The Sister(80)

Suddenly, he felt vulnerable; with half a dozen rough looking men now watching them, Tanner rested his hands on the bar.

Kelly put his big hand over one of them and squeezed. ‘Don’t worry, boy, I’m joshing with you!’

Tanner found it vaguely unsettling that although he was at least ten years older than Kelly, he insisted on calling him 'boy'. They shared an uneasy few pints, with only stilted conversation going on between them, and then Kelly offered to put him in touch with a well-respected elder, a twice crowned, former King of The Gipsies, Archie Brooks.

Introducing himself to Brooks as Edward Quinn, he elaborated on what he was looking for, old photographs, stories and interviews if possible.

Brooks agreed to meet him at his house that evening.





Archie Brooks’ house was like a static caravan, all luxury red tasselled velvet cushions, expensive ornaments and mementoes of a life on the road.

‘Too old for the travelling,’ he explained. ‘I been here fifteen year now … don’t like it, but the bones creak these days in cold winters, so here I am, stopped off coolin’ my heels for a while, before the next big journey up the stairs,’ he said, and then rolled his eyes heavenward. ‘If he’ll take me,’ he said with a wry smile.

'Quinn’ interviewed him, getting his opinion on who the greatest ever gipsy champion was. They spoke about what these men looked like, their fighting styles, how they fought. Brooks talked him through what seemed like hundreds of rounds.

‘Unless you’ve been a part of it, you don’t know what it’s like to carry on when every part of you is busted up and bleeding, 'cos you never quit. People like me, you can’t quit. It’s all about honour. I never made money like they do today and the hands, sweet Mary.’ He held them aloft, examining them with pride. The knuckles were deformed; the fingers gnarled like tree roots. ‘They used to pickle the hands in vinegar in those days, did it me self. Used to sit there, I did, with each hand sunk in a jar o' the stuff both sides o' me for hours on end. Used to smell like a chip shop, but made the skin like boot leather, see.’

Eventually, he produced a box and took the lid off. He sifted through an old collection of photographs; there were hundreds, all of them well-thumbed. He was careful to keep them in order. They ran through faded sepia to black and white, the newest were coloured ones and they were in all sizes, like the men they portrayed.

‘Them old 'uns were my father’s – well, would you look at that,’ he said, peeling a photo that had stuck to the back of another one. ‘I thought I'd lost this one.’ His face lit up as he took in all the faces once more. ‘This is a group of past champions, taken at a big fight gathering in Plymouth a few years back. Every single one o' them was a champion, in the thirty years before the photo.’

‘There are only seventeen of them,’ Tanner remarked.

‘Aye, a few are dead, a handful has won more than once and this one here…’ He tapped his finger on the fighter, who although older than the E-Fit, resembled the man he was looking for. ‘He’s won it three times.’

Tanner pointed at each of them in turn, asking the names, carefully noting them down. He was only interested in the three-time champion though, Martin 'The Boiler man’ Shaw.

He whistled in appreciation. ‘Three times, that’s quite an achievement.’

‘Aye, it is that. The first time he took it; he was just a young man. Then he just disappeared for ten years. Come back, won it again, held it for two years. He quit before some fresh young bull took him down, not like most of 'em, never knowing when to stop. He stood down from the fighting. He’s unreliable, anyway, can’t hardly find him when you want him. You know; he still fights occasionally, when the urge takes him. He has a terrible temper, that one – he’d suddenly boil up, then he’d let loose.’

Tanner looked closer at the photograph, squinting, then at Brooks. ‘Isn’t that you, Archie, right next to him in the photo there?’

‘Aye, we were stood more or less in the order we held the titles. He took it off me.’ He rubbed his chin at the memory. ‘I was in me forties, never been beat, not fair and square at any rate.’ He pulled his top lip up and back with the crook of his forefinger, revealing the missing teeth down the entire side of his mouth. ‘See that – got jumped by ten of 'em, dropped four before someone swung a bat on me. Woke up in hospital, so I did.’ He sighed deeply. ‘There was no need for it, you know what I mean? It’s not how real men deal with things.’ He twisted each of the rings on his fingers, so the fronts of all faced forwards. ‘Anyways, when he came along, he took everything I threw at him, for the first time in me life I felt the age creeping up on me. He never threw ten shots to land one; he never wasted the power, unless he knew it was landing. He served me with a left that shook me all the way down to me boots, he never says a word, not like some talking' at you all the time, before the fight, during the fight – no, not him. Never says a word, just boils up red with the rage. Now I’m old, I don’t mind admitting that’s one of the frightingest things about him – you don’t know what he’s thinking – only sound he makes is Pum! Pum! Pum!’ The old man was popping off shots to demonstrate, the look on his face, mean. ‘Getting more power that way, punching, punching, punching, everyone a stick o' dynamite – murderous – I'd never lie down. Even now, you'd have to put me down and the only way to stop me is to knock me sparko, you know what I mean? I woke up in the middle o' next week! The boys told me he caught me with three punches, the one that shook me, I remember, but the other two...I never saw them coming.’