lad further, only to discover that he had disappeared.
I was furious with my errant twin. A night wasted in worrying. It was then that I resolved to visit the Hero of Waterloo, where Maggie Pye and I had agreed to meet. Maybe I could make enquiries and perhaps find my new friend again.
The pub, when I arrived, was crammed with customers and my heart, which had taken to thumping faster as I drew near, sank as I scanned the crowd. Suddenly, in the far corner, I caught a flash of black and white as Maggie’s magpie bobbed cheekily up and down. I quickly made my way through the crowd, then I stopped short. Maggie was talking to someone—a customer perhaps? She looked up and our eyes met. With a big grin and a look of welcome, she waved me over.
I smiled and pushed my way through the crowd to her. ‘I’d not have spotted you if it wasn’t for the bird.’
‘Me trademark,’ she replied sweetly. Then she climbed up onto a nearby bench and promptly kissed me on the lips, a soft, welcoming kiss which made my knees tremble. ‘Yiz better not be late again, Hawk, but I’ll forgive ya this once! Now come and meet me friend. Mr Isaacs, this be Hawk Solomon what I told yiz about.’
Looking down, I saw a small, round man, neatly dressed, who was about fifty years old. His head was so bald and polished that his pate reflected the glow from the gaslight on the wall. He had a tape measure about his neck and held out a plump, well-manicured hand. ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Solomon,’ he said.
‘Mr Isaacs owns the slop-shop in Pitt Street. He’s a tailor, do you up a treat,’ Maggie explained.
‘How do you do, sir?’ I extended my hand.
‘Hawk Solomon. Your name is Solomon? But surely you ain’t a Jew?’ The little man looked puzzled.
‘I was christened a Jew,’ I explained.
‘Ha! Not possible! Jews ain’t christened!’
I laughed. ‘Pardon me, it’s a figure of speech. My brother Tommo and I were born to a Jewish mother, who died, then we were given the name Solomon by Mr Ikey Solomon, who was our father of sorts.’
The little man sniffed in disbelief. ‘Well, he must have been colour-blind, if you’ll forgive me saying. A schwartzer for a Jew, I ain’t heard of that before!’ As he talked, he measured me. Like Maggie when she kissed me, he stood on the bench to get the width of my shoulders, my neck and the measurement under my armpits, making me feel most foolish all the while.
‘We wants the best, Mr Isaacs,’ Maggie instructed.
‘Maggie, it will have to wait.’ I thought of the few coins left in my pocket. ‘Mr Isaacs, I’m afraid I can’t afford new clothes.’
‘Who said anything about money?’ Maggie grinned. ‘Did I say anything about money, Barney?’ She didn’t wait for his reply but turned back to me. ‘I have a longstanding arrangement with Mr Isaacs, Hawk, and none of it your business, sweetheart.’
Barney Isaacs had hopped down from the bench and, at Maggie’s words, he shook his head forlornly.
‘What?’ Maggie had one eyebrow raised and her hands upon her hips.
‘I can’t oblige you, my dear,’ Barney said, his face serious. ‘Can’t do it.’
‘Why ever not?’ Maggie demanded to know.
‘Too much cloth and stitching, my dear. Mr Solomon ‘ere be the biggest man I’ve ever been called upon for to fashion up a set o’ gentleman’s apparel.’ The little man looked up from under his eyebrows at her. ‘Couldn’t honestly see meself doing it for less than…’ he shrugged and spread his hands, ‘three?’
‘Three!’ Maggie screamed. ‘You dirty bugger! Christ, you’ve already had a down-payment an’ all!’
‘But he’s a giant!’ the little tailor protested. ‘Biggest man ever I seen!’
Maggie took two steps forward so that her pretty face was right up to his. ‘You tryin’ t’ cheat me? You got the wrong whore, Barney Isaacs! What if I says no, eh? Or I gets the nigger ‘ere to wring your bloody neck? Or I even does it meself? How you gunna give me back what you already spent, answer me that?’
The tailor shrugged again. ‘We could come to another arrangement—maybe a silk shawl, embroidered, from China? Or a new coat? What do you say, me dear? A nice warm coat for the winter, best worsted?’
‘Maggie,’ I interrupted, ‘what’s going on? I told you I can’t pay. Send him away!’
Maggie turned on me suddenly. ‘Oh, fer Chrissakes, will ya shut yer gob. This is between his nibs ‘ere and me! He’s tryin’ to rook me!’
‘Tell you what,’ Barney added as though he hadn’t heard anything. ‘Make it three, and I’ll toss in the blouse and hose?’
I had heard enough. I was halfway out of the pub when Maggie called out, ‘Oi, where’s ya goin’, Hawk?’
‘I don’t need your charity, Maggie, especially not that sort!’ I replied, angry now that I began to understand her method of payment.
Maggie sighed. ‘Ah, Hawk, stop being so prim and bloody proper! Lemme sort this bastard out and then I’ll explain everythin’ to ya!’
She moved purposefully towards the tailor, who retreated until he bumped against the bar, holding his hands up to his chest to protect himself.
‘Give him one, Maggie,’ someone shouted. ‘Kick him in the bollocks!’
‘Maggie, come on now, he’s seven foot tall and broad as a ship’s mast,’ Barney yelled. ‘I swear it�
�ll take twice the cloth and sewing and I’m only asking half again. Be reasonable, it’s a most fair offer!’
Maggie stopped suddenly and tapped the little man on the chest with her finger. ‘Righto,’ she said. ‘I admits he’s a big bastard. I ain’t goin’ to fight ya and I ain’t goin’ to pay ya three either.’ She took a step backwards and looked him directly in the eye. ‘You’ve already had one fuck—that’s fer the jacket. You’ll get one more for the blouse and the hose and I’ll go down on ya for the weskit. Two and a half, that’s me final offer!’
Barney nodded eagerly, then pointed to my broken boots. ‘Tell ya what, Maggie, the lad’s going to need a new pair o’ boots. What do you say, my dear, the other half and I throws in a pair?’
‘Too late, ya bastard!’ Maggie cried, clapping her hands happily. ‘I already has an arrangement with the Italian in Bligh Street, what’s bootmaker to the governor!’
The tailor shrugged and departed and Maggie and I went to sit in a corner. She ordered a large gin and asked if I wanted something to drink. I declined and sat silently.
‘What’s the matter?’ Maggie touched my arm. ‘Cat got yer tongue?’
‘Maggie, I don’t want any charity, and I don’t want you to keep me. I’ve always made my own way and always will. If we become friends or more, then it should be I who keeps you. I mean, once I’m back on my feet. I don’t want you to do it to that man, do you hear me?’
Maggie leant over and kissed me. ‘Hawk, that be the nicest thing what’s ever been said to me. Lotsa men wants to fuck me, but ain’t never been one what wanted to keep me.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t blame them neither. I’m a whore, an expensive whore, but still a whore. But when all’s said and done, darlin’, Barney be a regular, and I always takes me just reward in kind with him.’
‘Maggie, I don’t want you to do that for me!’
‘You’ll be the same, Hawk. You’ll see, once you’ve put yer big black snake into me, you’ll want it regular too. Need comes first, then greed! First the free fuck, then the free dinner!’
‘Maggie! Don’t talk like that. It isn’t nice,’ I protested.
‘Talk like what?’ she tilted her head at me.
‘Talk dirty like that!’
‘What’s you mean?’ she asked, genuinely astonished. ‘I’m a whore! Dirty? Talk dirty? Have I said anything what hasn’t already crossed yer mind, Hawk Solomon?’
‘Well yes, you have. It had not crossed my mind to…er…’
‘Fuck me?’
‘Well yes, that I admit. But not then to live off you.’
‘Oh, what’s you plan to do, then? Fuck me and piss off?’
‘Maggie, I don’t feel that way about you!’
‘Yeah, o’ course you don’t—now. But after you’ve had it, that’s when you can’t get away fast enough. Take me word for it, darlin’, and don’t get too fussed. It’s what I expects. You pays yer money, has your way and then ya buggers off!’
‘Some might do that!’ I protested. ‘But not I! We will be more than that to one another. You said yesterday we could be friends. Good friends who help each other through thick and thin, that’s what you said.’
‘Hawk, it’s me standard patter! I says that to all the punters. Men enjoy a lasting arrangement—providing it don’t last much beyond when they get their breeches back on.’
Maggie made me feel like a schoolboy. In such matters I suppose I am. ‘Maggie, I don’t understand all this. I don’t understand why you would do what you plan to do just to get me a suit of clothes. It makes no sense if I’m just some bludger like the rest of your, er…’
‘Customers?’
‘Yes, customers. I admit I desire you, Maggie. You’re beautiful and I can’t help what’s in my nature. But I am no bludger and I would never exploit you!’
‘Why not? What’s ya goin’ to do instead, pull yerself off?’
‘Maggie, stop it!’ I was suddenly angry. ‘You don’t have to speak like that! And you don’t have to do it with that tailor fellow for my sake.’ I looked down at my ragged apparel. ‘I can get my own clothes, thank you! It will take a bit longer, that’s all.’
‘That’s just it, see, I don’t want t’ wait.’
‘Oh?’
Maggie grabbed my hand. ‘Hawk, listen to me. There’s a big prize fight Friday night and I wants yiz on me arm an’ all! I wants a seven-foot beautiful black nigger on me arm.’ She grinned up at me. ‘I admits, it’s t’ show off! Me screwin’ Barney ain’t no charity to you, it’s well worth it to me!’
‘Oh Christ, Maggie, what’s a man getting himself into?’ I said, rolling my eyes heavenwards.
Maggie laughed. ‘With a bit o’ luck and a fair wind, you’re getting yerself into the warmest little bed a man ever sailed into.’
I blushed and didn’t know what more to say, so changed the subject instead. ‘You like the fights then, do you Maggie?’
‘Loves ‘em, darlin’. All the crinoline cruisers will be there, the toffs, squatters, strike-it-rich-Johnnies, but I wants the best on me own arm.’
‘Crinoline cruisers?’
‘Whores, stupid!’
‘Maggie, you don’t have to buy me clothes and take me to your bed to have my company. I’ll come to the prize fight with you anyway,’ I said, though I knew full well that I secretly desired to make love to her more than anything in the world.
Maggie looked at me, her blue eyes blazing. ‘You mean ya doesn’t want me, is that it? You’re too ‘igh and fuckin’ mighty t’ be with a slut?’ She was furious. ‘Well fuck you, Hawk!’ Throwing what was left of her glass of gin into my face, she stormed out of the pub.
The drinkers standing near were suddenly quiet. Then I heard one say, ‘Go get her, mate! Beat the living daylights out of her!’ This brought me to my senses, and I wiped the gin from my face. The fellow who addressed me was the same bloke who wanted Maggie to go for Barney Isaacs. He was a big fellow but I barely noticed this as I grabbed him around the throat. Lifting him off the ground, I threw him halfway across the pub, where he knocked over several stools before landing against the wall with his eyes glazed and tongue lolling. ‘Watch your dirty mouth!’ I growled, as I went out after Maggie.
I caught up with her halfway down the street, as she strode towards the Argyle Cut. ‘Maggie, wait! Maggie, please! I didn’t mean what you think!’
‘Bugger off, Hawk!’ she cried.
‘Please, Maggie, listen to me?’ I put my hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t touch me, ya bastard!’ She shrugged my hand away and started to beat her fists against my chest. How sweet and clean she smelt as she hit me, the magpie jumping up and down in its nest as if it were about to fly away, wanting no part of her temper tantrum.
I began to laugh at this, then I held her tight. ‘I care about you, Maggie!’ I said, surprised at my own words but also liking the bold sound of them.
‘Leggo o’ me, ya shit!’ Maggie yelled, then started to weep against my chest. I stroked her hair carefully so as not to disturb the magpie. After a little while she pulled away. ‘Bet I look a proper mess, don’t I?’ She sniffed and, taking a small handkerchief from her handbag, wiped her big blue eyes.
‘By Christ, no. You’re beautiful.’ I held her by the shoulders and looked down at her.
She laughed and then began to sob again. ‘Oh, oh, ya bastard! Ain’t nobody said that ever before!’ she bawled. ‘It ain’t true, you silly bastard, but I loves ya for it.’ She sniffed and laughed and cried a bit, then laughed again and finally dried her eyes. Then she tilted her head and asked, ‘Friends?’
‘Friends,’ I repeated solemnly.
And that’s what we’ve been ever since—friends. Almost every afternoon we have a drink or a chat at the Hero of Waterloo, with no more said of me sharing her bed. Thinking of Maggie has nearly driven my worries about Tommo from my mind, and I am smiling as I enter the bar to meet her again.
Today Maggie is scrubbed of all her paint and dressed in a grey g
own and black shawl, neat and clean. By contrast to her appearance most afternoons, she looks decidedly modest, and might easily be mistaken for a servant girl on her day off, except for her hair, which still sports the magpie sitting in its nest.
‘Don’t you look fine,’ she says with a grin, after greeting me with her usual kiss. ‘Has you eaten?’
I shake my head.
‘Ya must be starvin’, darlin’! Come on!’ She leads me out of the pub and we stroll down to a chophouse just the other side of the Cut. I have never been here with Maggie before, though they all seem to know her and greet her most cordially. A young lass wearing a mob cap and an apron comes up and Maggie gives her a hug.
‘This be Florence. Flo, this be Hawk.’ Maggie’s got a smile like the proverbial Cheshire cat. ‘What’s ya think, eh?’ she says to Florence.
Florence looks up at me and brings the tips of her fingers to her lips and giggles. ‘Crikey, Mags, you gorn an’ done it proper this time, ain’tcha?’ she says.
‘You betcha!’ Maggie exclaims. ‘One hundred per cent black magic! I told you so, didn’t I?’
Flo giggles again and runs off.
I follow Maggie to a table and Florence soon reappears with a loaf of bread and two large soup plates, spoons and a ladle. She sets our places, trying all the time not to laugh.
‘Don’t be stingy now, Flo, Mr Black Magic ‘ere takes a whole heap o’ feedin’,’ Maggie instructs and then laughs. ‘And, by crikey, he’s gunna need all the strength he’s got!’
‘Is Florence your friend then, Maggie?’ I ask.
‘More like me little sister. Stopped her from cruisin’ when she were twelve, and saw that she and her folks got work ‘ere instead. Tom, the grocer’s son, is gunna marry ‘er.’
Just then Florence returns carrying a large pot of stew which she places on the table. ‘Me papa reckons if the nigger can eat it all, it’s ‘arf price on yer tab, Maggie,’ Flo winks. She looks at me, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘He wants to know how tall ya is, Mr Hawk?’
Tommo and Hawk Page 39
