Of course. He should start a boxing club on the island. A boys’ club, give them something to do in the evenings, especially now that the schools were closed half the time. Next to birds, boxing had been his passion. Boxing didn’t take too much equipment. Gloves. Hand-wraps? Bandages would do. Shoes? Plimsoles would be fine. Gumshields? Improvise, cotton and tape, a bit rough and ready, but he doubted that the lads would pack too hard a punch, not at first. Skipping ropes. Punching bag. Canvas, sand, rope, a strong beam to hold it. Easy enough.

‘Boxing gloves?’

Pierre raised his eyebrows, pulled out a cigarette.

Joe wasn’t sure what to make of Pierre Besson, or his sister Gladys. He knew his type from the wide boys in Cork. A wheeler-dealer. Mr Fixer. A survivor. Charming with it. He wasn’t much older than Joe, but he emitted a worldly wisdom beyond his years. Joe thought he may as well hitch his star to Pierre’s wagon as anyone else’s.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Pierre knew who had the key to the Boy Scouts’ hut in Minden Place. ‘It’s going begging.’ He touched the side of his nose, an old favour. ‘They can’t use it now the Boche have banned the Scouts. I know a sign writer, too.’

Two days later, Joe put up a spanking new notice, maroon with black lettering:

Boys’ Amateur Boxing, ages 12-15
With Fr Joe O’Cleary, Bantamweight Champion of
Ireland 1931
Tuesday and Friday evenings 6-8.

Pierre had mustered three pairs of second-hand gloves. The leather was cracked in places and the fist too big for most of the boys who were likely to come, but they were better than nothing. Together, he and Pierre rigged up two punching bags, painted a ring on the floor and mocked up the sides with old rope and four used newel posts. Pierre put a notice in the Evening Post and Joe sat and waited.

Nobody came, not that first night. Joe rolled up his trouser legs and stripped to his vest and punched and sparred. After all these years it felt good, the churn of the adrenalin, the sweat on his face, the jar of his muscles against the bag. ‘Boxing’s not a sport for angry men,’ he had heard Doyle, his old trainer, remark. Joe had taken it up in cold blood, knew what he wanted to do with it.

They began to drift in, the boys. Three, five. Eight. Hungry lads. Joe wished he had food to give them, oranges to suck, oatcakes to munch, Lucozade even. Build them up.

The boys took it in turns with the gloves.

Twice a week, he held his boxing club. Pierre came along at the end of each session, lounged on a metal fold-up chair, waiting for Joe to finish and send the boys home.