Dirty Old Man (A True Story) (11 page)

There was a whole mixture of people that trained there, soldiers, policemen and eve
n a stunt-man. They all had an unspoken respect for him and hung on his every word.

Barbara used to train there too, though she always looked worn down and I suspected her heart wasn’t really in it.

Bernie was very welcoming and didn’t make me do anything I wasn’t comfortable with, although he had a seemingly magical way to get me to participate in things I was unsure of.

The classes were on every Tuesday and Friday, and I’d soon get my own blue uniform with sewn on logo.

I became more interested when I witnessed what Bernie was capable of. He could throw men almost twice his own weight halfway across the room. He’d have them in positions they couldn’t wriggle out of and some; almost in tears.

     At the club, I studied a plethora of different styles; Judo, Wing Chun, Ju-Jitsu, Muay Thai, Wushu, Lau Gar and Kick Boxing. At the end of each session, we’d have the opportunity to practice sparring with each other.

Bernie was always really nice to me; I wouldn’t say he singled me out so much at that particular time though I did notice that he did seem to be staring at me an awful lot, and he was always there behind me when I’d turn around, I thought it was just approval.

I soon flew up the grading system and was a green belt before I knew it. I’d overtaken my little sister Beth and Lou also.

It was compulsory to learn the Cantonese and mandarin terms for every sequence of movements we learned. Because I was obsessed with training, I also became obsessed with the language and dialects. My head could always be found in a book of something that was relevant.

If you were unable to do certain things from the grading syllabus, you wouldn’t move up the grade. Bernie was very strict.

     He’d created his own style of kung fu that was a mixture of everything, he developed his own kata (a sequence of movements [also referred to as form]), and he gave them the most peculiar names; like, Roland Trip (for green belt), The Scales (for yellow belt.) As his students, we often thought they had some philosophical meaning behind them because we looked up to him in such a manner. However, this wasn’t the case and they held an entirely different meaning.

We’d become almost l
ike a small family at the club.

      My parents were pleased that I was finally getting out of the house from under their feet, and I developed a quiet confidence which meant I was a little quieter and slightly less obnoxious. They continually showered Bernie with praise because he made me a ‘better person’ and considered he’d made the family better in some way too.

He’d sit and listen to my dad talk about his conspiracy theories even if he did think it was absolute nonsense.

     When I wasn’t training at the club, I was doing it at home and asked my parents to install the punch bag they bought me for my birthday in the back room. I practiced stretching to increase my flexibility which made no end of difference to my performance. My legs became stronger as did every other muscle in my body.

It became my outlet; a way for me to release all the pent up anger inside of me.

     Bernie always seemed to be making a huge effort with Lou and she threw it back in his face. I was jealous of the attention he showed her because she appeared so ungrateful.

Part of me really wanted him as my own father, we could train every day. I hated that Lou wasted this opportunity.

     He held a bonfire night in November and invited all of the students from the class.

He gave me a couple of bottles of French beer whilst we were alone in the kitchen. It was a grimy kitchen with a brown bead curtain that hung over the door.

     “You look ravishing tonight,” he said, “In fact, I could ravish you myself.”

I didn’t quite understand what he meant, but I took it as a compliment anyway.

I was a little merry that evening and remember almost falling into the bonfire. For the first time in a while, I had begun to enjoy my life.

    
On Valentine’s Day the following year, I was surprised to receive a card through the post. The handwriting looked exactly like my dad’s, though Bernie had similar handwriting too. They both put that strange line and the end of their ‘s’.

I was too young to understand the meaning of the card but
as an adult; it chills me.

I
t read; ‘Dear Valentine, when I think of you, my heart starts to throb (not to mention certain other parts.)’ My parents thought it was funny and not at all inappropriate.

     My dad began to use training as a form of punishment for me. Time after time, I’d be blamed for crimes I hadn’t committed, if I didn’t own up to them; I’d be banned for that week. He said he knew how to ‘get me where it hurts’.

Then my brother, Alex started training sometime afterwards and he brought his friends along with him. There wasn’t enough room in Bernie’s car for us all so he stopped picking me up and we caught the bus down instead.

I was concerned Bernie would lose interest in me from then on, so I began to train harder than ever.

Alex really looked up to Bernie, but it wouldn’t be long before he came of the age where he wanted to go out with his friends and he stopped training.
That was when Bernie picked me up and dropped me off again.

     On the drive home from class one evening. I told Bernie how I had started to play the keyboard and had been bought one for Christmas.  It was a music lesson that inspired me. We have to compose a piece of music to reflect a poem we had been reading. My music teacher was so impressed with what me and my friend Lindsey had created, that he had us perform it in front of the whole school.

     John started to hang around me a lot more at school, and I told him about the classes. It wasn’t long before he brought along his younger brother, and they became regulars too.

Bernie seemed to snub me for a while afterwards, and I could only assume it was because I’d brought a boy to join up. He’d make the classes difficult for John, and when he’d drop me off after class, he’d tell me that John was holding me back and how I’d never reach my full potential with people like him around me.

John’s mum took some Tai-Chi classes from Bernie’s friend, Brian. He always mocked Brian and said he was a useless instructor and a hypochondriac. I’d met Brian a few times and though he was a lovely man.

     Bernie would ask for my assistance to demonstrate moves in the class and on many occasions he’d apologise because his hands ended up in inappropriate places. He’d also ask me to help him put the equipment away after class in the cupboard in the small room upstairs of the building. I’d often find myself in there alone with him, and he’d play with my hair as I stacked the mats into a pile, or he’d rub his hand up and down my back.

     “You know I’ve been thinking,” he said to me one day as he drove me home, “I play the guitar, I don’t know an awful lot about music but I’m sure with my knowledge I could help you to learn the keyboard better. I used to be in a band during the eighties, and we supported a well known band at the time.”

     “That would be brilliant,” I said, thinking he was warming to me again, “thank you so much.”

     “You’re welcome; you need to ask your parents first though if it’s okay. I wouldn’t tell them that I offered to teach you though; they already think they put on me enough. I wouldn’t want them to think I was trying to replace them as parents.” He joked.

     Monday nights had become the evening of family entertainment; my dad called it our ‘Gripe Night’, and it was a chance for people to air their concerns over the other family
members’ behaviour. Unfortunately, I would usually be everybody’s target, and I’d be the one left sitting in the middle of the room on the interrogation chair until the early hours whilst my dad tried to get inside my head and break me.

     It was midweek when I asked them if they’d mind Bernie teaching me to play the keyboard.

     “Is there anything that man can’t do?” said my dad, full of admiration for him. My parents agreed that Bernie could teach me at our house on Wednesday evenings.

The first couple of lessons were very formal, we sat in the kitchen with my new keyboard as he tried to make sense of the music theory information he’d printed out.

     “John’s a nice boy isn’t he? I suppose you spend a lot of time together at school don’t you?” he asked as he studied my face.

     “Yeah he’s okay.” I said, “It’s not as though he’s my boyfriend or anything though. We just hang out.”

     “I just don’t want him to hold you back, that’s all petal.” He smiled.

     “He doesn’t.” I assured him.

Bernie obviously knew nothing about music theory, but I appreciated the effort he put in to learn all about it to teach me. Unaware it was one of his grooming techniques and to provide himself with unsupervised access to me.

One Wednesday evening, Bernie had to cycle over because Barbara needed his car. He brought an old brown satchel with him.

The keyboard lesson would start later than normal that evening because my dad wanted to run another of his theories past him.

When we sat in the kitchen uninterrupted, he pulled out a bunch of half a dozen red roses and gave them to me.

I was quite shocked; I’d never been bought flowers before, and I had no idea why he had bought them for me. He looked a little awkward when he saw my confused expression, but he quickly justified his actions.

     “Because you’re doing so well with your keyboard lessons, I bought these for you. You might want to tell your parents that you got them from somebody at school,” he said, “it’s just that if they see I’ve bought you flowers, they’ll think I’m trying to take their place as a parent, which I’m not of course.”

I waited until the coast was clear and I ran upstairs to my room to put them in my school bag.

     The gifts didn’t stop there either; Bernie bought me a pair of boxing gloves and other training equipment I mentioned I was saving up for. He’d always wait until after class was over to give them to me and he’d remind me that it was our secret. I was to tell people I’d won them during a sparring competition at the club. Afterwards he’d always ask me for a hug and say that it was okay to hug him because he wasn’t a pervert like my dad.

When no questions were asked, he began to hold competitions at the club, knowing that I’d likely win the majority of them. The prizes were always a day out to a seminar or a day out to a tournament with him. My parents would just let me go along with him; it was only ever me and Bernie that went.

     The next time I ‘won’ a day out with Bernie, he would be taking me to a tournament in London. He’d been showering me with little gifts all day and he finally had me on my own outside the hall near some vending machines.

     “I need to tell you something, and I don’t want you to get upset.” He said as he became serious. I wondered what I’d done wrong, and my stomach started to flip.

     “It’s just that after today, well I don’t think I’m going to be able to teach you anymore, the piano lessons are going to have to stop too.” He looked for a reaction.

     “But why?” I said, “What have I done?” I felt as though my heart had just been stomped on. I’d been having a really good day, why did he have to ruin it by saying this?

     “It’s nothing you’ve done really, not that you know about anyway.” He said.

     “What have I done?” I begged, “Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry. Please don’t stop me training, it’s the only thing I have.”

     “I’ve fallen for you petal, that’s what this is about.”

     “Oh.” Was all I could offer him. Suddenly all the gifts made sense.

I suppose after the initial shock of it, I suppose I was quite flattered in an awkward kind of way. I couldn’t bear to give up my training and would do whatever it took to hang on to it. Training was my life, along with the piano lessons. It was what I felt defined me as a person.

     “Although there is another option,” he said in a hushed tone, “it could be our little secret; nobody would need to know a thing. I suppose it depends how you feel about that.”

I shrugged. I’d had a boyfriend before, nothing serious at my age. I didn’t know exactly what Bernie would have been expecting from me, but I could always call it off if I needed to.”

He held my hand and smiled.

     “If you stick around long enough, I might even make you an instructor and you can run your own classes. Would you like that?”

     “Yes I would, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do.” I said, almost completely forgetting the conversation we’d just had.

     “Better keep it quiet then, just act normally around your parents and don’t tell a soul that I plan to make you an instructor. It would upset a lot of people at the club because they’ve been training a lot longer than you and they’ll never be good enough. You don’t want to make people jealous do you petal?”