The blow was strong enough to send him backwards into the counter, her massive head jutting towards him. Shaken, he stared at her, at the pale eyes in the dark face, the force of her malice unexpected and terrifying. ‘Don’t,’ she said warningly. He was trying not to wet himself, trying to remember that he was eighteen years old. Not a child any more. And yet a child now. Oh yes, back to a child now. He had pushed his luck and knew it. Shouldn’t have mocked her son. Shouldn’t have taunted Emile Dwappa. No one did that. No one with any sense. ‘Don’t,’ she repeated. A mammoth in a print dress. Nigerian by birth, Londoner by choice. Proprietor of Mama Gala’s Health Shop. Babysitter for the local children, crooning to them as she nursed them in the barley-sugar-coloured rocking chair. But now he remembered all the rumours he’d heard about Mama Gala and her son.
