My mum has been visiting me in Malta and I have loved our long walks and chats. It is such a blessing having her here and at almost 85 she has indomitable energy. I have enjoyed her company immensely, except for her wiping the floor with me in the game, Rumicube. If you haven't played this game, do yourself a favour and your family, buy one now. She particularly enjoys beating my husband, at this game, as he hates to lose and is always ridiculously upset when she has a victory. His rage brings a smile of sheer contentment to her face.
On one of our long walks, we were late getting back to the flat. It was getting dark and the road home was blocked with a crane and trucks so we took a narrow dark back alley instead. It was only when we were halfway up I became aware of the darkness, lack of lights and total isolation of the lane. Suddenly, out of the darkness, an African man appeared. He approached us in an oddly agitated manner.
I have to explain here that I did many years of karate at university in my youth and this created an illusion for my mother that I was invincible in hand-to-hand combat. When my cousin and I were teenagers we headed off with backpacks across Europe. She told me she never worried about us because of my karate! This was a total misconception. Years later on the Isle of Wight, in England, I joined a self-defence class which was full contact. This is taught me many things.
That all those years of karate, where you just touch your sparring partner softly, are light years away from the reality of a hard punch or kick. It showed me that even a tiny man is usually much stronger than the largest woman. I bruise easily and so my weekly defence classes resulted in me looking like a particularly bad domestic abuse victim. Colleagues at work would not believe otherwise and one hissed venomously to me in the toilet to “leave the bastard!” Before washing her hands and exiting the room.
Ron, the instructor, was outrageously vicious. Demonstrating how most women, when strangled face-to-face with the perpetrator, would instinctively try and remove the hands clenched around their throats. Ron screamed in irritation.
“He is cutting off your oxygen and you're scratching his hands uselessly! Begging him to let you go with your last breath.”
He glared at the class and particularly at the woman members.
“You still think you can win by appeasement! Well, you can't! By thinking like that you get too badly injured to do anything. Most men's instinct is to fight for their lives, women hope they can talk their way out!”
He then demonstrated that instead of flailing at the hands clenched around your neck, you should instantly jab two fingers as hard as possible into the assailant’s eyes. His two finger strike straight to the face of his opponent (stopping just centimetres from the eyeballs) had all of us women screwing up our faces in distress. At this, Ron launched into an excited rant,
“You see, you’re all thinking, you couldn't do that to anyone. It's too vicious! But if your life depends on it, get vicious! Get angry fast, it could save your life!”
“If you're in a dark lane and you hear footsteps from behind keep walking, keep close to the right wall. That way the attacker has to come to you from the left side. Now, you need to get angry fast. Imagine the bastard has murdered the person you love most in the world. Feel the adrenaline surges as your anger grows. Then, when he actually touches, you strike hard as if you want to kill them. Strike and run. Imagine you've only got one shot, so make it hard. They'll be expecting shock and fear from you, not rage and anger.
I practised imagining the assailant had just hurt my mum and when my sparring partner grabbed my left shoulder from behind I turned on him like a banshee (~wild Irish woman) cursing and punched him on the face with a roundhouse swing that felt like it came from all the hatred I could muster. Ron had been impressed, I had been shocked at myself and my sparring partner sported a huge mark on the left side of his face. I was also riddled with guilt. Obviously, my powers of imagination had been a little too excessive.
So here, 20 years later, I was in a dark lane with a potential assailant and my tiny sweet 84-year-old mother was at my side. Ron’s training flashed quickly into my mind. If he touches my mother I thought, I will rip his arm off and beat him to death with the bloodied stump. Adrenaline surged, I clenched my fist, prepared to bite his nose off. I was even prepared to do a bit of Ron’s eyeball poking!
Meanwhile, the African guy kept asking us to take a piece of pizza that he held in a box in front of him. My mother was calm but insisted that she already eaten didn't want anything but smiled her gratitude. I'm thinking my poor innocent mum has no idea of the danger she’s in. She's never been hit, never raised her hand to another human being. What sense can she make of all this? It's up to me to defend her, this is the moment Ron warned me about. To be ready, to be angry, the minute he touches her, he's a dead man!
Then tears started streaming down the guy’s face. He says he's from the Sudan. His father died five years ago today. He doesn't want to eat alone he wants to share his meal with us in memory of his father. We are standing in the dark lane and he's blocking our way offering a piece of pizza. I'm still thinking perhaps this is a ploy. Are there others waiting in the darkness to attack us. Friends of his? Blocking our way, he's probably keeping us here until they attack!
My mother moves in and hugs him in a wide embrace. I'm so expecting violence, I am completely thrown. She holds him close and suddenly I can see the genuine sadness and loss on his face. He wipes his tears with the back of his hand and my mother says he must come to our house and eat with us. She instructs me to give him my card so he knows where to go. I give him my card he shakes my hand politely and disappears into a nearby rusty metal doorway.
We walked the short journey home. My mother comments gently,
“What a nice lad that was! It is sad he's lost his father. It's difficult to be alone in this world far from loved ones.”
I can say nothing I am exhausted by all the rage and adrenaline. Having too much imagination is a draining traumatic affliction.
