The Winning Side Read online

  With Kelly, I discovered Melbourne: we ate in Carlton restaurants and walked in the parks. Kelly was a keen Collingwood supporter, and we went to the football; I even learned some of the finer points of the game. I read Power without Glory. In bed, under layers of blankets, we exchanged edited versions of our lives. Kelly’s mother had been born in the Western District and had grown up in an orphanage.

  ‘What about your Dad?’

  ‘American’, she said. ‘Not a white man. Just passing through.’

  She had no siblings; Mrs Christian, as her mother styled herself, had worked all her life as a clerk in a city department store. Kelly had attended a convent school in Caulfield.

  ‘I had three uniforms’, she said. ‘So there’d always be a clean one, no matter what.’

  ‘And what’s she like, your mother?’

  ‘You met Aunt Rose Fenton—like her.’

  ‘She wouldn’t think much of me, then.’

  ‘No. Too old, too black, you drink, you’re a boxer, you’re from Sydney.’

  ‘I’ve got a job. I’m a war hero.’

  ‘She doesn’t like to hear about the war. That’s what brought Abner Jones Junior, or whatever his bloody name was, out her.’

  I dreaded having to do the scone and tea routine with Mrs Christian, and Kelly didn’t seem to be in a hurry about it. She was working hard teaching, doing hospital rounds, studying at technical college. She played competition basketball and trained two nights a week. The house at Clifton Hill was shared with other nurses, and we used my room for love-making.

  One night I sat looking at her while she poked the fire in the grate; in reality her features were longish, well-shaped, but the shadow of her face on the wall was distorted, flatlooking.

  ‘Did you ever want to be white?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really. I didn’t know I was anything different till I was seventeen.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Well, Mum’s very light, you know? She could almost pass. She stays out of the sun, all that. She used to say that my father was a coloured gentleman. Just that. So I was coloured, but everyone’s coloured something. There were even a couple of girls from Ceylon in the school, and a Filipino. I was the star athlete. I didn’t know anything about Aborigines. They weren’t in the school books. It was all explorers and governors, you remember.’

  I nodded.

  ‘It was like growing up with no mirrors to look in.’

  ‘Was it bad when you got to know about it. Worse?’

  ‘It was gradual—at nursing school, at the dances. It was pretty bad. You were expected to be slow to pick things up, easy to get drunk, easy to get your legs open.’

  ‘Black velvet.’

  ‘Mmm. So I came second in the state, didn’t drink and didn’t open my legs. Didn’t have much fun either. Do you want to hear about the men in my life?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Two. First one was a doctor. Married. Got me pregnant and did the abortion himself. Beaut bloke. Second was an artist; well, an illustrator, really. He drew for newspapers and books. He was a sweetie. He drank a lot, and killed himself in a car.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Five years ago. Have you had many women, Charlie?’

  ‘Very few.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Shy.’

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘No. Why did you agree to come out with me? I’ve often wondered.’

  ‘You talked about young Rusty, not about yourself. Men usually talk about themselves. And you were so eager; pathetic, it was.’ She got the fire leaping up, and came over and wrapped her arms around my legs.

  ‘What’s your ambition in life?’

  ‘To marry you.’

  She laughed. ‘Forget it. What else?’

  ‘I don’t know. To write a book.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The more time we spent together the better it got, in bed and out. I got my drinking down to three beers a day and I lost weight. I trained hard with the kids and ran for miles around the Melbourne parks. Sometimes it seemed that Kelly and I were the only people in town without colds. One bleak July Saturday, we travelled out to Moorabbin to see St Kilda play Collingwood. Leafing through the Record I noticed that Solly Rockman had slipped right down the list of under-19 grade goal kickers. I asked a Collingwood supporter about it.

  ‘Dropped, mate’, the man said.

  I fretted about it through the match, which Collingwood won easily.

  ‘You’re worried about this boy’, Kelly said as we waited in a long line of cars in the car park.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve lost touch with him.’ I’d told her about Rockman.

  ‘We’d better skip what I had in mind, then.’

  ‘Skip what?’

  ‘I was going to take you to Caulfield to meet me Mum.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘You’ll have to cut that out, for a start.’

  ‘God. What will I say?’

  ‘No pointers. Just be yourself, only don’t swear.’

  ‘It’s got to happen sometime, I suppose. All right. Let’s do it. How do I look?’

  I had on suede shoes, corduroys, a heavy sweater and a car coat. My hair was crisp and short, my cheeks were beard-shadowed and hollow.

  ‘Yummy.’ She slipped into gear and zipped into the traffic.

  Mrs Christian lived, not in one of the Victorian buildings I had admired from the train, but in a new block of flats, red-brick and harsh, surrounded by concrete. The front door mat and all around it were excessively clean and the door itself was unscratched. Kelly muttered an introduction as she took off her coat.

  ‘Charles.’ Mrs Christian rolled the name approvingly. ‘Come in, you must be frozen. How you can stand in the cold for hours I do not understand.’ She was tall and full-bodied, pale and with expert make-up. Her black hair shone like the polished surfaces in her flat. Her voice was careful with what sounded like a faint Scots burr; it made her seem briefly exotic, an impression which she quickly countered with the totally conventional tea and biscuits.

  ‘A social worker’, she purred. ‘Now that’s nice, goodness knows there are enough young people in need of help these days. But can you understand them, Charles? I mean, you’re more my generation than theirs?’

  ‘I do my best’, I said. ‘I’m strongest on practical help, not the psychological side.’

  ‘Practical, yes. Do you have a degree?’

  ‘Mum!’ Kelly snarled.

  ‘No, Mrs Christian, no degree. But I’ve had a lot of experience with people who haven’t been able to help themselves.’

  Her well-shaped mouth settled into a hard line and I could guess at her thoughts—drunks, blacks, whores, goal-birds.

  ‘More tea?’

  Somehow we got through it. Outside I felt like sitting in the gutter, pissing against a wall, doing anything to dispel the respectability.

  ‘Christ, I need a drink.’

  ‘Coffee’, Kelly said firmly. ‘Think like that and you’re still on the piss, bad as ever.’ She started the car.

  ‘You’d know’, I muttered.

  ‘I do. I tried it after Michael died. Drunk all day and drunk all night. Port mostly, didn’t eat, finished up in hospital. I was almost at the pink elephant stage. Never again.’

  ‘Let’s go home.’

  On the next working day I looked down my list of charges—Fenton, okay; Kimonides, okay; McDonald, in the army; Mattioli, okay. I made phone calls, checked with employers. I arranged to see a couple of them, conscious that I’d let things slide a bit since meeting Kelly. I had a question mark against Rockman’s name. He’d left his job with the South Melbourne council, and I didn’t want to risk complicating his life by contacting his parents. I rang the secretary of the football club and asked why Rockman was no longer on South’s list.

  ‘Missed training’, he said.

  ‘Is that all? I thought he was a bit of a star. It’d take more than that, su
rely?’

  ‘No press?’ he snapped.

  ‘No fear.’

  ‘Bad influence. Pissed, betting big. He organised a big party the night before a match—grog, girls, the lot. We got licked.’

  ‘Have you, what d’you call it? Cleared him?’

  ‘No one’ll touch him. He’s finished.’

  ‘If I can straighten him out will you give him another chance?’

  ‘Not a hope. He’s wiped. Wasn’t that good anyway.’

  ‘You’re a gentleman.’ I hung up and doodled on the paper. Rockman—no job; no club; I wondered if he still had the flash car. That afternoon, I waited in Lucan Grove. Rockman arrived in the sports car about an hour after Cafarella got home. I got out and hailed him. He looked at me nervously.

  ‘Hello, Solly.’

  He leaned back against his car and didn’t reply.

  ‘How’s things?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Little talk? Live here now, do you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You’re supposed to notify a change of address.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t. You notify them’, he snarled. ‘That all?’

  ‘No. I want to talk to you. Inside, or the pub?’

  ‘I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Piss off.’

  I fought the anger down. ‘You’ve got no choice. Here or somewhere else.’

  ‘Here then.’ He pulled cigarettes out and lit one with a gold lighter. The coat was camel hair, elaborately stitched.

  ‘Have you got another job?’

  ‘Sort of.’ He blew smoke smoothly.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’m working with Lucky.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Selling things.’

  ‘Jesus, I can imagine. What about the football?’

  ‘I tossed it in.’

  ‘I heard they dropped you.’

  He shrugged. ‘Who cares?’

  ‘I do. You’re headed for trouble. You smell of it already.’

  ‘How could a fuckin’ Abo smell anything.’

  I was assailed by smells—the wine on the boy’s breath along with the tobacco, the smell of fuel from his car, a scent from the expensive fabric of his coat now getting wet in the drizzle. I felt the rain cold as the sweat started out on my forehead.

  ‘You report to the office, twice a week’, I said evenly. ‘Midday, Monday and Thursday.’

  He side-stepped me, and walked off towards the gate. I sat in the car, trembling and longing for alcohol and tobacco. All I could feel satisfied about in the encounter was that I hadn’t hit him. At least I hadn’t done that.

  ‘You know, Mum was right, in a dreadful sort of way’, Kelly said later when I told her about it. ‘It’s so hard to understand kids like him. I feel like asking is there any good in him. And that’s such a silly thing to say.’

  ‘That’s right’, I said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. I suppose he’s confused and angry about his family problems, but there’s nothing anyone can do there. It’s as if you have to just sit back and hope good things happen to him. Not much of a job.’

  ‘The football should have helped—having that talent.’

  ‘Yes, that worries me. That could have been his chance. My feeling is that Cafarella is the other side of the coin.’

  ‘Will seeing him every week help?’

  ‘Probably not, probably just put his back up more. But you never know, he’s not stupid, I just might get through to him somehow. But what can an Abo teach a Jew, really?’

  She laughed. ‘That’s where I’ve got an edge see, with my African blood. Africans were civilised before Welshmen.’

  ‘All your African blood does’, I said, ‘is make you a shit-hot basketball player’.

  Rockman reported, regular and sullen. He smoked, and responded only when he had to. He was vague about his income but he parked the sports car ostentatiously outside the office. He was always well-dressed, with expensive accessories. He put on some weight, and when I commented on it he went dark with anger.

  Vain, I thought, perhaps I can use that. Then I was repelled by that sort of manipulation. Compared with the dark clouds over Rockman, Fenton’s life was simple and clear.

  Lionel Rose won five more fights, and signed to defend his title against Rocky Gatellari in Sydney in December. Rusty fought twice on the same bill as Rose, and won both times. The sports writers coupled them up and the promoters of the Rose-Gatellari match persuaded Jack Kearney to put Rusty into an eight round preliminary.

  ‘I’m not sure you’re ready’, I told him. ‘Eight threes is a hell of a long way to go.’

  ‘I can do it Charlie. And the way I’m going, it won’t last eight.’

  ‘You have to plan on eight, though. Who is it?’

  ‘O’Reilly again.’

  ‘Oh, God. How’s he been doing?’

  ‘He’s won three, same as me.’

  ‘Six rounders?’

  ‘One eight.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘I have to take it, Charlie. A title bill, it’s a big chance. You’ll come up, won’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll come.’ I can bring Kelly, I thought. A few days off. Sydney in December. ‘You’ll have to train like a bastard.’

  ‘I will.’ He did. He ran five miles a day and put in long, gruelling sessions in the gym. After a while he weighed nine six and couldn’t keep still.

  Summer hit Melbourne late, but hard. By early December the days were hot and dry with a north wind unlike any I’d met, except in the desert. I missed the breezes of Sydney, the light winds that lifted off the water and cooled the evenings. I arranged a week’s leave and Kelly did the same. We flew to Sydney on the morning of the fight. Fenton had gone up a week before to acclimatise.

  ‘You’d think he was fighting for the world title in Mexico City’, Kelly said.

  ‘That’s how he feels about it. Gatellari fought for the world title, and I reckon Rose will. It feels like the big time to Rusty.’

  We were circling over Sydney; Kelly looked down and I leaned across her to look myself. The landscape was untidy, the wide and narrow waterways straggled in from the coast.

  ‘Will he win?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He’s as fit and keen as he can get. If he doesn’t it means he’s not good enough, but I don’t know whether he’ll see it that way.’

  ‘Is that what happened to you? You saw the light?’

  ‘Christ, no. I hung about, fought in the stadiums and tents at the same time. Won and lost. I couldn’t fight any more after the war, which was just as well. I could have finished up in a bad way.’

  The plane flashed over the water and on to the runway, but the water was still there, vast, blue and clean, away to the east.

  ‘You love this place’, Kelly said softly.

  ‘Yeah. How’d you know?’

  ‘Your face. You’re usually not a great one for smiling.’

  I was flush on my good salary and abstinent habits; we rented a car at the airport and Kelly drove to the hotel at the Cross.

  ‘Suppose you came here for dirty weekends’, she said as we followed the porter up the stairs.

  ‘Always wanted to, never did.’

  We passed a middle-aged couple on the stairs who smiled at us. I smiled back, and heard the woman say ‘Indians’ after she’d passed.

  The room was big and airy with a view east to Rushcutters Bay. We looked out briefly on the streets, park and water, and took off our clothes.

  Rusty was staying in Newton, and I phoned him to ask about his condition.

  ‘I’ll kill him’, he said.

  ‘Just box. Lefts and rights, stop when the bell rings. It’s a job.’

  We walked through the Cross and down Park Street to the city. Sydney was foreign territory to Kelly; I guided her around but I didn’t know the answers to most of her questions—How old’s that? What’s this called? At about six o’clock we went to a Spanish restau
rant. Kelly pointed across the road to a pub.

  ‘Get some wine, Charlie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go on. I’ll have a glass.’

  I bought the wine and we sat on a bench at a rough wooden table with a big basket of crusty bread on it. The place smelled of chicken and fish, oil and garlic. I poured the wine.

  ‘I don’t want to turn you teetotal Charlie, and I don’t want to be teetotal myself. I think I can manage a glass of wine or two these days.’

  It was the first time she’d acknowledged that our relationship had made any difference to her fundamentally. I drank my wine, feeling her presence like a warm, soft wind around me. We ate prawns and chicken.

  ‘We’ll be popular.’ She let garlic waft across as she mopped up oil with bread.

  ‘Audience’ll be three-quarters Italian, remember. Who’ll notice?’

  Cars were parked solid for miles around the showground which was lit up bright and harsh. Kelly looked nervously up at the dark, starry sky.

  I smiled. ‘This is Sydney, love. It isn’t going to rain.’

  I used my pass to get Kelly to a seat in the moderately-priced section before I went off to the dressing room. She looked up from the programme which showed Gatellari, darkly handsome and perfectly groomed, posing elegantly in his boxing gear; and Rose in a half-body shot, unshaven and wild-looking. ‘Tell Rusty good luck from me’, she said.

  Fenton was sitting on a bench, tapping his feet. He jumped up when I came into the room.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  ‘He’s too light’, Kearney muttered. ‘Nine four, he’s spotting the other kid five pounds.’

  ‘It’s all right’, Rusty swung his arms and danced.

  ‘O’Reilly was nine nine dead, he could be more when he gets in the ring.’ Kearney looked unhappy.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s fat’, I said. The crowd roared as something happened in the six rounder.

  ‘Dagoes’, Kearney said scornfully.

  I looked at him. ‘Fidel la Barba, Graziano, La Motta, Marciano—fancy your chances with any of them, Jack?’

  Rusty’s ribs showed through his brown skin. He’s down too fine, I thought, but better than the reverse. ‘Just box him’, I said. ‘Stay out of trouble. A lot can happen in eight rounds. Right, Jack?’