*
Acland’s precarious equilibrium flipped spectacularly five weeks after he moved to London. He was minding his own business over a quiet pint at the bar of a Bermondsey pub when a group of sharp-suited City brokers pushed in beside him. They were hyped up about the money they’d made that day, and their voices became louder and more intrusive as the drink started flowing. Two or three times Acland was buffeted by those on the fringes, but he wouldn’t have reacted if one of them hadn’t spoken to him. The man, who could only see Acland’s right profile, tapped him on the shoulder when he didn’t receive an answer.
‘Are you deaf?’ he asked, waving a glass of orange juice under Acland’s nose and jerking his chin towards the empty stool on Acland’s blind side. ‘I asked you if you’d consider moving to give the rest of us some room.’
The accent was singsong, unmistakably Pakistani, and Acland’s reply was immediate and involuntary. He hooked his right arm round the back of the man’s neck and punched him squarely in the face with his left fist. The broker went down with a howl of anguish, knocking against his friends, blood spurting from his nose.
The rest of the group turned alarmed faces towards Acland. ‘Jesus!’ said one. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘I don’t like murderers,’ Acland told them, returning to his lager.
There was a second or two of surprised silence before someone bent over to help the man to his feet. He took a serviette from a dispenser on the bar and held it to his nose, staring angrily at his assailant. Whatever his religion or nationality, he was dressed like a westerner in a dark suit, shirt and tie. Only his fringed beard and choice of drink suggested Islam. ‘You cannot behave like that in this country.’
‘I was
‘I, too, was born here.’
‘That doesn’t make you English.’
‘Did you hear that?’ the Pakistani demanded excitedly of his friends. ‘This man attacked me on racial grounds. You’re my witnesses.’ He was stockier and heavier than Acland and he fancied his chances with his colleagues to back him up. He wagged his finger in admonishment. ‘You’re a maniac. You should not be allowed out.’
‘Wrong,’ said Acland in a deceptively mild tone. ‘I’m an
It was like waving a red rag at a bull. Enraged by the insult, the man lowered his head and charged. Had he come at Acland from the left, he’d have stood a better chance but, from the right, it was a no-brainer. He couldn’t compete in strength, speed or fitness – a broker’s life is a sedentary one – and the only way he knew how to fight was to flail his fists in the hope of landing a blow. He wasn’t expecting Acland to move off his stool as fast as he did, nor that Acland would exploit the forward motion of his run to slam him headfirst into the side of the bar before kicking his feet from under him.
Acland could have left it at that, but he didn’t. He was aware of urgency behind the bar and shouts from the Pakistani’s friends, but the suppressed hatred of months had been looking for a target and this loud-mouthed broker had volunteered himself. ‘You should have kept your mouth shut,’ he murmured, dropping to one knee and clamping both hands under the man’s chin, preparing to snap his head back and crush his spinal cord between two vertebrae.
Only the shock of a bucket of melting ice pouring over the back of his neck from the other side of the bar made Acland hesitate.
‘Cut it OUT!’ barked a woman’s voice as a dozen hands hauled him off and tossed him aside. ‘I SAID...cut it OUT!’ she roared as one of the brokers launched a toecap at Acland’s ribs. ‘No one MOVES till the police get here!’ She gave a piercing whistle. ‘JACKSON! HERE, mate! PRONTO!’
Her words fell on deaf ears. Acland absorbed an onslaught of kicks from the other brokers while uninvolved customers scattered hastily to avoid the fight zone. The Pakistani added to the confusion by staggering to his feet and grabbing at anyone or anything that might keep him upright. As he threatened to overturn a table, a huge woman with cropped and streaked dark hair emerged from behind the bar. ‘Easy now,’ she said in a deep, melodious voice that betrayed no excitement at all. ‘You’re bleeding like a stuck pig, my friend. Let’s have you out of harm’s way.’
With a grunt of effort, she hoisted Acland’s victim in her arms and dumped him unceremoniously on the counter. ‘All yours, lover,’ she said, before weighing into the fray. ‘You heard the lady,’ she said, smacking two of the Pakistani’s friends on the back of their heads with meaty hands. ‘Cut it out. This is an orderly house. All breakages have to be paid for.’ She elbowed her way past two more to look down at Acland. ‘You all right?’ she asked him.
He squinted up at her. From the floor she looked like a mountain of white muscle, with calves, thighs, shoulders and neck bulging out of her biker boots, black cycling shorts and sleeveless T-shirt like inflated bladders. He flinched in alarm as one of her booted feet came down like a piledriver. ‘The lady said, don’t move,’ she rumbled in her deep bass, as her heel ground into a soft leather shoe. ‘That includes kicking.’
‘Jesus Christ, Jackson!’ the offender yelped. ‘You’re fucking well hurting me!’
‘I’ll hurt you some more if you don’t back off.’ She tilted her heel to release him. ‘Anyone else want to mess with a three-hundred-pound weightlifter? I eat steak for breakfast, so a few cream puffs won’t faze me.’ When no one offered themselves, she proffered a hand to Acland and pulled him to his feet. ‘Over there,’ she ordered, nodding to a bench seat against the wall. ‘And you lot to that table,’ she told the brokers. ‘We’re going to sit nice and quiet till the cops come.’ She smiled broadly. ‘And afterwards you can twiddle your thumbs in the nick for several hours until you’re invited to make statements.’
They stared at her mutinously. ‘Give us a break, Jackson,’ said one. ‘We’ve all got homes to go to.’
‘Is that my problem?’
‘We’re good customers, and it wasn’t us who started it.’
‘So? This is
‘We didn’t. It was that racist bastard over there. For no reason at all, he punched Rashid in the face and called him an ignorant Paki.’
