Mark's day

Saturday afternoon, sparring session with Josh at Apex — Mark has been letting Josh land first all week, teaching the timing, and today Josh is sharper. In round two Josh lands a clean right hand that splits open the cut above Mark's brow — the same cut the bag opened on Friday — and blood runs into Mark's left eye; Josh follows with a body shot that Mark rolls into because the shoulder won't let him check it clean, and Mark takes a knee. He wipes the blood out of his eye with the back of his glove and looks up at the floor — Rob, Lachie, Hannah, two visiting fighters — all watching the cut bleed onto the canvas. Mark's face does something he can't control: a single exhale through the nose, eyes closed for half a second, the mouth a hard line; it is the closest the floor has seen him to breaking. Danny calls the spar and in the change room, quiet, tells Mark that Lou Cassar phoned this morning and the broadcast promoter wants Voss-Hayes to close the card — last fight, eleven pm on a Tuesday, the cut visible; Mark says last, Danny says the shoulder, Mark says last. Mark looks at his own face in the change room mirror with blood still wet on the brow and doesn't recognise the look on it for a second. Then he does.