Page 44 of A Ruse of Shadows
Which accorded with Mr. Constable’s records and receipts.
“When did you start boxing?”
“The year before I met them.”
“To help your family? You don’t seem interested in boxing for its own sake.”
“I hate it.” He drank from a dented canteen whose strap had been mended in two places. “After my old man died, we couldn’t make ends meet, not even with me and my two brothers all working. Someone said that I was a scrappy bugger and ought to try boxing. So I did. Guess that was a good idea.”
“Who said that?”
“Not sure. Some bum tried to steal my bread and ran away after I punched him. A bystander said it, I think. Gave me a two-bit bob and told me that at the Unicorn of the Sea, if I could prove myself I might just get a sponsor and wouldn’t have to scrap for bread anymore.”
Some fifteen feet away, a workman, probably freshly returned from luncheon, began breaking rocks with an awl and a hammer. In the greater din, Charlotte considered Johnny’s answer. “What did this man look like?”
Johnny shrugged again. “The bum I fought ran off, but not before he left me with a pair of black eyes. I could barely see. All I remember is that the fellow who made the suggestion had a thick cockney accent.”
“When did your father pass away, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“March of 1884. March twentieth.”
“And how much time after his death did this incident take place? This near robbery that led to the comment that began your boxing career?”
“Must have been two months afterwards? Yes, end of May.” Johnny, finished with his sandwich, sighed in relief and downed the rest of the water in his canteen. “It was the day before my little sister’sbirthday, and I remember thinking that I couldn’t let her go hungry on her birthday.”
Mr. Underwood first visited Mr. Constable the accountant that April, a full month before the idea of becoming a boxer had even taken hold in Giovanni Esposito’s head.
“Did you go to the Unicorn soon afterwards?”
“As soon as my black eyes faded, I went and took a look. But then I had to convince my mother that it wasn’t the worst idea since the creation of man. And she’d have held out for longer, if we weren’t running out of money.”
He glanced at her, a flicker of worry in those dark pupils.
Perhaps he wasn’t as taciturn as he’d made himself out to be. Perhaps he needed only encouragement from someone he trusted, even a little, to talk at length.
“But of course your mother has had no cause to regret her decision,” she said.
“Actually, she regretted it almost as soon as she gave me permission, because someone sent her five quid in the mail, someone who said that he was an old friend of my father’s, wanting to do something decent for his widow and children. She always said it was an angel who sent it, because the men my father ran around with were no better than him. They took money from babes’ mouths to buy drink, and none of them would have given a single thought—let alone a sou—to some dead fool’s widow and children.”
Mysterious aid, eh? “Did you ever find out the identity of this angel?”
“No.” Johnny dusted off his hands. “Five pounds was a huge sum, but between rent, food, and my mother’s medicine, even with those five pounds, we’d have barely lasted through autumn. Winter would have been even more expensive, with coal to buy.”
He sighed. “Mr. Underwood became my sponsor in the nick of time.”
No indeed. Mr. Underwood took his time and became your sponsor at a moment ofhischoosing.
“Forgive my curiosity, Mr. Esposito, but how did your father die?”
Johnny rose. “We’re not entirely sure, but most likely he got drunk, fell, and hit the back of his head on the curb. His body was discovered only the next morning.”
“He fellbackward?”
Charlotte didn’t have a great deal of experience with drunks, but the world would have far fewer sots if falling straight back was the usual mode of succumbing to an alcoholic stupor.
Johnny balled up the wrapping papers from his luncheon and lobbed the entire thing neatly into the nearest rubbish bin. He glanced at Charlotte, looking only a little bitter. “Have I ever mentioned that not long before my old man died, my mother became convinced he’d soon abandon us? I saw it in his eyes, too—he’d had enough. He was giving her less and less money and drinking more and more. And what he didn’t spend on drink, he kept in a pouch under a floorboard.”
He wiped a sleeve across his face. “I didn’t care how he died. All I cared was that we could at last use that money to buy some food. That for once, my little sister wouldn’t go to bed hungry.”
