A few days after the events recounted in the last chapter, Amanda was with Deirdre in the poky little changing room, waiting for her bout to be called.  Amanda, these days,  was increasingly preoccupied with her forthcoming marriage and all the problems that would have to be overcome in manufacturing an identity for a man who had materialised out of nowhere.  She had been reading Freddy Forsyth’s “Day of the Jackal” and had seen how comparatively easy it was to manufacture an identity.  But that was just the birth certificate - what about the National Insurance number and a hundred and one other bits of paperwork?

What she desperately  needed was some appropriately shady contact to perform all the necessary work. As she looked again around the dingy little room and considered the dubious antecedents of the people responsible for running this female fight racket, she began to have an idea!

The manager came into the changing room to say that Deirdre should be ready in five minutes and Amanda came back into the real world and went to assist her.  Her hand brushed against Deirdre’s forehead and she immediately realised that the girl had a very high temperature.

“Deirdre! You’re really feverish.  Why the Hell didn’t you say? How long had this been coming on?”

Deirdre said that she had been fine earlier on, but must have eaten something that was in some way unsuitable.  This had happened before, she said.  It must have been the fruit salad she had eaten just before coming here.

“Must have had mango in it, Amanda.  Always does this to me.  I should know by this time.  God, but such a fool!”

It was obvious that she was totally unfit to fight this day and Amanda turned to the manager apologetically.  She hoped he would take the disappointment philosophically!

“Sorry!  We’ll have to scratch this appearance.  She should be fine next week.  I mean, look at the poor girl, she‘s white as a sheet and looks as if she could throw up at any minute!”

To say that the manager was annoyed would be a fairly irresponsible understatement.  Amanda had never seen such fury written so plainly on the face of another!  Deirdre had long been a favourite of the patrons.  At first it had been a sadistic relish at the regularity with which she was turned by a succession of experienced opponents from a strong and lovely Amazon in to a bleeding and pulverised wreck, but lately it was because of the way she had fought her way back with great courage to be one of the more successful of the regular girls, triumphing impressively over her last five adversaries. The patrons would not be happy people and they were a hard hearted lot!

He looked at Amanda.  It was obvious that the brain behind those hard pig-like little eyes was in overdrive! She knew with a churning in her stomach, exactly what he was about to say!  She also knew exactly what her answer would be!

“She’s been a different woman since you took over her training. You can take her place just for today! You’d be at a bit of a weight disadvantage, but nothing disastrous. Don’t tell me you aren’t as good as Deirdre - a whole lot better, in fact.  Get changed!” And as an afterthought he added, “Please, darling - we’d be really grateful and it’d be well worth your while. I’d pay you well!”

Amanda howled with laughter. As if she couldn’t afford to buy out this guy and his crummy outfit a hundred times over and still have the same number of zeros in her bank balance!  Then she had a thought.

“I don’t need the money, thanks all the same.  But I might ask you for some discreet favours at a future date.  You may very well have the sort of contacts I might need to do a good turn to a friend.”  She drew him aside and whispered a few words into his ear. The man nodded.

“No problem. Just let me know nearer the time. I’ll get you your gear, Deirdre’s shorts would be a bit loose fitting on you! And you’ll need a size smaller in boots.  This girl you’re fighting won‘t be a problem - you‘ll see!”

Deirdre was looking very upset by this time.  To think that her stupidity in eating something she might have known would disagree with her had landed her friend in this situation!  She knew how Amanda must loath what she was going to have to do! As she dressed again and then watched Amanda  nervously removing her clothes until she was  standing naked before her a tear trickled down her face.

“I’m so sorry, darling. I know how you must be hating this.”

Amanda merely smiled. She was hating it, but it could be a means to an end and she comforted herself with this thought. And it would be something to tell Richard later on!

The manager, Mr. Goldstein, came back with a pair of very brief and figure hugging shorts.  Amanda slipped into them and looked at herself in the cracked and dirty full length mirror.  The manager looked at her uncovered body as well. He saw right away that Amanda was, despite being rather slimmer than her friend, a very well built young lady.  You don’t swim and play tennis every day for hours at a time without developing strong arms and shoulders.  Her smooth contours belied the strength of her limbs.

His good humour returned. This girl was a real beauty and had the build of a first class athlete.  Win or lose, she would be great entertainment!

Amanda tried on the boxing boots and tried moving about in them. She shook her head.

“Sorry!  I can’t wear those - better wear nothing on my feet than these.”

And  so it was agreed that Amanda would box barefoot, as would her opponent in order not to give her an unfair advantage. She told Deirdre to stay behind and rest, but that guilt stricken girl would have none of it and insisted on accompanying Amanda to the ringside.

As they approached the ring with Amanda eschewing the covering of a dressing gown, to the great delight of the crowd who had been warned of the change to the scheduled plan, Edward and Irena came over to them.  He had been up in Town for the weekend and dropped by to see the two girls. When he saw the rôle reversal, his jaw fell by several feet!  He had never seen Amanda this undressed in all the months they had known each other. (Amazing, I know - but life is amazing sometimes!)

Edward’s timely appearance  settled who was to be Amanda’s second for this contest and Deirdre was sent backstage to continue her recuperation. She looked most relieved at this, to put it mildly, as she tottered off! Irena sulkily retreated to a ring side seat and steeled herself to witness the distasteful sight of Amanda having Edward all to herself for ten rounds or whatever.  She ardently hoped that  the girl would take a real beating and end up looking not quite so lovely for a while!  She was still irrationally jealous of her astoundingly lovely predecessor, despite Edward’s patently sincere devotion to her.

The bell rang and a petrified Amanda approached the centre of the ring, a contestant for the first and she fervently hoped, last,  time in her life. Her opponent wasted no time in opening hostilities and directed a ferocious punch straight at our heroine’s bewitchingly attractive little nose.

To be continued.
Three weeks after the memorable substitution of a reluctant Amanda for the stricken Deirdre, Edward, Irena and Deirdre were sitting in the Three Horseshoes in their favourite seat by the window. Deirdre was inspecting her nose in her little mirror.  Today had been much harder than of late for her and she had sustained quite a bit of damage.  She had still won, though - just about.

“What’s keeping Amanda?” asked Edward.

“She’ll be talking to Mr Goldstein” replied Deirdre. “I think he hopes to talk her into making a return appearance!”

“Oh. Good!” said Irena. “She was so fantastic that time. I used to dislike her for some reason at first, but she was so great the way she ran rings around that other girl. I can’t wait to see a repeat performance!”

“Yes, she was good.” replied Deirdre with grudging admiration in her voice.

Deirdre had, it will be recalled, been temporarily indisposed at the time and Amanda had agreed, for reasons of her own, to stand in for her. Because there was not a pair of boots that would fit her, the pair had fought in bare feet, but this had made no difference to Amanda’s incredible speed and agility. Her opponent had, at first, been contemptuous of this ornamental bimbo - as she thought Amanda to be - and had aimed a ferocious haymaker at the poor girl, hoping to floor her in the first seconds of the bout.

The ease with which Amanda had evaded the blow and retaliated with a serious of light but irritating jabs of her own, which she poured in from every point of the compass,  had soon caused the girl to revise her estimation of her  stand-in foe in an upwards direction. Edward, roped in at the last minute as her second,  had been told very firmly to keep his advice to himself.

“It would only confuse me to have you giving me advice, darling Teddy.  Just let me get on with it, there’s a dear!”

And so it had been entirely Amanda’s doing, her easy victory over a girl who could never land any kind of telling blow. Near the end of the seventh round, Amanda,  who had seemed not to have much of a punch, having only  lightly peppered her opponent with  the merest taps, unleashed a succession of wickedly accurate and hurtful blows which had resounded throughout the hall as they pounded into the poor woman. After the bell, she whispered to her as they passed to go their respective corners, “Don’t come out of your corner again, sweetie, if you know what’s good for you. I‘ve done playing around.”

Something in her voice must have registered, because the opposition threw in the towel  and Amanda had won with ease and in style.

“Never again, Deirdre. Though it was an experience - I’ll admit that much!” she had said later.  She had told her future husband about it later, together with an explanation of her reasons for this out of character behaviour.   He had approved of her decision , although concerned that she take care not to come to harm in this world of hers which he so longed to enter.

His mother had died a week ago and there was now nothing to prevent his walking naked out of his upper sanctum and into the Twentieth century. Nothing but the need to be provided with an identity!

Finally Amanda came into the pub and ordered herself a drink - a very large Cognac, which she downed in one gulp, sending Edward across to order a second!  She did not look at all happy.  She sat down with her friends and did not speak for some time and when she did, it was not anything Deirdre particularly wanted to hear.

“Your performance was a disgrace today, Deirdre!  I was frankly ashamed of you. I work my guts out getting you into shape and all you do is let me down.”

Whereupon she burst into tears and sat sobbing uncontrollably for some minutes, to everyone’s concern.  She was usually such a self-composed person.

It was Irena who took the initiative, moving around next to the weeping girl, putting her arm around her and pulling her towards her in a comforting hug.  Gradually the sobbing died down and Amanda smiled tearfully and apologised for her silly behaviour, telling Deirdre she had not meant a word of what she had just said. It was some more minutes before she could speak coherently.

“That swine, Goldbugger or whatever his bloody name is wants  me to appear on the bill again next week and for quite a few weeks after that. I hate the idea, but I can’t see any way out. If you must know - I’m being blackmailed!”

And so she explained to the disbelieving Irena and Edward how she was trying to obtain papers for a man who didn’t exist.  Deirdre had half guessed what her friend was up to and spoke angrily.

“You bloody little fool, Amanda. You might have told me what you wanted. I’d have come up with something better than your hare-brained scheme!”

“Oh, yes, Miss Clever! And what, exactly?  There‘s absolutely NO legal way we can do what we need - not unless we tell the truth, and who‘s going to believe that?  We‘d be sectioned or something.”

Deirdre was forced to agree.  Unlike her friend she had not been so concerned about the technicalities of providing Richard with an identity.  Edward intervened.

“I can’t say I believe a word of all this, but I suggest we go along with Goldstein for the time being and start digging around to see what dirt we can come up with on him.  You’ll just have to do as he says for the next week or two, I’m afraid old girl. Frankly I don’t really see your problem.  You’ll make mincemeat of what I’ve seen of the likely opposition!”

“Of course I will.  But I DON’T BLOODY WELL WANT TO. I HATE THE IDEA OF BASHING SOME ONE ELSE’S BRAINS OUT week after bloody awful week!  The other customers turned around at this loud tirade from Amanda, who smiled sweetly at them, causing them to look away again in embarrassment.

Deirdre said “If you want this marriage to go ahead as planned, you’ve no choice, at least for a while. I’ll see what I can come up with - but you’ve plenty of money, why not hire someone?”

And so Mr Ernest W.  Ponsonby-Smyth of the well established firm of Smyth, Willoughby and Green, Private Inquiry Agents - Discretion Guaranteed was appointed to save the fastidious and violence-hating Amanda from the results of her rashness in becoming embroiled with the unprincipled Goldstein.

Unfortunately, as has so often been pointed out, Rome was not built in a day.

 
AMANDA - THE TALE CONCLUDES
 

“Now that the awful man has been dealt with, I’m almost sorry” said Amanda, holding a piece of ice to her left eye. “I have almost got to enjoy  it all, these last few weeks, shameful though it is of me!”

She and Deirdre were inspecting each others’ injuries in the dreary dressing room that they had both come to know all to well these past months. They had been on successive slots that afternoon.  Deirdre had been put through the usual hard slog before securing a decision in her favour and Amanda had been her invariably brilliant self, save for one lucky shot by her opponent - a shot for which the girl in question had been made to pay very dearly shortly thereafter as our heroine,  with uncharacterist viciousness, sent her into a lengthy spell of semi consciousness.

“You know damned well, you’ve loved every minute of it!” said Deirdre. “I can see the way you play to the gallery! Don’t think I can’t!”

“Well, it’s all over now!  This time next week I’ll be in some tropical paradise,  a newly married woman, and Mr. Slimy Goldstein will be on his way to a new life in Australia .  And you‘ll have to look around for some more reputable establishment in which to indulge your love of the ignoble art!  All VERY satisfactory, except I doubt this eye will be completely better for the wedding.  People will think Richard‘s started beating me already!”

Shortly after the termination of Amanda’s eleventh appearance in front of her ever more ecstatic admirers, the thorough, if rather slow-moving Mr Smyth had appeared, tapping  the watching Mr Goldstein  discreetly on the arm and being invited into the little crook’s “office”. Minutes later he had emerged and made straight for the girls’ dressing room.

He had with him the contract Amanda had been forced to sign, together with a wealth of other material. All evidence of her wrongdoing in the matter of manufacturing an artificial identity for her husband-to-be was in his hands.  The wretched Goldstein had been persuaded to return to the remote Outback community from which his parents had departed so many years ago and where he still owned a run down property.  Amanda had kindly purchased the boxing venue from him. She was later to donate the building to a charity specialising in giving shelter to the homeless.

………………………………....................................................

She was married two days after her last fight and Deirdre was a lovely bridesmaid, despite the injuries she had recently received - a tribute to the make-up artist’s skill! Although she was now officially Mrs Digby Van Heusingen, Amanda always thought of herself as Lady Arkworth.  Where the wretched Goldstein had dredged up this identity from, she was never to learn.

The happy couple spent their honeymoon in the same villa as Amanda and Co had spent that winter over a year ago. They would often lie together, naked, on the beach where their first extraordinary and still inexplicable meeting had taken place.  They swam and dived together countlesss times, but never found another shell as lovely as that he had presented to her on that memorable day. This trophy was lovingly preserved and occasionally taken out of its case and inspected in the years that followed.

 Richard was never to be able to beat his wife at tennis, to which first love she joyfully returned after her not entirely unwelcome interlude as a female pugilist.

She was to bear him seven children in the years that followed, amply and triumphantly fulfilling Deirdre’s prophecy that she would be a wonderful mother and wife.

Deirdre persisted with her interest in female fisticuffs for a couple of years, achieving a creditable record in a more legitimate field of the sport. Finally, Peter returned from Saudi Arabia, where he had been working. In the course of his work there he had amassed a highly respectable nest egg.  The two married and Peter, in a most atypical piece of firm mindedness forbade his wife to don leather and enter the ring  again. The flabbergasted girl meekly complied and before long, she also was a proud mother.

Richard and Amanda had always known the exact amount of time that they would be together. At first, it was so far ahead, that the thought of their inevitable parting was of no great consequence, but after thirty five years together they both knew that the amazing gift that had been given them, that of a love which bridged three centuries, was about to be withdrawn.

One day Richard became ill. Despite Amanda’s tearful plea that he seek medical advice, he refused, insisting that the time had come to return to his own time. His sobbing wife helped him out of his clothes and he walked up the stairs to his favourite room. Once inside and back in the past, he dressed himself in the clothes that he had left there all those years ago and which, on his instructions, had never been disturbed.

A servant found him there a few hours later. He never told anyone where he had been and in a few weeks he was dead.

Amanda lived more than twenty years after her darling Richard and never remarried. At a ripe old age she died. They buried her, according to the terms of her will,  in the family vault next to her revered and beloved husband whose bones had been there for over three hundred years.