Finally, he goes straight through his face. Three times, until the blood rants and raves on its way out of the other guy’s mouth.

‘Stop it,’ Rube says to the ref.

The crowd roars.

‘Stop the fight.’ But the ref has no intention to do so, and Rube is forced to bury one last punch on to the chin of Wizard Walter Brighton, and he falls cold to the canvas.

All is loud and violent.

Beer glasses smash.

People shout.

A drop of extra blood hits the canvas.

Rubes stares.

Then another roar does a lap around the factory floor.

‘That’s it then,’ Rube says when he returns to the corner. ‘I told ‘em to stop it but I guess they like the blood. That’s what people’re payin’ for, I s’pose.’

He climbs out of the ring and is given instant worship by the crowd. They pour beer on him, shake hands with his glove and yell out how great he is. Rube reacts to none of them.

At the end of the night, we all file back into Perry’s van. Bumper won in five but the other blokes all lost, including me, of course. The ride home is all silent. Only two fighters hold a fifty-dollar note in their hand. The others have a little bit of tip money in their pockets, thrown into their corner at the end of the fight. All of them except me, that is. Like I’ve said, it’s clear that no one likes a coward.

Perry drops everyone else off first and lets Rube and me out at Central.

‘Hey Rube,’ he calls.

‘Yeah.’

‘You can fight boy. See y’ next week.’

‘Same time?’

‘Yeah.’

Perry, to me: ‘Cameron, if you do what you did tonight next week, I’ll kill you.’

Me: ‘All right.’

My heart falls to my ankles, the van takes off, and Rube and I walk home. I kick my heart along the ground. I feel like crying, but I don’t. I wish I was Rube. I wish I was Fighting Ruben Wolfe and not the Underdog. I wish I was my brother.

A train passes above us as we walk through the tunnel and on to Elizabeth Street. The sound is deafening, then gone.

Our feet take over.

Out on the other side, on the street, I can smell the fear again. I can pick up the scent. It’s easy to find, and Rube smells it too, I can sense it. But he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t feel it.

The worst part is the knowing that things have changed. See, Rube and I had always been together. We were both down low. We were both scrap. Both no good.

Now Rube’s a winner. He’s like Steve, and I’m a Wolfe on my own. I’m the underdog, alone.