Брайс Куртенэ - The Power of One

Hymie smiled. ‘I’ve racked my brains, in fact I’m rather ashamed of myself, but even with my considerable intellect, there is no way of ensuring the outcome other than to pay them off, which is patently impossible. We simply have to beat them on the day. Believe me, it’s as kosher as my granma’s chicken soup.’ He turned to me and gave me his most disarming smile. ‘Peekay, I know you’ve got a considerable rep with these Boers, no way I’m going to spoil that. You’re the only Rooinek Christian gentleman they respect,’ he paused. ‘Just get it into your head that we can beat the bastards!’

‘I hope you didn’t mean you’d pay them off if you could find a way?’

‘No, of course not, I was only kidding. The nicest part of a scam is the brains part. Anyone can learn to cheat.’

We reached the top of the hill and arrived at the Helpmekaar gates just as school was getting out. A sea of brown blazers piped with yellow braid engulfed our two green ones. Remarks were flying left, right and centre and things were getting decidedly uncomfortable.

‘What now?’ I whispered to Hymie.

‘We just wait here, you’ll see,’ he replied.

Just then a voice cut through the sea of brown blazers, ‘Peekay, howzit?’ It was Jannie Geldenhuis. ‘Sorry I’m late, man, I had to see one of the masters. Come with me.’ He extended his hand in the Boer manner and we shook it in turn and then followed him through the gates.

‘Magtig, I thought we were going to be lynched,’ I said to Jannie in Afrikaans.

‘No way, man, they all know you here, you a sort of hero.’

We had reached the school toilets where a couple of guys about our own age were having a quiet smoke. Jannie asked them politely to leave and they kicked at the ground with the toe cap of their shoes, then deciding to obey, killed their cigarettes by pinching the heads off and put the unused stompies in their blazer pockets for use later.

Hymie said he’d accept odds of three to one on the Prince of Wales School winning.

Geldenhuis gasped. ‘You’re crazy, man! We already beat you four games to nil!’

‘Those are the odds,’ Hymie said quietly.

‘That’s blêrrie terrific for the punters,’ Geldenhuis said, ‘but what about us? We… you’ll be cleaned out! Fifteen percent of nothing is nothing, and I’ll end up with my arse kicked by twelve hundred bloody angry Helpmekaar punters.’

Geldenhius was not just a pretty face, I observed. Hymie’d gone crackers! Helpmekaar had to be favoured to win. Three to one odds was suicide.

‘Okay, Geldenhuis… Peekay and I will give you a written guarantee that we’ll honour our debts if the Prince of Wales loses.’ He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and handed me a square of folded paper. I opened it to see that it was a guarantee by the Bank to pay in the event of a Helpmekaar win. There was a place at the bottom for two signatures. Hymie had already signed as one of them.

‘Sign it and give it to him,’ Hymie said casually.

I made a rough calculation in my head. Assuming two thirds of the punters bet against us at an average of two shillings a bet, we stood to lose around three hundred and seventy pounds. If we sold the Bank to a syndicate and our rights to Miss Bornstein’s Famous Correspondence School Notes and took all our savings we could just make it.

I breathed a sigh of relief, if it had been more than our total assets I would have had to turn Hymie down in front of Geldenhuis, causing us both no end of embarrassment. I borrowed Hymie’s Parker 51 and holding the guarantee against the toilet wall I signed it. But I can tell you I was not happy; Hymie Solomon Levy was going to be in a lot of shit when we were alone again.

Geldenhuis took the guarantee from me, read it and pulled out a small leather wallet from his pocket, as he opened it to stow the guarantee I noticed it contained no money.

‘Okay, Geldenhuis, twenty percent of the winnings or fifty quid now, it’s your choice,’ Hymie said.

Like me before Hymie had entered my life, Jannie Geldenhuis had probably never seen a ten-pound note in his life, much less fifty. Eight pounds a week was the average white workers’ wage, Helpmekaar was not a private school and his parents were probably battling to make ends meet.

Hymie had read his man correctly. ‘I’ll take the fifty pounds now,’ Geldenhuis said.

Jannie Geldenhuis must have believed we couldn’t win, Hymie was offering him fifty quid against a potential of seventy-five.

Hymie pulled out his wallet and opened it. ‘Just a second!’ Geldenhuis said suddenly. He withdrew his wallet again and took the guarantee from it and proffered it to Hymie. ‘I got a condition of my own, without it we got no deal, man.’

We both looked at Geldenhuis with surprise. ‘What’s the condition, Jannie?’ I asked.

‘Well, first of all, I’m only agreeing to set up the Helpmekaar side of the betting because you’re in this, Peekay.’ He jabbed his finger in Hymie’s direction. ‘I don’t do business with a Jewboy!’

‘Hey, now wait a minute!’ I was suddenly angry, ‘Hymie and I are in this together, no Hymie, no deal!’ I turned to Hymie, ‘C’mon, let’s piss off.’

Hymie put his hand up in a conciliatory manner. ‘Now hang on a sec. Take it easy. We’re a partnership, if Jannie here wants to deal with you that’s fine.’ He had moved so as to unsight Geldenhuis and gave me a knowing wink, then turned again so that Geldenhuis could see him and removed five ten-pound notes from his wallet. “Here, Peekay, you pay the man.’

Before I could take the money, Geldenhuis said, ‘That’s not the condition.’ The beginnings of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.

I was still angry. ‘So what’s the condition, Geldenhuis?’

‘Fight me!’

He must have seen the surprise in my face. ‘What here? Now?’

‘I just turned featherweight, you still easy a bantamweight, I want a last chance to get even.’

‘And if he says no?’ Hymie asked.

Still looking directly at me Geldenhuis said: ‘No deal! You can stick your fifty quid up your Jewboy arse! What do you reckon, Peekay? Box me three rounds here in the gym?’

‘Christ, and to think I liked you, Geldenhuis. You’re on! But I haven’t got any gear.’

‘I already thought of that, I got stuff for you.’ Geldenhuis paused and then shrugged his shoulders, ‘Hey, no hard feelings, man. You a Rooinek, I’m a Boer, I won’t be happy till I beat you,’ he said simply.

‘You may be a long time unhappy, man! Where do I change?’

‘Who’s going to referee?’ Hymie asked.

Jannie Geldenhuis pointed to Witwatersrand University campus which was only a couple of hundred yards from the school. ‘We got a guy from Wits just in case you said yes.’

Geldenhuis put the guarantee back into his wallet and I turned to follow him out of the toilets, but Hymie stood his ground.

‘Just a moment, Geldenhuis!’

We turned to face Hymie who held the five ten-pound notes up in his hand, just the hint of a smile played over his face.

‘I bet you fifty quid Peekay smacks your arse!’

Geldenhuis stood, his arms held stiffly as though at attention, he was rigid with anger. Hymie had outfoxed him and avenged himself at the same time.

‘You got your bet, Jew!’ he spat.

Geldenhuis took us over to the shower block and pointed to a brown paper bag on a bench. ‘Everything’s there, I’ll see you in the gym.’ He turned and walked away, presumably to change elsewhere.

‘Christ, what a turn up for the books,’ Hymie said.

The gear fitted well enough and the boxing boots were nicely worn. We left the showers and walked down a long corridor towards the gym. I entered ahead of Hymie.