Gloria drops her head. Ray squeezes her hand again. She pulls it out of his grip and places it in her lap.

‘I’m not sure I like you describing it as bad news,’ Ray says, and William sees Gloria close her eyes for a second.

Mrs Finch, who has been half standing, half sitting, dishing up and handing out the plates, drops to her seat and rests her head in one hand, hiding her eyes.

‘I’m pregnant, William,’ Gloria says. ‘Up the junction, up the duff, whatever you want to call it.’

Mrs Finch starts crying quietly.

‘Oh!’ William feels hot.

‘So, we’re getting married!’ says Ray, a rictus grin on his face. ‘In fact, we’d like you to be our best man, wouldn’t we, Gloria?’

‘Oh!’ he repeats.

Mr Finch looks at his wife, transfers the bowl of roast potatoes from her placemat to his and unceremoniously drops them onto everyone’s plates.

William realises he can’t stay a second longer. ‘I think it’s best if I leave you all to it.’ He’s standing now. ‘Thank you, Mrs Finch, it looks lovely, I just …’ Words won’t work for him, and it’s all he can do not to run down the hallway to the door.

‘Bloody hell, William,’ says Ray that night in their room, ‘what the hell was all that about at lunch?’

‘Shut up,’ William says, turning to face the wall. ‘Shut the bloody hell up.’

‘I don’t see why you’re in a state. It’s me who’s got to get hitched all of a sudden, me who’s going to have to work for her bloody father, when I was hoping to live a little.’

Before he knows it, William is out of bed. ‘And it’s me who loves her!’

Ray stares up at him from the edge of the bed where he sits in his vest and pyjama bottoms. ‘You saying I don’t?’

‘You wouldn’t catch me complaining if I was in your position.’

‘But there’s the difference, William. You’re not in my position, because you let me take her from under your nose, and didn’t do a damn thing to stop me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I thought at least you’d put up a fight’ – he laughs – ‘and the stupid thing, William, is that you wouldn’t have had to fight very hard. You know, when I asked her out, she said she needed to clear something up, and I thought, damn, she’s going to ask you – give you a last chance to declare your love, or something daft. But I’m guessing she can’t have, because I can’t believe even you would have been that stupid.’

William steps towards Ray, his chest like a bellows, feeling the only conclusion for the forces at work in his body is a thump on Ray’s nose.