Aftershock by Bernard Ashley Page B

hours to pain – to his body hurting and his face looking like that picture of Phidippides at Sparta. Looking like his father had.
    But at this sudden thought, out of nowhere a shaft of hope hit Makis, a glimmer of an idea. He’d learned more from his father than fishing and playing mandolin, hadn’t he?

    The time came, at last. Cathedral was over and their Sunday morning walk, with him silent and his mother with music on her tongue, was finished. He told her part of the truth – that he’d got to meet a boy and he’d be back later – and he ran off.
    Prince’s Fields didn’t look the same place. This morning there was a dog being walked, and a father with his children and a brown-paper kite that wouldn’t fly. The place was different, felt wrong.
    And there, standing watching him from under a tree, was Denny Clarke!
    Makis’s heart raced as he walked over to him. He’d done nothing wrong to this boy. What Hersee had said about Clarke was to do with what Clarke himself had done. Makis’s part of things had been a separate matter; but in his stupid, goat-headed way, Clarke wanted to feel better by fighting him.
    â€˜You come, then, Greekie?’
    â€˜I come.’ Makis stood off from the boy, his fists clenched, ready.
    â€˜You gonna say sorry?’
    Makis stared him in the sweaty face. No, Dennis Clarke wasn’t a fish any more – he was a goat, a stupid goat.
    â€˜No!’
    â€˜I’m gonna kill you!’
    â€˜Kill,’ Makis said. ‘Try!’ he added, bravely.
    Out shot Clarke’s right fist – the boy had a long reach and Makis hadn’t backed off far enough. The punch caught him on the cheekbone and twisted his neck. And his feet wouldn’t work, they were caught in the grass and he couldn’t back-pedal.
    Crack! Another punch hit him on the forehead and sent him flying backwards. And on came Clarke for another free punch because Makis couldn’t reach him with his own flailing fists: his face was twisted, his head down – real boxer-style.
    But what had Makis’s father taught him, when a head-down goat like this came at him?
    As Clarke’s right fist came in, Makis caught his wrist, took the force of the punch in his arm muscles – the muscles that had wrestled some of the biggest goats in Alekata – and wouldn’t let go. Clarke swung a left at him – and Makis dodged, couldn’t quite grab that wrist and took another punch to the face. But with his left hand he held on desperately to Clarke’s right wrist; and however the boy twisted, he couldn’t get it free. And the next time, as Clarke’s left came in again, Makis caught it. Now he had both wrists.
    Head to head, face to face, they wrestled with their arms. Clarke’s face said he didn’t know how to deal with this. Would he kick next, or butt with his head? But Makis kept his head back and used the net-heaving strength in his arms to stay uppermost. Clarke swore and spat, but Makis held on and took the strain as the boy exhausted himself trying to get free or to aim a kick. But none of that worked for him, and with a sudden downward jerk, Makis pulled him off-balance, and used his old Alekata goat-wrestling memory to swing Clarke over, down, down, down on his right hand side – and thumped the boy to the ground. Makis jumped on top of him, like a Greek hero riding a Mount Enos stallion. Sitting high on Clarke’s chest where his kicking legs couldn’t help him, he pinned down both the boy’s wrists to the grass.
    Clarke could heave his backside, he could wriggle his torso, he could lift his head and try to free his arms – but he was pinned to the ground. There was no way he could get up unless Makis let him. Spiros Magriotis had taught his son well.
    â€˜Hey! Hey!’ Makis shouted over to the man with his children. ‘Come! Come!’
    â€˜Let me up, Greekie! Let me up, you little