Angell, Pearl and Little God

  Godfrey just had the strength to get back to his corner while one of his seconds dashed across and picked up the mouth-piece. Pat Prince went to work on him.

  ‘He’s finished,’ said the man next to Angell. ‘Always a sign when you lose your gum shield. Kaput. Doubt if the ref’ll let it go on. There, what’d I tell you.’

  Waterford was coming across to Godfrey’s corner, peering at him, at the cut on his cheek, which had been treated and had stopped bleeding. He could hardly get at Godfrey because Prince was dabbing witch hazel on a swelling on his other cheek bone.

  ‘What?’ said Angell. ‘They may stop the fight? Ridiculous! Why, he’s not beaten! Nobody has won. Why should they stop the fight now?’

  ‘It isn’t good for a man to soak up too much,’ said Angell’s neighbour. ‘You try it yourself, mate. That finking Jap’s been sinking ’em wrist deep in Vosper’s ribs.’

  ‘I want to go, Wilfred!’ Pearl whispered. ‘I’ve told you! If you don’t come with me I shall go alone!’

  ‘One more round,’ Wilfred said. ‘Or perhaps the fight is over. Perhaps it’s already over. It’s better to wait till it is over.’

  But the fight wasn’t over. Waterford had come away from the Vosper corner satisfied that Godfrey’s eyes weren’t glassy and that the cut on his cheek wasn’t serious. As soon as the ref had turned his back Godfrey spat more blood into the bucket. ‘D’you want to go on, boy?’ Prince asked. ‘Nobody’s making you. You shown you got plenty of iron.’

  ‘I’m O.K.,’ said Godfrey. ‘I pushed his knob back last punch I give that round. It near broke his neck. I’m O.K. I never been beat yet. This ain’t going to be the first time:

  ‘Take a drink of this.’

  ‘I don’t wannit.’

  ‘Go on, boy, it’ll brace you.’

  Brandy burning his throat. Shades of Flora. She should’ve been here instead of those two. That Angell gloating. Why had he come? What did he know? That bald headed bloke that he’d first seen in Angell’s office waiting, and then at the weigh in. What had Bushey said? ‘They’re arrangers.’ What had been ‘arranged’? Angell had helped him into the Jude Davis stable. Was he helping him out?

  In went the gum shield, tasting of Vaseline, seconds out, stand up, stool swivels out of the ring … Bell.

  Feeling better again, and angry, blazing angry. Somebody’d sold him down the river. Jude Davis spilling out this soothing syrup about the practice rounds. Jude Davis not here tonight. ’Flu. Something smelled bad. And the only way to make it smell sweet again was to lay out this yellow bastard. That way you thumbed your nose at them all. But laying Kio out was a nice ambition: standing on your feet long enough even to hit him back was the first thing.

  He blocked a murderous right beautifully, picking it off in mid-air and just in that second scored with two sharp lefts to Kio’s jaw. If there’d only been the weight in them of the early rounds. He ducked under another right, and could almost smell the glove as it went past. Then they clinched. He was getting used to the look of that square sallow face, the walnut eyes like sunken buttons, the sweaty slippery feel of the hard muscular body, the hissing of breath, the angry pushing and grunting. They were lovers mating like rodents, the crowd screaming obscene encouragement. ‘Break!’

  The brandy was helping, giving him a last chance. He danced around Kio, tormenting him with sharp, flicking lefts that Kio shook off like a dog shaking water. In Kio came, perfectly confident, watching his chance, edging Godfrey towards a corner; when he escaped, beginning all over again. Perhaps it was the eyebrow that changed the sequence. With the round half spent Godfrey thought he saw a chance of landing on it, and quick as a flash moved in and delivered two lefts, the second getting exactly on its target, Kio countered with a tremendous uppercut which glanced off Godfrey’s injured jaw, then brought his left through Godfrey’s guard to the other cheek bone. Blood welled and Godfrey stood with his back almost to the ropes exchanging blow for blow. Kio’s eyebrow was bleeding as he pounded into Godfrey’s ribs.

  It was Little God’s end. Lashing out wildly, his sight blurring, he caught Kio again and again. The crowd was on its feet and screaming. Kio gave ground and then came back, hitting twice into Godfrey’s face and then bringing a terrific right to the nose. Blood spurted from it as the referee caught Kio’s arm. Godfrey was sagging on the ropes, half in, half out of the ring, the screaming of the crowd now only in his ears as he fought to see, to breathe, to stand. Someone was holding his arm, helping him to his feet, he tried to shake it off, to look for Kio, the pain in his nose above all the rest. He had no legs, only sticks that gave at every joint; two men helping now. The round was over, get him back to his corner, finish the yellow bastard, just a chance yet. Yellow Peril’s eyebrow was opened, that he’d done good and proper.

  He was on a stool, someone giving him smelling salts, someone dabbing his nose that ran blood. The ref was in the middle of the ring with Kio. Applause and booing. What the hell. Anyway he was the wrong way round, looking towards the back of the hall. He was sitting in Kio’s corner.

  He tried to get up but could not. Blood was in the back of his throat and he hawked and spat in the bucket. Jees, he was bushed. As never before. Something was wrong; he hadn’t heard the bell.

  ‘O.K., boy?’ Pat Prince was saying. ‘Take it easy. Relax. You done a great job! You couldn’t be expected to win. A smashing job you done! We got to get that nose seen to. See, let me plug it, will yer. There, that’s better. The doc’ll have a look at you in the dressing room.’

  Someone else. The ref. And Yellow Peril.

  ‘Good fight,’ said Kio. ‘Eh? Good fight. Fight well. Good fight.’

  Now Kio was going out of the ring. So it was all over. Jees, his nose.

  ‘All right now?’ said Waterford. ‘How are you feeling?’

  Another man, with a beard, wanted to touch his nose. ‘Leave me alone!’

  ‘Afraid so,’ said beard. ‘We’ll get him to hospital. He’ll be more comfortable. A couple of days there will see him all right. Can you stand, Vosper? Let’s look at your eyes.’

  Godfrey stood up and swayed, hands steadied him.

  ‘And a big hand for the gallant loser,’ said the M.C.

  They raised the roof. They bloody near took the roof off. It did him good to hear. It was better than brandy. He lifted his hands and they cheered him again. Then with help he somehow got himself down out of the ring, and the crowd cheered him all the way to the dressing room.

  In the dressing room they carefully didn’t let him look at his face.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘I tell you we shall never get a taxi here,’ said Wilfred. ‘It’s impossible.’

  ‘Well, ring for one! I’ll wait here till one comes!’

  ‘You’ll be home much quicker by tube. If you like we could very easily obtain a taxi at Marble Arch. But the direct tube from here only takes about—

  ‘Ring for a taxi!’ Pearl said. ‘I’m not going into that tube tonight!’

  By luck they found a booth and Wilfred telephoned and Pearl, careless of her clothes, sat on the stone steps of the hall in the icy wind while they waited. People glanced at her curiously, but not many had yet left the hall as there were still two bouts to come. Two officers in a police car passed and stared, but Wilfred stood, a mountainous figure, on guard over her. His size was impressive, so long as one did not challenge it. In about ten minutes a taxi came. While he helped her into it Angell could not but glance at the clock and see that 4/6 was already on it before their journey began.

  They drove home in silence. Down Whitechapel and Leadenhall Street and Cornhill and Queen Victoria Street and along the Embankment, where all London glittered about the river in the frosty night, they sat in silence. Up Northumberland Avenue and along the Mall and Constitution Hill to Knightsbridge and down Sloane Street, they sat in silence. As they drew up outside their door Pearl said: ‘I’ll pay for this.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, my dear.’


  ‘I’ll pay for this!’ said Pearl taking out her note case.

  He went and opened the door and switched on the light and waited for her. She came in and swept past him and dropped her coat off and went into the drawing room and switched on the lights. Then she switched on the electric fire and crouched shivering over it.

  He came in and stood at the door a moment, picking at one of his teeth, staring at her, trying to assess her mood by the curve of her back. Fear stirred in him of what he had done.

  ‘Let me get you a warm drink,’ he said. ‘It was a great mistake to stand about waiting in that cold wind.’

  ‘When do you want me to leave you?’ Pearl asked.

  The fear had become a reality, no longer treacherously creeping but knife sharp.

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘It must be plain what I mean. You’ve made it plain what you mean.’

  ‘I don’t understand. The fight must have upset you.’

  ‘It upset me – as it was meant to upset me! Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?’ She turned on him with blazing eyes, all the natural sedateness of her nature melted in this crucible of anger. ‘ It was planned! You planned it, didn’t you? You planned it – somehow – and got seats and took me there to watch it! You knew he’d be beaten, you knew it all, you fixed it, you planned it, you must have bribed somebody!’ Conviction became certainty as she watched his face. ‘I wondered; all evening I wondered – you were so excited, like someone looking forward to a treat. Well, you’ve had your treat, and you’ve had it at my expense! I’d like to pay for the tickets before I leave and then it will have cost you nothing – nothing except what it cost you in your soul to stoop so low!—’

  ‘You saw your young man beaten,’ said Wilfred harshly. ‘He’s a boxer. At some time or another boxers are always beaten. It’s part of their profession. If you’re upset, that’s what comes of getting – involved with one.’

  There was silence. She pulled off her scarf and her hair fell free. It was dropping the last subterfuge. ‘Well, that’s what I thought. I thought it must be that. You know about him and me.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know about him and you.’

  She half turned, shivered again though the heat from the fire was growing. ‘ I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘I know you’ve been sleeping together,’ he said with malice. ‘Is that nothing? You married me because you wanted to. Nobody compelled you. I gave you everything – everything I could. Five thousand pounds settled on you. Five thousand! And living in luxury after being just a shopgirl—’

  ‘You can have your money back.’

  ‘Oh, yes. But a fine time you’ve had with it! Spending it right and left. I know all the clothes you’ve bought, the spending sprees. And no doubt a lot of it’s gone to him—’

  ‘Not a penny.’

  ‘I give you all this.’ He waved his arm at the room as if to include all the luxury, the wealth, the culture, he had offered her: Impressionist paintings, French furniture, dining at the best restaurants … ‘And within a few months – a few months only – you betray me with a cheap scullery boy! Here in this house, in my house, in our house, you let him come here with his dirty pawing hands, his dirty hard common hands, pawing you naked …’ Wilfred choked as if a hand held his throat.

  ‘So this was the way you got back at us,’ she said. ‘You weren’t man enough to face him …’

  ‘Man enough! He’s half my age! I’m a man of intellect, an aesthete. What could I do against a pugilist?’

  ‘You paid to have him beaten up! Is there anything lower than that? You think you’re civilized! You’re only a gangster in a city suit. Al Capone up to date …’ Rage and anguish were giving Pearl eloquence.

  He came over to her, face distorted, mottled. ‘What was I to do? What did you expect me to do? Can you tell me that?’ He stared at her, not masking his horror. ‘Start divorce proceedings after only six months of marriage – make myself a laughing stock and show you up for a cheap little whore? You tell me what I ought to have done! You tell me!’

  She went out into the kitchen and vomited in the sink. He followed her angrily, on the attack now.

  ‘All that I thought you were – a decent charming girl, decently brought up. A sense of loyalty, of honour. This cheap little boxer with his smart-alec ways, his voice like a – a costermonger, his vulgarity, his lack of intellect … Just a brute.’

  She turned, wiping her face on a towel, make-up streaked. ‘So he’s a brute! So that’s the way people are made. He happens to be a man. Didn’t you know? You can’t make love with beautiful pictures!’

  He stared at her with hate. ‘I loved you. God knows I indulged you, to – to the detriment of my health. I – I made love to you at frequent intervals. Are you trying to say you were deprived!’

  ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, yes. Of course I was deprived! Your love … Oh, God, what’s the good of talking!’ She dropped the towel in the sink and turned on the water. ‘I married you, yes. I was unfaithful, yes. Now you’ve got your revenge – isn’t that it? My little boxer is laid up going to hospital, may never box again. Look at his face! Smashed up. And you’re responsible – just as much as if you’d done it yourself! That’s the vilest revenge you could have taken. Why didn’t you take it out on me? Why not? Why didn’t you take it out on me? You couldn’t fight a boxer but you could fight me. You could have knocked me about, couldn’t you. Were you afraid even of that?’

  They remained silent, like two people with no weapons left. The armoury had all been discharged in profligate broadsides. Then Wilfred said: ‘I could not have knocked you about. I couldn’t have harmed your looks. Because I love you. Hasn’t that ever – ever been plain?’ He put his hands up to his face and began to cry.

  It looked very silly: a mountainous middle-aged fat man blubbering into his hands. But there was no one there to laugh. Pearl stared at him for a few seconds, the bitter desolation in her too complete to admit either contempt or pity. Then she pushed past him and ran out, into the drawing room, through to the hall, and upstairs to her room. In it she looked blindly round, trying to think why she had come. Then she dragged out her old suitcase from under the bed. She opened it, began pushing in a few personal things. Several times she rejected what she had picked up because they were not belongings she had brought to this house. All the great agglomeration of pretty frocks and shoes and hats and gloves and scarves must be left behind. She would take nothing, nothing but what she had brought with her that day in June last year. He could sell them, sell them for what they would fetch. That way he might cut his losses. And there was over four thousand of his money still in the bank, he could have it all back. She would go tonight, first she would go home and then later she would join Godfrey. She’d see him in hospital and then go to his room in Lavender Hill and clean it and make it tidy and home-like for his return. He would need some looking after to begin with until he got on his feet again, until he was fit again, until—

  Wilfred was standing at the door.

  ‘What are you doing, Pearl?’

  ‘Packing.’

  ‘Don’t be over-hasty.’

  She ignored his remark, threw in a pair of shoes.

  ‘It’s over-hasty, I tell you. What right have you to leave me like this?’

  ‘What right have you to expect me to stay?’

  ‘You’re my wife. Does that mean nothing?’

  ‘Nothing at all. Nothing any more.’

  His face was streaked worse than hers; it was blotched pink and white as if his fingers had been pressed too hard against it. ‘Where can you go tonight?’

  ‘To a hotel.’ That was better than going home, waking them all.

  ‘Stay till morning. It can make no difference.’

  ‘It does to me.’

  He came into the room and sat on the bed. The springs squeaked. He suddenly looked like a beaten child. The last combativeness had gone out of him.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Pearl.’
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  ‘Oh, stop talking to me!’

  ‘It was a fair fight. He was beaten in fair fight. It’s nothing. He’ll be all right in a day or two.’

  ‘He was out-matched, and somehow you made sure it was going to happen!’

  ‘Please don’t go. I am asking you.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before.’

  ‘Are you blameless? Tell me that – do you consider yourself blameless?’

  ‘Of course not! Of course I’m not! I’ve told you, I’m to blame as much as anyone. But I don’t go in for this vile way of planning to – to destroy someone. I don’t—’ She had been going to say she did not do things in this underhand way; but what difference – at least in method – between his way and hers? The stolen meetings in the bedroom …

  Wilfred took out his handkerchief and mopped his face.

  ‘Do you – love this man?’

  ‘Yes!’ Did she? Was it love she felt when she was with Godfrey or a mixture of attraction and lust?

  ‘And you don’t love me?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But you’re my wife, Pearl. We’re married.’ His legal mind still clung to this, like a drowning man to a rope which at its other end was attached to nothing.