‘Keep your bloody voice down, will you? She shouldn’t have talked to me like that,’ hissed Shauna, ripping the grips out of her hair. ‘Like I was a fucking nobody, telling me about which cutlery to use and that the soup was meant to be cold.’

‘It was meant to be cold.’

‘You know what I mean! It was the way she said it, looking down her bloody nose at me.’

Josh could see that Philippa’s words and attitude had cut Shauna to the quick, wounded her deeply, but it was because Shauna was so desperate to be better than she was – the product of a travellers’ campsite. Shauna wanted more than that, much more, he knew it. She wanted to mix with society types and rich bastards, to be accepted. And tonight had been a painful reality check. He felt offended and angry on her behalf. She was, after all, his wife. And – it was true – she had been made to look a fool by that over-made-up tart Philippa.

But . . . even now, he couldn’t help but compare Shauna’s volcanic outburst with Claire’s easy-going good nature. Claire would have laughed at Philippa’s hoity-toity ways, not thrown her toys out of the pram like Shauna had. And he would have shared in the joke with her, too; their eyes would have met across the dinner table, and they would have both suppressed a grin.

But Shauna wasn’t Claire.

‘Never mind, Shaun,’ he said. ‘Gawd, you know what? I’m still hungry.’

‘We just had dinner,’ sniffed Shauna, unzipping her dress.

‘Call that dinner? Oh, it looked damned good, didn’t it, all laid out poncey with twirls of this and slivers of that. Two mouthfuls and it was gone, even though it was damned pretty. I didn’t know whether to eat it or fuck it.’

A hint of a smile played around Shauna’s mouth when he said that. She grabbed her dressing gown and yanked it on. ‘You want some sandwiches? I’ll bring them up, we’ll eat in bed. And a beer?’

‘Yeah, that’d be great.’

Dave phoned a week later. Josh was sitting in their – admittedly poky – little lounge, dandling Connor on his knee while Shauna got dressed upstairs. Here we go, thought Josh. Now for the piss-off-and-die speech.

‘So, when you coming in to the club?’ Dave asked.

Josh was astonished. ‘Blimey. I don’t know. When d’you want me?’ If Dave wasn’t mentioning the car crash that was last weekend, then neither was he, that was for sure.

‘Come on Friday. Have a look around, see what’s happening, see what you think. OK?’