Chapter 5: The Final

The Gold Hound was louder on Sunday than it had been on Wednesday.

Word had got round.

People had come for the football, and people had come for the sequel.

Nic went in first, elbows out, in a red dress she'd borrowed from a client.

I went in behind her in jeans and a plain red top.

No scarf.

Somebody near the door said, "That's her. That's The Wife," and the crowd split down the middle to let us through.

I'd thought that part would be the worst.

It wasn't.

A woman I'd never met squeezed my arm as I passed. "Good on you, love."

A man in a Spain wig raised his pint at me.

The camera crew was set up by the end of the bar, under the biggest screen.

Nathan stood next to the camera with a microphone in his fist and an earpiece in, talking to the lens about the atmosphere.

He saw me over two hundred heads.

He didn't wave.

He just tipped his chin at a spot by the pillar, ten feet from the bar, where the light was good.

I went and stood there.

Steph was behind the bar, pulling pints for her cameras, my scarf round her neck.

Alfie was on the customers' side, right in front of her, leaning on the brass rail.

He hadn't seen me yet.

Nobody had told him I was coming.

At half time it was nil-nil.

At sixty-eight minutes Spain scored.

The pub went up.

Beer flew. The flags shook.

And Steph put one foot on the beer fridge and climbed up onto the bar in her little white trainers.

She spread her arms for the camera.

"Alf!" she screamed. "Catch me!"

The crowd started chanting. "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"

The cameraman swung round to her, exactly like she'd booked him to.