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‘Here you are. I’ll put the kettle on for Joe.’
‘Thanks, Ronnie.’ Clara seemed to have no reservations about leaving the guard behind to drink tea with Ronnie, and this was clearly a safe place. If anyone was going to do him any damage it was Clara. And that damage would be confined to his pride, and maybe his heart.
Clara led him along a whitewashed corridor, unlocking a bright, clean room, equipped with punch-bags at one end and a large practice mat, which took up most of the rest of the space. High arched windows were of obscure glass that let the light in but allowed privacy from the surrounding buildings.
‘Ronnie seems pretty used to you bringing people here.’
‘She looks after us.’ Clara locked the door, stripping off her sweatshirt to reveal a body-hugging, sleeveless top.
‘She built all this up herself?’ Gabriel followed Clara’s example, unlacing his gym shoes and taking his sweatshirt off.
‘No. The first gym was purely a boxing gym, on the first floor above a pub. That was her grandfather Ronnie. Her father Ronnie moved here when places like this went for a song. Ronnie’s older brother was called Ronald, but he decided he wanted to be an accountant. Fortunately the old man’s back-up plan was to call his daughter Veronica.’
‘So this place has a bit of history attached to it.’
‘Yes, loads. Ask Ronnie to show you her wall of photographs, if you’ve got a couple of hours to spare. A lot of the boxers who came out of the East End in the sixties went through here.’
‘Maybe my father’s heard of this place...’ He knew little enough about his father’s childhood and the thought suddenly interested him.
‘Your father?’ Clara shot him a questioning look.
‘Yes, he was born in the East End—my grandparents came here after they were married. He took a course in pharmacy at the London University, and then went back to Italy to work in my uncle’s chemist shop. From there he founded DeMarco Pharmaceuticals.’
‘That’s a real achievement. You must be proud.’
Pride didn’t really play a role. Duty did, and the tearing feeling that he had to make the loss of their elder son up to his parents was Gabriel’s first impulse. But Clara was right, he should be proud.
‘Yes. He’s achieved a lot. A great deal more than I have.’
‘Well, I suppose you’d be hard put to get any richer. You’ve given yourself other challenges, though.’ She folded her sweatshirt, putting it in a neat pile with her trainers in the corner of the room. ‘I was wondering how your English was so good.’
‘At home, my father spoke English and my mother spoke Italian.’ That was the way that Gabriel had always viewed the two languages. Italian was the language of love, and English the language of duty.
She nodded, leading him onto the practice mat and facing him. ‘Okay, so there are a few rules here. I won’t go into all of them, since this isn’t a formal lesson, but the main tenets are things you probably already know. Treat your opponent with respect. Use only the minimum amount of force required. Never act in anger.’
‘Okay. Got it.’
‘Really?’ She looked up at him, her face luminous. ‘It’s an easy enough principle here, between the two of us. But can you extend that to the people we’re dealing with now, who might put your family and friends at risk?’
Anger flooded through him. The idea of treating those opponents with respect was a little more difficult. ‘Honestly? I’d find that...difficult.’
He was trembling. Gabriel had thought that today was just a bit of fun, a curiosity. But he was in deeper than he’d imagined, and Clara was using just the same techniques that he used on his patients to get them to face their feelings.
‘That’s fair enough, we’re all human. But perhaps a little Zen is something to aim for. Shall we do some warming-up exercises?’
The warming-up exercises were more like simmering-down ones. When they’d finished, Gabriel felt more able to face his own anger and deal with it. When they graduated to a few basic self-defence moves, they seemed almost like a complex puzzle. Gabriel was stronger and bulkier than Clara, but she was fast and had a way of catching him off balance.
‘Ready to try the hammer lock? It’s not something I’d usually try this soon, but since you’re a doctor I’m trusting you to know exactly how far to go before you hurt me.’
‘I won’t hurt you.’ He couldn’t.
Clara nodded, showing him the technique first and then asking him to try it. He carefully wound his arm around hers, his fingertips touching her bicep.
‘Bit firmer than that. I can get out of that really easily.’
Gingerly, he curled his fingers around her arm, feeling the muscle flex at his touch. Making sure that he didn’t extend her arm back to the point of any pain, he followed her instructions, tipping her forward onto her knees.
‘That’s it. You’re still give me quite a bit of room to manoeuvre.’
