The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

The laughter of the crowd made the big man lose his temper. ‘Good job, is it?’ he cried. ‘I’d ask the gentleman that made that remark to come up here and say it to my face. Ever hear the name of Budge Garside? That’s mine! ’Ere, I’ll give five pounds’—he pulled out a leather bag of money and jingled it—‘I’ll give two pounds to any of you chaps that’ll stand up to me for six rounds. That’s what I think of the bloody lot of you. Men! There’s not one of you black-country chaps worth the name. All you’re fit for, as far as I can see, is to carry the babby about and ’old the missis’s ’and. Yes, sir, it’s you I’m talkin’ to!’

Everybody looked at Abner. Alice again tried to pull him away. ‘That’s right, my dear,’ said Garside, encouraged, ‘take ’im ’ome before ’e gets ’is pretty face spoiled!’

Abner shook himself free from her hand and shoved the baby into her arms.

‘Come on, gaffer,’ he said, ‘I’m game.’ He moved forward through the crowd. Alice, clinging to him desperately, tried to hold him back, but the people made way for him, and even helped him forward, swarming up on to the platform after him. Garside, pleased with the result of his stratagem, shook hands with him. ‘That’s the spirit I like,’ he said thickly. ‘Come on in and strip. Let’s have a drink to start with.’ They disappeared together into the tent. Sixpences rattled into the wooden bowl that the negro held to receive them. Men and women poured into the booth anxious to see what kind of battering the representative of the district would get. The little Jew pushed back the crowd and held up a piece of boarding with the words ‘House Full’ painted on it, while the negro fastened the strings of the tent door.

Alice was left alone in the crowd outside clutching the baby nervously in her arms. She could not have borne to see Abner fight. All she could do was to wait patiently outside and listen in agony for any sounds within. She could hear very little but the buzz of conversation. Even when she crept round to the side of the tent and put her ear to the canvas the sounds that came to her were indistinct, unreal, and blurred by the nearer rumour of the multitude, the hiss of naphtha flares, the creaking of swing-boats, cracks of rifles, and above all the raucous blaring of the steam organs and the shriek of their whistles. If only she could have heard something she would have been happier. She could not bear to think of Abner’s white flesh being bruised, and yet, curiously enough, she was thrilled and proud of him. Her distaste for violence couldn’t get the better of her exultation in her man’s virility. She stood at the side of the tent tensely listening. A rocket screamed into the sky; there was a moment of relative silence from the crowd in which she thought she heard a sound of dull thuds mingled with another pattering noise. The rocket burst into a shower of gold amid a salvo of ‘Oh’s!’ The crowd, noisily streaming towards the ramparts, from which they could see the fireworks against a blacker sky, jostled her, passing between the boxing-booth and the next tent. Six rounds! It could not last much longer. Why had he left her so roughly? Why hadn’t he taken her with him? Of course you couldn’t take a baby into a boxing-booth—not even a black-country baby—but there was no reason why he should have pushed her aside like that. She wouldn’t forgive him that roughness in a hurry! But she knew that she would: she would forgive Abner anything as long as he did not disregard her. The crowd still streamed past her. Showers of starred rockets and tadpoles of fire were bursting above her in the velvet sky. A whole battery of maroons shook the ruins. He would be sorry to have missed the fireworks! If he were badly knocked about she still had some of Mrs Moseley’s ointment left—a fine thing for bruises or broken skin. That was the night, she remembered, when he had come home drunk: the night when, for a moment they had gazed into each other’s eyes. She knew how dangerous the emotion of pity was. A set-piece suddenly sputtered out of the darkness. Letters of fire began to form themselves. What would they say? GOD SAVE . . . ‘The king,’ of course. Little John began to cry, saying that he wanted to go to bed. ‘Yes, my precious!’ she crooned, ‘mammy’ll take you home.’ Six rounds. . . . She suddenly remembered how a young pitman at Mawne had once been killed in a boxing-booth by a knock-out blow on the chin. A knock-out blow . . . she remembered old Mr Higgins talking of it. But Abner was strong. Nothing of that kind could possibly happen to him. Even so, she couldn’t get the sinister picture of Budge Garside with his heavy jowl out of her head. He was such a deadly-looking customer! Suppose . . .

A sound of cheering came from inside the tent. She ran round to the front, wishing to goodness that John would hold his noise. The curtains opened. The negro came out with another signboard: ‘Just Commencing.’ People surged out of the tent laughing and talking together. A bold girl burst out laughing in the nigger’s face. Alice took hold of the sleeve of one of the men who came out alone and looked as if he were sober. ‘Tell us what’s happened?’ she gasped; but he only stared at her and shook his head and went on straight forward as if he had mistaken her motive for accosting him. The tent emptied. After a moment she saw Abner shaking hands with the giant in the door. He didn’t seem to notice her, and when he came down the wooden steps and she called his name he did not look pleased to see her. His lip was cut and his forehead still damp from a vigorous sponging. She took his arm; she wanted to show him how glad she was. He was too dazed to resent this familiarity, simply saying: ‘Come on out of this!’ In the gate of the courtyard he stopped. ‘Wait a jiff,’ he said, ‘You’d better take the two quid.’ He gave her the coins and then, suddenly realising the tiredness of her face in the lamplight, asked her to give him the kid. ‘I reckon this is a man’s job,’ he said with a deep laugh.

This time they caught their tram without difficulty. They spoke very little, and in whispers, for John had fallen asleep in his mother’s arms, and even if he had wanted to talk, Abner would have known better than to risk waking him. As a matter of fact he had taken a good deal of punishment from Garside’s left. On points he would have been thoroughly outmatched and nothing but his stubborn will had kept him on his feet until the end of the sixth round. The mild elation that had sustained him when he left the booth had now faded, and in its place he began to feel the effects of the terrific hammering that he had undergone. His lip was beginning to swell and his body felt cold in spite of the sultry weather. He dozed in the corner of the tram-car, and when they came to the terminus and Alice roused him by a touch on his sleeve, he felt it an unreasonable effort to pull himself together and carry the child up Mawne bank. The creature was still asleep and hung a dead weight on his shoulder. Rather than wake him when they reached Hackett’s Cottages Alice carried him upstairs and laid him still asleep in his cot.

When she came downstairs again she found Abner in the washhouse bathing his face in cold water. ‘Don’t do that, Abner,’ she said, ‘let me see to it proper.’ She took Mrs Moseley’s ointment and some strips of linen from the cupboard, but he wouldn’t let her touch him, saying that he was tired as a dog and would rather turn in. She gazed at him sorrowfully, knowing that she could not drive him and fearing to persuade. He rallied her weakly: ‘If you stand lookin’ at me like that yo’ll be late for the funeral,’ he said, and then, softening, ‘You look dead tired yourself. Put the light out and leave the door open.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve never done that. I shall wait up for him.’

‘Well, you women takes the biscuit!’ said Abner.