Memoirs of a Karate Fighter (9 page)

The lift doors slid open. “But you shouldn't be free to stir up hatred with lies,” I said.

“Yes, yes, I agree,” said Mr Kovac, as he moved stiffly beside me, “I've seen it all before in my country with the Jews. They felt they could not assimilate with other people because they were hated by a few, but their religious beliefs kept them separate too. This kind of separation feeds on itself, it feeds suspicion and gives one group a reason to hate the other and stay apart. And so many of them fail to recognize that we share the same humanity until it is too late.”

We walked in silence for the rest of the short journey to the shop. We had our newspapers and were making our way back to the flats as I continued to try and work out if I agreed with – or even properly understood – what Mr Kovac had said. The lights of a pelican crossing changed for us and a car pulled up; I was still figuring out how I should reply to him while we were crossing the road, and did I not pay much attention to it. A blast of ‘Land of Hope and Glory' from two large speaker horns on the car's roof startled me and turned my head. A call of: “ENGLAND FOR THE ENGLISH – REPATRIATE NOW!” accompanied the
music.

I stopped in the road and glared at the man in the passenger seat who held the microphone handset. At first he smirked, but it soon gave way to a grimace. Staring at him, I experienced a similar hatred to the one I had previously felt for the skinhead leaving the lift. But now there were no boxes in my hand to prevent me from acting. I turned and spat onto the car's bonnet. The two men in the car made nervous smiles as I trembled with anger. I made to rush to the car's door, to rip it open but a strong hand grabbed me by the shoulder and dragged me back.

The car sped off and my elderly neighbour asked, “Are you a special kind of stupid? Can you not see they are taunting you, to get you to react … I've seen it all before with the Nazis.… Nothing changes.”

We reached the other side of the road as the car continued to spew its venomous message, and I was not sure if I should have felt glad that Mr Kovac had intervened to stop the situation from escalating. As if he were reading my thoughts, he said, “Don't let them upset you. You were right to move away. You could not have won. Maybe you could punch them around but the courts would make sure you lost.”
Passers-by
, who had witnessed the incident, were staring at me before hurrying on as if to avoid the gaze of a mad man. “They have to be fought in other ways,” continued Mr Kovac. “They are out because there is an election; if you really want to stop them then make sure you vote for one of the parties who oppose them.” I did not have to say it, my neighbour could tell by my expression that I had not even registered to vote. He rested a hand on my shoulder and said, “But you are still young, Ralph, and one day you will find out that not even your karate will allow you to win every fight.”

It would be some time before I would learn how right Mr Kovac had been during that Sunday morning walk.

MY FIRST FORAY to a foreign land was to Scotland, and as we set off that morning I really did not know what to expect. The journey Clinton, Leslie and I made by train was so long and tedious that it felt as though we were travelling halfway across the globe – and several time zones – to a location that should have been a lot more exotic than Glasgow, given all our efforts to get there. Leslie could not keep still and spent most of the time walking from carriage to carriage, but Clinton was a lot more laidback, spending the hours peering out at the flickering countryside. As time went by he became less responsive, and for a long while I watched how he impassively stared out of the window, as if he were completely oblivious to my presence. I wondered what was on his mind, for although I had known him most of his life he had never been easy to read. He could do some strange things and pissing through a fence at a group of men who were armed with clubs, as he had done when we were kids, was by no means the most peculiar. But more recently he had withdrawn not only from me, but other family members and friends, especially Leslie. At least I could always get some response from him, with a bit of effort, but there were times when he would completely ignore everyone else around him. I was about to raise the question that had been preying on my mind for some time when Leslie entered the compartment and asked if we
were going to get something to eat. I was hungry and got to my feet immediately, but Clinton did not respond until I touched his shoulder and asked if he were coming with us. His head turned slowly and then jerked back as if he were surprised to see me. “Coming for some food, Clint?” I asked him. He smiled weakly and muttered that he was not hungry. Leslie grumpily told me to leave him to starve. He had always been low on empathy.

On finally reaching Glasgow we caught a taxi to the hotel that had been mentioned in our letters. As the driver chatted incessantly, in an accent that none of us understood, the three of us took in the sights. They did not leave us greatly impressed, as the grey and overcast sky made the surroundings appear grim and forbidding. Once at the hotel, we were allocated rooms and given a sheaf of papers that included a timetable, directions to the stadium and a list of prohibited activities. One which stuck in my mind was the rule against leaving the hotel after 5pm; but the list of restrictions only served to remind me that this was no holiday excursion.

Once we had deposited our bags in our rooms we went downstairs where the Scottish karate officials gave us a welcome that contrasted with the cold and drab afternoon. We had headed north thinking of ourselves as representing the YMCA, but as the evening wore on, it was obvious that our hosts saw us as part of the people they referred to as the ‘Auld Enemy'. I had been sent an England badge that was to be sewn onto the jacket of my karate
gi
with the letter confirming my selection, but even though I had thrown mine into the rubbish bin, I was still identified as a member of an ‘invading force' that the Scots told us they would take great pleasure in repelling. As a few more drinks were downed by our hosts, it became plain to me that all the talk about our being ‘part of the enemy' was not all light-hearted banter: there was real venom behind the words. I was feeling the first stirrings of a minor identity crisis: while I had been born in England, I had never considered myself, nor ever felt I was regarded, as English. Neither Clinton nor Leslie seemed to be troubled in the same way; to them our selection for the England under-21 team was simply an opportunity to enhance our competition skills and to compete at European junior championships. They were confident that the Scots would not be much opposition – but I was not so
sure.

Scotland, given its small population, had always been disproportionately successful at karate. Jerome Atkinson had often talked with great respect about his Scottish team-mates in the British squad, such as the world champions Jim Collins and Pat McKay. While he had beaten Hamish Adam (who had been a member of the team that had won the world championships in 1975) to win his first European Wado Ryu title, Jerome had often mentioned how hard a fight the much smaller Scotsman had given him. I had also overheard Jerome sing the praises of a fighter named Davy Coulter, and Declan Byrne recount how the
five-foot
-eight Scot had downed a German opponent, who was at least a foot taller, with one of the best techniques he had ever seen performed on a competition mat.

The following day, as we headed off to the competition venue, I stepped out of the hotel and a very large pigeon dropping splashed onto my head. It proved to be a source of great amusement for Clinton and Leslie all the way to the stadium, but I just hoped that it was not a bad omen.

Before a competition, it was standard procedure to report to a doctor for a very basic medical to make sure that we were fit enough to fight. My heart rate was deemed to be very slow, but that was not out of the ordinary for someone so fit. Leslie also passed with flying colours, but there was a problem with Clinton. Shortly after his blood pressure was checked, he began to complain of pains in his chest and lay down on the floor. The doctor examined him but could not find anything wrong. However, after a brief consultation with the competition's officials, Clinton was told that he would not be allowed to fight and that he should get a thorough medical checkup once he was back home.

The news that Clinton was not competing unsettled me. Leslie dismissed the episode as a matter of Clinton losing his nerve, but I knew that could not be the case. Physically, at least, Clinton was about as fearless as any person I had ever met, to the point when he had at times displayed a reckless disregard for his own safety. Like the rest of his family, he had that certain ‘something' that made him a natural fighter. He was still on my mind as I prepared for my first fight.

Roared on by a partisan crowd, the Scottish competitors lined up at the edge of the mat. As the
subsequent bouts would prove, point-scoring was only a secondary consideration for them, the main objective was to dish out as much punishment to the ‘Sassenachs' as the rules would allow.

Although it was not without its uncomfortable moments, I revelled in the hostile atmosphere the spectators had created and managed to win all my bouts. But the same could not be said for all of my team-mates, and I left the stadium with the rare feeling of being part of a losing side. I was also a little bruised. My first taste of international competition had been a painful reminder of how much more training I needed to prepare for the European championships.

In the three weeks following our trip to Scotland, Clinton did not visit his doctor to find out the cause of his chest pains. Before he had left for home an official had told him that if he were to compete at the European under-21 championships he would first have to produce a medical report giving him the all-clear. Something about my cousin had changed. Physically he seemed fine again, and I started to think that perhaps Leslie had been right and Clinton had simply let the occasion get to him and he had temporarily lost his nerve. That he had not bothered with seeing his doctor might have been due to an awareness on his part that there was nothing physically wrong. Certainly, there was nothing to prevent him from returning to work obsessively on his car. The old banger still remained outside his house, and despite not getting it to move an inch he was spending what little savings he had on it. I was worried – mostly that he no longer shared my ambition to succeed in the competition arena and that the car was distracting him from getting back to our harsh training routine, much like how our cousin Errol had never returned to the
dojo
once he had discovered girls and cars. Takamizawa once said that if you are finding karate easy, then you are not doing karate. Karate training is hard, unnaturally hard, and it becomes a constant battle in which the mind has to overcome the body's inclination to take the path of least resistance – the method which involves less pain and effort. Many of the
karateka
I knew who had finished completely with training did so after an injury, or after a summer holiday, when a week or two without training turned into a month, and despite
promises to do otherwise, every passing day made returning to the rigours of the
dojo
that bit more difficult, until it finally became impossible to return. Clinton had been told to rest for a couple of weeks, which had already turned into three, and I was determined that he would be back training before it became a month.

Karate is far from being the only activity in which one has to overcome the instinct to avoid pain; for example, long distance runners have to confront their bodies' aversion to being tested to the limits over many miles in all sorts of weather and conditions. I thought it no coincidence that the greatest karate competitor I knew, Jerome Atkinson, had also run a number of marathons. Karate and marathon running have a lot in common as it is as much about the condition of the mind as it is of the body, and I thought the best way to get Clinton training again was to get him to run with me.

He had spoken no more than a few words since we began running from his house. He was such a good athlete that if he wanted, he could talk effortlessly while running, but as we headed through the prosperous suburbs his grim silence again turned my mind to what was going on inside his head. Perhaps his quietness was of an easy, companionable sort, or perhaps it was an indication of his determination to succeed. Or maybe it meant something more serious: I had a suspicion about what was wrong with Clinton but it was so awful that I spent a lot of my time convincing myself that I was wrong, particularly when the cousin I knew reappeared. However, the Clinton I had known since we were both small kids seemed to appear less and less frequently. As I had done during our train journey to Scotland, I wanted to ask him about his state of mind, but I did not know how to broach the subject without offending him. The incident in Glasgow continued to concern me, but every time I wavered, my doubts and fears were pushed back further into a recess in my mind, which made them much harder to voice.

Clinton began to accelerate, and made it clear that my overall physical fitness needed to be taken to a higher level. It was the one weak link in my preparation. Weight training had left me stronger than I had ever been and I had learnt during the fights with the Scottish competitors that if I wanted to succeed at an international level, it was necessary to
concentrate on improving my techniques by way of even more hours of constant repetition. Running the six-mile course was the first step in a programme I had devised to increase my stamina.

My pace quickened to match Clinton's. He responded in kind. Now our arms and legs were pumping furiously and for a few fleeting seconds we were rapt in the exuberance of our own physicality – until I suddenly realized that the gate that kept the beast of number 52 at bay had been left open. Our feet thundered on the concrete; we were going too fast to stop. Every time we had run past number 52 the German Shepard had attacked the gate while barking viciously. Someone at the
dojo
knew of a white man who had trained his dog to attack only black people, but it was not until the day a blonde, pear-shaped woman in a primrose jog suit had ambled on ahead of us without drawing so much as a yap that it occurred to me that the brute did reserve its performance for black passers-by. Or maybe it simply smelled my fear. Before I had time to come to a conclusion, it was upon us. Finding a speed I never knew I possessed, I left Clinton behind; but the German Shepard chose to stay on my heels. I was across the road and without a second's hesitation, or looking for the traffic, I scrambled onto the bonnet of a parked car. As the gnashing teeth closed in, I climbed onto its roof.

Seeking easier prey, the dog turned its attention to Clinton. But he was putting what I later described as my ‘diversionary tactic' to good use by ripping a wooden fencing pole from a front garden. Instead of running away, Clinton screamed while he raced towards our four-legged tormentor with the piece of wood raised above his head. The large mutt seemed momentarily unsure of what to make of the approaching phenomenon and then turned tail as the pole made contact with its backside. With a mixture of relief and annoyance, I screamed curses at the dog and its owners as it fled back to the sanctuary of its own yard. Dropping the fencing pole, and without a second glance at me perched on top of the car, Clinton continued with his run.

Before the dog had a chance to rediscover its courage, or the owner of the car caught sight of me and the damage I had caused, I scampered off the deeply dented roof and sprinted to catch up with Clinton. It took some distance before I reached him and as I drew level he stopped suddenly.

“What's up, Clint?” I asked, as he folded and gripped his knees. His whole body was shaking, and I immediately thought he was having some sort of seizure. It was only as he straightened that I realized that it was laughter that had sent him into convulsions.

Gasping for air, he said, “Do you remember when Leslie fought that one-legged man?”

It was an incident at a tournament in the north of England that all those who had watched it could hardly forget. Leslie had been drawn against a young man who had an artificial leg, and the referee had approached Leslie before the contest to ask if he would make it more of an exhibition bout as the youth had entered the competition as more of a gesture about overcoming a disability rather than with any real notion of winning. Leslie nodded, but when the bout began he made it into an exhibition of his ruthlessness. Within seconds he had swept the artificial leg from beneath the youth and followed up with a punch as his opponent lay spreadeagled on the mat. He did this not once but twice, to the horror of his instructor, his team-mates and the spectators, and he was duly awarded the fight. When I later asked him why he had been so cruelly efficient he replied, “He wanted to be treated just like any other person, didn't he? So, I treated the guy like everyone else. And besides, I wasn't going to take any chance of losing to no one-foot boy because I took it easy.”