Claire pushed her long blonde hair back from her face. Her blue eyes stared right back at him for a long moment. Then she said: ‘Yeah, you told me. So?’

‘Claire, listen. Let’s just go, shall we?’

‘What?’

‘Fuck the wedding, I hate all that shit anyway, you know that. We’ll elope. Go somewhere and do it quiet in a register office.’

She was still gazing at his face. Staring at him, he thought uneasily, like she didn’t even know him.

‘Claire? Say something, even if it’s only “fuck off”.’

He half-grinned nervously. Josh thought how much he loved this girl, his gentle dreamy Claire, always off around the horses, smoothing them and nuzzling into their shoulders, or wandering the fields, picking cowslips. Time and again he’d gone with her to that tiny church in the dell and she’d said, “Couldn’t we get married here? It’s so lovely.” They’d lie in the long rustling grass and watch the skylarks flying above in the blue sky, singing their sweet thrilling song. Those moments were heaven to him, snatches in time he would always remember.

She took a deep breath. Then she said: ‘Josh. There’s not going to be a wedding.’

Now it was Josh’s turn to stare. ‘You what?’

‘You heard. Standing there tonight, seeing what you did, I knew right then and there that it was all a mistake.’ Tears started to roll down her face. ‘Oh, Josh! I’ve always loved you. You know that. Even when we were little and playing half-naked in the dirt – my mum used to tie a rope around my middle sometimes and tether me to the van to stop me wandering off, you remember? And you’d always untie the damned thing and then off we’d go. I loved you then and I love you now.’

‘Well then . . .’ What the fuck was happening here? Josh had assumed he’d come storming in and she’d roll over, do as he said. But this was all wrong.

‘Well then nothing. I can’t live day to day watching you get punched to fuck, Josh. I can’t do it. And I won’t. So it’s off. The fighting game’s horrible. Cruel. And it’s full of bent bastards making money on the backs of idiots who are too busy punching each other’s lights out to even notice. I saw a bit of it tonight, and I don’t want it, Josh. And so I don’t want you.’

‘But – Christ, Claire! The wedding . . . ?’ He couldn’t believe what she was saying.

Claire stood up abruptly. Her eyes wouldn’t meet his.

‘I told you. There ain’t going to be a wedding. Not a bloody great one and not a hole-in-the-corner one either. It’s off.’

She walked over to the door and opened it, tugging off her engagement ring. She handed it back to him. ‘Here. Take it.’