‘So would I. Anyway, come and meet my wife. Julie! Company’s here!’
A pretty blonde woman entered the hall, the heels of her black leather boots clacking on the polished tiles. ‘Hi, how are you?’ she said enthusiastically, kissing Nina on the cheek before doing the same to Eddie, to his discomfiture.
‘This is my wife, Julie,’ said Larry, putting an arm round her shoulder. ‘Julie, I’d like you to meet my son Eddie, and his wife, Nina.’
‘So, when did you get remarried?’ Eddie asked, tone more accusing than interested.
‘Two years ago,’ Julie told him.
‘Surprised Elizabeth didn’t tell you,’ Larry added.
Eddie smiled, with no warmth. ‘I didn’t ask her.’ He regarded the blonde, who was wearing a tight, low-cut satin dress in a vivid electric blue, as well as a plenitude of gold jewellery. ‘So, Julie. How old are you?’
‘Ah, come on, Eddie,’ said Nina, trying to keep things light. ‘You know you shouldn’t ask a lady her age.’ Admittedly, she was curious herself. Julie was considerably younger than her husband.
Julie flapped a hand, bracelets tinkling. ‘Oh, I don’t mind. I’m thirty-six.’
‘Thirty-
‘I know, it’s a bit of an age gap. But that doesn’t matter when you love each other, does it?’ She rested her head on Larry’s shoulder.
Eddie was still dismayed. ‘You’re younger than me!’
‘Yes, I know – when Larry told me about you I thought it might be a bit weird, me being your stepmother. But if you want you can think of me as more like a stepsister!’
Eddie’s silence and fixed expression told her exactly how well her joke had been received. ‘So,’ said Larry after a moment, ‘Julie, why don’t you sort us out some drinks? I’ll show Nina and Eddie round the house.’ Julie gave her guests a hesitant smile, then clicked back down the hall.
Larry went to a flight of stairs. ‘Come on, we’ll do upstairs first.’ He started up them.
‘Half his age plus seven years,’ Eddie muttered to Nina as they followed.
‘What?’
‘That’s the rule, remember? For how old a woman has to be to stop the bloke from being a creepy old pervert.’
‘So?’
‘He’s sixty. You’re the mental arithmetic genius, work it out.’
Nina sighed. It was already obvious that the evening was not going to be a roaring success; the best result would simply be getting through it without a fistfight.
The house’s interior was impressive, expensive . . . and decidedly masculine. If there were any rooms where Julie had been given free rein to apply a feminine touch, Larry opted not to include them in the tour. Instead, he showed off those parts he considered most important: a well-equipped gym; a sauna; a home cinema with a floor- shaking sound system and practically a whole wall of DVDs and Blu-rays, Nina awarding him a few approving brownie points when she noticed that the collection included the complete works of Monty Python. Slightly to her surprise, a large attic was filled by a model railway. It wasn’t a hobby she would have expected of such an obvious Type A personality, but as Larry explained, ‘I’ve had model railways since I was a kid. That way, I know there’s at least one place where the trains run on time.’
‘Yeah, you always did like being in control, didn’t you?’ said Eddie. He tweaked a dial, and a train jerked into motion.
‘Do you mind?’ Larry snapped.
‘What? I’m not going to break it.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’ He flicked a master switch to turn off the power.
Eddie shook his head. ‘Christ, I crash a toy train once as a kid, and I’m banned for life.’
‘They’re not toys,’ his father said with irritation.
‘It’s really amazing,’ Nina cut in, hoping to forestall an argument. She examined one of the little buildings, a replica of an English country pub. ‘And it’s so detailed!’
‘Detail is everything,’ said Larry. ‘If you want to be successful, you need to cover every last detail, whether you’re doing something yourself or delegating. Like this.’ He swept a hand over the layout. ‘I don’t have the time to make everything myself, but I always make sure that when someone else works for me, they know exactly what I expect from them.’
‘You paid someone to make this for you?’ Eddie said scathingly. ‘Where’s the fun in that? You might as well hire someone to stand here and drive the trains.’
To Nina’s relief, a call came that dinner was almost ready, and they trooped downstairs. Drinks were served, then the meal began. With the addition of the chirpy Julie to the mix, the conversation became less tense. However, halfway through the main course of beef carpaccio with marinated salad, Nina realised she would have to be the designated driver as Eddie, keeping pace with his father, poured himself a third glass of wine. Not even having finished her first glass, she switched to water. ‘I’m no expert on the linguistic ins and outs of England,’ she said to Larry, ‘but I can tell you don’t have the same accent as Eddie. Are you not from Yorkshire originally?’
‘Oh, no,’ he replied. ‘I’m from Bucks.’ Nina gave him a blank look. ‘Buckinghamshire, in the Home Counties. The rich parts around London,’ he clarified. ‘I used to spend a lot of time travelling between the ports at Liverpool and Hull for work, and the M62, the motorway between them, was just being finished. So I picked somewhere to live that was right in the middle. Same reason I moved down here, actually. A lot of my work goes through Southampton, so it made sense to be near the port. Turned out well in both cases. I met Julie down here – she used to be my secretary – and met my first wife in Yorkshire.’
