She opened it. Nobody else was in the caravan, not yet, but she’d tidied up and candles were burning in little glass jars on the ledges, and there were flowers in a jar on the table – flowers she’d obviously picked from the gardens in the funfair – and she’d covered the lamp with a pink and green shawl with spangles sewn around the edges so it gave off a soft, romantic light. Two glasses were on a tray on the kitchen counter, and worst of all, Will could see the top of a champagne bottle poking out of the sink. Although he couldn’t see, he just knew that Alice had filled the washing up bowl with ice, that she was cooling the bottle ready to serve the champagne to whoever it was who was coming.

She’d never bought champagne for him.

She’d never picked flowers.

He stood on the step and took all this in before he even looked at Alice. She was barefoot and her toenails had been painted blood red, to match the sequins on her scarlet dress, and there was a line of crimson eye shadow above her green eyes, and a velvet ribbon in her hair. She’d done something to her face, made it up so that she looked older and more sophisticated. Her lips were fuller, her cheeks were flushed, she was breathing quickly with nervous agitation. She was wearing the necklace Will had given her.

‘Will, you can’t come in. I told you I was busy,’ she said at once, pre-empting his questions.

‘Who is he?’ Will asked. ‘Who are you seeing?’

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘But it is my business, of course it’s my business! Alice, you’re mine! You’re my girl!’

‘I’m nobody’s girl!’ Alice retorted angrily. ‘I’m nobody’s business. Go away, Will. Leave me alone. I don’t have time for this now.’

‘You’re sending me away?’

‘Yes!’ She moved to shut the caravan door and he held out his hand to stop her. ‘Will!’ she cried. ‘Stop this! Stop being so childish! Tonight’s important to me!’

‘And you don’t think this afternoon… what we did, the things we talked about, you don’t think that was important?’

‘That was then and this is now. I can’t talk about us now. Please go away.’

‘I won’t!’

‘Look,’ her tone softened, became conciliatory, desperate, ‘I’ll meet you after. Tell me where to meet you.’

‘Down by the estuary.’

‘OK. Later, I’ll walk down to the estuary,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you and then I’ll explain.’

‘Explain about you drinking champagne with your special date? Explain about you fucking him?’

‘For God’s sake, Will, you’re behaving like a brat!’

‘If you send me away now, then we’re over!’

‘Good! Because I didn’t realise you were still such a child. Get your hand off the door.’