MORNING SERIAL

I WAS looking across to this girl as I felt someone go past me and then became aware that the barmaid was back at my shoulder. The tank of a man who had walked from the bar into the square was “the boss”, the owner of the bar I was drinking in, and the entire atmosphere seemed to change.

It took perhaps a moment to realise that it was not changing darker, for the worse, but was actually about to signal the end of the fight. The boss was an impressive looking gentleman, perhaps around his forty-year mark, and built like a battle ram, with his neck down into his enormous shoulders and his prominent forehead out in front of him as he walked.

This was a man who knew the inside of a gym intimately, but beyond that he commanded the space around him and I couldn’t put my finger on how or why he had that command.

The crowd split and some backed off quickly, and the two opponents dropped their guards the moment they saw him. Immediately they looked younger next to him, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and their heads sunk.

The boss brought his forefinger up like a baton and began a tirade of Cypriot Greek that was my introduction to the language as martial art. He pointed at them, and then at each of the businesses along the square front in turn. I don’t know what he said, although the theme was clear.

They both meekly nodded but he went on, and then the pretty girl cantered over and began to apologise in the space left by her suitors’ silences. Finally, the boss clipped the one guy around the back of the head like he was a misbehaving schoolboy, and when the other objected he raised a fist and that was the end of that.

Both fighters clearly could not afford for things to go any further and they pleaded for forgiveness. The girl was close to tears.

It was not clear by the time it all ended which of the two had won her heart, but at least both of their hearts continued to beat.