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was ready to go.
    He still had not made peace with Wendy. He had tried saying that he wouldn’t do too much boxing and just wanted to go to the gym to get fit, that was all, simple as that. But as yet, his reassurances had not worked. Hoping that Wendy would in time come round, Danny grabbed his bike and pedalled the streets to the Live and Let Live.
    Albert was working the bar.
    “Good to see you, Danny,” he said. “Let’s go on up, introduce you to Patsy properly.”
    Patsy O’Neill wore the scars of both life and the fight world. He’d come over as a fighter from Ireland and settled in the East End, a stocky, fit man in his fifties with bushy eyebrows, impressive sideburns and twinkling blue eyes.
    Patsy had respect for Albert, but little respect for his flock of wannabe fighters. He’d seen too many of them fall by the wayside, unprepared for the realities of the boxing life.
    “Right then,” growled Patsy, hardly looking at Danny. “Let’s get cracking. Put these on and take those bloody boots off.”
    Danny obeyed, putting on the boxing gloves and taking off his hob-nail training boots. He climbed into the ring with Patsy as Albert watched from the corner.
    “Now hit these pads I’m holding,” barked Patsy.
    Much to both Albert and Patsy’s surprise, Danny was good, his hands fast and pretty accurate.
    “Not bad eh?” said Danny, feeling more confident.
    “It ain’t all about punching, lad,” said Patsy.
    The old trainer now put Danny through his paces. Exercise followed exercise until Danny was on the verge of exhaustion and green in the gills. As he lay panting in the centre of the ring, Patsy cheerfully dropped a medicine ball smack dab on Danny’s exhausted stomach. Danny heaved and threw up.
    “That’ll be it for tonight then,” said Patsy with a flinty nod.
    Any wind of confidence knocked out of him, Danny dragged himself to his feet. He felt embarrassed for letting himself and his dad down. Part of the motivation for this adventure was to make his late father proud, and here he was throwing up.
    “That wasn’t a bad start,” said Patsy, to Danny’s surprise.
    “Well done son,” echoed Albert. “That kind of thing can happen when you push yourself too hard, but just keep pushing. Don’t worry about the mess, I’ll get a bucket and mop.”
    Danny felt a little better.
    “See ya tomorrow, son.” There seemed to be a hint of a threat in Patsy’s words, a challenge to see if Danny was big enough for what lay ahead.
    Danny, reasonably reassured, nodded back. “Sure Patsy,” he said. “Tomorrow.”
    *
    Back in his room that night, Danny took out his dad’s photo.
    “I’m going to be a fighter just like you, Dad,” he said. “You were a fighter in the war and I’ll be a fighter in the ring. I’ll make you proud.”
    Now Danny was on a mission. He trained the hardest, and his progress was impressive. As the months passed, Patsy had to admit that he could have a future.
    Meanwhile, at home, Rosie’s frolicking was getting worse. Ricky was still in the picture, but coming up on the rails was a new bloke called Ted, a chubby train driver, whose rants whilst lovemaking were chilling. The training was a welcome release for Danny, and he threw himself into it, pushing and pushing as Albert had said.
    But his personal life was becoming a bit rocky. Although the spark was still there, the distance between him and Wendy felt to Danny as if it was growing.
    “It’s always bloody boxing with you,” Wendy seethed every time Danny cancelled any arrangements, or ran in the park, or trained at the Live and Let Live gym. “I’m taking second place here, and I tell you what. I don’t bloody like it.”
    “It’s for us,” Danny tried to tell her. “For our future. I can do this, I can be good.”
    “Graham says...” Wendy stopped.
    Danny’s heart thumped. “Who’s Graham then? What’s he been saying?”
    “Just a bloke I work with, for all you care.” Wendy applied her