The Messengers Read Free

come to my room and tell me stories. I would wake to the sound of the bathroom scales whirring. I loved Johnny and I didn’t want there to be less of him.
    It was as if all of the pipes and cables in the house fed into and out of my brother. As we got nearer to the day of the fight, Mum would become tense and shout at me for nothing, but Johnny would tell me it was going to be OK. “I don’t worry about getting hit, Fran,” he said once. “The worst thing, for me, is having to take my top off in front of all those people.”
    There was a fashion, at that time, of giving boxers nicknames from retro films, and they decided to call him Johnny “Top Gun” Clayton.
    The seafront was packed on the day of that Helmstown fight. Not many Claytons had been to a Hilton, and me and Mum felt out of place. Auntie Lizzie hadn’t moved to Helmstown yet, and we were staying at Nana and Granddad’s funny little house, just down the coastal road in Whiteslade. So it was odd to walk through the posh, cool corridors of the Hilton and then into this rowdy, darkened ballroom that stank of sweat and cigarette smoke. They’d built a mini grandstand for the spectators to sit in. I remember how the backs of my thighs stuck to the blue folding seats and how the ring, which was so brightly lit, looked like a square swimming pool. I remember thinking that the announcer looked odd standing in the boxing ring in his suit and bow tie. And I remember Mum, with her hair dyed red and her white shirt, as still and straight as the lion statues outside big old buildings.
    The theme from
Top Gun
played as Johnny climbed through the ropes, and he wore big reflective aviator sunglasses like they did in the film. Granddad slapped him on the back and took off his glasses. Johnny opened his mouth wide and stuck his tongue out — a little habit he had. I tapped Mum and did an impression of him. She smiled weakly.
    Granddad tightened the straps on Johnny’s head guard, took the knotted towel from around his neck, and then tied his bootlaces. That’s when I started to get worried. How was Johnny going to win a fight if he couldn’t even tie his laces?
    The other lad was tall and strong. He looked like a man, really. His name was Gary “Basher” Bradley. I felt like you do when you get on a theme-park ride and the wheels start to turn, and you know you’ve made a terrible mistake. When the bell went to signal the start of the first round, the men in front of us stood up, so I couldn’t see. They were cheering for the other guy. “Kill him, Bash!” “Do him!” “Go-o-o on, Basher!” they shouted.
    Mum didn’t bother to stand. She just stared into the backs of these men. I climbed on my chair and peered over.
    I didn’t know anything about boxing, but I learned quickly, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me Johnny was losing. Basher Bradley had him in the corner of the ring and was pounding him in the stomach. To my relief, Johnny danced away from him and shrugged. He smiled, as if to say, “Is that all you’ve got?” Typical Johnny.
    But Bradley had more.
    Johnny was trying to protect his stomach, and Bradley landed a right cross (I know all the names of the punches now) on Johnny’s chin of steel. Several things were horrible to me. The first was that Johnny’s gum shield shot out and skidded across the ring. I didn’t know he was wearing a gum shield — I didn’t know what a gum shield
was
— so I thought a piece of Johnny’s jaw had been chipped off. I was too upset to scream. I couldn’t even turn away. When you watch a boxing match, you feel like you’re taking part, especially if someone’s getting a beating. And in some ways, just by being there, just by watching it happen, you
are
taking part, aren’t you?
    Anyway, the worst thing about it was that Johnny didn’t go down. He stayed on his feet for another two rounds and took all sorts of punishment. I was the one, in fact, who hit the floor. I caught a whiff of smoke, and the