The coming fight was talked about endlessly. Who was going to be matched against Bernie in the ring? Some of the gang put their money on a boxer from the East End called Tobago Tim; others thought Bernie would be matched against the slugger known as Johnny “Killer” Carlton from Govan.
I was scrubbing the drawers behind the bar in the club one morning when Gordon came in with a parcel under his arm. He looked nervous. The parcel was for Lucky Lucy.
“For me?” she said with a big smile. “Really? How kind of you, Gordon!”
The parcel contained a cardboard box and in the box was an elegant ladies’ hat. Lucky Lucy laughed in delight as she tried it on.
“I happened to see it in a shop window,” Gordon said with a little cough.
I wasn’t particularly surprised. Gordon often used to find a reason to come down to the club and chat with Lucky Lucy. I suppose he must have been more than a little in love with her. And she with him, perhaps.
They talked about one thing and another before getting round to the New Year boxing match. And then Lucky Lucy asked, “Why do they call Bernie ‘the Butcher’?”
“It was his nickname as a boxer,” Gordon said. “He was actually pretty well-known at one time. Everyone wanted to see him fight.”
“Wow,” Lucy said. “Was he that good?”
Gordon shook his head. “No, no, not at all. Bernie was useless. One of the worst boxers I’ve ever seen, in fact. But he was entertaining.”
“In what way?” Lucy wondered.
Gordon thought a moment before answering. “In a way it was nasty. You see, no one ever managed to knock Bernie down. Even though he couldn’t box properly, he didn’t lose a single fight because of a knock-out. His opponents might punch and punch, but Bernie just stayed upright. It was incredible to watch.”
Lucy poured each of them a small glass of whisky and said, “It’s hardly surprising he looks the way he does, then.”
Gordon nodded. They were quiet for a while, then Lucy said, “But I still don’t understand why he’s called ‘the Butcher’. Not if he was the one who came off badly in every match.”
“That name came as a result of his fits of rage.”
“Fits of rage?”
“Yes,” Gordon said. “Now and again Bernie just lost it. It didn’t happen often, and only when he’d taken a real beating. Then Bernie would go completely mad. He’d rush round howling, his arms going like a windmill, and nothing could stop him. Anything that got in his way was smashed. His opponent and the referee would throw themselves out of the ring, but on a couple of occasions Bernie knocked them unconscious—both of them. And, of course, the crowd would go wild with delight!”
Lucky Lucy shuddered. “But what’s going to happen on New Year’s Eve? What if he has one of his fits of rage in here?”
Gordon nodded and looked concerned.
“There’s always that risk, of course,” he said. “But Moira knows what she’s doing. She was Bernie’s manager at the time.”
“Was she?” Lucy asked.
“She was indeed. That’s how she made her living for many years. People were crazy about Bernie and she saw to it that he always had a couple of fights every week.”
Lucky Lucy topped up their glasses. “Bernie must have been earning good money too, wasn’t he?”
Gordon laughed. “Bernie? He didn’t get a penny.”
Lucky Lucy looked confused at this point. “So why did he agree to fight?”
Gordon put down his glass before continuing. “Because she told him to, of course. He’s her little brother.”
Lucy looked at Gordon in amazement.
“Didn’t you know that Moira and Bernie are brother and sister?” he said. “I thought everyone round here knew that.”
“But Bernie’s surname is Brodie, isn’t it?” Lucy said.
Gordon nodded. “That’s what Moira used to be called as well. But when she married a shipbroker called Alexander Gray, she took his surname. She’d actually been hoping to get more than his name, but after the wedding she realized she’d been tricked. The fellow was bankrupt, and when he died of a stroke a year later, the only thing she inherited was this house. But that was enough to enable her to start working her way up in the world.”
Lucky Lucy thought about all this for a while. Then she stood on tiptoe and gave Gordon a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks for the hat,” she said. “I’ll think of you every time I wear it.”
A faint flush of pink spread across Gordon’s stubbly cheeks.
The news that Moira was Bernie’s sister was as much of a surprise to me as it was to Lucky Lucy. After giving it some thought, though, I realized it shouldn’t really have been a surprise. It was obvious that Bernie didn’t fit in the gang at all and everyone in the house thought of him as a nuisance rather than useful. Even Moira. She would never have given work and a room to someone like Bernie if she hadn’t felt she had to.
On the day before New Year’s Eve no one appeared to know who Bernie’s opponent in the ring was to be. And there was no sign of Bernie. Moira had ordered him to do nothing but train. Heavy thuds could be heard emanating from his room as he practised punching a sack of sand for hour after hour.
On the morning of New Year’s Eve I was woken by Carl and Kevin marching in through the door of my cellar. They were in an excellent mood and smiled at me in an expectant sort of way. Half asleep, I sat up.
“Have a look at this,” Carl said, holding up a cloth bag he’d brought with him. “We’ve got some presents for you.”
Carl threw me the bag and I squeezed it suspiciously. Then I cautiously put my hand in and took out a folded garment of some kind, which turned out to be a pair of big, white shorts with a broad, elastic waistband.
I looked at Carl and Kevin. What was this supposed to mean?
“There’s more,” Kevin said.
I shoved my hand down into the bag again and this time pulled out a pair of black boxing gloves.