Part 7 (1/2)

As alked to the tennis courts, he linked arms with me I immediately felt embarrassed by his actions and then by my own reaction as I instinctively pulled away fro: I had been conditioned to think thataffection for one another, but also it was so Clinton had never done before and his loss of inhibition was unsettling

A round of applause followed the chorus of kiais and served to let us know that the demonstration had already started I looked around but could not see any sign of Hilda and Nadine, so I sat down next to Clinton at the end of a row of red plastic chairs As the youngsters perfor techniques, he said loudly, ”Do you remember when they were us? The handso head, that's you The little cheeky one that looks like a rat, that's Leslie”

Eddie cox looked over to where all the noise was corimace before he called a halt to the pair-work and ordered the young students to perforle technique and Clinton threw back his head and roared with laughter, so loudly that several of the youngsters missed the sensei's count and lost their place within the sequence of moves Noas embarrassed for Clinton and worried that he was about to make a spectacle of himself ”Hey, Clint,” I murmured into his ear, ”how about if we head back to the fair?”

”Oh, okay But what about Hilda and the baby?”

”We'll see the hily slow and so while re how confident his stride had been ere teenagers The changes I saw in hi I had feared o on”

It took aabout ”The Gravity Wheel? Oh no, Clint, you can't go on that”

”Why not?”

I wanted to say that I had seen plenty of people stagger fro very nauseous and that they were not on potent medication like he was ”Well,” I ems, eh?”

”Nah! You think I'm scared of that? I'll show you,” he said forcefully

”Don't be crazy,” I groaned, and i hold and grappling with hi I wanted was a physical confrontation with Clinton He tottered off and all I could do ave as he beae The diesel engine at its centre belched out a cloud of black san to turn His s the first couple of revolutions but as the cage picked up in speed his face became indistinct to me The screams started as the metal supports fell froal force that kept the Gravity Wheel's occupants fro Around and around it went and all I could do was join in with those spinning around in wishi+ng it would quickly coine coughed a final coluan to decelerate and the occupants stopped screa

I watched fretfully as they clas and I ood He was impassive at first and then his shoulders jerked before he folded, and the first of the vo but irl on her back Those ere close by stumbled and pushed others in their anxiety to evade the projectile voirl turned and screamed, ”You dirty bastard!” By this ti For a few seconds the people who encircled hiht at their feet as he continued convulsing Then, as he stopped heaving, a few of thest the as I took Clinton by the shoulders and lifted hihed, ”you're covered in sick, et out of those clothes”

”I' anywhere until I see Hilda and the baby”

”We'll coed You don't want them to see you like this, do you?”

He dropped his chin and looked to the vo from his front ”No,” he said quietly, ”no I don't”

We drove to his house in silence The putrid smell in the heat al up on several occasions His ht of what had happened as Clinton went to his room but I could tell that she was deeply upset I told her that I had to get hoe out of my clothes and that I would then come back for Clinton She smiled appreciatively but I think we both knew that I did not have it inmonths I continued to call on Clinton before I reported to Arches I nearly always found in hi blankly at a television More often than not he would tell ht to find anotherextra money Just like ere kids, Clinton always see closing tih o downstairs with the others and persuade the patrons to leave I was not in a good htclub's entrance and wondered when the glooood start After chasing around the flat for a clean shi+rt, while Hilda looked on in her usual silent disapproving way, er brother Vernon had told irl” I knew the woht that she could be very bad news for Clinton She was not an unattractive woman but her features were a little too sharp and her eyes were a little too cold for my taste In the one and only time I had met her, she had struck me as just the sort of woman Clinton did not need in his present state, and I had tried to tell him so in a very subtle way Obviously, I had either been too subtle or si withoverprotective aboutClinton had h brothers to act as his keeper

My loo at the nightclub His reason for leaving made me feel that I should reappraise some of my own attitudes

”Why now?” I asked hi this until the business with the Italian croas sorted I's and I'd prefer to be hoht and dealing with a place I wouldn't piss on if it was burning I'aot e in Declan; for a start he no longer pounded his fists against aon TV' But I s to prove would describe themselves in that way Arches was a venue where there was lots of trouble and it did radually becoressive This did not sit ith Declan's personality, or personal morality He was an affable man but affability can be construed as a weakness byfor trouble, which then led to the trouble forcibly corrected While Ewart irl, by the look on his face everyone entering a club where he orking knew exactly as going to happen if trouble broke out And perhaps Declan's use of the word 'soft' was not misplaced In both Chinese and japanese o) cannot exist without the soft (ju), and that a karateka has to attain and understand both elehter In Wado Ryu ere taught that the muscles had to be soft, or relaxed, and only tense at theto hit hard and sometimes Declan had hit people very hard indeed Violence did not particularly trouble him, but the context in which it took place did I kneas bothered about an incident which had taken place a feeeks before and that it continued to prey on his mind He had just forcibly ejected a ht when a tall man came off the street with two others behind him and tried to force his way in Declan had struck him in such a way that if he had not pulled the blow at the last split-second there could have been dire repercussions As it was, the ht the ement about the disproportionate use of force To ized profusely and subsequently allowed the ht him a drink in an atte out the biker only seconds before had clouded his judge in slow-ht: hit this bloke and you're doing serious ti your beautiful baby for a very long while And for what? To stop these piss-heads getting even ive a damn if these fellas knock the hell out of one another, or whatever else they want to do So why should I turn up here to be offended instead of staying at ho my feet up?”

What Declan had said tothe doors I was convinced it was a griain when he nudgedthe customers out

Once the club was cleared, Don Hamilton came over to ht at another nightclub across town involving an old acquaintance of ours Tony was a brutal young e and I could not find it within me to have any sy after it had been struck with a sters as ed for us to have a bare-knuckle fight after school They had ebets on the outcohts, and therebymoney for them, and I was too afraid to refuse when they told est boy I had ever fought He was stocky and at fourteen he had the corded forearrown man We had battered one another to a standstill and ht was declared a draw It was no surprise toreputation for violence He was a , except for his collection of cars

”So, as the fight over?” I asked Don

”What do you think?” Don snorted, ”a woht thinking about what Declan had said about wanting to spend more time with his family and Don's report of another senseless act of violence in the town I thought about Tony lying in a hospital at the age of twenty-tith only one leg At one point in our lives we had been very similar in our attitudes to violence and perhaps it was the discipline of karate that had saved me from a similar fate Not for the first ti home in one piece to my family and that was all that mattered

Chapter Nineteen

The spirit of the warrior becomes like water Water adopts the same shape as its container; so sea

Miyamoto Musashi+ The Ground Book

THE WAVES OF disruption that had come about in Wado Ryu karate as a result of the death of Hironori Ohtsuka had taken a little more than a year to ripple from japan and lap at the door of the YMCA dojo Ru split ast the japanese instructors of the UKKW and that so to withdraw their support for Tatsuo Suzuki in favour of Jiro Ohtsuka, as now being feted as the forehtful successor to his father

Declan Byrne had been quick to pass judgement on the whole, rather tawdry affair, and was sceptical that Jiro Ohtsuka had been elevated above Tatsuo Suzuki purely by his abilities as a karateka Declan recounted the time that Jiro had made headlines in the British press after a demonstration of sword defence with his father at the 1975 UKKW championshi+ps The razor-sharp blade of the sahty-three-year-old master but while he had stoically carried on with the demonstration and had shown no distress in its afterht of the wound and had ended up being taken to a hospital in the same ambulance as his father No one who had ever trained with Tatsuo Suzuki could ever iht of blood

A nuet involved with thethe British section of Wado Ryu and it was decided that the YMCA should leave the UKKW and set up a small but independent association of karate clubs It may have made sense at the time but it was a move that was to be replicatedthe 1980s and would do -term success in international karate contests

The first sign of the downside of such a lish all-styles chaainst the UKKW tealy, but we lost in the final: the Wado Ryu association teaer existed and its place were two teaood in their constituent parts as they had been as a whole

I had colish championshi+ps and as it was my first senior national competition I was quite pleased, for once, to return home with a silver medal There was talk of an invitation for me to train with the senior British squad, which had won the world championshi+ps in Taiwan the previous year, if I did nearly as well at the British all-styles chaainst the best in the world but I was still unsure if I had the ambition to coht that the three best heavyweights in international karate were based in England and to win a do would be a world-class achieve British chaerly anticipating the heavyweight final as it surely had to involve two out of those top three competitors, but the world champion Jeoff Thompson had injured his back and was unable to compete With Jerome Atkinson and Vic Charles at opposite ends of the draw, it looked as though they would meet in the final I was in Jerome's section and was scheduled to meet him in the quarter-final, until disaster struck when Jero one of the preliued hinificant factor in his decision to retire fro the world cha year However, there was a silver lining in Jerome's injury for me, as now that he was out of the competition, I had a far easier path to the se for the winner of hter who h he would not win his world title until after Jerome had retired, Jeroside, Vic was the greatest karate cohtly different to being the greatest fighter, but according to the rules laid down by the world governing body and despite other British co a world title both before and after him Jerome considered that Vic Charles was the epitoh, resilient and could execute every technique ih I never had a conversation with Vic Charles, I have a feeling that he would return Jerohters who had started their competitive careers in the 1970s both men were aware of each other's talents and the sacrifices that were necessary to becoht champion

My opponent in the seland badge The bout was just hoanted it: fast and furious We had slugged it out quite ferociously until the bout ended as a draw A 'sudden death' extension was announced: the next to score would be the winner I was confident, as I had figured out ht I would have won the bout if I'd had just a little more time He came at me with a fast combination which finished with a kick to ht with Trog in the dojo, I had avoided his punches and stepped inside the kick to deliver the winning score right on the point of his chin I was in the final, or so I thought for the split-second beforehis face Such was the quality of his play-acting that I was promptly disqualified He miraculously recovered but was soundly beaten in the final and I never again got the chance to fight Vic Charles