‘Why do they fight?’ she asks, curiously.
‘Why do dogs bark? It’s what they do. Two males cannot abide to be near each other.’ George shrugs. ‘Come here to me.’ He puts his arms around her waist, tightens them. ‘You choose, then.’
‘Choose?’
‘Say which bird will win and I’ll bet a penny on it,’ George says. ‘I can’t decide on a winner.’ The heat in the room has put a mottling of dark flecks on the shirt over his chest. Cat puts her hand on the fabric, feels the damp heat of his skin. George leans into her touch, a look of wanting in his eyes. Smiling sharply at him, Cat turns back to the ring. She watches the birds fight for a moment, their bronze and gold feathers shaking, flying; black claws at the ends of grey, scaly legs. Cat has never seen two animals so set upon each other’s destruction. There is none of George’s measured grace in the way they fight. Only the urge to maim and kill.
‘That one,’ she says in the end, pointing to the slightly smaller bird, whose wings are greenish-black.
‘Are you sure? It looks to be coming off worst.’
‘But look how furious it is about that,’ Cat points out. George calls out to a fat man who has stripped himself of his shirt, and stands upon a chair sweating and wobbling in his stained vest. The coin is passed, the bet acknowledged with a scrap of blue paper. ‘Watch him now,’ Cat says, her eyes fixed on the cut and bleeding birds.
For a while, the smaller bird continues to do badly, falling back from the repeated charges of its opponent, screeching in outrage when spurs rake its body, when its face is pecked and cut. But it never loses the mad look in its eye, and it never backs down or gives up. ‘He’s a fighter. He’ll not let himself lose, even if he dies for it,’ Cat murmurs, her words lost and unheard in the din. With a final surge of strength, the smaller bird launches itself into the air, comes down with its talons aimed at the other’s face. One spur takes out an eye, the other shears a chunk of flesh from the unlucky bird’s face, which bleeds into its remaining eye, blinding it. The wounded bird squats in defeat, shakes its head helplessly. It is soon finished off, pecked to death by the smaller bird, which then stands, wings loose, tongue poking out in exhaustion.
Cat stands mesmerised. She had not known that violence could still shock her. Mistaking her sudden silence, George looks troubled.
‘He’s better off out of it, that dead bird. With only one eye he’d have been no use. Turner would have wrung his neck, had he lived,’ he says. ‘Perhaps he would not have wanted to survive it, knowing he’d lost to a smaller bird,’ he adds.
Cat shakes her head. ‘All creatures want to live,’ she says. Frowning, George collects their winnings from the fat man, and gives half to Cat.
‘I shouldn’t have half – it was your penny.’
‘But you chose the winner. I would have picked the stronger bird for sure, and lost out.’
‘Keep the money. What would I buy with it? I can’t buy myself out of my bonds. Keep it and put it towards your boat – towards what I owe you,’ she insists, pressing the coins back into George’s broad hand. He gives her a puzzled look. ‘And here,’ she says. ‘Here’s more as well.’ She smiles, pulling her purse from her pocket and holding it out to him.
‘What’s this?’
‘I have more money for you – though I don’t know what you paid that policeman. I have some now, and I will have more later; and it’s best you don’t ask where I got it from.’
‘What money? How much, and where did you get it from?’ George asks, leading her out of the crowd towards the edge of the room, where the din is less.
‘Money for your boat. I have five pounds now, and the same again before a month is up, most likely …’ She weighs the purse in her hand. George closes his own around it, pushes it hastily into the folds of her skirt.
‘How much? And you brought the whole of it here to be picked from your pocket!’
‘Nobody has stolen it, see. It’s all there, and all for you.’
‘This is far more than I paid for you. I will not take it.’ He sets his jaw stubbornly.
‘But you will take it. And whatever you did not pay to free me, you can keep and put towards the boat. Our boat. Our future, and our freedom,’ she says, seriously. George looks hard at her, thinks for a while.
‘Then … you will marry me?’
Cat looks away, fingers the strings of the purse for a while. ‘No, George. I stick by what I said. But I will come away with you, if you, if you’ll let me. Will it be enough? When I have the other five pounds – will that be enough to take rooms, to buy the pleasure boat and begin again with it?’ she asks, eagerly.