Memoirs of a Karate Fighter Part 6

THERE WAS A strangely subdued atmosphere about the 1982 Wado Ryu championships at Crystal Palace in London. As Mick Davies had predicted, the death of the Grand Master Hironori Ohtsuka had turned out to be something of a calamity for the school of karate he had left as his legacy. For years, it had been reported that Tatsuo Suzuki, eighth dan Hanshi, would inherit the t.i.tle of kancho but while the prince and 'heir presumptive' had been away from court, there had been attempts to usurp his position.

It was only on the few occasions that I had received a trophy from him that I had exchanged a few words with Suzuki, the man known as 'The Professor' in our dojo; 'professor' being an honorific t.i.tle bestowed on an elite of karate masters. I had always thought of him as a slightly aloof figure, but Eddie c.o.x, who had once brought him along to a wedding reception, said that with a few drinks inside him he revealed himself to be a warmer man with a dry sense of humour.

Black belts huddled in groups around the arena and discussed the dramatic events and machinations that had taken place both before and after Ohtsuka's death. In between the elimination rounds, they swapped conjecture and rumours about why it was Ohtsuka's son Jiro, and not his most famous student, who had become the head of the Wado Ryu style of karate. It turned out that almost a full year before the old man's death there had been moves by several claimants to Ohtsuka's t.i.tle of kancho.

It had been kept from most Wado Ryu students in Europe that Hironori Ohtsuka had been in conflict with Eiichi Eriguchi, the man who had coined the name 'Wado Ryu', and nine months before his death Ohtsuka had founded an organisation called Wado Ryu Karatedo Renmei. After only a few months, as his health failed, he installed at its head his son Jiro. There was another story that Tatsuo Suzuki had been offered the post but had turned it down in favour of Ohtsuka's son, but regardless of whether that was true or not, few believed it. The theory that seemed to be gaining most credence amid the hubbub in Crystal Palace was that the seeds of Tatsuo Suzuki's destruction had been sown several years before, during Hironori Ohtsuka's visit to Britain in 1975. It was rumoured that Ohtsuka was not greatly impressed by the performances of Tatsuo Suzuki's British students and he had found the style of karate they were practising differed greatly from his own.

Without doubt, karate had altered once it had left j.a.pan, and Wado Ryu in Europe had undergone many changes and modifications since Tatsuo Suzuki had left his homeland. It was said that members of Ohtsuka's entourage had thought that Suzuki's style of Wado Ryu had become too rigid, too similar to Shotokan, and that much of its jujitsu roots had been discarded. The counter-theory to that was that Suzuki had developed a much more successful style, and that criticisms of it were down to little more than jealousy. Wherever the truth lay, the end product was three separate governing bodies of Wado Ryu: one led by Suzuki, another by Eriguchi and one led by Jiro Ohtsuka, who would later change his name to Hironori Ohtsuka II. Personally, none of it affected me, or my karate, but I did think that for an art that was supposed to enable its pract.i.tioners to become more rounded people, it all made for an unedifying spectacle.

The Wado Ryu championships still did not include the weight categories that featured in national all-styles events. The major governing body for the Wado Ryu style in Britain was the United Kingdom Wado Kai (UKKW). It was an organization that had produced not only a team which had dominated British karate for four years, but had also yielded the only British-based fighters who were to win the heavyweight all-styles world championship during the twentieth century. Jerome Atkinson, Vic Charles and Jeoff Thompson were not only big men who shared an African-Caribbean heritage, but through their athleticism, they had taken the level of compet.i.tion technique to new heights during the 1980s.

The j.a.panese instructors were quick to claim every bit of credit they could for the success of Wado Ryu students in all-styles events, but in reality they had played only a minor part. As a group, they were reluctant to compromise on the few remaining vestiges of what they saw as the budo (martial) aspect of compet.i.tion karate, and consequently the scoring criteria at Wado Ryu tournaments differed somewhat to that of other compet.i.tions in that the scoring techniques were allowed to be delivered with a lot more power. While this view was endorsed, to some extent, by the YMCA's instructors, it also meant that smaller karateka were always going to be at a disadvantage if they came up against a fighter who could match them for speed and skill but also had thirty or forty pounds more bone and muscle to put behind a kick or a punch.

Vic Charles had left the UKKW some years before, and international fighters like Jerome Atkinson, Jeoff Thompson, Neiman Prince and my cousin Ewart no longer bothered entering the individual event. Single style t.i.tles really had a ring of 'big fish in a small pond' about them. The t.i.tles that counted the most were the ones in which a fighter was pitched against the very best from other schools of karate, and the top compet.i.tors' lack of interest in the Wado Ryu t.i.tle devalued it somewhat. It was akin to Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool not bothering to play in the FA Cup. However, it did mean that fighters of my standard benefited and I fought my way through the elimination rounds until I found myself facing Clinton in the final.

Clinton had fought brilliantly all day and replicated the form he had shown when he had humbled a leading compet.i.tor from London in a regional final a month before. Clinton had been so superior that his renowned opponent, who led his own style and a.s.sociation, was reduced to falling to the mat and feigning injury in order to secure a very hollow victory. In between my own bouts, I had watched Clinton as he triumphed over every opponent with ease. He had recovered his speed, a sense of balance that never faltered and a range of techniques that I doubted I could ever attain, no matter how hard I trained. The only advantage I had over him was size. The fight for the Wado Ryu t.i.tle would be a difficult one for me to win, not only because I had always thought of him as far more naturally talented, but also because of the problem I had of thinking of him as an opponent that I badly wanted to beat.

It was late into the evening when we stepped onto our lines to face each other. Our names were announced to the crowd, and as their polite applause faded I was still unsure of my tactics as I did not feel that I could go all out against my cousin with my usual aggressive style. Clinton and I had spent most of the evening chatting as though we were at a training session at our own dojo. That we were about to fight each other for the most prestigious t.i.tle either of us had competed for so far, in our short compet.i.tive careers, had hardly registered. I heard Tatsuo Suzuki, who oversaw the evening's proceedings, call 'hajime', the initial cheers of the crowd and then there was nothing except for Clinton and me. I had never felt like this in a fight before. We moved around, testing each other out and watching each other's eyes, oblivious to anyone or anything else. There was a strange harmony about our movements: we knew each other so well and had trained together for so long that we effortlessly antic.i.p.ated one another's next move. Feeling relaxed, because I was not bothered about which one of us won, I attacked with a combination of punches that I antic.i.p.ated Clinton would avoid before I tried to catch him with a kick to the stomach. I punched with my front hand and pushing forward I followed it up with a gyakuzuki to his face before I launched my kick. But Clinton had not evaded my attack and my second punch caught him squarely on the jaw. On this occasion I was glad that I was not wearing hand pads as the muscles in my arm tightened the instant my knuckles touched his flesh and I managed to pull back the punch before it was delivered with full force. Clinton's head snapped back. It was as if his feet were cemented to the floor as his spine arched backwards. I heard 'Yame!' and stopped immediately. I looked to Clinton and saw that strange look in his eyes again. I did not know if he was asking me whether I really wanted the t.i.tle so badly that I would hurt my best friend, or if he was asking himself what was he doing there. I had seen him do this sort of thing before though never during a contest when his mind seemed to wander off to somewhere very far away with a disconcerting suddenness and I kept looking at him for some indication that he was aware of what was going on.

Tatsuo Suzuki's hand shot in my direction and indicated that I had been awarded a point, but at that moment I almost asked him to take it back; I did not want it. Clinton gave me a thin smile and his eyes looked clear again. He attacked me with a rapid kick, which jolted me back into fighting mode, and the rest of the bout was far more frenetic. To most of the onlookers it may have looked as though we were fighting in earnest, but the contest became something of a sparring session in which none of the techniques were thrown with any real venom. When the final bell rang I was the champion. Clinton congratulated me with an embrace, and although I knew it was a genuine expression of how he felt, at that moment I did not think there was a t.i.tle that meant less to me.

There was full attendance for the Sat.u.r.day morning fighting cla.s.s. Although the windows of the dojo were wide open, the gentle breeze did nothing to dissipate the cloying heat that was generated by our bodies. My gi was drenched with perspiration and the creases in the canvas chafed my skin as I performed my sixtieth front-kick. There would be a brief respite after another forty as we changed our stance to execute another hundred kicks with the other leg. After forty or so, the maegeris would lose their snap as our muscles would start to burn, then knot in excruciating pain; and by the eightieth kick the foot would become a like leaden weight on the end of a leg that felt light and powerless. Yet the count carried on remorselessly and despite all the voices in my head that told me to stop, I never did until I heard the instructor call "Yame."

Some weeks had pa.s.sed since my win at the Wado Ryu championships, and Clinton had still not resumed training. I had gone around to his house on several occasions to persuade him to come training with me and each time we would laugh and joke, but he always had an excuse about why he could not go to the dojo. There had been times when, as I was talking to him, he would leave me and abruptly retreat to a darkened room to watch TV. More worryingly, he was back to working on that old car of his.

"Yame, stop," Eddie c.o.x called, before he told us to form straight lines and prepare ourselves to practise kata. It was peculiar to include kata practise in a fighting cla.s.s, in fact it had never happened before, but I had the feeling that Eddie c.o.x wanted to maintain in our training an element of surprise to counterbalance the compet.i.tion practice. The inclusion of kata was also an a.s.sertion that he was still the chief instructor and that we should followed whatever rules he laid down. The other black belts were his juniors and it seemed as though he was letting us know who was in charge by having them go through the same gruelling exertions.

After a strenuous period of blocking and countering our imaginary opponents, Eddie c.o.x allowed us a short break. I sat on the floor with my back pressed against the cool concrete wall and dabbed the sweat from my eyes until they were drawn to a figure standing in the doorway. It was Clinton. He had a sports bag slung over his shoulder and he waved to me before disappearing into the changing room. I was glad to see him but then I became anxious as I wondered which Clinton had turned up at the dojo. I was worried that he may have arrived to take part in the training: a fit and well Clinton would have known that anyone appearing more than ten minutes late for a session would not be permitted to train.

My heart sank as he reappeared in his gi, bowing as he entered the hall. Seeing Eddie c.o.x, he momentarily stopped in his tracks and waited for a signal from him. The sensei had not seen Clinton before he had entered the changing room and he appeared to be momentarily unsure of what to do. Clinton took his sensei's hesitation as a sign that he should enter, and without needing further prompting, he skirted the hall to close to where I sat before taking up a kneeling position and bowing twice. He then got to his feet and waited for permission to join the cla.s.s.

Every eye in the dojo turned to Eddie c.o.x, whose expression had turned from mild bewilderment to one of embarra.s.sment. He walked over to Clinton and rested a hand on his shoulder and talked to him in a quiet voice. Clinton smiled and shook his hand in greeting. As more hushed words were exchanged, Clinton's smile vanished before he wandered back to the door. I tried to attract his attention but he did not see me.

On watching Clinton slink out of the dojo I felt a heaviness in my throat. For an instant, instinct nearly overcame discipline and I almost got to my feet to march over to the sensei and ask him what was going on. But reason overcame my raw emotion, and glancing around the room, I became aware that everyone else had been closely watching Clinton's dismissal. Some dropped their heads resignedly, and a few stared at me to observe my reaction until Eddie c.o.x shouted for us to line up once again.

As we performed another kata, I felt Clinton's eyes following me from the corner of the dojo where he stood perfectly still after changing back into his clothes. I willed the lesson to come to an end. I needed to speak to him, if only to offer a few words of comfort.

"Yame," cried the sensei. "Straighten your lines." He then ordered us to kneel. As we closed our eyes in meditation, to reflect on the training and what we had achieved, all I could think about was Clinton and his obviously hurt feelings.

"Moksu yame," said the sensei, and we opened our eyes before bowing twice to bring the lesson to a close. Back on my feet, I spun around, looking for Clinton. The sun was blazing through the windows and I was momentarily dazzled. It took a few seconds for my eyes to refocus and see that Clinton had slipped away.

In the changing room no one thought it appropriate to talk about Clinton. Instead the conversation was centred around a former member and another of my cousins who had been arrested for attempted armed robbery. It was only as the changing room filled with scornful laughter on hearing a description of his capture that I paid any attention to what was being said. The plan had been to hit a factory on payday as the wages were being delivered. My jaw tightened as someone chuckled and said that my cousin had decided to go ahead with the robbery even though a member of the gang had not turned up with the getaway vehicle and he had used his girlfriend's car instead.

I was back to being lost in grim thoughts about Clinton for a few minutes until I realized that the changing room had gradually emptied to leave only Eddie c.o.x and me. I asked him what had happened with Clinton. "I couldn't let him train," he said regretfully. "Not in his state."

"Come on, Eddie," I said, my voice rising, "he needs to get back into the flow of things. You know, do the things he was doing before."

"I know he's your cousin, Ralph, and you're only looking out for him. But it's medical help Clinton needs and not karate. And I can't take the risk of him, or of someone else, getting hurt."

As Eddie was talking to me, in my mind I saw the smile vanish from Clinton's face as he was told that he could not train and right then I felt as he had. "He was already changed," I retorted. "I mean, we were only doing kata. It wasn't like there was any risk of him getting hurt or somebody hurting him, now was there?"

"Like the time you nearly hurt him?" Eddie said testily. "Like the UKKW final when you nearly took off his head with that punch? There have been signs, Ralph, and like everybody else I've been hoping that things had turned around for the guy. But now there's too much of a risk. Do you think you could've caught Clinton with a punch like that if he was healthy?"

I tightened my lips and nodded. "Yeah, you're right, it's just ..."

"It's all right," he said sympathetically, "no need to explain. We're all just hoping that he pulls through." He slapped my shoulder, and as we began to walk to our cars Eddie tried to lighten my mood by making a joke about my relative who had been arrested because of his own idiocy. I could only shrug my shoulders, and Eddie got into his car. I did not care about the man who had brought problems on himself because of his criminal activities, it was Clinton's predicament that was on my mind as I watched Eddie drive away. I began to wonder if Clinton's present state was a cruel twist of nature, or if it was the environment in which he lived which had applied so much pressure that it had finally started to break his mind and spirit. And if Clinton's illness was due to where and how he lived, could it be that I might succ.u.mb to the same pressures at some point in the future?

Chapter Seventeen .

When the clouds of perplexity clear away, there is true nothingness.

Miyamoto Musashi The Book of the Void.

WAS IT ME, or was it the world that was changing so fast? I had gone from a youth preoccupied with karate to a family man, with all the accompanying responsibilities, in only a matter of months. The transition to adulthood in a short s.p.a.ce of time would have been difficult enough for me to cope with but it also seemed that the world around me had suddenly grown into a much less pleasant place.

Hundreds of workers had been made redundant at other factories in the area and the lack of certainty about what lay ahead for us sent ripples of discontent throughout my workplace. For the first time, I began to have concerns about whether or not I would have a job to go to in the near future. If I had only myself to look after, or if I were still living with my parents, the spectre of unemployment would have held no fear for me. But I no longer had the option of a solitary life, nor one of dependancy.

I had arrived at the factory's gates in time to find a handful of workers musing aloud amongst themselves on how they would form a picket line. As I walked through the gate, one of them was attempting to start a fire in an open oil drum and his colleagues were too distracted to even notice me. On reaching the maintenance department, my first inkling that things were not as I had been led to believe was the absence of Harold the tea-maker. For the first time in all my years at the factory, I made the tea, and had drunk three cups before it dawned on me that no other member of the crew was willing to cross the unofficial picket line.

The day before there had not been a dissenting voice when the maintenance department had agreed not to take action to support Dave the labourer. The management, who had been spoiling for a fight, thought they had picked on a soft target when they suspended the factory's resident gigolo after he had reported late for work three days in a row. However, the powers-that-be had not counted on Dave's abiding allure with the female employees in the a.s.sembly area, who immediately withdrew their labour. Meetings were hurriedly convened all over the factory. The workers in the tool room and the stamp shop agreed with my department in that they would not take part in any action that did not have official union sanction. Privately, more than one had said that they would not be stopping work for a 'toe-rag' like Dave the labourer.

I was relieved to see Mick Davies; he had been away on holiday and was unaware of the industrial strife. I filled him in on recent events over a cup of tea and I thought that he was having second thoughts about crossing the picket line. To prevent him leaving, I then mentioned another YMCA victory at a tournament the previous weekend, but his response was less than enthusiastic. He replied, "Well, you've done it all before, haven't you?" The conversation became increasingly strained and I was glad for the sound of the buzzer that signalled the beginning of the shift.

There had been a subtle change in my relationship with Mick since I had turned twenty-one. My birthday had held no special significance for me except that my apprenticeship had come to an end. As an apprentice, I had been viewed by those who inhabited the delicate ecosystem of the maintenance department as at the very bottom of the food-chain. Now, I had evolved into a fully-fledged tradesman adjustments were required if we were to preserve the delicate balance in the relationships that enabled us to work as a team. But a further threat of destabilisation within our department came in the form of Mr Pearson, a kindhearted man who was the personnel manager. Mr Pearson had always been on hand during my apprenticeship to offer encouragement and I had often wished that he could have been one of my teachers at school. Shortly after I became qualified, he had asked me to consider carrying on with my studies and said that he would arrange for me to have the necessary time off to take the Higher National Certificate course in production engineering. He added that when I pa.s.sed I could then be inducted into the heady heights of lower management. Naively, I had mentioned Mr Pearson's offer to the rest of the maintenance crew while we were seated at the long table and my 'good' news had been met with stony silence. My decision to take the opportunity to become better qualified had made my relationship with Mick difficult; there was a clear demarcation at the factory between workers and management, and the mere fact that I had expressed an interest in getting promoted had made me a potential 'enemy'.

I was in the stamp shop trying to figure out what was wrong with a machine when the head engineer approached me. "Ralph, there's no need to worry," he said, "but your mother just rang." In that split second my mind was filled with worry as my mother had never before telephoned the factory. I antic.i.p.ated terrible news about a family member having an accident or that something even worse had happened. He continued, "She said there was no need to panic but she asked if you would call into her on your way home."

"Did she say what's it about?" I asked.

"Er, no. She just said there was nothing to panic about."

"She's never rung me at work before."

"Look," he said, scanning the near-empty stamp shop, "with all this stuff going on at the gate perhaps it would be better if you clocked out early."

"I don't understand it," I replied. "Everyone agreed to come in and work unless there was proper union backing for a strike."

He smiled at my naivete. "You still have a bit to learn about human nature and factory politics, Ralph. Once you've got this job finished go and see your mom."

It was as I strode through the crowd at the gateway that my eyes met those of Dave the labourer. They shone with resentment. The boos and jeering increased in volume. "Scab! Scab! Scab!" spat some of the men, who relished the chance to pay me back for my "Malvinas" chant. I could imagine how they must have talked as they saw me walk from the factory. "Just shows you, don't it? The Argie-lover has no loyalty to anyone or anything around here."

"n.i.g.g.e.r!" snarled Dave the labourer, the supposed cause of all this trouble.

His words cut through the cacophony like a sharp knife. His lips were still quivering as I stopped and stared at him. He rolled his shoulders and ran his fingers through his oily hair as he looked left and right to the men beside him. I stepped towards Dave and the men around him fell silent and moved away. In that instant he knew that he was on his own and that he had to make a quick decision: was it going to be fight or flight? He could tell by the look on my face what my intentions were and as I closed in on him he abruptly turned and ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.

On my way to my parents' home I had persuaded myself that perhaps it was good news that my mother had for me and maybe my dad had won the pools or a premium bond number had come up. But it was obvious to me that there had been no big money win as I opened the door; the atmosphere was too subdued for there to be good tidings. My mom, who had always worked so hard as a hospital orderly in a psychiatric ward, was asleep in an armchair in front of the television. She had not heard me come in and I spent a moment or two studying her. Her head lolled to one side and my heart skipped a beat until I heard her gently snoring. The sight of her made me so thankful for all her daily sacrifices but it did also make me wonder if I were capable of doing anything similar for my own child. She would wake in a few minutes, and I thought it best to put on the kettle rather than disturb her. Mom stirred as the water boiled. "Hi, Mom," I called out.

"When did you come in?" she asked.

"Just a few minutes ago, while you were nodding off."

"Make a pot of tea, please, son. I'm parched."

"Way ahead of you," I said, as I brought the pot and cups in to her.

She put a cup to her mouth with two hands and rolled her lips after a first sip. "Ah, a nice cup of tea," she sighed, "just what I needed."

I was too anxious to know about why she had telephoned me at work to take a drink. "Mom," I said, "why did you ring the factory?"

Her eyes immediately became sombre and her lips compressed momentarily. "Clinton," she said sadly, "he was ..."

"Yeah, he was?" I interrupted.

"... he was brought into hospital again yesterday."

"Back to Accident and Emergency?"

"No," she said gravely, "he's in the psychiatric ward. He was examined and diagnosed as having schizophrenia."

"I knew it!" I blurted out, sad and yet relieved that a doctor had finally confirmed my suspicions about Clinton's mental health and that he was now in a place where he could receive treatment. I had visited him during the previous week to find him back underneath his old car. Although it was cold and dark, I felt that I had to get down and join him and see just what he was doing. With the aid of a lamp, Clinton explained the difficulty he was having in fitting the gearbox. It only took me seconds to see that the gearbox was for another type of vehicle and I told him so. He dragged himself from under the car and marched into his house. Sensing he would be out again, I waited next to the car and it was not long before he reappeared carrying a bag. I could tell that he was planning to do something that could have had dire consequences. He went past me without a glance and I sped after him, demanding for him to tell me where he was going and what was in the bag. When there was no response we ended up wrestling with one another on the pavement. He had been heading for Leslie's house with a machete in the bag. After calming Clinton and guiding him back to his house, I went to find out why Leslie had sold Clinton a gearbox that could not possibly fit his car. Leslie explained that he and Errol had told Clinton that there was no way he could use that gearbox but he had insisted that they sell it to him. Leslie was dismissive when I told him about the machete but I knew I had saved someone from getting seriously hurt or worse that night.

My mother's news that Clinton had been diagnosed with schizophrenia prompted me to ask about the nature of the illness. "Schizophrenia," I said, "isn't that split-personality and someone going totally insane?"

"Don't be silly," Mom replied. "You'd be surprised at the amount of people walking the streets with mild cases of schizophrenia. Clinton will be all right once he's receiving the proper treatment, it's when this illness goes untreated that things can turn very bad."

"Bad for who?"

Mom raised a reproachful eyebrow. "The person with the illness, of course."

I drank my tea to give myself time to think of a question that was not as stupid as my first two. "How is he now?" I asked.

"A bit drowsy and confused because of the drugs he's on. But he was asking for you."

"I'll try and see him in the next few days," I said. I brought the cup back to my lips to try and hide my embarra.s.sment as I realized that I was already making excuses about not finding the time to visit him. The hospital was in walking distance from where I lived. "Anyway," I added, to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled between us, "at least he'll get the treatment he needs. When did you find out about him?"

"His mother rang me last night and I went into see him today. It was so sad to see so many young men in there." Her voice began to waver and she shook her head as a tear threatened. "I had a talk with his mom and she reckons that Clinton's troubles started with karate she says that someone told her that he was once knocked out. Do you know anything about that?"

While it did not happen at every session, someone getting rendered unconscious was not that unusual at the karate club. A few professional boxers had trained with us from time to time and muttered their doubts about our sanity after viewing the amount of punishment that we sometimes dished out to one another. I, along with several others, had been kayoed but had not suffered any lasting repercussions. "No, I don't recall Clinton ever getting knocked out," I replied and almost immediately I thought about the punch I had landed on him during the Wado Ryu national championships. "We control the punches, you know, Mom, so people don't get hurt."

"Ralph!" she snapped back, "don't take me for a fool. I haven't forgotten all those times you came home with a swollen face, or that time I found blood in the toilet. Do you really think that all those kicks and punches haven't affected you?"

"Mom, it's not karate that had made Clinton ill!"

Mom snorted sceptically. "Your father and I have been talking. We think you should consider giving up karate and think of Hilda and little Nadine a bit more."

I bit my lip in frustration: I had intended to ask my father for a loan towards a deposit on a house, but there was no way I could approach him now, as I could easily guess the one condition he would attach to lending me the money. "Look, Mom, karate didn't turn Clinton this way," I insisted. "He's always been a bit eccentric, even as a kid he'd do some strange things. I'm telling you, Mom, karate didn't make Clinton the way he is."

Mom fixed me with a stare and said, "And I remember you telling your sister that karate is a test of the mind as well as the body. It's easy to see the damage when the body fails the test, but what happens to the mind, can you tell me that?"

Chapter Eighteen .

If your opponent thinks of mountains, attack like the sea; if he thinks of the sea, attack like mountains. Miyamoto Musashi The Fire Book.

BY THE SPRING of 1983 I was getting used to the radical changes in my training regime. I had finally faced up to the likelihood that Clinton would not be putting on a karate gi for a considerable time. But, if anything, my sessions at the dojo had increased in intensity as I fully immersed myself in the training. I once heard an older karateka say that it was not only his physical decline that had affected his performance in the dojo but also his waning powers of concentration as he became less able to block from his mind the problems he had in the world outside. However, once I entered the dojo I became a karateka and nothing else. For a brief time I was no longer a father; an employee; I was no longer somebody's friend. But when the sessions ended I was confronted by the hard facts that I was still living in that high-rise flat with my family; I was working at a place that I found increasingly hard to bear; and I was letting down my closest friend.

Since his discharge from the hospital, I had not visited or telephoned Clinton's home. It was not that I did not care; perhaps it was because I cared too much. I had managed to visit him once while he was in the psychiatric ward Hilda had accompanied me and brought him a trifle to eat. Clinton had been so overcome by this little act of kindness that he wept openly. I thought then that I had never witnessed a sadder sight.

His mother's theory that Clinton's schizophrenia had been brought about by a knockout blow while training was one that did not stand up to serious scrutiny, yet it lingered in my mind for a time. The punch I had landed on his jaw during the Wado Ryu championships was one I replayed over and over in my mind until I angrily reminded myself that not only was the punch controlled and had not rendered him unconscious but also that Clinton had shown signs of having a mental illness a considerable time before that bout. What remained with me longer were the questions I asked myself about my unwillingness to visit him. I hated to admit it but I stayed away from my cousin because of a raw and base emotion called fear.

Karate training may have helped me to overcome fear of physical pain or confrontation, but it did nothing for the emotional anxiety I felt when I thought of Clinton's plight. We had known each other for nearly twenty years; almost all of our lives. We were tied by blood, we had grown as friends and in our camaraderie we could antic.i.p.ate each other's words and thoughts; in a way, we shared rather than antic.i.p.ated. It was not as though I merely knew his moods by the way he moved or by a small facial expression, I felt them. During the times when I saw him abruptly withdraw from the world there had been a reaction inside me but I had pretended to myself that I was confused about what I felt. But in truth, every time I had witnessed such an episode I felt scared that a constant and predictable person in my life had been turned into a stranger who merely resembled him. The longer I stayed away from Clinton the more I felt that I had let him down. I knew that I would have to go and see him, it was just that I did not know when.

As reigning British champions, the YMCA karate club had been invited by the local council to put on a demonstration at a fair that was held annually in the town's largest park. Neither Eddie c.o.x nor any of the black belts were keen as the English national all-styles championships were approaching and the training at the dojo had reached new levels of intensity. It was decided, therefore, to have the junior under-15 cla.s.s put on a short exhibition of what a Wado Ryu cla.s.s entailed as Eddie c.o.x supervised them.

The day did not start off as planned. Most of the YMCA's senior members had turned up to show support and had wandered into the marquee that housed an old style boxing booth. But rather than inviting the onlookers to do a few rounds with a boxer, the members of the audience were challenged to put on the gloves and fight with one another. Unaware that members of the YMCA karate club had just entered the tent, and egged on by other members of his gang, a large white man had ducked in between the ropes and launched a tirade of racial abuse at a young black boy, who was barely half his size, and dared him to come and fight. The insults became too much for Eddie c.o.x, who jumped into the ring and reluctantly put on the gloves. The fight did not last long: the Marquis of Queensberry rules meant nothing to Eddie who struck the man behind his ear with the edge of his hand and followed up the blow with a knee to the solar plexus. Pandemonium threatened to break out as the rest of the man's gang prepared to rush the ring until they realized that Eddie c.o.x was far from being alone.

An hour later, I was wandering over to where the demonstration was being held when I met up with Chester Morrison who told me that he had just seen Clinton. "He was asking for you," he said.

My feet felt increasingly hot and heavy as I searched the fairground. I became oblivious to the heaving throng, the blaring music and the smell of diesel: I had set my mind on finding Clinton and nothing was going to distract me. An ache appeared in my chest after I had paced around the fair three times and had caught no sight of him. Now I felt the weight of the people pressing in on me, I heard the deafening cacophony, I smelt the foul odours. Deflated, I thought about heading for the tennis courts to watch the demonstration, unsure if I really should have been disappointed about not finding Clinton, when a pair of strong arms reached around from behind and grabbed me in a bear hug. I had been too lost in my thoughts to instantly work out what was happening and I was further confused by the pair of wet lips and the accompanying sensation of p.r.i.c.kly stubble against my cheek. My feet left the ground and for a moment the air was being squeezed out of me. "Put me down!" I gasped.

When my feet touched the ground again and the arms around me fell away, Clinton said, "Sorry, Ralph, I didn't mean to wind you."

I was so shocked by his appearance that all the excuses I had rehea.r.s.ed about why I had not visited him vanished in an instant. His hair was neatly combed and his clothes were clean and pressed but his face was very bloated, and those eyes that were once so fiery and vibrant were now dull and exuded little more than a lethargic delight that we were together once more. He stepped forward and hugged me again. There were no questions from him about where I had been in his time of need and my guilt began to feel like a physical weight inside of me.

Awkwardly, I returned his embrace. "How are you keeping?"

"Where's Hilda and the baby?" he replied, ignoring my question.

"Over by the pond. They'll be watching the demonstration in a minute, are you coming?"

"Yeah, man, let's go," he said. "I've really missed you guys."