‘Well,’ said Claire against his chest, alarmed at the shivers she could feel coursing through him. She felt scared for him, and for herself, too. Shauna – even at a distance – still put the shits up her. ‘She doesn’t know that, does she. You can sue for divorce like you said and put it all behind you. It’s going to work out. You’ll see.’

But Josh couldn’t believe that. He clung to Claire, loving her for her efforts to calm him. It was as if she was the strong one and he the weak, all of a sudden. All he wanted now was to get in the ring on Friday and win the fight, then he would get back to England and sort this mess out, once and for all.

122

122

The fight was set up in one of the Constantinou brothers’ venues. There must have been a thousand people crammed in there, and to hell with fire regs. Spiro and Vicky were in, sitting in the front row with Suki and Claire. It was hot as hell in the club, and the ring was brightly lit. There were huge banners up, red on black, shouting THE VIKING v THE KING OF THE ENGLISH GYPSIES.

‘I don’t want to be there,’ Claire had said to Josh. She hadn’t seen him fight since 1975 and she wanted to keep it that way.

‘Don’t feel you have to, OK? But I’d like you to come,’ he said.

So – reluctantly – she’d agreed to be there. But when Claire saw Josh come into the ring with Spiro’s younger brother Nikos acting as his second, and when she saw the height and the mountainous width of the blond Icelander he was to fight, she wished she hadn’t.

It was too late now. Always one for a theatrical flourish, Spiro had hired two bikini-clad blondes with huge plastic tits and no hips to hold up the round number signs, and he had encouraged Josh to have FEARLESS picked out in big gold letters on the waistband of his red silk shorts. A bow-tied referee was in there, saying he wanted a good clean fight, no holding, no low blows, and were they ready? This wasn’t regular boxing, all gloves and gum shields; this was bare-knuckle and brutal. The fight wasn’t ten rounds and then stop and if both were still standing, score on points; this was fighting each round up to twenty, or even beyond that – until one of them dropped.

Josh nodded, bumped his fist against the other fighter’s hand, and then the bell rang and they were off.