An Innocent Masquerade. Paula Marshall
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was I, once I loosened up? I enjoyed that.’
Fentiman said. ‘You were right, Fred. You have sparred a bit. It’s a pity you aren’t younger I could have made something of you. Not a champion, but something.’
‘He doesn’t want his brains addled,’ muttered Geordie to Bart.
‘Thought they was addled already,’ grunted Bart.
‘No,’ said Geordie, half to himself. He asked Fred a quick question, to try to catch him off guard when he often had insights into his forgotten past. ‘Do you remember when you last sparred, Fred?’
Fred looked at him, surprised. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I know that I was once in the ring with a right big ’un. A fair giant he was with a grin all over his face. He was a real hard one, though. Kept shouting orders at me.’
It didn’t do to push him too much. Geordie thought that when Fred wanted to remember he would, and Geordie wanted to be around on that day and find out what the true man was really like.
After that Fred often worked out in Fentiman’s gym, not enough to damage his hands or head, but enough to keep himself in trim. With each new skill that he recovered he grew and changed a little.
Big Sister fussed over him, and scolded him severely once when he got a black eye through failing to dodge a blow.
‘She doesn’t want him to spoil his pretty face, does she,’ grinned Bart who wasn’t always blind to what was going on and, not being so near to Big Sister as Sam was, realised what lay behind Big Sister’s half-scolding, half-affectionate manner to Fred—something which Big Sister had not yet grasped herself.
As a result of going to Fentiman’s Fred made new friends, principal among them being Young Dan’l Mendoza. Mendoza wasn’t so young, being in his mid to late thirties like Fred: he was a man who had almost made it to the very top in England, but not quite. He had joined Fentiman’s after he had come to the diggings because he found it easier to earn a living in the boxing booth than breaking his back down a hole.
Sparring with Fred late one afternoon, he towelled off with him afterwards. He knew of Fred’s inability to remember his past, but asked him idly, ‘Can you remember who taught you to spar, Fred? It was someone who knew his trade, I can tell you that. I’d not say that you were a natural fighter, mind, but you’ve got brains as well as skill and courage.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t like my brother. He was really good. He could have been a champion,’ said Fred unthinkingly, pulling on his red flannel shirt. He was momentarily in the dark where, oddly enough, the kaleidoscope occasionally shifted and a brief enlightenment often followed.
‘Your brother?’ queried Dan’l. ‘You had a brother who fought?’
Fred’s head emerged from his shirt and he blinked at Dan’l, the brief memory already gone. For a moment he had recalled that he had a brother who was a real fighter…but… ‘Did I say brother, Dan’l? I can’t remember.’
He puzzled a little and tried to bring the memory back, but like the tiger in the night—it hadn’t run so often lately—he could not catch it, although one day, like the tiger, it might catch him. He surprised himself by having such complicated unFredlike thoughts these days.
Once he was dressed again—he was slower than Dan’l who had had more practice at taking his clothes on and off—he suddenly stretched and yawned. Dan’l laughed at him and said, ‘How about going to Jameson’s for a drink, Fred, make a night of it?’
Fred said, ‘You’re on, Dan’l,’ even though he knew that his drink would be a soft one, and they joined the watching trio—Geordie always accompanied Sam and Bart in order to keep an eye on Fred in case he was hurt. Dan’l was kind, though, and tailored his skills to test Fred rather than to knock him about for the fun of it.
Jameson’s was in full swing when they arrived there. At one end of the big tent was a small improvised stage on which some minimal entertainment was provided. Jameson claimed that this meant that he was running a music hall. His customers usually ignored the entertainers but that night for some reason each third-rate act was being greeted with rousing cheers.
Fred drank his lemonade—it was pitiful stuff—and didn’t join in the ironic cheering. He rather felt for the poor creatures struggling through their acts. They were giving of their best, even if it was inadequate.
Dan’l said quietly to Geordie, ‘Fred spoke of a brother today.’
Geordie looked sharply at him. ‘Did he say anything useful?’
‘Only that he was a really good fighter. He couldn’t remember any more and I didn’t push him.’
‘Best not,’ agreed Geordie. ‘Fred doesn’t strike me as having a member of the Fancy as a brother, though.’
‘No,’ said Dan’l. ‘But at some time someone who really knew the game taught him, I’ll say that. Fred can box, but he’s no fighter. He has no instinct to kill. The brother had, apparently.’
One more piece of the puzzle that was Fred. Geordie and Dan’l abandoned discussion of him when a juggler ran on stage. He was so unskilful that he was unintentionally funny and they joined in with the sardonic applause which greeted each failed trick.
Fred said mildly, ‘The poor chap’s only doing his best.’ His kindness seemed to embrace everything and bore out Mendoza’s judgement of his lack of a killer instinct.
‘His best isn’t good enough,’ said Sam, laughing. The rowdy mood of the crowd grew and the juggler began to curse them when he lost his clubs in mid-flight again. One hit his foot so that his pained hops accompanied his oaths.
‘Damn you all,’ he roared.
‘And damn you, too, chum,’ roared back a sturdy digger at the front, ‘if that’s the best you can do.’
A man sitting near to him took exception to this. Like Fred, he was sorry for the inept juggler, and said so, drunkenly and loudly, until the big digger aimed a blow at him.
In a flash the stage was forgotten when the fight this started spread happily to other tables, and before long swept down the room. Work-toughened, hard-drinking men struck anyone who was near to them with no idea of why they were doing so—except that it seemed a good idea at the time.
The swirling brawl overturned tables and drink, and at last reached the Moore party. Their table flew sideways when yet another burly digger, set on by two others, crashed into it.
Angered, Dan’l, now half-cut, roared, ‘Watch that!’ and he struck the larger of the two men who were responsible for his drink disappearing. In a trice the whole Moore party became engulfed in the mass of struggling, fighting, laughing and cursing diggers, striking out in their turn at they knew not who, or what, and being struck at in reply.
At first Fred was bewildered. He was somehow aware that this was a totally new experience for him. He took no part in the brawl to begin with until a mild-looking little man sprang at him from nowhere and struck him, quite without reason.
This was too much, even for equable Fred. Letting out a roar he struck back, and suddenly found himself in the midst of the mêlée, taking part in it with the same unthinking joy as the rest.
Jameson and his bruisers were powerless to quell the riot, which was rapidly wrecking the tent. The fight streamed through the doorway and ended up in the alley outside. Fred threw a last punch at a one-eyed man which was hardly fair of him, he thought later, but he enjoyed doing it at the time. He subsided, laughing and breathless, on to the ground where Geordie found him a little later.
‘You all right, Fred?’ he enquired, putting out a hand to haul him up.
Fred came upright, laughing helplessly. ‘Never had so much fun in my life,’ he gasped. ‘I could never understand Alan when he said how much he enjoyed the Macao run, all that fighting and wenching!’ He shook his head. ‘But now…’ and he laughed heartily again.